Kathryn Vincent::  Start with name, cur- city you're currently living in, and class year.
Amy Stubenhaus::  Okay, my name is Amy Stubenhaus. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota and I graduated in 1979.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Great! Why did you come to Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  You know, when I was looking, and when I was in high school, I had this kind of obsession with Iowa. It was kind of a land of this idealistic escape in my mind even though I knew absolutely nothing about it except that there were a lot of corn fields. And just that landscape really drew me. And all my friends - I was in Connecticut - all my friends were going to school in the Northeast. A few went to California or Colorado, but nobody - y'know, maybe one went to Duke - but nobody was going to the Midwest at all. And so that was... that was what I really, really wanted to do. Grinnell was my first choice school. I applied to, y'know, schools around, but I- once I got into Grinnell, my family thought I was crazy, my friends thought I was nuts, y'know, but I knew I was going to come here, so...
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  What's your first memory about being on campus?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  As a prospective or as a student?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Both.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Boy, as a prospective - you know, again, I had this.. this was an idealized escape fantasy in my mind, to come here. So I came here. It was my birthday. I was a... was I a Junior or Senior in high school? Y'know, it was November and it was snowing. It was November fourth, ‘cause that's my birthday and it snowed and I thought this was- you know, and I sat in on a music class and I was a Music major. I sat in on a Music class. There were about seven people there in the class and I just... It seemed- there was something about it that I knew that this was…
Amy Stubenhaus::  Even though I hadn’t made a decision at that point and my family was certain once they took me to visit that I’d never want to come back here. You know, you had to fly to O’Hare, and O’Hare to Des Moines and then at Des Moines you took a Greyhound bus and the bus let you out downtown. You had to take a cab from downtown to get into the… You know, it was crazy. I stayed in Grinnell House. Loved Grinnell House. Met some Russian students. It was really, y'know, it was one of my favorite college visits even though my family was sure that they had cured me of this crazy idea of going to Iowa.
Amy Stubenhaus::  But my first memory actually coming on campus was, it was a brutally hot, hot day and the shuttles from the airport were terribly timed. It was a really stressful day and I got here and a woman came to my dorm room. It’s really funny - her name was Davida and I see she filled out a thing here too. She’s the person I drove up with today - but she was from Omaha, Nebraska, and she said, “I know you or we know somebody” and I was thought, “That’s impossible. I don’t know anybody here. You have the wrong person.” And she said, “Well, you’re Amy Stubenhaus, right?” And she took me on a tour of the campus - just friendly. She had a friend who went to school with my friend in St. Louis and told her to look me up and she did and she took me around and I said, “Well, if this is what Grinnell students are like then I definitely- These are the people - she’s from Omaha, Nebraska - and I was just really eager to meet these, you know, cultural aliens from this Midwest planet. It was really... it was great.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Was there a professor, student, or staff member who had a particularly strong influence on your life?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  You know... I mean, there were teachers who were wonderful. There were a few… One, who was never actually my professor, but he really was a wonderful mentor, was Professor Lee Cloud who was a composer in residence. A Black, gay, 12-tone composer living in Grinnell, Iowa. I mean, could he be more marginal in his life, possibly? You know, he wrote music that- nobody writes just 12-tone music anymore. He was really- is the greatest, greatest, guy and I was directing Sacred Harp here and he came to our rehearsals and taught us black shape note singing and he came - I was student teaching at Grinnell High School - and he came and met with my high school class.
Amy Stubenhaus::  I mean, there were not a lot of African-American townspeople and for those students to see him, and he came and he sang, and he had this really deep basso profundo. First of all, he was gorgeous and his voice was gorgeous and he was very charismatic, like, electrifyingly charismatic and he made such an impression on them and it was just- It just- my stock went up bringing, y'know, Lee Cloud.
