Alenka Figa::  Okay. Alrighty.
Carol Edkins::  My name is Carol Edkins. I currently live in New York City, New York and I am a member of the Grinnell class of 1973, although I actually graduated in the fall of 1972. One of my first memories of campus, being- and I grew up in New York City. Do you mind if I talk directly to you? It’s easier to talk to an audience than a microphone. But, it’s a story that tells a lot about Grinnell and about me and about New York City. So, New York City, when you walk around the streets, you don’t go “Hi” to strangers. You just kind of keep on walking. You might not even look them in the eye.
Carol Edkins::  So, I get to Grinnell in the fall of 1969. I’d never been here. I hadn’t visited the school before I came, and I’m walking across campus and still, must be very early on because there weren’t a whole lot of people around. Someone walks by me and says, “Hello.” I’m going, “I don’t know this person.” I honestly can’t remember whether I had the courtesy, the common courtesy to say “Hello” back. I pray I did, but I don’t know if I did. But I was like, “Wow. Someone said hello to me.” And thus, you know, there’s the difference between a big city and a small town, and feeling comfortable enough that you can just greet strangers with a "Hello"! So that was one of my very first memories of Grinnell. In hindsight, I think that’s very good for kids who grew up in urban environments to come to a place like Grinnell, even though it’s kind of hard to get here. Still is.
Carol Edkins::  [Coughs] Excuse me. I think some of my best memories of Grinnell, at the time, had nothing to do with classroom. In fact, I can’t vividly reme- I took a lot of independent studies, but we had so much great music. So many amazing people came to Grinnell as musicians and performers. Pete Seeger came, like our first semester. Thank God, Pete Seeger’s still alive. And it was in the old Darby Gym, which has been torn down, and it was this amazing concert, and y’know I was three feet away from him.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  B.B. King came. It was an amazing concert, y’know, and I had had no exposure to any of these folks, so there were lots of people very- now- Doc Watson who just died last week. He was a famous bluegrass player. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. So, Doc Watson and B.B. King and Pete Seeger; I think The Band came and I think- I don’t, I’ll have to ask some classmates- I think even Bruce Springsteen. Of course this was before he was super famous.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  I think I’ve heard of that, actually.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Yeah, he came, so- And then there was a folk festival and all sorts of- Buck White came and all these amazing people from Arkansas. So, I got a tremendous exposure to types of music that I didn’t have growing up in New York City. And I listened to a lot of music, but, y’know on the radio, and from buying records, but not folk music and certainly not of that caliber and not, y’know, sitting six feet away from these people.
Carol Edkins::  So that, to me, still, is one of the greatest legacies of being here and the fact that you’re.. It’s not like you run off campus and go someplace else. This, your life, your social life is fully here and it’s great. It’s just, it was great and I hope that continues. We had people, Peter Keepnews, was involved in doing the music, Ed Levine, was involved in doing the music. Ed Levine, both actually, are New Yorkers. They’re back in New York. Peter Keepnews’ father was a very famous musician, jazz musician, and Ed Levine went back to New York and did stuff with music as well and now he has a blog about food called Serious Eats.
Carol Edkins::  In 40 years of course Grinnell’s changed a lot, I think, in some ways in terms of new buildings and I think from what we’re gathering in terms of the whole gay and lesbian movement. There’s so much more. I mean, it's a 180 degree change from when I was here. I spent the first 20 years after college involved with women. I am now married actually to another Grinnellian, a male, who I met at my 25th Reunion here, so... But that whole aspect of Grinnell is really different.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Could you elaborate on what it was like for, I guess for the queer community here in the 1970s?
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  There was no queer community.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Or-
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  That’s- I mean, there wasn’t. I knew of two women- They didn’t even talk- I don’t even know how I knew. It might’ve been afterwards that we talked about it, after we graduated. But truly, it was not… and we talked about this yesterday actually in a session, that... there was a women’s liberation discussion session yesterday afternoon and people were- to a person people said, “We didn’t think about it. We didn’t know about it. It wasn’t discussed.” Homosexuality wasn’t, y’know sort of... even in the greater culture wasn’t that “out.” So, I mean it was only in 1969 that the Stonewall Riots happened, so... and obviously those were pretty important in the gay movement.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  So, that- from that point of view it’s a radically different place. And of course you have a gay president and that’s pretty fabulous. Married, with- two kids? He has two kids?
