Michael Sámano is the coordinator of the Ethnic Studies program at LCC and is a former student at LCC. His father is Luis Sámano and his sister is Debra Sámano Hopper. In this oral history he talks about his family, education, and career.
Interviewed on April 24, 2003 by Kristen Wilson.
60 minutes.
[This transcript relates to the version on tape cassette and may differ from the edited MP3 version]
Kristen Wilson Okay...This is Kristen Wilson and I am doing an interview with Michael Sámano at Lane Community College. It’s April 24, 2003. This is the oral history agreement, there’s one for you to keep and then one for you to sign and give back to me for our records. The other one’s for your records.
Michael Sámano Okay.
KW So, if you want to do that after the interview, that’s fine.
(Discussion with technical advisor about setup of recording equipment.)
KW This is Kristen Wilson and I am talking with Michael Sámano at Lane
Community College on April 24, 2003. Michael, before we discuss your
early experiences with Lane Community College, can you tell me just
something about yourself.
MS Well, I was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, March 27, 1964. I guess that’s...
KW Okay...
MS ... the initial…
KW In Eugene. Okay. And, can you tell me something about your childhood or your upbringing. Just anything to kind of describe that a little bit.
MS Well, I was thinking recently about how my, my mother’s mother passed away when she was young, and my father’s father passed away…
(Discussion about being on PAUSE mode with the recorder. At this point, the interview began anew.)
MS And...I am Michael Sámano.
KW This is Kristen Wilson and we are talking on April 24, 2003 at Lane Community College for the Sámano family oral history project. Can you tell me a little bit about your upbringing?
MS I was born at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene, Oregon on March 27, 1964. My mother, who is from, she was born in Portland but raised partially in Monterrey, California after her mother passed away. Family from outside of Eugene brought her up to Eugene and my father, who mostly grew up in Mexico City, arrived in Eugene I think in, around 1961. And they met in Eugene and since I was born in 1964, Eugene still had a citywide housing covenant that stated that minorities weren’t allowed to receive home loans through banks. And so, and also, we were supposed to live only in west Eugene. So I grew up in West Eugene. And how we ended up buying our first house was that my father made house payments directly to the previous owner. And, so, anyway, I just grew up in West Eugene, normal, you know, kind of neighborhood upbringing. Hanging out with neighborhood friends and doing kind of, I think, the things that most kids do.
KW I had no idea about restrictions for—I, I’d never heard of that and I feel just in shock.
MS It’s, I mean it’s...I always love all the good and the bad of history. And I think that it’s really healthy to know all of it. And, you know, I think that it’s great to know and honor the pioneers that settled in this area. At the same time, it’s good to know and honor the indigenous Calapuya who were, who were and are still here. So that’s, you know.
KW Right.
MS So I, I guess the whole point of my earlier story was that I grew up in a pretty diverse background and diverse area relative to the rest of Eugene because those housing restrictions caused all of us to live together. So, when I grew up going to Westmoreland Elementary School and John F. Kennedy Junior High School there was more, maybe, racial and ethnic diversity than other parts of Eugene at that time. And we all just grew up hanging out in the neighborhood and doing what kids do. And so…
KW Now, when you say that minorities were only allowed to live in West Eugene, can you explain that a little more? Who, as far as, who, who determined that, and was it enforced? What did that look like?
MS Well, I think in the, maybe, mid to late 1950s, the shacks, or the tent city or whatever you want to call it, that African Americans lived in, in the Ferry Street area, they were all dislocated/relocated people when the bridge was built. And they were sent to live in the Bertelsen area, which, at that time, was way outside of the, the city limits of Eugene. And they were allowed to live in an area where there wasn’t, I mean, you had to bring in pails of water and things like that. And, so...So, I just describe it as West Eugene. But, so there were two parts to the housing covenant, basically. One is that you couldn’t receive a home loan from a bank. You had to receive a loan from the previous owner. And, two, you were restricted to live in West Eugene. But, also, at that time in Eugene in the early 1960s, downtown, there was a, a Newberry’s store and a Woolworth’s store, both of which had lunch counters. And there were issues around who could and couldn’t eat at the lunch counter. And, who could and couldn’t shop and…not shop in stores, but, for example, the African Americans weren’t allowed to try clothes on in the stores. They just had to hold clothes up to themselves and then buy it off the rack like that. Versus other people, so…
KW Was there a similar issue for Hispanics?
MS Uh--
KW And, is that the term you prefer me to use or not?
