A College Class…after 40 Years

Going to a college campus for a class was almost a ‘new’ experience since I hadn’t done it for over 40 years.

The campus was newer and bigger than the university I attended in the 1970s. There was more construction and different types of parking that I’d experienced before. I set my nav system for a parking lot close to the building where my class was located; it took me to the parking lot but not on the side that had an entrance! I used the nav system to help me find the building to…and still walked past it because I wasn’t looking for the name of the building in the right place. As I walked in the building, the doors leading to the first floor were taped saying there was construction on that floor…realizing that my class was supposed to be on the third floor; I took the door to the stairs that were off the lobby between the outside doors and the doors to first floor. I stopped at a lady’s room then found the classroom…both similar to 40 years ago.

The class I am taking is a field class about woody plants so there is a short lecture segment at the beginning and then the rest of the session is outside either around the campus or on field trips at various locations around Springfield MO. The professor had posted the charts for the first class and the syllabus for the course on Brightspace earlier in the week; I had looked at the charts and printed the schedule page of the syllabus…brought a notebook for recording notes in the field.

It turned out that the professor had printed copies of the syllabus and worksheets for when we were out in the field (around campus). The amount of paper was reminiscent of my long-ago college days. My earlier idea of using my phone to take pictures and notes in the field was not looking as realistic.

I did try to take some pictures of the woody plants that were part of the first class but the only ‘good enough’ picture were from black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) (1 picture) and buckeye (Aesculus) (2 pictures).

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Juggling the cell phone on a lanyard and taking physical notes is cumbersome. I’m going to try a slightly different approach for the next class which will be a field trip to Springfield Botanical Gardens….maybe taking my bridge camera (better optics so I don’t need to get as close to what I am photographing) and wearing my photovest (with lots of pockets in the front) so the notebook can be taken in and out more easily.

I am not taking the class for credit, but I am still trying to learn the common and scientific names for the woody plants viewed in the course. It might take some study techniques I’ve not used for a very long time. I want to find techniques that do not involve making paper flashcards!

Then and Now – Universities

My parents prompted my goal to go to college; it was still in my future during the 1960s. At first there was only a vague idea of what universities were like. That begin to change when my mother went back to school so she could become a teacher when I was in junior high. I learned about required courses and textbooks and the library. My sisters and I were in the audience when she acted in a play as part of a drama class. I remember paging through a very thick book for a biology/life sciences class – relishing how much more it included beyond the encyclopedias and schoolbooks I had looked at before. When I started an insect collection for special credit before my sophomore year of high school, my mother took me to the campus bookstore and we bought special black straight pins for the project (there must have been a class at the university that required insect collection too). My collection impression my teacher so much that she asked to keep it!

I was also aware of the protests of the Vietnam War at universities in the 1960s via the news and now with protests of the war in Gaza also via the news. I never was on a campus when one of the more significant protests happened at either time of my life.

Now my perception of universities is based more on first-hand experience from the 1970s and early 1980s when my husband got his PhD and I got my masters, vicarious experience (again) from 2007 to 2019 when my daughter was at 3 universities for undergraduate through to PhD and post doc, my daughter being employed as a professor at a university now, and the prospect of a course each semester at the university beginning next fall taking advantage of the free tuition for citizens age 62 or older.

In the 1960s, the prospect of heading off to the university was all about continuation of my education…preparing for a career…getting the required credits toward a degree. Now, I’ll be taking courses because I am interested in the topic and not ‘for credit.’ Courses that offer field experience or labs will be my primary focus…things that I can’t get in an online format or from a book. The first course will likely be a field course identifying woody plants; the second might be geology course which includes field trips and a lab; the next one might be pottery making!

In the 1960s, I was oblivious to the administration of universities. In retrospect, there were a lot less non-faculty staff at universities in the 1960s. And those non-faculty people often get higher salaries than the faculty; they are largely responsible for the cost of university education increasing faster than costs in just about every other sector. And those non-faculty people make decisions about how funding cuts will be made so their ranks will never go down! How does bloat in a university’s administrative staff ever get trimmed?

