Julie Jones::  Okay, my name is Julie Jones Dresel. I currently live in Los Angeles, and I’m a member of the Grinnell College class of ’87.
Julie Jones::  I first heard about Grinnell from the PSAT test. They sent me information and I had never heard of it before but it intrigued me because it was in Iowa, and I was from outside of Seattle, originally. And I really wanted to know what four seasons were like, and I knew that Iowa had real winters and I had never experienced that, and real summers. And I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books growing up and I thought, you know, “Little House on the Prairie. That’s what I want to experience.”
Julie Jones::  So, I came to visit and it was in the dead of winter of 1982. And I just loved it. The hub of the campus was the Forum, there, and everybody was hanging out and there were people wearing Birkenstocks with no socks in the dead of winter and there was snow everywhere. And I thought, “This is the place for me, where I don’t have to worry so much about being popular and all the things that consumed me as a high school student. So, none of my family was from the Midwest. They had never heard of Grinnell. I just decided to come on my own, and it was an adventure. I really thought it was an adventure, so...
Julie Jones::  My first dorm room was in Younker Pit, and I remember feeling thankful because if there was a tornado I was already underground, and that was good, for me. And I had a really fun dorm, dorm mates. And I remember it was a little bit shocking because we had to vote on the bathrooms, whether they were gonna be co-ed or single-sex, and I was informed very early on that you weren’t cool if you voted for single-sex, okay. You had to be cool and say, “OK, I’ll share the stall. Y'know, the stall next to me might be a guy. I just have to get over it.” And we did, but you know, it was an adjustment. And we also got to vote on whether we wanted cats. You couldn’t have dogs, but you could have cats, so we had two cats in our dorm and that was fun.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  So who took care of the cats?
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  The SAs.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  Okay. Wow.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  Yeah, they wanted them. And, y'know, then you had a cat box. That wasn’t very hygienic or pleasant, but y’know, it was college.
Julie Jones::  And what else...? I did have a professor who had a strong influence on me, but it wasn’t until my junior year. I decided, finally, I was gonna be an English major, so I found Michael Cavanaugh and he really helped me through because I was, y'know, behind in my credits and wasn’t sure I had the aptitude. And my senior year he did call me in and said, “What are you gonna be? Where are you gonna go after your graduation?” and I said, “Well, I’ll probably be a waitress, and I have no plans.” So he said, “I thought you were gonna say that, so I really want you to think about graduate school.”
Julie Jones::  And I did end up going to graduate school. I didn’t finish, but I, to this day, feel really thankful that he had the confidence in me that I could do it if that’s what I wanted to do. And he did say, “I know you have the aptitude, but I’m not sure you have the personality for it.” And he was right. It wasn’t for me, but at least, y'know, he spurred me on in that direction.
Julie Jones::  Oh, there was kind of a dress code back then, in the 80s, and it was: nothing nice. It had to be thrift store chic. It had to be oversized and look like you had no money, you came from poverty. And if you carried a purse it was like death, you know? You did not carry a purse, or else you would be vilified and humiliated by the cool people so everybody just either carried a book bag or back pack, or, y'know, had their valuables or their Student ID card in their pocket or something. We got little wallets, Grinnell wallets, and we carried our keys and our cards in that, and money. But a purse was like, “Oooh. You must be conservative.”
