Assistant Director
Pacific Alumni Association
(Last video is just sound)
:00
i welcome you thank you for taking part
0:02
it’s been a pleasure ask you to just
0:04
introduce yourself sure so my name is
0:06
marsha pratt i am from the class of 1993
0:09
and i’ve been working at pacific since
0:11
2011
0:12
and my role is the assistant director of
0:15
alumni relations also known as pacific
0:17
alumni association and i oversee all of
0:20
our alumni clubs around the country so
0:22
that’s my main role oh wow what did you
0:24
major in i majored in english and at
0:26
that time you were able to take a black
0:28
studies minor so i also minored in black
0:30
studies at that time oh that’s so cool
0:32
so you know
0:34
what made you attend uop ah
0:38
so as with many people that you’ve
0:40
probably interviewed who look like us
0:44
uop was not my first choice necessarily
0:47
i
0:48
thought it was way too expensive i
0:49
didn’t think my family could afford it
0:51
and so i actually applied to howard
0:53
university and a couple of other schools
0:56
back east
0:57
thinking that i had a better chance of
0:59
getting in i also applied to some cal
1:00
state schools and so forth
1:02
and i got in and i was really excited i
1:05
got into uop i was stunned i was super
1:08
excited that i even got in i was like
1:10
yes i made it and i thought ooh how will
1:12
i pay for it
1:13
so i told my mom you know uop is really
1:16
too expensive i think i’m going to go to
1:19
a different school where i can get more
1:21
financial aid or i’ll go to a junior
1:23
college first and then transfer she said
1:25
absolutely not uop is a great school and
1:27
we will find a way
1:29
so that’s how i ended up here so i
1:31
definitely
1:32
tried to talk my mom out of making the
1:35
financial investment i felt a lot of
1:36
pressure by her doing that but she said
1:38
you know
1:39
you got into the best and you need to go
1:41
to the best so that’s how i ended up
1:43
here wow i i find that really
1:44
interesting that your mom said it’s a
1:46
great school do you know how she knew
1:48
about uop yourself
1:50
i don’t know how she knew but i think
1:52
that she was impressed that it was a
1:55
private school i had never attended a
1:57
private school i’ve been to public
1:58
schools my whole life
2:00
and i think the class ratio at that time
2:02
was one professor to 13 students
2:05
and she knew that i was the type of
2:08
student that if i built a relationship
2:10
with a professor or a teacher i would do
2:12
a lot better in the course than just
2:13
being one of say 2 300 students so i
2:16
think that’s what attracted her to the
2:17
school was the fact that it was a
2:18
private school and it was compared to
2:20
stanford and yale and all of those and
2:22
so i think there was a bit of pride
2:24
there that i had gotten in
2:26
i think that she
2:28
felt like it was an opportunity that may
2:30
not come around again because i i don’t
2:32
know any of my family members before or
2:34
since that have come to pacific so
2:37
oh wow yeah so i’m the one and only
2:41
cool that’s so cool unique yes so to
2:44
tell me how you
2:46
felt when you first came onto the campus
2:50
i mean how many people that looked like
2:52
you were on the campus at that time
2:55
okay
2:57
when i got here for freshman orientation
3:01
i
3:01
had gone to primarily white schools all
3:03
my life so i figured i wouldn’t see very
3:05
many people like me
3:07
but i thought i’d see some
3:09
and
3:10
i didn’t see any at orientation or any
3:13
of the orientation leaders or any of the
3:15
teachers none of them were black
3:18
and it took me about three weeks before
3:20
i found another black person and when i
3:22
did i don’t remember who the girl was
3:24
but we actually literally embraced even
3:27
though we didn’t know each other because
3:29
it was just like finding my village like
3:31
finally someone that looks like me that
3:33
understands what this journey is like
3:35
and so
3:36
when i first got here it was very
3:38
strange
3:39
i had
3:40
not been in an environment where there
3:43
were mostly very wealthy affluent people
3:46
at that time pacific is very different
3:48
now where they say
3:49
a good chunk of our students are on
3:51
financial aid but during my time it
3:54
didn’t feel like anybody was on
3:55
financial aid except for me
3:57
and my roommate so i lived in grace
3:59
covell my freshman year
4:01
and
4:03
it was wild
4:05
and it was
4:08
it was very hard to adjust to
4:12
being with students who had only known
4:16
black people in a place of servitude
4:19
so i had many
4:21
people in my residence hall tell me
4:23
privately and some publicly that i was
4:26
their only black friend or that the only
4:29
black people they knew was their nanny
4:31
or their butler or their maid
4:34
and so
4:35
that was
4:36
very difficult
4:38
to
4:39
to understand how people can live such a
4:41
sheltered life in that way and only see
4:44
us as a people as people who serve
4:46
rather than people who
4:49
have the ability to do other things
4:52
and
4:53
i found myself having conversations with
4:56
people
4:57
that i’ve been having all my life you
4:59
know how do you wash your hair
5:01
and
5:04
do you
5:05
suntan in the summer and
5:08
why is your name so hard to pronounce
5:10
and just different ignorant things like
5:12
that so that was very challenging
5:15
when i would go to class
5:18
it felt very isolating every class i was
5:21
in i was the only black person
5:23
except for my black studies courses
5:25
and i didn’t declare a minor in black
5:27
studies for a couple of years so that
5:29
first year my freshman year every single
5:30
class i was the only one
5:33
when i go into the cafeteria we had
5:35
different places on campus to eat so
5:38
right now everyone goes to the derosa
5:39
center but in my time there was a
5:42
cafeteria at the first floor of grace
5:44
cavall and then there were two other
5:46
ones in the quad area
5:49
and i discovered
5:50
through the first semester of my
5:51
freshman year that that’s where all the
5:53
black people were were living in the
5:55
quads
5:56
i was the only black person living in
5:58
grace
5:59
and so that’s why i couldn’t find
6:01
anybody or see anyone
6:03
because they were all over there and i
6:05
discovered that actually walking to a
6:07
football game i saw some other black
6:08
people and i was like oh where do you
6:10
live on campus and whatever and they
6:11
were telling me the names of their
6:13
residence halls and i was like where are
6:14
those and i realized oh they’re all in
6:16
one section together so they had built a
6:19
sense of community and and everything
6:21
and i didn’t have that so my first
6:24
semester here was really lonely and
6:26
difficult
6:27
two weeks into it i cried and called my
6:30
mom one night just crying
6:32
and telling her i don’t belong here and
6:34
i
6:36
experienced a lot of racial incidents
6:38
outside the classroom and things like
6:39
that and i said you know i just i just
6:41
can’t do this mom like this is too hard
6:43
i just want to go to delta i don’t i
6:45
don’t want to deal with this anymore i i
6:46
just want to go to junior college and
6:48
maybe start there and then transfer
6:50
somewhere else
6:52
and she said i’ll see you at graduation
6:54
and hung up the phone
6:57
and i just took that to me that i had to
6:59
find my path and find my way and so it
7:02
took a while to find
7:04