MS For, for me, personally, I think it’s easier, or, I think of myself more as just a Mexican American, or a Chicano. But, the person who I know who has been doing the early racial history of Eugene, I think has focused primarily on African Americans, although he has been working with other groups. And, I’ve never... these are mostly stories that would not be told within the family. I’ve asked, since my mother is of European ancestry and my father is Mexican, I’ve asked them some stories about what it was like to be a biracial couple in Eugene in the early 1960s, and they really don’t want to talk about it.
KW Oh.
MS And so, I don’t know, what, if there were specific policies, or…I think a lot of these weren’t formal laws. I think it was more like informal customs.
KW Right.
MS I think.
KW Did you hear about...was there similar discri–discrimination as that that blacks experienced in the, the lunch counters and the department stores that you were describing?
MS Hmm?
KW You said something about who was allowed at the lunch counters like at Newberry’s and Woolworth’s...
MS Yeah, that’s, from what I’ve heard (unintelligible) African Americans, so...I don’t know, I don’t know about...
KW You’re not sure if that included Mexican Americans.
MS Hmm-mm No.
KW What were your early feelings or attitudes and about learning and education?
MS Well, I literally went to a one-room schoolhouse. On the grounds of Westmoreland Elementary School and I think it might still be there. There was a separate, one-room kindergarten. It’s a little, teeny room, a house, kind of shaped like a house, so that’s kind of funny. Well, my earliest memories are just sitting in class, and learning, I remember learning how to write and read and...I mean, it was just…I was there with my friends. And, I think when you’re really young, it’s just kind of a more innocent experience, that you’re, you’re there. You’re... that’s just the expectation that you will be there. And be with everybody and other teachers were...nice. And, you know, so it’s...I don’t think that it was...you know, that, there... I think my memories are just typical childhood memories. Which are some flashes of things that not, might not have been so good, and then everything else is just memories of friends and playing around. Probably more memories of being on the playground than actually in the classroom doing things or learning things.
KW Mmm-hmm.
MS It wasn’t until, I think, probably sixth grade or junior high where I started, well, my parents got a divorce in 1976 when I was in the sixth grade. And so, I...we started moving around a lot. And, for somebody like me, who is shy, it was diffi--So, my memories of school are, start becoming more of alienation and things like that. And...which I think is just really fascinating that I would become a professor, because I’ve had these issues of social situations and thinking that I’m mostly an introvert, so, that’s...
KW Let’s see...I already have a little background on this, but, what decision led you to be a student at LCC?
MS Well, LCC has pretty much...Like, when I was younger, in grade school, I knew, I knew that my uncle worked for the college. But, when you’re younger, you don’t really know how or why. I mean, my, my uncle ended up writing a series of books that he ended up using as teaching tools. And I have these early memories, memories of him writing the books because I had an uncle visiting from Mexico for a year. And my uncle ended up being part of that. Like there was a, there was a slide presentation that went with at least one of the books and my uncle is in one of these old slides. Which is kind of funny. It’s all around cars and fixing cars. Using an interest in cars as a way to get students to be interested in reading, and so...or reading comprehension. And I, in that...also, around that time, this is the early 1970s, my father became a US citizen. And so, at that, early, earlier than that, he had been taking, like, English classes, and, I don’t know. So, maybe, the fact that I grew up in Eugene, and LCC just seemed like a, like a reality. Which is some, something that was there. Something that I knew.
KW Could I ask you a question? What was the name of your uncle that wrote the books?
MS His name is Jerry Berg.
KW J-E-R-R-Y?
MS J-E-R-R-Y B-E-R-G
KW And the uncle who worked on, who ended up on one of the slides?
MS Yeah, who is now back in Mexico. He’s always lived in Mexico, except for the one year that he lived here in Eugene. His name is Agustín,
A-G-U-S-T-I-N. And then, we have the same last name. I think, well, when I, when I graduated from high school, which, I could not wait. ‘Cause, at that point, I just absolutely could not stand school. And just was one hundred percent uninterested in learning.
KW (Laughs.)
MS And, I’d say a month after graduating from high school, probably not even two months out of high school, I had saved some money and I bought myself a little electric typewriter. And, I started writing, just on the kitchen table; I started writing poetry and short stories. And it was just pouring out of me. I could not stop it. And, and what that showed me, then and now, is how much talent I had, or how much desire and drive I had. But the, the school system as it existed for me did not know how to tap into that. And so I signed up for some courses at the downtown center, LCC downtown center. This is in probably fall of ’82, and just started taking just some random classes. And I enjoyed the freedom of, I just, you go to class, and you, you just, as an adult learner, I thought the reality was much different than high school, which I thought was more geared towards looking at adults as children. And, but, at that same time I had signed up for the military. And I was basically taking college courses, biding time until I was sent to basic training. So while I was in, in the military, I...I think that I either came home on vacation, or I mailed...I sent a letter to Lane Community College asking them for information about the school. So somehow I either came home on vacation and came here to the main college, the main campus, or they mailed me materials. And, so I, at that point I was old enough to actually read about the campus and read about the choice of courses. And, and so I think somewhere in there I just really made the decision that Lane Community College was a place I would come and be a student when I got out of the military.