Amy Stubenhaus::  So he was one and I would have to say the other person was the campus operator. You know, back then, nobody- cell phones hadn’t been invented, y'know. So we had one phone on every dorm floor and then, I think, I lived in a co-op house and I had a phone in my room, but the campus operator kind of.. she worked in the... y'know, where the switchboard was and she operated the switchboard and she adopted students and she was amazing and she ran—Do you know of her at all, Ida Weaver? - Anyway, she ran a pig farm with her husband and they also grew a huge vegetable garden and she was the most amazing baker and she had a big extended family, and they'd come for Sunday dinner and she’d just make six pies and a turkey and ham and- no big deal, y'know? And she’d have us over for dinner.
Amy Stubenhaus::  She taught me how to bake bread and she taught me... Oh, she was just the most extraordinary person, and she would bring me food and she’d say, y'know, “Come to my office,” or come to wherever and she’d have a cake that she baked for me or a bag of frozen vegetables that she wanted to give me, and she was so generous. And I always wanted - you know, I’m a.. East Coast Jew and to have an Iowa farm lady become my adopted grandma’ was kind of, you know... I died and went to heaven. Not that I didn’t love where I came from, but I loved the foreignness of being connected to this kind of Iowa farming community and the fact that she would have us over after church, y'know, luncheons and all kinds of things.
Amy Stubenhaus::  At graduation, she had all of us and our parents over for dinner and my mother was just so impressed, she bought her a subscription to "Bon Apetit" magazine, which was really funny, but she loved it! She just loved it, y'know? I would say that Ida, the operator, and probably Lee Cloud, who was- neither of whom were ever my formal teachers. And I also- I did an Education project where I interviewed people who went to all different kinds of school and Ida had grown up in a one room school house and dropped out after fourth grade. It wasn’t really- you know, she had a farm. And so she was very embarrassed about that, but she gave me her whole education background and it was so interesting. Y'know, she was just... she was so wonderful. Okay, enough of that.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  What are a few of your best memories of your time in Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Well, that- My sophomore year I lived in this co-op house that was connected to GORP, the Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Project, and we all lived together. We went on trips together. We led trips and we had a faculty advisor, Kathy McCluskey, who died in a caving accident years later. She was also the really important influence. I would have to include Kathy in that list of people. She was a really, really important mentor. And that was an awesome experience; both, y'know, the trips that we took together and the stuff that we- the cohesiveness of the co-op house. And then Grinnell-in-London was...There's too many memories to recount from London.
Amy Stubenhaus::  And then Sacred Harp. You know, that was a really, great experience, was getting to kinda direct the group. I was a Music major and I was- I wanted to be a conductor, and I had never been involved with Sacred Harp at all, but my friend, Mary Beth was in Sacred Harp, and she said, “You know, we need a director this year. Just come and do this” and it was so much fun, and we recruited a lot of our friends and it was great fun.
Amy Stubenhaus::  And the off-campus housing I had my senior year with my housemates, also. There were a lot of wonderful, wonderful times with... again, those communal living situations where people are so bonded and they’re sharing… You know, the night before graduation, I was typing my last paper and my parents pulled up and I hadn’t even talked to them about the plans for graduation at all. I had no idea when they were coming. I was just totally out of it fo- trying to get my work done absolutely under the wire, y'know?
Amy Stubenhaus::  So, anyway, they pulled up and I had no clue what to do, and I told my housemate," Aldo," I said, “Aldo, can you cook some dinner for my parents?” and he went to the grocery store. I gave him a recipe for Chicken Lo Mein and he made Chicken Lo Mein. It was really funny, but you know, that kind of stuff. I mean, having friends that were that awesome that would just.. y'know, on a drop of a... y'know, on the dime, y'know, whip up a meal for your parents who arrived unexpectedly while you were typing your paper away - you know, my manual Underwood Typewriter.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  What did your dorm room look like when you were here?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh, I didn’t live in dorms too much. My first year I lived in a dorm, but you know, you moved around. I lived with my boyfriend. It was… Anyway, it was- y'know, the dorm rooms were changing all the time. My freshman roommate dropped out. I lived in a co-op house my sophomore year. My junior year I went to London. My senior year I lived off-campus. So, you know, the dorms kind of were not an attractive living option to me, so I got out of it as much as I could.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  What kind of clothes did you wear every day?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Same wo- this is funny. My clothes, my fashion sense is I dress like a 1970s college student still. I wear jeans every day. I guess I’ve gone from blue jeans to black jeans. That’s my big, y'know, improvement. My shoes are much more- they make much more comfortable shoes now than they did back then.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh, I bet.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  And I wear T-shirts and flannel shirts and you know, I’m a schlub like this, and it’s just how I dressed in college and it’s how I dressed in high school. So, I have no.. arc.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Consistent.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah, I guess. You know, I just never grew up in the fashion sense. So that's...
