Ben Doehr::  Okay, so could you say your--
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  Yep, follow the script on number 5?
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  Yep.
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  Alright. Tell me when.
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  Go ahead.
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  'Kay.
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  My name is Ed Zelley. I currently live in Winona, New Jersey, and I am a member of the Grinnell College Class of 1988.
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  So why did you come to Grinnell College?
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  Well, I came to Grinnell College because they offered me more money than any other school, and I knew I wanted to get as far away from my high school and that group of people as possible, and, growing up in New Jersey, 1,300 miles seemed like a good distance. Ben: Yep, definitely.Ed:  I was attracted to Grinnell, first by the books I was reading when I was doing my college search and they had this thing called the Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Program, and I was a Boy Scout, I loved camping and all that, and that appealed to me. I never did a single thing with GORP in four years here, but that was the initial selling point, was that this was what you did on weekends.
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr:: Yep, definitely.
Ed Zelley & Ben Doehr::  I was attracted to Grinnell, first by the books I was reading when I was doing my college search and they had this thing called the Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Program, and I was a Boy Scout, I loved camping and all that, and that appealed to me. I never did a single thing with GORP in four years here, but that was the initial selling point, was that this was what you did on weekends.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So what was your first memory when you got- came on the campus?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Just the sheer, kinda, size of the place. The... meeting all these people from all over the country.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Did you come as a prospective student?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  I did. I came out the summer before my senior year. My mother and I drove out and we did, sort of a little Midwest tour and went to Grinnell and to Knox College and to Earlham.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Hm. Okay.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So what are your best memories of your time at Grinnell College? Ed: Oh, easily, the people that I met and the lifelong friends that I still have. Yeah. I don’t really keep in touch with anybody from high school, but Grinnell College, for sure! Playing rugby, having a heavy metal radio show from midnight to three.Ben:  Mhm.Ed:  I was in- played soccer, sang in the choir, did a lot of things, and I think also, coming back about a year or two after graduating and running into a professor who I’d had two times and he asked me how I was doing, "Ed". He didn’t ask, "Tell me your name again;" he remembered me and that was the kind of specialness about this place for me.Ben:  Which professor was it?Ed:  It was Professor Hass. He was the Religious Studies Chair.Ben:  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley:: Oh, easily, the people that I met and the lifelong friends that I still have. Yeah. I don’t really keep in touch with anybody from high school, but Grinnell College, for sure! Playing rugby, having a heavy metal radio show from midnight to three.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  I was in- played soccer, sang in the choir, did a lot of things, and I think also, coming back about a year or two after graduating and running into a professor who I’d had two times and he asked me how I was doing, "Ed". He didn’t ask, "Tell me your name again;" he remembered me and that was the kind of specialness about this place for me.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Which professor was it?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  It was Professor Hass. He was the Religious Studies Chair.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So what was your major at Grinnell?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  I was a History major.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Any concentrations?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Uh, no. Just kind of general.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So what did your dorm room look like at Grinnell?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Well, the first one was a large room on North Younker second, which is now- they broke it up into a couple of rooms, but it looked like one large living room with three beds and I had a roommate who was from Omaha, Nebraska, and another one from a Seattle suburb. So I think they tried to mix it up so there was a kid from the East Coast, a kid from the Midwest, and a kid from the West Coast; and you could tell whose corner was whose based on what the posters were on the walls.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  And... then from there, I guess every year was a little bit different.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Were you in North Campus or South Campus?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  I was always in North Campus. This is the first time I've ev- I’ve spent more time on South Campus the last two days than I had in four years.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah. I’m a South person myself; never get to North.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So what book influenced you most in college?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  What book?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yes.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  I would have to s- Actually, reading the Bible for the first time outside of church in my Christian Scripture class and my Hebrew Scripture class, because.. I was a churchgoer. I knew the stories, but had never read it that in depth and thought about it in other ways other than 'This is what my faith tells me.' And I thought that was... it certainly led in an interesting direction.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Okay.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So how has Grinnell changed since you were a student? Like, we don’t have Christian-- We might have... Oh, go ahead.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Well, the biggest change is the buildings. That- there are so many new buildings here that when I came through campus two years ago. I was like, “Wow! This is so cool.”
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm. Yeah, we have the Joe Rosenfeld Center.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  The new sci- even though I never did much in science, just impressed by the new science center, the new gym, the new pool.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  All these things that, I’d heard people lamenting the loss of all these buildings and like, “You’re crazy! I want to come here. I want to come back. This is even better.”
