JC Labowitz::  My name is JC Labowitz. I live in Alexandria, Virginia. I am a member of Grinnell Class of 1971, and, I came to Grinnell as a transfer student. I started in college at George Washington University in Washington DC and about thirty seconds after I arrived there I decided this was not the right place for me. It was urban. There was really no student campus life. It was 11 miles from home and there were lots of fraternities and sororities.
JC Labowitz::  So, I began to look for colleges as a replacement that had none of those characteristics. I had seen a reference to international relations, which is what I had wanted to study, at Grinnell College, an so, Grinnell was on my list. In fact, Grinnell then and now had no international relations major. But, that’s sort of how I got started on coming here, and I-
Tamara Grbusic & JC Labowitz::  You were an independent major back then?
Tamara Grbusic & JC Labowitz::  No, I did Political Science and Economics as a major, but I, y'know, talked to people and looked in books and Grinnell seemed to be the polar opposite of where I was. And I knew one person who was a student here, but from Washington I knew no one who knew anything about Grinnell except a high school guidance counselor of mine, and he was encouraging, but it really wasn’t- he really wasn’t the determining factor.
JC Labowitz::  There were two determining factors to come to Grinnell. One was, while at some point in the admissions process I went to a Grinnell-in-Washington alumni event and Joe Wall, who was the Dean of the College then and a history professor, came to speak to thirty or forty alumni. And after he gave a talk of whatever it is he talked about, he asked for any questions or whatever from the audience.
JC Labowitz::  And the woman sitting next to me stood up and said she had not gone to Grinnell but her son, Joe, had gone to Grinnell, and he was now- he had gone to medical school from Grinnell and now was doing a residency in something in Pittsburgh, and she just wanted everyone to know he was doing real well, and she sat down. And I thought that was just great, that there was a community that was sufficiently tuned in to sort of, we all needed to know that her son Joe, who none of us knew, was doing real well.
JC Labowitz::  And then, I- In May of 1970- 1968 rather, I had been accepted to Grinnell and I had been accepted to a couple of other universities and I needed to come out and see Grinnell and make a decision as to what it is that I wanted to do, whether I wanted to come here. And I flew to Des Moines and took the bus out from Des Moines to Grinnell, and I looked out on the fields that were out there, which is the spring, and they were all black, and I thought that someone had put oil on the dirt because, coming from Maryland as I was, where the dirt is red, it was very unusual to see black, to me, black dirt.
JC Labowitz::  My wife, who is also from Washington and also a member of the class of 1971 had the exact same experience. Her story was that when she came out and saw the black dirt, she underst- her analysis was, well, soy sauce is black, soy beans are grown in Iowa, therefore the black part of it was soy beans growing to be made into soy sauce, which she understood at that point to be ground up soy beans. Clearly not right.
JC Labowitz::  So, I came to Grinnell as a prospective. I called the one friend I knew from high school who lived in North Younker Hall and I said, y'know, “Could I stay with you when I come visit?” and he said, “Sure,” and so I got here and Alex had a live chicken in his room that he was raising, maybe for a Biology project. I don’t know. But he spent a lot of time trying to teach the chicken to speak the name of another guy in the residence hall who he was sort of having a, something of a conflict with. So, I know enough, I may be a city kid but I knew enough that you cannot teach chickens to talk.
JC Labowitz::  But- So it was this bizarre experience of Alex, the great big football player and Philosophy major, trying to convince a live chicken in his dorm room how to talk. And I thought, either everyone in his place is a complete lunatic, or it was just an interesting place to be, both of which, y'know, worked for me. So, I made the decision right then to come here.
JC Labowitz::  And.. So my family, my sister was- who’s two years younger was looking at colleges along the way. So, my family drove me out here in August of 1968 during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which was a very profound political experience, but we drove out here. My sister needed to get back to finish, to start her senior year in high school.
JC Labowitz::  So I- My recollection is that my parents pulled into the- the lot that- the driveway between Smith Hall and North Younker Hall. They did not turn the engine off on the car. They opened the trunk, I took out my suitcase, my manual typewriter, and my clock radio. I put them down on the driveway, said goodbye to my parents and my sister, and they drove away. So my parents, I don’t believe ever saw the inside of my – of any Grinnell dorm room that I lived in. And I contrast that with my three children, including one who graduated from Grinnell, that the leave-taking is a little different today.
JC Labowitz::  And then- So I lived in North Younker as a- my first year here and that was the first year that the campuses were co-educated. That is, women lived on North Campus for the first time and men lived on South Campus. And, within six weeks of coming here, two fairly significant events happened. One was that the guys in the dorm, for a much longer story, decided that I should no longer go by my given name, but that I should go by the initials J.C., which I have now used ever since in part of the re-creation of oneself at Grinnell.
JC Labowitz::  And the second thing that happened in October of 1968 is that Kathy Karlson of the class of 1969, who was the President of Langan Hall, which was a women’s dorm, declared Home Rule. She declared that the residents of Langan Hall would no longer be subject to any rules imposed on them, that the women of Langan Hall would only accept rules that they themselves created. Which, touched off the social revolution that goes on ‘til today at Grinnell College, because Kathy Karlson. It was obviously not a random act. It was part of a long process, but it was so significant to me that she as a student and therefore I as a student and as a human being could challenge any accepted wisdom as no longer acceptable or wise. And that has been the way I have lived my life since then.
JC Labowitz::  I’m a lawyer. I do things that include challenging the accepted wisdom. And I can trace the origins of that back to Kathy Karlson, and what she did in October of 1968. For the rest of the time I was at Grinnell, there was turmoil, which I think was a good thing.
JC Labowitz::  And what convinced me of that experience was that- that change is inevitable, change is a force that cannot be ignored, that change is a constant, and we all have to learn to deal with change, not just on whether or not women can have male visitors in their dorm rooms at Grinnell College, but on a larger scale. And that has been a very valuable lesson in my life in a world that is not just changing, but where the pace of change is accelerating. It was a very meaningful real world experience.
JC Labowitz & Tamara Grbusic::  And in general, I felt that I came to Grinnell College, albeit after a year at another University, I felt that I came here really unformed. That I, yes, I could do the schoolwork and I could play soccer and I could be a functioning member of the Grinnell society but I was basically unformed. And the blessing I was given by being a student at Grinnell College was that as a result of the experience- not, by far, not only the experience in the classroom, but the overall, the total experience at Grinnell College, made me into the person I was intended to be, for which I am forever grateful.
JC Labowitz & Tamara Grbusic::  Thank you very much.
JC Labowitz & Tamara Grbusic::  Sure.