a group of black students that i felt
7:06
understood me and
7:08
could see me and that we had a similar
7:12
background and i could have
7:13
conversations with them and not have to
7:15
explain things that shouldn’t have to be
7:17
explained i don’t have to worry about
7:18
them trying to touch my hair without
7:20
permission
7:21
or calling me the n-word or
7:26
making fun of me because i’m on
7:27
financial aid or
7:29
trying to assert that the only reason i
7:31
got into pacific was because of
7:32
affirmative action and not because i had
7:34
the academic
7:36
uh rigor of classes to get here so it it
7:39
felt very validating to finally be seen
7:41
but it took many many weeks wow i could
7:44
i can imagine
7:46
tell me then with all those experiences
7:50
what was the faculty like were you able
7:52
to speak to anybody and
7:54
find some redress in these areas
7:56
you know the school that i went to for
7:59
high school had a lot of college prep
8:01
courses
8:03
they didn’t prepare me for pacific
8:04
pacific is is its own special
8:07
kind of tough when it comes to classes
8:10
the
8:11
coursework itself is rigorous the
8:13
faculty have
8:15
very high expectations and so
8:18
i thought i was ready until i got my
8:21
first couple of homework assignments and
8:23
it was more reading than i had ever done
8:26
in my life
8:27
and
8:28
it was not only the volume of reading
8:31
but the words in the books or words a
8:33
lot of words i had never heard of
8:36
that i had to have a dictionary next to
8:38
me as i was reading and
8:40
it just made me feel really dumb even
8:43
though i knew in the back of my mind
8:44
that i was smart and that i belonged
8:46
here
8:47
there were certain things that i think
8:48
my classmates who were white and mostly
8:52
had gone to all private schools had been
8:54
exposed to some things that in the
8:56
public system i didn’t have the
8:57
opportunity to be exposed to and so i
9:00
was definitely working twice as hard
9:03
as others in a lot of ways
9:06
the faculty for the most part i think
9:08
were pretty kind to me overall there
9:11
were only
9:12
maybe one or two in the four years that
9:14
i was here that treated me in a way that
9:16
was unkind
9:18
uh the ones that treated me kindly i
9:20
would say went over and above for me my
9:23
freshman year
9:25
i
9:26
was
9:27
a student of a wonderful teacher who was
9:30
still to this day the hardest teacher
9:31
i’ve ever had named arlen hansen
9:34
they have a scholarship named after him
9:35
now
9:36
and we were his it turned out we were
9:39
his last class that he taught before he
9:41
passed away
9:42
and he had some type of cancer or
9:44
something that none of us knew at the
9:46
time
9:47
a very tall thin man very stern and
9:50
he taught a class called american
9:53
authors i believe is what it was called
9:55
and the first day of the class he said
9:58
half of you are going to drop before the
9:59
week is over
10:00
and so don’t waste my time and just drop
10:02
now if you’re not willing to put in the
10:04
work
10:05
so there were i’d say about 70 ups in
10:07
the class and by the end of the week
10:09
there were 30 of us left
10:11
and then the following week he said okay
10:12
now those of you that are left and and
10:15
want to persevere through this let’s get
10:16
to work
10:17
and so he started
10:19
giving us our assignments and so forth
10:21
and
10:22
i got really sick like i said i was very
10:24
stressed out my first semester and um
10:27
really struggling emotionally and
10:28
otherwise to fit in and try to find my
10:30
way
10:31
and i ended up having the flu for a week
10:34
or so and i lived on the second or third
10:36
floor of grace cabell at that time which
10:39
didn’t have an elevator
10:40
and so at that time of course we didn’t
10:43
have internet i couldn’t email my
10:45
professor and say i’m not going to be
10:46
there i just didn’t show up
10:48
i couldn’t
10:49
afford a cell phone at that time to
10:51
renew okay so
10:53
it’s kind of funny talking about this
10:54
stuff but anyway
10:56
um
10:57
he climbed two or three flights of
10:59
stairs to bring me my homework because
11:01
he noticed i was missing from class
11:04
and that was a real breakthrough moment
11:06
for me because i felt
11:07
not only does this teacher care about me
11:10
but this is a white teacher
11:12
that cares about me to the point where
11:14
he noticed i was missing
11:17
and saw me
11:18
and so
11:20
i was so touched by that and
11:22
although i was still getting fairly poor
11:24
grades in there i was used to getting
11:25
a’s and b
i welcome you thank you for taking part
0:02
it’s been a pleasure ask you to just
0:04
introduce yourself sure so my name is
0:06
marsha pratt i am from the class of 1993
0:09
and i’ve been working at pacific since
0:11
2011
0:12
and my role is the assistant director of
0:15
alumni relations also known as pacific
0:17
alumni association and i oversee all of
0:20
our alumni clubs around the country so
0:22
that’s my main role oh wow what did you
0:24
major in i majored in english and at
0:26
that time you were able to take a black
0:28
studies minor so i also minored in black
0:30
studies at that time oh that’s so cool
0:32
so you know
0:34
what made you attend uop ah
0:38
so as with many people that you’ve
0:40
probably interviewed who look like us
0:44
uop was not my first choice necessarily
0:47
i
0:48
thought it was way too expensive i
0:49
didn’t think my family could afford it
0:51
and so i actually applied to howard
0:53
university and a couple of other schools
0:56
back east
0:57
thinking that i had a better chance of
0:59
getting in i also applied to some cal
1:00
state schools and so forth
1:02
and i got in and i was really excited i
1:05
got into uop i was stunned i was super
1:08
excited that i even got in i was like
1:10
yes i made it and i thought ooh how will
1:12
i pay for it
1:13
so i told my mom you know uop is really
1:16
too expensive i think i’m going to go to
1:19
a different school where i can get more
1:21
financial aid or i’ll go to a junior
1:23
college first and then transfer she said
1:25
absolutely not uop is a great school and
1:27
we will find a way
1:29
so that’s how i ended up here so i
1:31
definitely
1:32
tried to talk my mom out of making the
1:35
financial investment i felt a lot of
1:36
pressure by her doing that but she said
1:38
you know
1:39
you got into the best and you need to go
1:41
to the best so that’s how i ended up
1:43
here wow i i find that really
1:44
interesting that your mom said it’s a
1:46
great school do you know how she knew
1:48
about uop yourself
1:50
i don’t know how she knew but i think
1:52
that she was impressed that it was a
1:55
private school i had never attended a
1:57
private school i’ve been to public
1:58
schools my whole life
2:00
and i think the class ratio at that time
2:02
was one professor to 13 students
2:05
and she knew that i was the type of
2:08
student that if i built a relationship
2:10
with a professor or a teacher i would do
2:12
a lot better in the course than just
2:13
being one of say 2 300 students so i
2:16
think that’s what attracted her to the
2:17
school was the fact that it was a
2:18
private school and it was compared to
2:20
stanford and yale and all of those and
2:22
so i think there was a bit of pride
2:24
there that i had gotten in
2:26
i think that she
2:28
felt like it was an opportunity that may
2:30
not come around again because i i don’t
2:32