KW So, you made that decision during your time in the military.
MS Yeah, I mean I, I was motivated to join the military to get money to go to college. So I mean that was my, my purest motivation in the mil—to join the military to make money or funds to go to college. But it was never, at that early stage, it wasn’t clearly defined. It was just, money for college. Not, how much money, or, where to go to school or anything like that. And then while I was in the military, somehow LCC was on my mind. So that, when I got out of the military in July of ’83, I immediately came to campus and by September, fall of ’83, I was—or, fall of ’87, this was now was four years later, fall of ’87, I was ready to go. I started taking classes out here, with, actually, my sister Debbie, who had just graduated from Willamette High School in June of ’87. So, she graduated from high school in June of ’87, I came home in July of ’87, and then we, actually, we were students out here together, and took classes together and shared books and the whole thing.
KW Did you graduate from Willamette High School?
MS Yes.
KW I want to go back to a comment you made. Did I hear you right…did you say that you found that in high school adults were treated like children?
MS Mm—hmm. I still feel that way. Well, the vocabulary. I mean, with parental consent, an, a seventeen-year-old can join the military and die for this country. And so the thought that high school students are referred to as kids, they’re not referred to as adults. We will give somebody the, the responsa–the human interaction, responsibility of driving a vehicle when they’re 16. But we’re still looking at them, in the school setting, as a child. And at 17, we’re still looking at them as a, and legally, technically, as a child. And even 18, I mean you could be, theoretically, in September or October, a person could turn 18 and be an 18-year-old adult, and they would still have to their senior year to go in high school. But I just felt like...I feel like much of the K through 12 or P through 12 system is more of a way to keep people occupied, it’s more of like a glorified babysitting service. And maybe it’s my own bias of being a faculty member at a community college. But, people will graduate in June and three months later I will have them in my classroom. And I will completely interact with them as equal adults. I have my expectations, I have my syllabi, and I watch every single one of them rise to the occasion. Some of them quicker than others. But there’s no way that a human being changes that much in three months. No way. So that tells me that there’s this other school teaching/learning reality that interacts with people on one level. And then there’s this other teaching/learning reality that’s on whole different level. And, and I’ve even, I’ve talked to students, and, you know, they’ll make comments, “Oh, well, just, you know, three, four months ago I would have acted this way in class, and I would have got away with this in class, or I would have done this, or, whatever”.-- “Well, what’s different for you?” --“Well, I’m in college. “ You know, these different expectations. And, I definitely, for me, I mean, I saw this in my own development or lack of development. So, whatever… But, I’m not a big fan of education in general, even though I work in education. It’s—But, but I, I really think that’s why I work in education. ‘Cause feel like, I feel like I have the training to make education more accountable, make students more accountable and make teachers more accountable. And I think that I’m interested in, in trying to make the school system better. So…
KW Tell me about your experiences as a student at LCC. And if, if you would like to compare that with your experiences in high school, that would be interesting.
MS Well actually, it seems like my, my memory is rapidly eroding. So I can remember clearly being a student at LCC and I can remember clearly being in the military. And, before that, it’s nothing. It’s all gone. I mean and that just really speaks to me of what has impacted me. Which wasn’t high school.
KW Uh-huh.
MS I can talk about playing high--soccer in high school. I can talk about playing in the marching band in high school. But just the daily sitting in the classroom is gone. I mean, it just, and it shows me, that it really didn’t do much for me. So it’s kind of amazing that you can sit in a classroom for four years, and it just, those memories are gone. But it really didn’t touch me that much. Here at Lane Community College, I was 23. And I was so excited to be in college. Oh, my goodness! I was so grateful to be out of the military. And, just, there were some things that had happened in the military, so I think that, as a freshman at LCC, I was wound up pretty tight as a veteran. But, I just had some great, great professors. I mean people that really fulfilled my expectations and stereotypes of college, where you’d be in a setting where you’d be able to chew on big issues and be forced to think from multiple perspectives. And things that I assumed or generalized or just thought that I knew from common sense were wrong. I just loved that, and I loved being challenged. And..and so, coming back here, years later, as a faculty member and to be colleagues with people who used to be my professors was pretty weird. In a, in a good way. But it, it was weird. Because then we would be interacting in department meetings together or behind closed doors, and I’d think, “Damn! You’re just jerk human beings like everybody else!”