Julie Jones::  The worst thing to be called in the early 80s was “conservative.” So most of us, a lot of us, coming to campus, might have put down that we were Republicans on this card that they gave us because our parents were Republicans. And very early on- you had to be very strong in your, y'know, self-esteem to continue along in the Republican vein. Very soon I said, “No, I’m liberal, really!” And I didn’t really have any idea what that meant because I didn’t pay attention until Grinnell. So that was a good education for me.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Let's see. Grinnell’s changed a lot, of course, in the buildings and student life. My daughters ask me how I ever got along without- with meeting up with people without having cell phones, and I think that most of my time at Grinnell was spent wandering around, looking for the party and looking for the people because nobody had a phone and there was just the phones in the dorm floors.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  And, y'know, you were lucky if somebody answered, and so that’s what you did. You sort of just wandered and looked into the likely places, gathering spots.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  But, you could always be sure that there were people at the Forum, and there was people in the Pub. And the drinking age was 19. So, after your freshman year, you almost always were in the Pub.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Nice.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  And it was a non-profit, student-run thing. It was really fun. So I feel that, I don’t know how Lyle’s is, but with the drinking age 21, y'know, it doesn't- it probably doesn’t have the same gathering-spot feeling.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  No, yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  But, y'know, the problem with the Pub is it did encourage a lot of drinking. There was too much drinking.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Mhm.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Way too much, so... And I even think- y’know, we had the Relays where they trucked in all this alcohol and people got hurt badly. So, while people look back nostalgically at that time because it was sort of, free-for-all abandon, it was not healthy. So I’m not sure that I would want it brought back, but it’s a big part of what my Grinnell experience was.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  Do you feel like the presence of alcohol really shaped a lot of your experiences there, or do you think it would have been a less valuable experience had there not been as much alcohol?
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  No, not less valuable. I think I would have remembered a lot more and done a lot fewer stupid things.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  On the other hand, you know, if you want to do something and, y'know, you don’t have the guts, sometimes you just needed a little bit of liquid confidence and you did do stuff that, you know, you think back on as something that, y'know, was a life-changing experience. Y’know, decide to take a road trip or- not drunk of course, but, you know, making the decisions to just be, you know, throw caution to the wind sometimes is good. But yeah, I do think, probably, there was way too much drug use and alcohol, which caused more heartache than good things.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  That's so interesting.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Mhm.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  What else? One of the reasons I chose the College is that it had no core curriculum, and I still think that it has no core curriculum.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yup.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  And I think that is great.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Because that would have caused a real problem for me because I’m really deficient and phobic with math. And even the sciences that I took here, because the advising was pretty good, like, they really wanted you to have a well-rounded education, so I was advised to take lab science and to take some math, and..
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  My advice to students today is: “Just say no.” If you really don’t wanna take math, it’s gonna ruin your GPA and don’t take it because you don’t have to.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  But I did. I was talked into taking Calculus and I got an F in Calculus. And it really- I have good grades except for the freaking F in Calculus, so I tried to take it again and same thing happened. I just fell behind and I didn’t finish, so I wish I didn’t take it. But even the science-
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Sounds really hard.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah, and even the science I took was without a lab. It was a little bit lopsided, but it allowed me to go to a good school to experiment and take things that ordinarily wouldn’t take.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  And, so I really like that aspect of Grinnell.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  And I think- Oh, and the last thing I wanna say is, I did the Grinnell-in-London program, but my sophomore year.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Oh?
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  I really wish I would’ve done it the normal junior year time, where I would’ve made more friends, but I thought the program was wonderful and I couldn’t wait to go, so that’s why they allowed me to go early.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  So, they only had Grinnell-in-London and Grinnell-in-Paris. They probably have more opportunities.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  Grinnell-in-Paris sounds wonderful.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  Yeah.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  They don't have that anymore.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  No? They don't have that?
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  No.
Sophie Haas & Julie Jones::  So, that was great, but then after that I didn’t live on campus because I thought it was much cooler to be off-campus. And if I had it to do over again, on-campus, all four years, in one of these giant singles.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  I mean, kids nowadays don’t understand that these dorm rooms are big.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah, they're really big.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  And that Joe is awesome.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Mhm!
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  So why live in a cruddy house and have to cook and clean after yourself?
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  So my advice would be to stay in the dorms and get to know more people, ‘cause once you’re off-campus your social group shrinks.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah, absolutely.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  And enjoy your years here.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah, great.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  So that’s it!
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Thanks so much.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Thank you.
Julie Jones & Sophie Haas::  Yeah.