know any of my family members before or
2:34
since that have come to pacific so
2:37
oh wow yeah so i’m the one and only
2:41
cool that’s so cool unique yes so to
2:44
tell me how you
2:46
felt when you first came onto the campus
2:50
i mean how many people that looked like
2:52
you were on the campus at that time
2:55
okay
2:57
when i got here for freshman orientation
3:01
i
3:01
had gone to primarily white schools all
3:03
my life so i figured i wouldn’t see very
3:05
many people like me
3:07
but i thought i’d see some
3:09
and
3:10
i didn’t see any at orientation or any
3:13
of the orientation leaders or any of the
3:15
teachers none of them were black
3:18
and it took me about three weeks before
3:20
i found another black person and when i
3:22
did i don’t remember who the girl was
3:24
but we actually literally embraced even
3:27
though we didn’t know each other because
3:29
it was just like finding my village like
3:31
finally someone that looks like me that
3:33
understands what this journey is like
3:35
and so
3:36
when i first got here it was very
3:38
strange
3:39
i had
3:40
not been in an environment where there
3:43
were mostly very wealthy affluent people
3:46
at that time pacific is very different
3:48
now where they say
3:49
a good chunk of our students are on
3:51
financial aid but during my time it
3:54
didn’t feel like anybody was on
3:55
financial aid except for me
3:57
and my roommate so i lived in grace
3:59
covell my freshman year
4:01
and
4:03
it was wild
4:05
and it was
4:08
it was very hard to adjust to
4:12
being with students who had only known
4:16
black people in a place of servitude
4:19
so i had many
4:21
people in my residence hall tell me
4:23
privately and some publicly that i was
4:26
their only black friend or that the only
4:29
black people they knew was their nanny
4:31
or their butler or their maid
4:34
and so
4:35
that was
4:36
very difficult
4:38
to
4:39
to understand how people can live such a
4:41
sheltered life in that way and only see
4:44
us as a people as people who serve
4:46
rather than people who
4:49
have the ability to do other things
4:52
and
4:53
i found myself having conversations with
4:56
people
4:57
that i’ve been having all my life you
4:59
know how do you wash your hair
5:01
and
5:04
do you
5:05
suntan in the summer and
5:08
why is your name so hard to pronounce
5:10
and just different ignorant things like
5:12
that so that was very challenging
5:15
when i would go to class
5:18
it felt very isolating every class i was
5:21
in i was the only black person
5:23
except for my black studies courses
5:25
and i didn’t declare a minor in black
5:27
studies for a couple of years so that
5:29
first year my freshman year every single
5:30
class i was the only one
5:33
when i go into the cafeteria we had
5:35
different places on campus to eat so
5:38
right now everyone goes to the derosa
5:39
center but in my time there was a
5:42
cafeteria at the first floor of grace
5:44
cavall and then there were two other
5:46
ones in the quad area
5:49
and i discovered
5:50
through the first semester of my
5:51
freshman year that that’s where all the
5:53
black people were were living in the
5:55
quads
5:56
i was the only black person living in
5:58
grace
5:59
and so that’s why i couldn’t find
6:01
anybody or see anyone
6:03
because they were all over there and i
6:05
discovered that actually walking to a
6:07
football game i saw some other black
6:08
people and i was like oh where do you
6:10
live on campus and whatever and they
6:11
were telling me the names of their
6:13
residence halls and i was like where are
6:14
those and i realized oh they’re all in
6:16
one section together so they had built a
6:19
sense of community and and everything
6:21
and i didn’t have that so my first
6:24
semester here was really lonely and
6:26
difficult
6:27
two weeks into it i cried and called my
6:30
mom one night just crying
6:32
and telling her i don’t belong here and
6:34
i
6:36
experienced a lot of racial incidents
6:38
outside the classroom and things like
6:39
that and i said you know i just i just
6:41
can’t do this mom like this is too hard
6:43
i just want to go to delta i don’t i
6:45
don’t want to deal with this anymore i i
6:46
just want to go to junior college and
6:48
maybe start there and then transfer
6:50
somewhere else
6:52
and she said i’ll see you at graduation
6:54
and hung up the phone
6:57
and i just took that to me that i had to
6:59
find my path and find my way and so it
7:02
took a while to find
7:04
a group of black students that i felt
7:06
understood me and
7:08
could see me and that we had a similar
7:12
background and i could have
7:13
conversations with them and not have to
7:15
explain things that shouldn’t have to be
7:17
explained i don’t have to worry about
7:18
them trying to touch my hair without
7:20
permission
7:21
or calling me the n-word or
7:26
making fun of me because i’m on
7:27
financial aid or
7:29
trying to assert that the only reason i
7:31
got into pacific was because of
7:32
affirmative action and not because i had
7:34
the academic
7:36
uh rigor of classes to get here so it it
7:39
felt very validating to finally be seen
7:41
but it took many many weeks wow i could
7:44
i can imagine
7:46
tell me then with all those experiences
7:50
what was the faculty like were you able
7:52
to speak to anybody and
7:54
find some redress in these areas
7:56
you know the school that i went to for
7:59
high school had a lot of college prep
8:01
courses
8:03
they didn’t prepare me for pacific
8:04
pacific is is its own special
8:07
kind of tough when it comes to classes
8:10
the
8:11
coursework itself is rigorous the
8:13
faculty have
8:15
very high expectations and so
8:18
i thought i was ready until i got my
8:21
first couple of homework assignments and
8:23
it was more reading than i had ever done
8:26
in my life
8:27
and
8:28
it was not only the volume of reading
8:31
but the words in the books or words a
8:33
lot of words i had never heard of
8:36
that i had to have a dictionary next to
8:38
me as i was reading and
8:40
it just made me feel really dumb even
8:43
though i knew in the back of my mind
8:44
that i was smart and that i belonged
8:46
here
8:47
there were certain things that i think
8:48
my classmates who were white and mostly
8:52
had gone to all private schools had been
8:54
exposed to some things that in the
8:56
public system i didn’t have the
8:57
opportunity to be exposed to and so i
9:00
was definitely working twice as hard
9:03
as others in a lot of ways
9:06
the faculty for the most part i think
9:08
were pretty kind to me overall there
9:11
were only
9:12
maybe one or two in the four years that
9:14
i was here that treated me in a way that
9:16
was unkind
9:18
uh the ones that treated me kindly i
9:20
would say went over and above for me my
9:23
freshman year
9:25
i
9:26
was
9:27
a student of a wonderful teacher who was
9:30
still to this day the hardest teacher
9:31
i’ve ever had named arlen hansen
9:34
they have a scholarship named after him
9:35
now
9:36
and we were his it turned out we were
9:39
his last class that he taught before he
9:41
passed away
9:42
and he had some type of cancer or
9:44
something that none of us knew at the
9:46
time
9:47
a very tall thin man very stern and
9:50
he taught a class called american
9:53
authors i believe is what it was called
9:55
and the first day of the class he said
9:58
half of you are going to drop before the
9:59
week is over
10:00
and so don’t waste my time and just drop