KW (Laughs.)
MS (Laughs.) No, no, no. But, I think as students we have a tendency to kind of look at our—look at fac-- certain faculty members and put them up on a pedestal. And reality’s a little bit different.
KW Well, going back to the time that you, that you were a student here, at Lane, can you tell me what you remember about what the college looked like? What was like, what was it like to try to park here then? What were, what were the buildings like…?
MS I used to... the architecture, I’ve always been really intrigued with the thought that college educated designers, or architects, or whatever they were, created a butt-ass ugly campus.
KW (Laughs.)
MS I mean, it just, that just intrigues me. It’s what I refer to as, like…if you look at architecture from about the mid 50s to the late 60s, now I don’t know where all these people were trained… but, oh my goodness, you know. Just cement...very hard edges. So, I’m…I love this school, and I love the people and the curriculum, but, oh my goodness! The, the architecture leaves much to be desired. So basically the school looked exactly the way it looks now but all of the most beautiful buildings on this campus now have been built in the last four years. I mean this last big bond measure, building is starting to kind of change the shape and face of our school. But, I teach in a classroom right this second that has carpeting…it’s the exact same carpeting from when I was a student here. And it has duct tape on it. And it’s soon to be changed. I think this summer they’re going to change it. But, so it’s not, it’s not difficult for me to imagine what it looked like when I was a student here because it, it hasn’t changed. And it, I don’t know, it’s…so, when I was a student here, I used to come through I-5, I’d get off on the exit which used to be gasoline alley. And there were all these gasoline stations along that road, now there’s only one left. It was the same. It was pretty much the parking...well, now I think it’s actually better because there’s lights that control traffic, where in the past there weren’t lights. And I used to mostly park in what I would refer to more of a …the parking lot that’s next to the soccer field is where I used to park mostly and just hike on into campus. I think, well… I used to play soccer here on campus and at that time there was a PE instructor who…at that point they were just transitioning and this, this, what had been a formal soccer team at Lane Community College was turning more into a club team and so I played on that for a couple years. And I, I guess I’ve noticed over the years, that that part of the campus is showing a little bit more age. There’s not an employee who used to be the soccer coach and so there’s not a strong advocate to keep certain grounds looking the way they used to look. Other than that, the only stuff that’s really new seems to be the signage around campus and then just where things are located. I mean, the Center building used to really be where all the action was.
KW When you think about that time of, that period of your life when you first attended lane, are there, is there, are there any particular songs, or, that come to mind?
MS Well, so, I was here for three years from ’87 to ‘90 and I had been on a ship for four years prior to that. So, I mean, you take an ex-sailor who’s been cooped on a ship for four years with guys. And then you stick me in college with a bunch of nice-looking young women. And, oh my goodness, this place was just a wonderland. It was like, I was in the classroom either being challenged by my professors or I was sitting there trying to get the phone numbers of somebody sitting next to me. And so, I mean, I was young, and relatively, I guess, sexist back then. So, didn’t really have to have much of a conscience. And so, I think that I just my memories are…there were clubs in town, or, you know, places that you could go, go out to meet people. Most of my memories of more so, I think, I attach music more to when I transferred to the University of Oregon. In the early 90s or late 80s and early 90s there was kind of this big northwest shift in music. Where there was more like grunge, kind of a deeper rock sound that influenced the rest of the country. And so I really remember that. And in the late 80s I think there was some, some good dance stuff that was coming out. So there was the kind of like the club dance stuff and then more the…people going around with plaid shirts tied around their waists. Kind of the grunge, the grunge look. Wearing hiking boots and jeans. What I call Eugene chic kinda look. So….you know.
KW Now, what were your studying, what were you studying when you were at Lane?