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Did you have a book that influenced you haevily while you were here?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  You know, one of the things that was a big influence was the guest speakers and the people that would come in. I remember Jonathan Kozol - I don’t know if you know him - but he came in to talk to us and that was just... That was.. just an amazing, eye-opening experience for me. And, y'know, it was back when the Grinnell Forum was open and he spoke to us and it was like he was speaking to you very personally, individually in somebody’s living room. It felt like that, the way he talked. And the work- he had just come back from Cuba and he’d written this book about the Cuban Literacy Project, but I went back and read his other books. I've read Death at an Early Age and then I became a teacher. I mean, it was- that was a very influential book early on, was Death at an Early Age by Kozol, you know, as far as nonfiction books.
Amy Stubenhaus::  Fiction... no. I was a big fiction reader in high school and I got here and I got kind of turned off to the way they taught literature at college. It was so absolutely pretentious. So I think most of the things that were new and exciting and eye-opening for me were some of the nonfiction that I read.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  What memories or images do you have of the town of Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Well, I was a waitress. Is Pagliai’s Pizza still around?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  It is!
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  I was a waitress at Pags for a summer.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  I used to write papers in Stewart Library. I don’t know if that’s still there.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  They have a new library, the Drake Library.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Ohh. Oh, that's- Is it for our George Drake? Is it-
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Mhm.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh, that’s interesting. The town library was a very sweet library. I went into the town a lot and because I worked in town for the summer, I had townie friends. I babysat for their kids and stuff. So I tried to- and then, y'know, Ida, being a farmer, I- We as a co-op house, we bought our food from farmers as much as we could, and I can’t remember which farm it was. You probably know it ‘cause they’re Grinnell grads, but they had an organic dairy farm and you know, you could go up with your glass jars and just leave a dollar in the jar and fill up your glass jars and we were a co-op house of nine or ten of us, so we'd just go every week and fill up our nine jars of milk.
Amy Stubenhaus::  I mean, talk about great college experiences. That - I felt like none of my Boston- you know, my friends who went to a college in Boston - ever experienced. What- we bought our eggs from a different farmer. We bought our milk straight from the farmers. We had relationships with the people we bought our food- I mean, it's the stuff that’s in Vogue now with the slow food movement that nobody was talking about. That wasn’t cool then, but we were doing it, y'know? And it was- we knew that was cool, and nobody had told us that that was a cool thing. There was no farmer’s market movement or anything like that. So I loved that... interactions with the townies. i loved any time-
Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh, the caucuses! You know, we had, y'know, townspeople came all the time to campus. I was here for the 1980 election, presidential election the first year the Iowa caucuses were happening. So, every presidential candidate was - because that was a new thing in 1980, so every- not 1980, I’m sorry, 1976 ‘cause I graduated in ’79 and it was when the first- it was when Carter was elected. Carter came and spoke in the Forum and we were this far away from him, and all the other, you know -Mo Udall and Fred Harris - and we just went to see them all. And everybody from town came and they had a big town-gown, y'know, a panel on farmer issues and I came to listen to all those farmers and what they had to- I mean, it was really like.. this was like me going to a third world country. y'know, with really open eyes. It 's.. it was just great. So I felt like I made an effort to not just be exclusively on campus.
Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh! Also, I student taught. So- and I had classes, Education classes, where I went into the schools and had ongoing relationships with school kids, so that gave me more town exposure too. So, y'know, I felt, more than a lot of students, I got to do a lot of stuff that was more part of the community outside of the College, which I really liked.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  How has Grinnell as a college, as a town changed since you were a student?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh, God… First of all, I was doing a walk today. I mean, two of the places I lived in are gone. The house where East Campus is, I think it’s a parking lot now, where the house called “Red House” that was kind of once called the “East Street Gallery.” It was a really cool, old farmhouse where all of the windows were lopsided ‘cause it, y'know, it was built in the 1880s, is- the College tore it down. It caused a little anger on our part, you know, those of us who lived in that house.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah.
Amy Stubenhaus::  And then my house on Broad Street that I lived in that summer I worked at Pags just burned down recently. So I lived in that house. That’s really sad. The campus, the development is almost... I was never, as a student, aware of the money involved in the institution. When I come back, I really see dollar signs everywhere to me. The fact that the PEC was brand new when we came here and in 30 years later they have to build a whole new Phys. Ed. complex? I mean, it’s nuts! And tearing down Darby Gym where we had Bruce Springsteen, you know, like, why would you do that?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I mean, I don’t know what the problems with the physical plant - y'know, I don’t know the- I’m not a professional, but as- from where I come from. And I just went to the Fine Arts building and the development there- It's just like.. the library- it's like the development money here is crazy to me for such a tiny institution with so few students. And I was never aware of that as a college student, ‘cause you take it- I took it for granted and I wasn’t as aware of those issues as a kid as I am now.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  But God, it’s crazy! And the amount of money they get to invest in students. It’s not that they’re doing something wrong. It's just that, man, this institution in the middle of a place that people consider nowhere, that isn't nowhere at all. But it's kind of crazy as a concentration of a whole lot of resources, so that-
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I don’t know how much it’s that the College has changed or my perception of things has changed, but that’s really different.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  A combination.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, yeah.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  All of that.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Absolutely, absolutely.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Is there something that’s no longer available on campus that was meaningful to you?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah!
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  You mentioned the Red House?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Red House is no longer available. On campus....
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Or activities, programs…
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  You know what I wondered about? I was just going through the Old Forum, I don’t know what you call that building now, but it was the Student Forum, and we had private dining rooms in the basement that we used to… I was in student government and we met with the president every month or something, you know, the executive committee of the student government and it's like, that was so much fun. And we used to rent and have dinner parties in those private dining rooms. I don’t know if anything like that exists anymore. Do you guys still have private dining rooms or co-op houses, or..?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  There are co-ops, there are co-op houses, there are project houses…
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah, we had a project house.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Now, we all cooked there. Can you still cook in a project house or do you have to be on food service?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  You don’t have to be on food service if you’re in a co-op or not here.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Okay, they still have that. I really learned to cook and bake, y'know, living in my co-op house. I was the bread- We had jobs…
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I was in a house for two years.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Were you?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  And was it a project house or just a co-op?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It was a co-op in the dorms. So actually, they have.. I’m guessing there were former RLC or RA apartments that had bathrooms and kitchens.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, the RA apartments? They don't have RAs anymore?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  They have much- many fewer. There’s only two per campus.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, that’s interesting, given the new emphasis on a lot more mental health kinds of services that didn’t exist when I was a student. I noticed when I was down at the Forum, it's- all the- which is, y'know, there's so much more awareness now of mental health needs for college students, which is great, but..
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  But that, y'know, doesn't- I lived in 1130 East Street, was that- and it still- I don’t know what it’s used for now. I don’t know if it’s still a project house or a co-op house.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Is that near 6th?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Okay. Yeah, they-
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It’s next to Pine Tree House.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Those are project houses.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  They are? It still is?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I think it might be Eco House.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Okay. That’s very appropriate for.. was GORP House. Yeah.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  So I’m glad to know those opportunities- Those are really great ways for people to... y'know. That’s a great student experience.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Learn life skills.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Learn life skills, have a bonding- I mean, it’s a very.. y'know, I believe in social cohesion. I mean that's very- You live with people in that kind of setting, y'know, although none of those people, I don’t get to see any of them anymore, but it was a great experience. So I don’t see the private dining rooms. I’m trying to think of other things that don’t exist anymore.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Do they still have movies at ARH, or..?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  They do! Was the Harris Center around when you were here? They have a cinema in there that actually seats maybe.. 300 people?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Wow. And they still have free movies?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  And every movie-
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  And, still, is everything free, like concerts and lectures and seat-?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, no other schools have that.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, that’s such an opportunity for us for sure.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It’s amazing! And we had a full-time booking agent. I don’t know how they book their acts here, but we had a-
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It’s student-run now. I don't know if it was student-run...