10:02
now if you’re not willing to put in the
10:04
work
10:05
so there were i’d say about 70 ups in
10:07
the class and by the end of the week
10:09
there were 30 of us left
10:11
and then the following week he said okay
10:12
now those of you that are left and and
10:15
want to persevere through this let’s get
10:16
to work
10:17
and so he started
10:19
giving us our assignments and so forth
10:21
and
10:22
i got really sick like i said i was very
10:24
stressed out my first semester and um
10:27
really struggling emotionally and
10:28
otherwise to fit in and try to find my
10:30
way
10:31
and i ended up having the flu for a week
10:34
or so and i lived on the second or third
10:36
floor of grace cabell at that time which
10:39
didn’t have an elevator
10:40
and so at that time of course we didn’t
10:43
have internet i couldn’t email my
10:45
professor and say i’m not going to be
10:46
there i just didn’t show up
10:48
i couldn’t
10:49
afford a cell phone at that time to
10:51
renew okay so
10:53
it’s kind of funny talking about this
10:54
stuff but anyway
10:56
um
10:57
he climbed two or three flights of
10:59
stairs to bring me my homework because
11:01
he noticed i was missing from class
11:04
and that was a real breakthrough moment
11:06
for me because i felt
11:07
not only does this teacher care about me
11:10
but this is a white teacher
11:12
that cares about me to the point where
11:14
he noticed i was missing
11:17
and saw me
11:18
and so
11:20
i was so touched by that and
11:22
although i was still getting fairly poor
11:24
grades in there i was used to getting
11:25
a’s and b
Video 2
0:08
four
0:08
i thought office hours was
0:11
really just to go if you were going to
0:13
add or drop a class i didn’t really
0:15
realize office hours was a time for
0:18
faculty that they set aside to help you
0:21
no one really explained that at
0:22
orientation i think there was a lot of
0:24
assumptions about what i knew again
0:25
because
0:26
most of the students were private school
0:28
folks that had already had college
0:30
credit behind them and other things and
0:32
i just was at a deficit of knowledge as
0:34
far as i was concerned so i didn’t go to
0:35
office hours ever
0:37
until it was a couple of days before you
0:39
could
0:40
have the deadline to drop your class
0:42
and so i went to his class or i went to
0:45
his office hours and i said you know dr
0:46
hansen i
0:47
respect you so much and i feel like i’m
0:50
learning a lot but
0:51
it’s not translating into my writing and
0:53
i thought i had a gift for this
0:56
but i realize now that i don’t and i
0:59
just think it’s best for me not to waste
1:00
your time
1:01
and
1:02
drop this class so could you sign this
1:04
piece of paper because back then you had
1:05
to get a piece of paper signed
1:07
to drop a class and he said absolutely
1:09
not wow
1:11
and i started crying
1:13
and i just said well i don’t understand
1:15
you know what else do i need to do do i
1:17
have the wrong paper or whatever i
1:19
i really don’t feel like i’m going to be
1:21
able to pass and my mother will kill me
1:23
if i don’t if i fail this class like i i
1:26
really need to find a class where i can
1:29
i can do better
1:30
and he said
1:32
do you know what charcoal is
1:35
and at this point because i had been
1:37
through so many what i didn’t know then
1:38
but i know now are microaggressions by
1:41
different people i thought
1:43
is he literally comparing me to
1:45
charcoal like where is this going
1:49
and i said no not really and he said
1:51
charcoal is actually a diamond in the
1:53
rough
1:54
and when you give it enough pressure
1:56
it becomes something precious
1:59
and i feel like if you stay in my class
2:02
and we meet on a regular basis
2:05
you can make that transformation because
2:06
you have a gift and you need to nurture
2:09
that gift and quit giving up so easy so
2:11
no i’m not letting you drop this
2:13
wow
2:16
and i just was stunned i didn’t know
2:18
what to say or do because again
2:21
this is the first teacher ever
2:23
especially a white teacher
2:25
that believed in me so not only did he
2:27
see me but he believed in me and then
2:30
spoke into existence what he felt was my
2:33
gift which in my heart i thought was
2:35
probably a gift but he confirmed it for
2:38
me
2:39
so i said all right
2:41
um so i threw my drop paper in the trash
2:44
and i ended up getting an a in the class
2:46
when it was all said and done but it was
2:48
a lot of work and i met with him every
2:50
week
2:52
and for him to give me that time that
2:53
gift of time every single week i didn’t
2:56
know that most students don’t go to
2:58
office hours i thought everybody did so
3:00
for me i thought i was behind the eight
3:02
ball but actually i found out that i was
3:04
one of very few students that took
3:05
advantage of office hours and met with
3:07
him and so after that any class i had to
3:09
struggle with i always went to office
3:10
hours and i tell students that now first
3:13
thing you want to do i don’t care how
3:14
well or how poorly you’re doing in a
3:16
class build a relationship with your
3:17
faculty
3:18
and go to office hours because they
3:20
carve out those hours for you
3:22
give them the gift of your time
3:24
because that’s really what’s going to
3:25
help you get through they want to see
3:27
you succeed they don’t want to see
3:29
you fail they want to see you succeed
3:30
but they’re going to push you and push
3:32
you
3:33
to levels that you’ve never been and you
3:35
think you can’t
3:37
but then you discover that you can and
3:39
once you discover that then that propels
3:41
you for the next class and the next
3:42
class but it is
3:44
you have to build a village of some sort
3:46
to get through so faculty overall i
3:48
think were very very kind to me
3:50
the one faculty that was not kind to me
3:54
um
3:56
there was a situation where i was up for
3:57
a very prestigious scholarship that came
4:00
with a renewable internship
4:02
and my mother was very ill at the time
4:05
and
4:06
when i interviewed for the scholarship i
4:08
was one of three finalists and had i
4:10
gotten the scholarship it would have
4:12
been a big deal in the newspaper and all
4:14
of this
4:15
and i asked in the interview i was very
4:16
transparent i said you know my mother is
4:18
very ill and this scholarship may place
4:21
me in another state
4:24
on the east coast and if something would
4:26
have happened to her and i needed to
4:27
come home
4:28
would i be allowed sometime
4:31
to do that you know because my mother
4:32
was was very very ill might have even
4:35
died you know she was just very ill
4:37
and the interviewer said sure if your
4:39
mother dies on a friday
4:41
we’ll let you fly out that afternoon and
4:43
you can have the funeral over the
4:44
weekend and then you can come back on
4:46
monday to work
4:49
and when i heard that i
4:51
in the back of my head i mean i think
4:52
the person for the interview and i left
4:54
but after i left i said oh no i have to
4:55
drop out of this
4:57
because i don’t know if my mother’s
4:59
going to live or die and i certainly
5:00
don’t know what day of the week it’s
5:01
going to be
5:02
and if my my my mom dies on a wednesday
5:05
then i can’t come home
5:08
and that i have to hurry up and put a
5:09
funeral together within two days to be
5:11
back at work on monday
5:13
just that lack of empathy and
5:16
acknowledgement
5:17