MS (Laughs.)Well, when I showed up at school I was on veteran’s benefits. And when you’re on veteran’s benefits you don’t have the opportunity to just take classes for the sake of taking classes. They want you to have a major, they want you to stay on track and not mess around. And, I, so, at first I was a computer science major, because I really hated people. I really felt like the military had showed me the worst that human beings have to offer. And so I was a computer science major. While I was in the military I had had some computer science training, and…. And I thought I would just work with machines, and that would be fine. But while you’re a, you are a college student, you are required to take other courses, to have a more well rounded education. And so I was forced to take things like Psychology, and Sociology, and… And so as happens with many people in the social sciences, they usually come from somewhere else. And so I was taking computer science classes and basically hating it. And then I was taking these Sociology, Psychology, History, whatever courses that were really speaking to me. And at the same time I had heard of this weird thing called cooperative education. And, so I thought cooperative education was a major scam. Because you get college credit to be at some work site, and it was a work site that I was already getting paid. So I was able, I was gonna go somewhere and earn a paycheck and college credit at the same time. So I hooked up with Tricia Hahn, who has since passed away, and was doing psychology cooperative education through the veteran’s section of the Eugene employment division, or the Oregon state employment division, Eugene branch. I worked with, in the veteran’s section. And it was part of my veteran’s educational benefits, was that you worked, you had a work experience. And so here I am working with veterans who are looking for jobs. And I used to have to keep a journal and I used to write in my journal. Well, first I used to write in my journal about how much I hated working with human beings and that I just didn’t want to be around people. And then I started finding kind of a sense of righteousness and a sense of goodness to help people. In the meanwhile, I’m taking some psychology and sociology courses. And so it was kind of a combination of cooperative work experience, my own self-reflection of getting out of the military and looking back on the things that I had done or been a part of and not liking that. And also, just the courses. And the next thing I knew, I was dropping computer science and I became a sociology major. And…which is one of the reasons why I ended up spending three years at LCC, because not a whole lot of credits transfer over from computer science to sociology. And so, that’s kind of where I went.
KW Would you like to describe a little bit, how your education continued after, after you left Lane, before you eventually came back as a faculty member?
MS Well, sometimes there were, I mean there were these layers to education. So, for example, in sociology, the, the main professor who actually is retiring this spring, is in a wheelchair. So the first time he rolled into the classroom, all I could see was the wheelchair. I couldn’t see beyond that. And, so I thought to myself, “How does this person have the qualifications to teach me anything in this discipline?” Because I couldn’t see beyond the chair. I mean, so the, the education, it just occurs in multiple layers, I think for all of us, you know. But that’s really where I was at that time. And so I ended up transferring to the University of Oregon. I was…well, I guess it is also important that… there were times at LCC where I, I felt I was way in over my head. Even though I had an uncle who at one had at one point worked here and I cousin who had worked here, in my immediate family I was the person to go to college. And, so I, in a lot of ways wasn’t prepared for that, I wasn’t, didn’t have the self-esteem to think that I belonged in college. I didn’t, I just didn’t think at times that I was able to make it. And one of the things that was hard in computer science, and that it made it easy for me to leave was that I couldn’t grasp math. So, you needed to have college algebra to, to fulfill your requirements. And I took that course three times. And I got an F, an Incomplete and a B. And I, personally, I should have gotten an A. But, I got a B. And when I was not doing well in that class, I ended up on academic probation. And in academic probation they froze my financial aid. And so I started thinking about taking some time off from school to work. I don’t know if; well, what would have happened. And then I heard that the LCC foundation was going to have this contest. And the contest was to make a poster of your heritage. And first place was one term of tuition. Paid. So I put together my poster, and there were parameters around what it should look like. And I entered the contest and I won the contest and I mean, that’s how I ended up staying in school for that term, long enough to get my act together, get off probation, get my financial aid back and keep going in school. So, I mean, it’s, there were these times. Different, different things that happened. Plus, I mean, eventually I found my way, years later, into a vet center and went through a lot of counseling and only to realize that in all those times, all those years that I’d been a student out here I was just suffering from full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder. And…we make adjustments in our lives to kind of get through things. But…transferred to Oregon. Sociology major. Ethnic studies minor. Continued to meet professors who I used as role models. Would occasionally come back to LCC and check in with professors, tell them what I was doing. Applied for graduate school. Ended up going to California for graduate school, and eventually started teaching down in California at a community college. Well, more…I was more of a freeway flier, just picking up part-time work where I could.
KW Could you, could you name the school where you went to grad school?
MS I went to Humboldt State University. And University of California, Davis. Two graduate programs. I actually, well, At Humboldt State University I received a master’s degree in Sociology. And then at UC Davis I was in a doctoral program that I didn’t finish. So on the way out they give you another master’s degree in Sociology. And so then I started teaching at Sacramento City College, mostly, and Sac, Sac, California State University, Sacramento or Sac State.
KW Mm-hmm.
MS And some stuff at UC Davis and American River College.
KW When did you decide…all right, this is somewhat of a personal bias, but when did you know you were a teacher, rather than when did you decide to become a teacher?