It seems that universities are changing very slowly compared to the rest of society. There is a paradox of research that is often leading edge coming out of an organization that incorporates processes that are almost like hazing (qualifying exams for graduate students that are traditionally ‘failed’ the first time through…committees of other faculty members that review tenure track packages and provide negative feedback, sometimes not factual and sometimes personal rather than relevant to the position…minorities and women judged harshly).

The role of universities is not as clear now as it seemed to me in the 1960s. I’m not sure if that is true because I know more about them now or if they have not changed in the intervening years in ways that they should have.

Previous Then and Now posts

90 Years

Both of my parents are 90 years old this year. I’ve been thinking about the events of their lives and what has happened in the world during their lifetimes.

Their lives began during the Great Depression. They were both born at home; both families were living in rural Oklahoma and grew most of their own food. They were too young to fully realize the stress around the country…secure with their family and small rural community.

Their school memories are from the 1940s --- the World War II era. Their fathers were too old to go to war so the impact of the war on their families was indirect…primarily the rationing programs. Both went to schools where there was only a small cohort at each grade level. Later in their lives they attended high school reunions occassionally – keeping in touch with that small group that had mostly scattered across the country.

They were in college in the early 1950s – the boom years with the GI Bill funding returning veterans and college being encouraged for those just graduating from high school. My parents were ‘first generation’ to college for their families. They married, left the farm, and had 3 of their 4 children during the decade. My dad’s career stayed related to agriculture initially – at first requiring a lot of traveling and then into management of grain storage.

By the 1960s, they were in Texas living in a small city…children in public schools, living in an air-conditioned house (an important thing in the Texas summer). The big health improvement was the availability of the polio vaccine (we all got the vaccine via sugar cubes at school) and the waning of smallpox around the world even though we were still required to get updated vaccines when we traveled to Mexico.  In the mid-60s my mother returned to college for a degree in education…a career she started in the 1970s. My dad’s parents moved from Oklahoma to the same small city in Texas.

In the early 1970s, they moved to a suburb of a big city. They bought a house that accommodated the whole family, including my dad’s parents. My dad had transitioned completely from an agriculture related career to financial management and planning. My mother was teaching. All 4 of their daughters graduated from high school and went to Texas colleges (the last one just starting at the end of the decade). One daughter got married. My parents’ fathers died during the decade. Somehow everyone managed to stay ahead of inflation and pay mortgages that were high interest compared to today.

The 1980s were a very busy decade with careers of the whole family in high gear. My father was coming adept at digital spreadsheets…my mother was focused on reading for students in upper elementary and middle school. The youngest daughter graduated from college. One daughter (me) moved halfway across the country to the east coast and two others got married. My maternal grandmother died. Toward the end of the decade, the first two grandchildren were born.

In the 1990’s, my parents retired from their careers; they travelled and took care of grandchildren and helped with home maintenance (a total of 5 houses in the family!). Three more grandchildren were born, and the older ones started school.

Similar activities continued in the 2000s changing as the grandchildren got older…the oldest ones starting college.

In the 2010s, travel and engagement with family continued in a similar way for the first part of the decade; by the middle of the decade someone else was doing the driving on road trips and they stopped driving completely by the end of the decade. My paternal grandmother died; she had been living in the same house with my parents since the 1970s. Health challenges began to emerge for both parents…intermittent at first and then slowing them down in the last years of the decade. They both benefited from cataract surgery. Other surgeries and injuries required more recovery time…and sometimes recovery was not complete.

The last road trip was for Thanksgiving in 2019…to be with a grandchild. Not long afterward the COVID-19 pandemic locked down travel and they discovered the comfort of ‘stay at home as much as possible.’ Recently they have transitioned to primary care practice that comes to their home for checkups, blood work and most other health needs. Their children and grandchildren come to them now. If they leave their home, it is a very special event. Four of their five grandchildren have college degrees – one has an MD…another a PhD. There aren’t any great-grandchildren – yet.

So many changes have occurred since they were born. Electricity and indoor plumbing were just beginning to be available on farms when they were born. They bought their first air-conditioned home in the early 1960s. Computers came along in the 1980s.

And now – my sisters and I are thankful they are still with us – still enjoying living independently in their home with support from the family, neighbors, doctors, and house cleaners – getting close to celebrating 70 years of married life.