of what i was going through let me know
5:19
that i didn’t want to be a part of a
5:21
company that had that kind of mindset
5:23
and so i withdrew from the scholarship
5:26
competition and
5:31
a person
5:32
an administrative person at that time
5:34
pulled me into his office
5:36
for a meeting
5:37
and proceeded to berate me like a child
5:40
for withdrawing from this scholarship
5:43
and that i was bringing shame to the
5:45
university and that i should be ashamed
5:47
of myself that i would put my family
5:48
over
5:49
an academic
5:50
dream job like this and this opportunity
5:53
and that i’ll never get another
5:54
opportunity like this again
5:57
and
5:58
made me feel very small and very othered
6:01
and
6:02
i became
6:03
very upset and i said you know maybe the
6:06
best thing for me to do is to drop out
6:08
of this particular school and get into
6:11
another
6:11
school on campus so i transferred from
6:15
the school of business where i started
6:18
to the college of pacific and that’s how
6:20
i ended up being an english major so
6:21
originally i was a business major
6:23
but the experience that i had there with
6:25
that particular administrator
6:28
also
6:29
influenced me and i thought you know i
6:31
even though i enjoy
6:33
what i’m learning
6:35
if this is how the administration feels
6:38
that i am just a poster child for
6:41
their department and that
6:43
they care more about me bringing
6:45
prestige to the university than they do
6:47
about my mother and me
6:49
then this is not a good fit for me
6:52
and so i transferred and i needed this
6:54
particular administrator’s signature in
6:56
order to transfer
6:58
so i had to go back to him after that
7:00
humiliation i had to go back to him for
7:02
his signature and he said you know i
7:03
really shouldn’t sign this because
7:05
you’re not going to thrive over there
7:06
you weren’t a good student here and
7:08
you’re not going to be a good student
7:09
there either
7:10
and i said well i really would
7:12
appreciate it if you would sign this for
7:13
me because i need to make a transition
7:16
and he said fine and he just scribbled
7:18
his name and
7:19
and gave it to me so
7:21
yeah
7:22
didn’t see your humanness yeah you know
7:24
we don’t suffer pain in the same way do
7:26
you make that
7:27
approach yeah
7:29
you know with all this talk and that you
7:31
talked about village and i like the
7:33
island community the village
7:35
were you involved in any particular
7:37
organizations as a student on campus at
7:39
that time
7:40
so
7:42
my generation of students were
7:45
pretty militant i would say is how i
7:47
would describe us um
7:49
we
7:51
again endured a lot of
7:53
racially motivated hatred when we were
7:55
here primarily outside the classroom
7:57
there were some inside but mostly
7:59
outside the classroom in the
8:00
co-curricular experience
8:03
by other students
8:05
calling us names and
8:07
wearing t-shirts with a confederate flag
8:10
on it and bragging about um southern
8:13
pride and how the south should have won
8:14
the civil war and then we’d still be
8:16
slaves and these kinds of things and so
8:20
we started doing all kinds of protests
8:23
on campus so i would say
8:25
i was part of the black student union
8:27
which at that time we changed the name
8:29
to the african-american student union i
8:30
can’t remember the reason exactly we
8:32
changed it but
8:34
it was part of our effort to
8:37
make the club our own and we did a lot
8:41
of protests a lot of rallies in
8:43
mccaffrey center
8:44
we got the eclu involved and other
8:47
groups we went and met with the
8:48
president who told us to just shut up
8:50
and deal with it this is life get over
8:52
it get used to it kind of attitude
8:55
so it was a very
8:58
it was a very contentious time we like i
9:01
said we spent most of our time
9:02
protesting and fighting for
9:04
for our humanity for our rights for us
9:06
to be treated
9:08
with equality
9:10
on campus and
9:12
have some sense of inclusion in the
9:13
student experience and just again to be
9:15
seen to be heard to be understood to be
9:20
to be treated in the way that we brag
9:23
about being student-centered now
9:25
is what we wanted
9:27
and we’re very successful in a lot of
9:28
ways bringing attention to different
9:30
things we brought some controversial
9:31
speakers to campus and some other things
9:34
um
9:35
that
9:36
made our class pretty unforgettable i
9:39
would say we really um did a lot of
9:42
groundbreaking things for our group okay
9:45
so we’re talking about
9:46
groups that i was involved in right so
9:49
again african-american student union now
9:51
known again as the black student union
9:52
was the main group
9:54
that i was a part of i also wrote
9:57
stories for the yearbook at that time it
9:59
was known as the neronjaro which is
10:01
orange and spanish
10:03
so i did a lot of writing because i
10:04
enjoy writing
10:07
and i also worked at asuop
10:09
we had a little store called the annex
10:11
which we don’t have anymore it would be
10:13
located where bond fitness center is now
10:16
and we had all kinds of interesting
10:18
rentals like ski equipment camping
10:20
equipment we also had a little
10:21
balloonery in there it was kind of this
10:23
hodgepodge of of different things that
10:25
students could rent microfridges for
10:27
their residence halls because those were
10:29
not included at that time you had to
10:31
rent them separately so we did all of
10:33
that and i also was part of a group
10:36
called upbeat which is now known as ahop
10:39
arts and entertainment so we brought a
10:41
lot of
10:42
lectures and films and those kinds of
10:44
things campus we also had a nightclub on
10:46
campus at that time
10:48
but we
10:49
i think were
10:51
couldn’t have alcohol in it at that time
10:53
so it wasn’t quite like the lair but
10:55
what i loved about it is that we had a
10:57
real dj booth with what’s called the
10:59
coffin
11:00
where the two turntables sit and so we
11:03
had four or five students that were
11:04
actual
11:05
djs that actually knew how to scratch
11:07
and all that kind of thing so that was
11:09
fun
11:10
so we had a nightclub as well on campus
11:12
so it was those were good times those
11:14
were fun times again controversial
11:16
because some of the people that we
11:17
brought to campus
11:19
to perform or to give lectures were
11:22
i would consider very controversial at
11:24
the time
11:25
louis farrakhan eric michael dyson dr
11:28
cornell west
11:29
chuck d
11:31
from public enemy tupac
11:35
oh my gosh so many
four
0:08
i thought office hours was
0:11
really just to go if you were going to
0:13
add or drop a class i didn’t really
0:15
realize office hours was a time for
0:18
faculty that they set aside to help you
0:21
no one really explained that at
0:22
orientation i think there was a lot of
0:24
assumptions about what i knew again
0:25
because
0:26
most of the students were private school
0:28
folks that had already had college
0:30
credit behind them and other things and
0:32
i just was at a deficit of knowledge as
0:34
far as i was concerned so i didn’t go to
0:35
office hours ever
0:37
until it was a couple of days before you
0:39
could
0:40
have the deadline to drop your class
0:42
and so i went to his class or i went to
0:45
his office hours and i said you know dr
0:46
hansen i
0:47
respect you so much and i feel like i’m
0:50
learning a lot but
0:51
it’s not translating into my writing and