MS I know the exact precise second. It was at Sacramento City College, and I can just vividly remember the classroom. It’s, it’s like yesterday. I mean it’s, was walking down the hallway. I was carrying in my hand the piles of the sylla--, the syllabi, or syllabus... the piles of syllabus? That doesn’t sound right.
KW Syllabi is correct.
MS Yeah. (Laughs.)… All the syllabi for the class, for the students. It was the first day of class. It was the first time in my life that I had my own classroom. And I walked in, and I leaned up against the desk that was at the front of the classroom. And right that second, I knew it right that second. It was my calling. It was like a personal, I mean it was like a religious calling kind of thing. That’s how strong it was. That I should be in the classroom. And I should…And, walking in, walking down the hallway I was totally petrified and, because, it was… public speaking, that I was not… at any other time… While I was a student at LCC and playing soccer I also volunteered to be on the editorial board of the literary magazine, Denali. And actually had some poetry that had been published in Denali. Which was the first time I had ever publicly shared my poetry with anybody else. And then when Denali was having an anniversary, dinner, banquet, show, whatever, they decided to invite the, the, the top 25 years of stories and poetry and photography and whatever. And so they invited me to come. I, I was one of two students that they had at this banquet to read some poetry. And, and I was not going to do it, because I didn’t want to speak publish, publicly. And I was scared, but I knew I would resent it. And so then I went, and read some poetry, and people were crying. And so I saw the power of the word, and the power of presence...all of that. It was kind of that old school ‘face your fears’ kind of thing. And so then, anyway, Sacramento City College in the morning, first day, first class. That was it. Haven’t looked back.
KW What year was that?
MS 19– it was August 1996. I had just gotten married. I was in the process of dropping out of school...Got, got a phone call at home. They were doing an emergency hire at Sacramento City College ‘cause somebody has just walked out on a job. And so somebody called somebody and said, “Do you know of anybody who could teach this class?” And then this person gave them my name. So it was all through word of mouth and I didn’t go through a hiring process. It was an emergency hire. And they said basically, “You have the job it you want it. You’ve…and it starts in about two weeks.” And so I really didn’t have time to talk myself out of it and be scared. ‘Cause I had to go get fingerprinted and do all the paperwork to be employed in California. And while I was there teaching that class then I was evaluated and it was actually right in the middle of that class that I, that they actually interviewed me for the job. As far as I was concerned, that was the crack in the door that I needed and it was my job to keep or lose.
KW Had you planned to teach before the phone call that said, “We need somebody, can you do this”?
MS Well, no. I mean I was just a typical graduate student in graduate school, just hiding from reality. Which is the workforce, you know. I mean, you’re in graduate school. And the average amount of time in that particular doctoral program was about seven to eight years. And so I was kind of thinking that I was going to be in graduate school for a while.
KW Did you teach as a graduate student?
MS No. No, I mean, I… no, I’m not even going to call it that. Yeah, I ran sections, I… a couple of times professors were gone and I was their GTF or whatever, so I would take over the class. But, nah, it’s not the same. When you, when you create the syllabus, and you’re it, then...you’re it. Up until then you’re, you’re just kind of playing at being it. And at Humboldt State they were very serious in their philosophy of teaching. And so I have a very funny videotape that will never ever see the light of day that shows me in a classroom, in a mock classroom, pretending to be a professor. All of us in the class, we all did that. And we all evaluated each other in a respectful way. And we all wrote up like mock syllabi. That’s really how I learned to do it. But it was a great hands-on kind of…thing.
KW Was that a teaching methods course or?
MS Mm-hmm.
KW Mm-hmm.
MS Oh yeah, it was very serious. Using very left wing, dangerous teaching philosophies from various theorists. And, yeah, it was great. It was…a lot of fun.
KW Describe the path that led you back to Lane Community College in the 90s.