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Okay. The student- the film... the campus film group was student–run, but as far as professional concerts and stuff, we had a full-time professional booking agent. Yeah, she was a wild character.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, she.. She was- she had OCD.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  She was the one that brought Springsteen, right?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, Georgia Dentel.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I heard about her.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Georgia Dental. She was wrapped in cellophane ‘cause she had, y'know, OCD. She was, or it was more, y'know, that Germ phobia and stuff. She was crazy and so, so talented as a booking agent. She booked people in Chicago and Des Moines and she’d get them so that they would make a stop on campus, and she was just fabulous. Yeah, we had Julie- what's her name? - The Belle of Amherst. We had the New York City Ballet with Suzanne Ferrell. We had Mummenschanz- I mean, we had things that- It's crazy, the kinds of concert and things that came through a college campus of 1200. It was smaller then too. It was 1200 students. It was- I mean, it was just, too, y'know, it was too ideal for us to really appreciate.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Right.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Describe a favorite academic experience or class while at Grinnell.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Favorite? There were a lot of favorites... Logic with Jack Worley. He’s dead, but he was just, somebody who could make something really concrete, just- but difficult - so crystal clear that I couldn’t imagine a person in the room who didn’t understand exactly how to do symbolic logic following his proofs. You know? It just- You know, that kind of beauty. My music classes were... Y'know, that was where I ended up spending a whole lot of time. Oh, my studio art classes, ‘cause I am a very untalented artist. I had no artistic talent and I finally got brave enough to take some studio art classes and that was some of the best academic experiences I had. Yeah.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Describe one of your favorite places on campus... To study or hang out.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  You know, I used to study in those little side rooms of the Forum where I could just curl up on a comfy chair. And I don’t know if they’re open to students anymore.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  I don't know if they are.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah. But favorite places, I mean the Pub was always… We’d go after Sacred Harp rehearsals. I spent a lot of time in the Fine Arts building.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  On campus.. you know, I’d say the co-op- the houses that I lived in were some of my favorite places. You know, whether it was a project house or it was the off-campus house that I lived in my senior year that’s now torn down. Yeah, I don’t know. Nothing- I mean going into town, you know, bakery runs, going to the old bars. You know, drinking was legal at 18 when we were here. It was a really different scene because of that. I don’t know if there was less- if there's less drunkenness now than there was then. It was, oooh, way too much alcohol on campus, but-
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Still might be the case.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Well, that’s my impression. I have a daughter in college who’s just finished her sophomore year, so I know that the fact that the drinking age has changed hasn’t dramatically changed campus...
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Culture.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Culture. Exactly.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah. All those places.. The practice rooms where I used to have to practice piano for three or four hours a day. I don't know if that was a favorite or a least favorite. I can't decide. You know, it was very intense time, though. I mean, it was time that had an impact on me... Yeah, tough question. The rehearsal room for Sacred Harp. I don't know- Oh, Herrick Chapel. You know.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It's one of my favorite buildings.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Isn’t it beautiful? I think Goodnow Hall is beautiful. I had a summer job. When I was waitressing, I was also working in the Psych labs, feeding Redwing Blackbird babies and I always thought- yeah!
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Actually, it was a terrible experiment. It was really stupid. It was separating Redwing Blackbird babies from their mothers to see if it would change their songs.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Huh.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  And what happened was all the babies died ‘cause they didn’t have their mother.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  That's too bad.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It was the dumbest experiment, when I think back on it. I mean this guy was… y'know. But, y'know, I was doing my best to keep these baby birds alive. That was kind of fun.
Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah, you know, just looking at it, this is a really beautiful, beautiful campus in my- you know, from the aesthetic, the landscape, that I came from, which is so different and beautiful. I come from, you know, New England. Very, very pre-revolutionary town, and old big trees everywhere and foothills, and this is all flat and I just loved it. I loved that you could see really, really far. I loved when I came back to the Midwest and hit- I was in a Greyhound - I hit the cornfields. I started to cry again, so I really feel a lot of affinity with… It’s hard to pick favorite places. Yeah, I just like.. I liked being here.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  If you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently while you were at Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  I think I would have been fearless to take more things that I wasn’t good at, like, I flirted with the studio art. I probably would have done more of that. Just take a drawing class. I can’t draw. Don’t worry about the grades, you know? Just do what's- I would have taken a lot more Sci- I didn’t, I had one class in the Science Building in four years and now, I think I would have gone into- I was a social worker - I would have gone into psychiatric nursing if I knew then what I know now about the job world and so I would have been prepared. I would have taken Science classes. And.. I was terrified of science and math, so that was unfortunate.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I might have done even more. Joined the community band or something. I might have done more in town, but there’s only so much time. I mean, I kind of did what… you know, you do what you can do. But that's it. I wouldn’t be afraid of grades and I would just take anything that would have been new and challenging.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Cool, that’s good. Nice-
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, okay. Thank you. Good, good.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I mean, I just graduated.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, you’re done! So you can’t… What did you major in?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Biology and French.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, so you were a science person. Oh! So you were science and humanities. That's great.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, it was a weird combination for sure.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  And one of the things that I really regretted, was I didn't take cl- I’m good at, I took a lot of languages in high school. I took Spanish and German. It was, you know, they started us in fourth grade in our school system, so I was good in Spanish. I didn’t take any languages here ‘cause I thought it was all literature-based and I just wanted conversation. I just wanted to be able to go and speak in other countries. and talk to other people, and having been able to travel some in South America and do that, I think there should be more emphasis on conversational language. I don’t know why colleges are like, "It’s too pedestrian to teach conversational languages," or something. But you read French literature, probably.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yup. There’s also a really cool program that they have now. It’s an Alternative Language Study option and so you can have a student tutor that will help you...
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Just learn the language?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  -learn, yeah, and it’s supposed to be more conversational interaction.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  That's so good- That’s a great idea. I love that they’re doing that.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  I took Brazilian Portuguese this year.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Great! Great! And, was it a Brazilian student or...?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Mhm, it was.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah, that's- See, that didn’t exist. I love that! I think that everybody should have to do that. I mean, I think everybody should speak a second language, y'know, and it, also if you travel it'll..y'know. And people speak English so much better than I speak any other language and apologize constantly when they make grammatical errors and you think: you know, we make a half stab to speak grammatically at all in another language and we just want to pat ourselves in the back. You know, Americans are just so out of it as far as their expectations of that.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  So.. and did you study in France too, or..?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I did not. It was hard to do a study abroad with my double major.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  See?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  But, I spent the last summer working at- Have you heard of WWOOFing?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah! I was gonna say, did you-
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I was WWOOFing.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  That is so- I love- I wish Wwoofing had existed when I was a student. I would have done that in a heartbeat. But I d- y'know, as a parent.. I mean, we took our kids, there’s this agritourism movement in Europe and so we stayed in gites in France. We stayed on a working farm in Normandy, and, y'know.. And, yeah, it was great. It's cheap and it was fun and the kids got to interact with the animals. We did it in Austria; we did it in France; we did it in Italy, and it’s a really cheap way to travel and experience a culture that’s outside of a tourist city situation. So I have experience some European farms, but not as a WWOOFer. I might even do that now if I could take enough time off of work. Yeah, I would love to do that. I think that's be great.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  So where in France did you go?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I was in the French Alps.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, God!