0:53
i thought i had a gift for this
0:56
but i realize now that i don’t and i
0:59
just think it’s best for me not to waste
1:00
your time
1:01
and
1:02
drop this class so could you sign this
1:04
piece of paper because back then you had
1:05
to get a piece of paper signed
1:07
to drop a class and he said absolutely
1:09
not wow
1:11
and i started crying
1:13
and i just said well i don’t understand
1:15
you know what else do i need to do do i
1:17
have the wrong paper or whatever i
1:19
i really don’t feel like i’m going to be
1:21
able to pass and my mother will kill me
1:23
if i don’t if i fail this class like i i
1:26
really need to find a class where i can
1:29
i can do better
1:30
and he said
1:32
do you know what charcoal is
1:35
and at this point because i had been
1:37
through so many what i didn’t know then
1:38
but i know now are microaggressions by
1:41
different people i thought
1:43
is he literally comparing me to
1:45
charcoal like where is this going
1:49
and i said no not really and he said
1:51
charcoal is actually a diamond in the
1:53
rough
1:54
and when you give it enough pressure
1:56
it becomes something precious
1:59
and i feel like if you stay in my class
2:02
and we meet on a regular basis
2:05
you can make that transformation because
2:06
you have a gift and you need to nurture
2:09
that gift and quit giving up so easy so
2:11
no i’m not letting you drop this
2:13
wow
2:16
and i just was stunned i didn’t know
2:18
what to say or do because again
2:21
this is the first teacher ever
2:23
especially a white teacher
2:25
that believed in me so not only did he
2:27
see me but he believed in me and then
2:30
spoke into existence what he felt was my
2:33
gift which in my heart i thought was
2:35
probably a gift but he confirmed it for
2:38
me
2:39
so i said all right
2:41
um so i threw my drop paper in the trash
2:44
and i ended up getting an a in the class
2:46
when it was all said and done but it was
2:48
a lot of work and i met with him every
2:50
week
2:52
and for him to give me that time that
2:53
gift of time every single week i didn’t
2:56
know that most students don’t go to
2:58
office hours i thought everybody did so
3:00
for me i thought i was behind the eight
3:02
ball but actually i found out that i was
3:04
one of very few students that took
3:05
advantage of office hours and met with
3:07
him and so after that any class i had to
3:09
struggle with i always went to office
3:10
hours and i tell students that now first
3:13
thing you want to do i don’t care how
3:14
well or how poorly you’re doing in a
3:16
class build a relationship with your
3:17
faculty
3:18
and go to office hours because they
3:20
carve out those hours for you
3:22
give them the gift of your time
3:24
because that’s really what’s going to
3:25
help you get through they want to see
3:27
you succeed they don’t want to see
3:29
you fail they want to see you succeed
3:30
but they’re going to push you and push
3:32
you
3:33
to levels that you’ve never been and you
3:35
think you can’t
3:37
but then you discover that you can and
3:39
once you discover that then that propels
3:41
you for the next class and the next
3:42
class but it is
3:44
you have to build a village of some sort
3:46
to get through so faculty overall i
3:48
think were very very kind to me
3:50
the one faculty that was not kind to me
3:54
um
3:56
there was a situation where i was up for
3:57
a very prestigious scholarship that came
4:00
with a renewable internship
4:02
and my mother was very ill at the time
4:05
and
4:06
when i interviewed for the scholarship i
4:08
was one of three finalists and had i
4:10
gotten the scholarship it would have
4:12
been a big deal in the newspaper and all
4:14
of this
4:15
and i asked in the interview i was very
4:16
transparent i said you know my mother is
4:18
very ill and this scholarship may place
4:21
me in another state
4:24
on the east coast and if something would
4:26
have happened to her and i needed to
4:27
come home
4:28
would i be allowed sometime
4:31
to do that you know because my mother
4:32
was was very very ill might have even
4:35
died you know she was just very ill
4:37
and the interviewer said sure if your
4:39
mother dies on a friday
4:41
we’ll let you fly out that afternoon and
4:43
you can have the funeral over the
4:44
weekend and then you can come back on
4:46
monday to work
4:49
and when i heard that i
4:51
in the back of my head i mean i think
4:52
the person for the interview and i left
4:54
but after i left i said oh no i have to
4:55
drop out of this
4:57
because i don’t know if my mother’s
4:59
going to live or die and i certainly
5:00
don’t know what day of the week it’s
5:01
going to be
5:02
and if my my my mom dies on a wednesday
5:05
then i can’t come home
5:08
and that i have to hurry up and put a
5:09
funeral together within two days to be
5:11
back at work on monday
5:13
just that lack of empathy and
5:16
acknowledgement
5:17
of what i was going through let me know
5:19
that i didn’t want to be a part of a
5:21
company that had that kind of mindset
5:23
and so i withdrew from the scholarship
5:26
competition and
5:31
a person
5:32
an administrative person at that time
5:34
pulled me into his office
5:36
for a meeting
5:37
and proceeded to berate me like a child
5:40
for withdrawing from this scholarship
5:43
and that i was bringing shame to the
5:45
university and that i should be ashamed
5:47
of myself that i would put my family
5:48
over
5:49
an academic
5:50
dream job like this and this opportunity
5:53
and that i’ll never get another
5:54
opportunity like this again
5:57
and
5:58
made me feel very small and very othered
6:01
and
6:02
i became
6:03
very upset and i said you know maybe the
6:06
best thing for me to do is to drop out
6:08
of this particular school and get into
6:11
another
6:11
school on campus so i transferred from
6:15
the school of business where i started
6:18
to the college of pacific and that’s how
6:20
i ended up being an english major so
6:21
originally i was a business major
6:23
but the experience that i had there with
6:25
that particular administrator
6:28
also
6:29
influenced me and i thought you know i
6:31
even though i enjoy
6:33
what i’m learning
6:35
if this is how the administration feels
6:38
that i am just a poster child for
6:41
their department and that
6:43
they care more about me bringing
6:45
prestige to the university than they do
6:47
about my mother and me
6:49
then this is not a good fit for me
6:52
and so i transferred and i needed this
6:54
particular administrator’s signature in
6:56
order to transfer
6:58
so i had to go back to him after that
7:00
humiliation i had to go back to him for
7:02
his signature and he said you know i
7:03
really shouldn’t sign this because
7:05
you’re not going to thrive over there
7:06
you weren’t a good student here and
7:08
you’re not going to be a good student
7:09
there either
7:10
and i said well i really would
7:12
appreciate it if you would sign this for
7:13
me because i need to make a transition
7:16
and he said fine and he just scribbled
7:18
his name and
7:19
and gave it to me so
7:21
yeah
7:22
didn’t see your humanness yeah you know
7:24
we don’t suffer pain in the same way do
7:26
you make that
7:27
approach yeah
7:29
you know with all this talk and that you
7:31
talked about village and i like the
7:33
island community the village
7:35
were you involved in any particular
7:37
organizations as a student on campus at
7:39
that time
7:40
so
7:42