MS Eventually I ended up...I applied for a job at Lane Community College, to be a sociologist and I didn’t get an interview. Which…kind of got on my nerves. I applied for a job at Lane Community College and Portland Community College. For the exact same position. And Portland Community College flew me up to Portland from California, and put me up in a hotel, and, you know, did all this stuff. Didn’t even get an interview at LCC. And it’s like, “Alright.” And, which I look back now as just kind of funny. Eventually I, so I was offered and I took the job at Portland Community College. Loved it up there. And received a, one, it was in December. December, my wife and I had been visiting family down here in the valley. We got back to Portland and there, the light was flashing on the answering machine. So I hit the button, and there’s this message. And the, the voice on the other side is just saying, “You might want to look at the, the website, LCC’s website,’cause there’s gonna be a job that’s coming open. And heard you were back in Oregon and thought you might be interested.” That was it. Didn’t leave a phone number, didn’t leave a name. Nothing. There was just this voice on the answering machine, saying, “Hey. There might be this job.” So I got on the website, I...looked at the job, didn’t think I was qualified and so I just left it at that. And, didn’t do anything. And then I heard through a grapevine of friends of... I heard of a couple of people that were going to apply for the job. And I thought they were less qualified than I was and that is why I applied for the job. The only reason I applied for the job. And then...I came here to the campus. And, well, so they give me an interview, and I…they said that they didn’t want to give me a tour of the school because they noticed that I had gone to the school and I said, “No, I’m a candidate for a job and I want to be treated like everyone else. And I want my damn tour.” And so they gave me my tour. And it‘s like, “uh-huh, yeah.” And it was a sunny day in spring and I came here and did what I had to do in the interview, and then I was offered the job. And then we came back to Eugene and there we go.
KW Now, you say that the only reason that you applied for the job is that you perceived the other two candidates to be less qualified than you.
MS Yep.
KW That--can you explain that a little more?
MS Well the, the position that I have is Coordinator of Ethnic Studies. So, they wanted somebody to come in and create an academic discipline from nothing. And the other part of the job description is that I have permanent release time to be a resource for anybody on campus who wants to infuse any degree of multiculturalism into their curriculum. Any discipline across campus. I knew that I could teach Ethnic Studies because I had been doing it in, in my job as a sociologist. But I didn’t feel like I could coordinate the entire discipline. So when I heard that a couple of friends of mine here locally were going to apply for the job, I just didn’t…I felt that if in their minds they thought that they were qualified enough to apply for the job, and if I felt like I was more qualified than they were, then, out of my friendship with them or my feeling of competitiveness or whatever, I was gonna apply for the job. But I, at first, I didn’t feel like I would apply for the job because I thought it would be a waste of time. So…
KW You thought you would not be, you thought you didn’t have a chance…
MS Right.
KW To get the position.
MS And, and at that time it was still kind of fresh in my mind the fact that I hadn’t even received a, an interview for a sociology position, but Portland Community College, you know. Hired me. So I was feeling a little slighted or something. Maybe a little bruised in my ego or something like that. And when they brought me up here for the interview, they…a couple of faculty members took me out to dinner that evening. One of the faculty members who took me out to dinner was one of the people who had been hired the year before to teach Sociology. So they didn’t know that I, you know, that I knew, whatever, that I had applied for the job that they had and they’re sitting across the table from me, taking me out to dinner ‘cause I’m a candidate...all that stuff. It was kind of fun.
KW Now you mentioned that you and your sister attended Lane at the same time. Can you tell me more about your experiences here together?
MS Well, not only did we attend at the same time, but, years later, after she had finished at Lane, transferred to the U of O, graduated from the U of O, she came back to LCC and went into the nursing program. So while she was a student in the nursing program out here I was a faculty member out here. So there were times where she’d come to my office and hang out and…I thought that was kind of funny. We were freshmen out here together. She was 18, I was 23. Took a couple classes together. She was 18, and I was 23. She hadn’t left Eugene. I had been traveling all over the world and so, we..We’re brother and sister and we’re tight in that way, but, in other ways, I mean, I was an older, nontraditional returning student and she was just fresh out of high school. And, so, I think that our experiences were different in that way. She also was more extroverted and had been a cheerleader in high school and had run in certain crowds. And, and so I think she was kind of drawn to some of that out here. And I was more introverted and blah, blah, blah. And, but it was a, it was a trip. I mean I look back on that...I, I felt that the four years that I was in the military I’d missed her high school years. And so in that way it was good for us to be out here as students together. And then while I was still a student out here my mother and I took a sociology class together one evening. It was a sociology of family course. And so I thought that was kind of neat. And while I was a student out here my cousin was still a faculty member out here. So I actually used to occasionally go to his office and go to his office hours and sit there and talk to with him. And so, I also, that was just part of the, just the whole package of being a student out here. Having family connected to the school and stuff like that.
KW What is your exact job title now?