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, I would highly suggest it.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, man! What cities were you in?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  I was near... I flew into Geneva and so I was in a small town near Geneva on the French side and then I went South, deep into the Alps in a town... a big ski town.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  What’s the name of it?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Okay. I don’t know it then.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It's near -
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Cheval, y'know, that area, but...
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, very small.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Okay.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  And then my third farm was in South Central France, in -
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Like, near Leone or?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  It was the big city. It was near the ocean, so it wasn’t rice farmers. That's Leone's thing.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh, okay. Oh, wow! Good for you! And Swiss-French is different, isn’t it?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Mhm.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Did you have a hard time being..?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  No, it was pretty similar and they were all very understanding of my French.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  And nice! Not like Parisians.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yes.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Or, I don’t know, maybe you had a better experience in Paris, but you know…
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It's hard in Paris. They get tough on tourists.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Well, and not just that, but they’re culturally… They have a different approach to dealing with people.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  The farm French versus the…
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Well, and the people on the farm that we stayed- I mean they couldn’t have been more warm and more kind to my kids, and you know, it was just great.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  If you met your spouse or partner at Grinnell, describe how you met.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  I did not.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Okay. Skip that one. How would you compare the students of today with your classmates?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Really similar. I mean, reunions are fun ‘cause it’s fun to talk to the people from the way back classes and the people from the recent classes and I talk to people from recent classes and you know, there’s not… My parents were really different from me. There was this generation gap, but, like, I have kids your age. I have a 20 year old and a 23 year old and there is not a generation gap between us.
Amy Stubenhaus::  We like the same music, the same art, we relate to the same stories. I mean, there’s some difference- there's so much less of a culture gap. The politics, just the same. You know, Grinnell is still this very progressive- kind of homogenous subculturally. I mean, we had campus Republicans and stuff, but they, actually, they started my second year here - was the first Republican organization and it was… Y'know, and I have, I’m very proud to have Republican friends, ‘cause that’s like being really diverse.
Amy Stubenhaus::  Yeah, I think that the culture has changed precious little, is my impression. I think, the only thing that’s different, I think students are more worried today about what they’re gonna’ do when they get out and none of us had a clue. In college we weren’t here to figure out what we wanted to do when we grew up. We were here to get educated and not to get trained in a profession and we weren’t anxious about the real world. Maybe we should have been a little more, but mostly, I just-
Amy Stubenhaus::  My kids say, “I don’t know what I want…” It's like, “You’re not supposed to know!" You know? This is not- This is a time of life that’s just kind of this gift! You get these four years, you get to learn anything. You get to have a community and a social life handed to you on a platter. You get fed, and sheltered and you get to absorb as much wonderful learning and cultural experiences as you can possibly have. And that’s what it’s for and you don’t get it back, so enjoy the heck out of it.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  So, anyway, what was the question?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Compare students of today…
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yes! They’re more anxious. I think that’s the big difference, is they’re worried about becoming financially independent beings and that they think they have to have a single profession.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Describe student and campus life as you experienced it during your time in Grinnell.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Easy. Loose. Fun. Casual. And much less- I mean, I moved to Boston for six months after I graduated from Grinnell and I met a lot of Boston students and it made me so glad I never went to Boston, you know? I mean this kind of, this status-driven thing.. I mean at Grinnell it was taken for granted. We were all smart. We were all smart that we got there, although when I was in Boston people thought I must be an idiot if I went to college in a place in Iowa they had never heard of. You know..
Amy Stubenhaus::  It wasn’t status-driven. It wasn’t about what cool internship you got or whether your name was on a paper your professor published. All of that might have happened. Nobody was impressed with that. It was, we were here to appreciate each other and not be competitive about that stuff and that was really refreshing from my East Coast friends, you know? And it’s why I ended up living in the Midwest actually, ‘cause I think that culture- it's an ugly part of that culture that you really can get away from here.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  So the last question is: if you writing a history of Grinnell College, what would you include from your years here?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  If I were writing a history of Grinnell College,? Oh! What would I - I get it. What would I include? The things that happened that were historically significant when I lived here.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  You talked about the caucuses. The first...