my generation of students were
7:45
pretty militant i would say is how i
7:47
would describe us um
7:49
we
7:51
again endured a lot of
7:53
racially motivated hatred when we were
7:55
here primarily outside the classroom
7:57
there were some inside but mostly
7:59
outside the classroom in the
8:00
co-curricular experience
8:03
by other students
8:05
calling us names and
8:07
wearing t-shirts with a confederate flag
8:10
on it and bragging about um southern
8:13
pride and how the south should have won
8:14
the civil war and then we’d still be
8:16
slaves and these kinds of things and so
8:20
we started doing all kinds of protests
8:23
on campus so i would say
8:25
i was part of the black student union
8:27
which at that time we changed the name
8:29
to the african-american student union i
8:30
can’t remember the reason exactly we
8:32
changed it but
8:34
it was part of our effort to
8:37
make the club our own and we did a lot
8:41
of protests a lot of rallies in
8:43
mccaffrey center
8:44
we got the eclu involved and other
8:47
groups we went and met with the
8:48
president who told us to just shut up
8:50
and deal with it this is life get over
8:52
it get used to it kind of attitude
8:55
so it was a very
8:58
it was a very contentious time we like i
9:01
said we spent most of our time
9:02
protesting and fighting for
9:04
for our humanity for our rights for us
9:06
to be treated
9:08
with equality
9:10
on campus and
9:12
have some sense of inclusion in the
9:13
student experience and just again to be
9:15
seen to be heard to be understood to be
9:20
to be treated in the way that we brag
9:23
about being student-centered now
9:25
is what we wanted
9:27
and we’re very successful in a lot of
9:28
ways bringing attention to different
9:30
things we brought some controversial
9:31
speakers to campus and some other things
9:34
um
9:35
that
9:36
made our class pretty unforgettable i
9:39
would say we really um did a lot of
9:42
groundbreaking things for our group okay
9:45
so we’re talking about
9:46
groups that i was involved in right so
9:49
again african-american student union now
9:51
known again as the black student union
9:52
was the main group
9:54
that i was a part of i also wrote
9:57
stories for the yearbook at that time it
9:59
was known as the neronjaro which is
10:01
orange and spanish
10:03
so i did a lot of writing because i
10:04
enjoy writing
10:07
and i also worked at asuop
10:09
we had a little store called the annex
10:11
which we don’t have anymore it would be
10:13
located where bond fitness center is now
10:16
and we had all kinds of interesting
10:18
rentals like ski equipment camping
10:20
equipment we also had a little
10:21
balloonery in there it was kind of this
10:23
hodgepodge of of different things that
10:25
students could rent microfridges for
10:27
their residence halls because those were
10:29
not included at that time you had to
10:31
rent them separately so we did all of
10:33
that and i also was part of a group
10:36
called upbeat which is now known as ahop
10:39
arts and entertainment so we brought a
10:41
lot of
10:42
lectures and films and those kinds of
10:44
things campus we also had a nightclub on
10:46
campus at that time
10:48
but we
10:49
i think were
10:51
couldn’t have alcohol in it at that time
10:53
so it wasn’t quite like the lair but
10:55
what i loved about it is that we had a
10:57
real dj booth with what’s called the
10:59
coffin
11:00
where the two turntables sit and so we
11:03
had four or five students that were
11:04
actual
11:05
djs that actually knew how to scratch
11:07
and all that kind of thing so that was
11:09
fun
11:10
so we had a nightclub as well on campus
11:12
so it was those were good times those
11:14
were fun times again controversial
11:16
because some of the people that we
11:17
brought to campus
11:19
to perform or to give lectures were
11:22
i would consider very controversial at
11:24
the time
11:25
louis farrakhan eric michael dyson dr
11:28
cornell west
11:29
chuck d
11:31
from public enemy tupac
11:35
oh my gosh so many
Video 3
0:13
campus so how did you raise the funds to
0:15
have these people come and speak
0:17
so asop originally gave us
0:20
some funding but
0:22
they withdrew their funding
0:24
from us
0:26
when they found out who we were bringing
0:28
in terms of uh when dr lewis faircon
0:30
came
0:32
but it was interesting because at that
0:33
time of course he and i think he still
0:35
is a fairly controversial figure with
0:37
the nation of islam however at that time
0:39
people didn’t know that he was a
0:41
classically trained violinist so he was
0:44
actually here to talk about the power of
0:46
a liberal arts education
0:49
and he played for us
0:52
so
0:53
it was very different than i think what
0:55
people were
0:56
expecting and even though our funding
0:59
was removed from him
1:01
being here
1:03
there was funding to bring david duke
1:06
here
1:07
and david duke is one of the
1:10
leaders of the ku klux klan
1:12
and
1:14
even though we protested and had issues
1:16
around that um
1:18
he was allowed to come and speak and and
1:20
had a crowd
1:22
at his perform or his lecture
1:24
so is there any
1:27
images are there any images to say or
1:30
any film recordings or anything for for
1:33
yourself for what you guys did and they
1:36
say david duke is there any evidence of
1:37
that i believe in the pacifican there is
1:40
a photo of david duke and the
1:42
controversy around him being here
1:45
there might be a picture of louis
1:47
faircon perhaps in the pacific inn
1:50
but i don’t think either were captured
1:52
in the yearbook i don’t think i would
1:53
have to look back
1:55
the university kept a lot of things
1:57
quiet and really focused on football at
2:00
that time and sports and
2:02
happier topics they really didn’t dive
2:05
into a lot of
2:07
controversial things so if there is
2:09
evidence it would probably be in one of
2:11
the older
2:13
articles in the pacific and i would say
2:15
it’s probably where you would find it
2:16
but i don’t think it was captured in the
2:17
yearbook
2:18
in addition a lot of our events were not
2:21
covered by
2:22
the staff because what black students
2:24
were doing was not of interest to
2:27
the campus recording our history wasn’t
2:29
our priority
2:31
we did have black fraternities and
2:33
sororities on campus at that time
2:36
but they were fairly small and they
2:39
operated differently than the white
2:41
fraternities and sororities they didn’t
2:43
have houses where people could go and
2:45
live
2:46
and things like that when people pledged
2:49
sometimes they had to pledge at sac
2:50
state or uc davis because we didn’t
2:52
always have a chapter here so
2:54
it was a different time so there were
2:56
definitely more black people here
2:58
at that time
3:00
because of football because of the black
3:03
greeks that we had on campus so there it
3:05
did feel like there were more of us when
3:06
we were gathered together but in the
3:08
day-to-day school experience you still
3:10
probably were the only black person in
3:12
your class for the most part right so in
3:14
comparison to then normally
3:18
this is the
3:19
um late 80s early 90s
3:21
in comparison to those times and to now
3:24
do would you say there’s more less the
3:27
same number of students
3:32
to me
3:32
it feels like less because i don’t see
3:36
them as often i i’ve been told that it’s
3:38
about the same
3:40
or a little bit less i think part of
3:42
that is