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So what was around when you were here that isn't anymore?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Darby Gymnasium.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  A thing called the Physical Education Complex, which was this no- a windowless monolith in the middle of- which is now a parking lot and trees, kind of across from Cowles. I think it was on the other side of the track, or it may not have quite been and obviously, all that East Campus dorm was nothing.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm, yeah. Was it just grass over there?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yup!
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Weird.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So what was your favorite academic experience or class, besides.. that's not- that's not the Bible...?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Probably a class called 'Europe in the Age of Total War'. It was a European History class for basically the early twent- early to mid-twentieth century, and getting to write a pap- an exam question was on... we were given four choices and we had to argue who was guilty of starting World War II.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Hmm. So everthing you learned--
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  You could choose Chamberlain, Hitler--
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yep-- and I went with... I went with the French, ‘cause I said if they hadn’t been so vicious in their reparations against the Germans, Hitler would not have had the atmosphere. He would have been ignored.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Okay, so describe- what’s your favorite place on campus?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Probably the Clark Loggia. Just that Loggia on that part. I had a, my senior year, I had a room on the Loggia--
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Ah.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So I would be able to go and sit out there. Would have been my favorite place as a student, I’d say. If I were here now, probably the- I like that Rosenfield Center. There’s something about that.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah, I heard mixed reviews saying, “It feels great!” to “It looks like a Marriott.” But..
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Well, it does look like a Marriott, but...
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  It's a good Marriott..
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  My breakfast was far superior to anything I ever had here.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah, with the-
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  When you were here there were two dining halls, right?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Right, Cowles and Quad.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So yeah, that’s changed. Did you meet your spouse or partner at Grinnell?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  No, I did not. I had a high school sweetheart that I wasted four years of... with and she dumped me at the end- as soon as I graduated and found my wife at my first job.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Fair enough. Well, it worked out.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So how would you compare the students of today with the students when you were here?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  They seem about the same, just now they’re closer to my kid’s age. But I think the same- they strike me as sort of the same people who probably did a lot for their high school, but never got any real credit for what they did.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  They were never part of the beautiful crowd.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm. Wh--
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  But--
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  What class year were you?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  '88.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So, were you a part of the- was social activism still a big thing when you were here?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm. There was a lot of work around ending Apartheid, was the big thing in the late 80s.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Hm, okay.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  And at that point, just started having much more active gay and lesbian- Grinnell College gay and lesbian community.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah, that’s definitely a big thing.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So in- now, obviously with so many- with people being out being certainly acceptable in most places, it was- certainly wasn’t as prominent in the 80s. So for a lot of us, this is our first experience of actually meeting somebody who was gay or lesbian, and sayin', “Oh, well, they're no different from me except they are attracted to somebody else.”
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah, so, if you were writing a history of Grinnell College, what would you include from your years here?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  I would say, probably the transitioning of, probably an older guard of professors. You started to see the professors who were here were no longer even alive. I think the town seems to have changed, and obviously the campus for- a lot--
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Yeah.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  But the… I think the 80s still seemed to have, that sort of last remnant of, “We’re a hippie college.”
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  And I'm not sayi- I haven’t seen any students here who are trying to be that, but still in the 80s, there were enough people born in the 60s, who wanted to relive something they were four years old with.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm, gotcha’.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So, was there anything I missed that you would like to touch on, any particular stories you remember?
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Nah, I think for the most part, I was just so happy with my four years here. I consider them the best years of my life. I figure that it probably saved me; coming to Iowa slowed me down, calmed me down.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Certainly opened my mind, and... really, to see a much bigger world than the New Jersey suburbs.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  And making those, sort of, lifelong friends who, even if you don’t see each other constantly, it's- when you do- are able to get together, it’s as if nothing had changed.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Mhm.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  So, as- what advice, parting advice, would you give to me? I'm entering my third year at Grinnell College. Just based on your experiences.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Enjoy your senior year. Don’t worry so much about what’s the next- what the next chapter of your life looks like, because you think it’s going to be one thing- I left here wanting to be a, eventually, a Director of Admissions, I am now an Episcopal Priest, and you would not have told me that in 1988, so..
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Okay.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  The spirit of openness and wanting to think things through- keep using what you've learned.
Ben Doehr & Ed Zelley::  Okay, will do!