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Two kids.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Yeah, that’s right.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  They’re very cute.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  I’m sure they are. It’s just, it’s really something to be proud of. Let’s see. It really is something to be proud of, the good liberal spirit.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  I spent a lot of time at Burling Library, so that was probably my favorite place, and the Loun… the, Forum, which appears, y'know, past- its on its final days, apparently. So I spent- that’s where my favorite place is. My husband, who as I said, we met at our 25th Reunion in 1998, he was a Classics major so he just went upstairs to the 3rd floor. He was trying to find the room where he spent all his time ‘cause he spent all his time studying Greek and Latin.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Was the seminar room open?
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  No. You mean now?
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Yeah, today.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  No, alas; it looks really cool. You could see in the window. And unfortunately, his Classics professor, who was very influential for him, is away in Greece right now, so he’s not even here.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  I read a lot- 'what book influenced you?' I’m babbling on a lot here. I read a lot of Faulkner, and I did some independent studies on him so- and I was an American Lit major. I actually went on to get my PhD in American Lit.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Oh, great.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  I’ve been a banker for the last 30 years, so.. My dorm room! I lived with a roommate first year, so of course we had the requisite shelves with the cinder blocks. You didn’t bring refrigerators or have any of that stuff. Of course, you had posters on the wall. I might’ve had a batik hanging after one of my friends went to Indonesia and came back the next year with a batik- with batiks, so I had a batik hanging, and my second year I lived alone.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Actually from then on, I lived alone, spent a semester in Ireland.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Oh, awesome.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  And I came back, and lived in- so, you know, decorated with all the usual college stuff. And, I think, that’s it that I can think of. I was only here three years, so... (Whispered: It was a long time ago.) Thank you!
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Thanks.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Unless you have other questions.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  I guess, was there a really influential professor here for you?
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  I took a couple courses with this man named John Keeble who was a... I don’t think he stayed here long. He was a writer and I have no idea what happened to him, so... That’s, that was the- but I think other- there are other of my classmates who’ve had much more, much closer ties with their professors and I think that was another good thing about Grinnell. You know, that small sort of, student-teacher ratio, and people, some of the professors were very- Again, my husband. He went drinking with his professor, went down to the Longhorn, you know, I think went to his house sometimes ‘cause they would have seminar.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  What is the Longhorn?
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Oh, the Longhorn’s gone. It was a bar.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Okay.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Bar/restaurant, the Longhorn. So, y’know, I think depending on who your professor was, the intimacy of Grinnell could facilitate that kind of much more intense interaction.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Yeah. I guess, the only other question that I would have is that I talked to a lot of ‘68 alums who talked about being kind of the beginning of this like, change in Grinnell culture, and talk about the early 70s as being the end of that transition period.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Mhm. Absolutely.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  So..
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  See, when I got here there was already some co-ed dorms. By my sophomore year everything was fully co-ed, if you chose. I lived on a floor with a guy next to me, in Loose, the guy- room next to me was a guy, so.. And y’know, just two years- we were talking about this yesterday also and it- two or three years earlier completely, the dorms were locked for the women. I said to a woman, I said, y’know, and this one woman described it as being protected. That she felt protected by that and I’m thinking man, I would’ve felt restricted by that and not protected.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  But, yeah it was a very- It was a huge radical shift in what we, and this- I think, again, I look back, I guess the College was very open to it, the administration. One thing that we were also… started, tried to do is like, no grades. Classes would have no grades. I don’t think that lasted very long.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  We have grades, I promise.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Yeah. Well, say what you will for the outer world. I think it, you know, if people wanna go on to graduate school, makes a difference. So there was a lot of activism about that, about even majors. I don’t know about whether there- there was some, you could craft independent studies and you could certainly have independent study classes, which I had at least one of those.
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Could you have an Independent major?
Carol Edkins & Alenka Figa::  Probably. I mean I didn’t. I was an English major, so... I think so.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Was that like, I don’t know- Was that a more recent development, or..? How did you want to change majors, I guess- what was the activism that surrounded that?
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Well, the activism was around actually grades and that was, I wanna say, either my freshman year, it was either ’69 or ’70. So, there was some of us who, you know, met- must’ve met with the president. I’ll have to ask some other people if they remember more details and if you speak with anybody else from my era, if people come in, you might ask if they have any memories of this, to get a fuller picture than I’m providing here.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  Yeah, then that’s probably good.
Alenka Figa & Carol Edkins::  All right. Good.