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Yes! The presidential caucuses. Well, the other thing, when I- The B&G strike. When we first- do you have B&G still? It was Building and Grounds staff, and there was a labor strike, actually it was the year before we came here.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Oh, yes. I heard about that,
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  And that was really interest- just a great labor history lesson.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Some of the historic things... We had a progressive and regressive dinner. Did you still have progressive and regressive dinners?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  We’ve had progressive parties, but…
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Well, progressive dinners were very specific. You formed a group and professors hosted you for a single meal course and then you went from house to house. And then we had a regressive dinner where people could rent the- we had professors get together and the students did the cooking. You know, those of us who lived in co-op houses, you know, we hosted different professors for each course, and...And then, you know, people rented private dining rooms or those kitchenettes that they had in the dorms. You know, people found different ways that they could put on meals for different professors that just randomly were assigned to come and eat with them. I mean, it was so great.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Sounds very cool.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  It was very cool and so I think people should know about all those informal things.
Amy Stubenhaus::  I mean, those student-faculty informal relationships, that’s really important. My daughter has that in her program, but I think a lot of schools don’t have that and I think they’re all so worried, unfortunately, about like, liability issues of professors and students. So I wish that we didn’t have to worry, you know. That any time the formality of those relationships breaks down that there’s some scary liability thing going on. You know, when I was a school teacher, I hugged my students and I know that there were teachers who were terrified to touch their little kids who were homesick, or, you know. It was really sad.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Okay, the historic things that happened here. I think all the- Springsteen concert were pretty historic. He was, right after he came here, he was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, so we caught him right before he became the next big thing.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yup.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  And, y'know, it was kind of wild, but we didn’t just have Bruce… We had Steve Goodman, and we had Bill Evans come and play. I sat through both sets. And Anthony Braxton, I mean, people that, you know, I feel so greatful that I got to hear these concerts.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Right.
Amy Stubenhaus::  So, some of the concert stuff, but I’m trying to think of like, historical things... The White Paper. President Turner came in and he fired Georgia Dentel, the booker that- Kathy McCluskey, the head of the GORP, Phys. Ed. person and there was somebody else… There were three wonderful people and he consolidated their jobs under a friend of his who was involved with physical plant stuff and we said, you know, "Hell no!" These were like, really important people to us on campus and we were organized and we actually got that overturned.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  You know, things like.. But, that seemed like a really big issues at the time, in the scheme of the College, whether anybody cares about that White Paper and saving the jobs of, y'know, people who were important to students, staff people who were important. God! I’m sure that there was other historic stuff that happened that eludes me. I mean, it wasn’t Vietnam War Era. You know, we had the election, yeah, with all the presidential candidates coming. I mean, I don’t remember anything. I mean, we weren’t here when, y'know, gay marriage became legal in Iowa or something like that where the College- or the famous PlayBoy, you know, nude-in strike.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah. I heard about that this weekend.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Well, that was- Y'know, that made national news and actually, when I talk to some people who are from Iowa of my generation, and I tell them I went to Grinnell, that’s what they associate with Grinnell.
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  Really?
Amy Stubenhaus & Kathryn Vincent::  - is the nude-in, yeah, with Hugh Heffner, which... Yeah, I'm trying to think of what political- We had a... Appropriate Technology fair my friends organized. Y'know, just all kinds of little cool stuff at the time, but, yeah, I don’t remember anything that was major history in my time. It was for us, personally, but I don’t know for the world.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Cool, that’s all for my questions, then.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Okay.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  If you have anything else, a story you want to share or...?
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Grinnell- I think I covered a lot. I talked a lot, so I think you have plenty of material. This is sweet that you’re doing this. I hope it gets, you know, used for something fun.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  I think it will at some point.
Kathryn Vincent & Amy Stubenhaus::  Mhm. That’s very cool. Well, thank you and good luck with getting this all archived. It sounds like a lot of work!