MS Coordinator “slash” instructor of Ethnic Studies. Ethnic Studies was founded out here on this campus in 1969, even though they didn’t call it Ethnic Studies at the time. But I’ve seen descriptions of old courses and that’s what it was. And by 1974 it...it just was, you know, one of those…LCC wasn’t ready for type things. So, there were people that colluded to make Ethnic Studies go away. So when I came in 1999, even though I was, say, you know, I was hired to create the discipline from scratch, I want to make sure that the people in the past get the props. You know, that was I was really doing was restarting the discipline. I wasn’t…doing…I wasn’t doing everything. And so, yeah... And, so, now we have this big discipline going on and all these courses that we’re offering and other faculty and we’re the only community college in the state of Oregon that has a full-on comprehensive Ethnic Studies discipline. I’m extremely, extremely proud of that. I’m proud of the people that I work with and the support that we have received at the school to have a good strong discipline, proud of my family’s support of me and proud of the work I do.
KW Well, what is a, what is your typical day like, or is there a typical day?
MS Well, I come into a studio, and I talk to people on the…microphone and…
KW (Laughs).
MS Oh…well, I’m one of those forever early risers. It’s probably one of the only things that I really got out of, liked about the military was that I’m, I’m an early person. Well, I was born at 7:55 in the morning. And I think my mom set the tone for that. So I needed to come out of the womb quickly and kind of look at the day. So I usually get here between 7:30 and 8:00. I have class at 9:00. And I like to have that time for myself to, to just get ready and make sure my lectures are ready to go. I mean really, my schedule that I create... I do everything around in the mornings around office hours and classes. And I teach three courses per term. Everybody else in social science teaches five. So I have some Monday Wednesday Friday courses, Tuesday Thursday courses, then office hours, and then lunch, and then afternoons are just a big mixture. It can be committees that I’m on, curriculum work that I’m doing. Working with the other faculty in Ethnic Studies if they need things, working with faculty college-wide if they want to have, they need some suggestions or guidance or help around curriculum infusion issues. Part of my job description is also to work or be a liaison off-campus, so with different communities of color. I’ve worked with collaborations around curriculum issues. Or, you know, so I mean there’s any number of things that I might end up doing. I might end up speaking at a local high school. You know, “Stay out of trouble, stay in school” kind of talk. Or, something that has to do with my own professional development. Right now I’m in a part-time doctoral program at Oregon State University. And so there are afternoons where I’ll take my work home with me and try to do my own personal homework. And in the evenings…they usually consist of maybe grading papers, watching a video for class. Reading books or resources for class. Or finding time to have a life and just be at home and do my thing. So, that’s kind of the...the typical, well, those are the typical days until summer. And then, the summer, it’s obviously, I mean, there’s no teaching in the summer. So it’s either prepping for the following year or reading things that I want to read. So right now at home I have a stack of the, the books. The fun books for me for summer.
KW What doctoral program are you in?
(At this point took a break in the interview.)
KW Well, we’re back on now, I found out. (Laughs.) Could you tell me what the name of your doctoral program is?
MS Yes, it’s the…it’s in the new School of Education; it’s a doctorate of education, EdD. And the specific focus is Community College Leadership Program. Or, CCLP. And there’s a, actually a couple other people on campus who are right now in the program.
KW Would you... like to name them?
MS Well, I know for sure that Patrick Lanning, who’s one of the managers on campus, he’s two years ahead of me in the program. And then there’s somebody else who I think is maybe still active in the program, but…She’s like from cohort number seven, Patrick is in…or she might be in cohort five. I’m in cohort eleven. Patrick is in nine.
KW Can you...
MS That’s Kay, Lutz, Kay Lutz Ritzheimer? Katy Lutz...? I’d have to look it up in the...
KW What is the...
MS ... directory.
KW ...co, the cohort group?
MS That means like the cohort one is the first year that that doctoral program ever existed. So I’m in the eleventh year that that group has ever...and the focus is on...basically...how to someday become the president of a community college. I mean, the entire focus is on...everything that would possibly deal with leadership issues within a community college. So what I’m, what’s on my mind, or, well, the initial thing that’s on my mind–God, it reminds me of when I was an undergraduate. ‘Cause I, I start thinking of the word “scam.” Like when I was in that cooperative work experience. My primary motivation even though I didn’t say this in my application is that having a doctorate would push me into a different pay structure at Lane Community College. So I could do the exact same job I do right this second but I would get paid more than I get paid now. And I don’t think that I’m so much of a grubbing money capitalist pig. But I am conscious that someday I’ll be old enough to retire and I want to be able to have money. So..but I’m also, I’ll, if I get through this program, I will weigh my options about someday moving into management or administration, either here or someplace else. And so that’s, that’s kind of another… I’m in the process of, like, writing this new chapter, or giving myself some very interesting options for the, for the future. So…maybe in 20 years I’ll be interviewed again as the, the first student employee president of Lane Community College. Who knows.