3:43
because the school has become
3:45
exponentially more expensive than it was
3:48
in my time
3:49
i think the most i ever paid for tuition
3:51
if i remember correctly was 21 000 a
3:53
year
3:54
and now i think it’s much much more
3:57
than that although that was a lot at the
3:58
time
3:59
what they’re paying now is
4:01
is really
4:02
a lot
4:04
to manage and so
4:05
i think
4:07
most of the students that i encounter
4:09
are commuter students they come they go
4:11
to class they leave they don’t
4:13
necessarily get engaged in student clubs
4:15
or organizations they don’t have the
4:16
time because they’re working
4:18
to make up their gap
4:20
in financial aid or they perhaps are a
4:23
bit older
4:24
and have transferred from community
4:25
college and so they might already have a
4:27
family children a spouse partner that
4:29
they’re responsible for and you know
4:31
they can’t be here at eight o’clock at
4:32
night for a student club meeting or for
4:35
tigerlands or any of these other events
4:37
and so
4:38
uh i i think it’s much more at least for
4:41
black students i feel like it’s much
4:43
more of a commuter experience than it is
4:45
i live on campus experience i think as
4:47
soon as students are able to live off
4:49
campus they do
4:51
because it’s cheaper
4:52
and i think
4:55
it’s hard when you’re not
4:57
connected when you first get here
5:00
to build on those relationships so when
5:02
i was here as a student you know
5:04
everybody was on campus all four years
5:06
it was cheaper to live on campus than it
5:07
was to live off so we all lived here all
5:10
four years most people became resident
5:12
assistants or got involved on yearbook
5:15
staff or ran for homecoming queen or
5:17
whatever ran for asop president or
5:19
whatever we were engaged and involved
5:21
in the student experience all the way
5:23
through and so we all saw each other
5:25
every day
5:26
once we found each other that that
5:28
always takes time when you first get
5:29
here but once we found each other we
5:30
were together
5:32
as often as we could be sunday nights
5:33
we’d be in the basement of southwest you
5:35
know
5:37
listening to whatever the latest music
5:38
was or telling jokes with each other
5:41
just you know being fun just having fun
5:43
together
5:44
nowadays i don’t really see
5:46
that and i think part of it may be
5:48
because of social media and cell phones
5:50
and things where people don’t
5:52
necessarily have to connect in person
5:55
you
5:56
can connect in other ways and now that
5:58
covets here i don’t know if
6:00
people getting together in person is
6:03
going to build the same kind of
6:04
relationships going forward there’s a
6:06
certain amount of fear there
6:08
so i think it’s hard i think students
6:10
may have the desire to be engaged but
6:12
and be more involved at the time do they
6:15
have the time
6:17
i think is is tough for them
6:20
you had mentioned earlier about um
6:23
advice that you would give to students
6:25
as mick make sure you go
6:28
like have a call about relationship with
6:29
your professors yes use the cash
6:32
hours um is there a quote that you
6:37
for yourself encouraged you you may have
6:39
heard or you
6:40
you you created as a writer that you
6:42
would share
6:44
to help
6:45
i’m going to be specific about african
6:46
african-american black students male and
6:48
or female
6:50
on campus now how to help them kind of
6:52
climb over the different hurdles that
6:54
they still experience unfortunately it
6:57
still exists yeah maybe not the same
6:59
degree maybe a different way i don’t
7:01
know more subtle yeah but nonetheless
7:03
just ways to help encourage them to
7:05
continue
7:06
and i like this t-shirt yeah i will
7:08
finish when i started yes
7:10
i think when i was a student
7:12
i
7:13
didn’t have a particular mantra that i
7:16
went by i i will say i had a traditional
7:19
southern mother
7:21
who
7:21
[Music]
7:23
basically spoke her visions over my life
7:26
into existence and so i actually had
7:28
been told i was going to college since i
7:30
was in probably second grade
7:33
so i wanted to skip junior high in high
7:34
school and just go straight to college
7:36
because my mom was always pushing me
7:38
that college was the thing you know
7:40
these other things you had to go through
7:41
to get to college so
7:43
it was already
7:45
decided that i would be here so
7:48
i felt like
7:49
even though there are many times i
7:50
wanted to quit that my mother wouldn’t
7:52
let me quit
7:53
if i
7:54
had the guts to
7:56
get on a bus or something and go home
7:57
she probably would have put me in the
7:58
car and drove me right back so
8:00
um
8:01
i don’t really have a quote from that
8:03
time but since that time i would say
8:05
what i tell students is something i
8:07
heard michelle obama say i don’t know
8:10
if it’s originally her quote but i have
8:12
not heard
8:13
other people say it as often as she does
8:16
so i kind of attribute it to her
8:18
but she was speaking about her
8:20
experiences as she was writing the book
8:22
becoming
8:24
and she shared a quote that says
8:26
something to the effect of you belong
8:28
wherever your feet are planted
8:31
and
8:32
that really resonated with me because i
8:34
felt like
8:36
that’s so true in the sense that if
8:38
you’re in the room
8:40
and
8:42
you you’ve earned your way in the room
8:43
or you’ve been invited to the room you
8:45
stepped in the room you’re in the space
8:48
uh you you need to own that space and
8:50
you need to take up that space
8:53
take up all the spaces
8:55
that you can
8:57
of course making space for other
8:58
people’s voices but not to the detriment
9:00
of your own so i would just tell
9:02
students to really
9:04
embrace the fact that they do
9:05
belong here and then it isn’t by
9:07
happenstance or luck
9:09
um
9:10
and even though there are programs like
9:12
affirmative action and so forth and we
9:13
do
9:14
make extra effort for those from
9:16
underrepresented groups to come to
9:18
pacific you absolutely earn your way
9:20
here no one gets a free ride
9:22
to pacific
9:24
and
9:25
for you to persevere through all the
9:28
classes that you have to take in order
9:29
to get a degree here
9:32
when people see that on your resume
9:34
those of us that have been through that
9:35
experience and see that you have made it
9:37
through
9:38
know that you can do anything that is
9:40
put before you when i went to graduate
9:42
school at a public institution i thought
9:44
oh getting a master’s degree is going to
9:45
be much harder
9:47
than my pacific experience because it’s
9:49
a graduate level
9:50
of work
9:51
and when i got there i realized oh my
9:54
goodness i i can do this this is easy
9:57
my master’s degree was light years
10:00
easier than anything i ever did in
10:01
undergrad wow so i felt completely
10:04
completely prepared
10:06
compared to my peers and my cohort
10:08
who were panicking at the thought of
10:11
reading you know 100 pages a night or
10:13
doing 15 or 20 page papers i was doing
10:16
that freshman year so for me it it set
10:19
me on a trajectory that if i can
10:22
make it here
10:23
i can truly make it anywhere
10:26
and the spaces that
10:29
i’m meant to occupy i need to make sure
10:32
that i leave a mark and a legacy there
10:33
so that’s what i would say as well is
10:35
even if you are a commuter student and
10:37
you feel like you’re just punching in
10:38
and punching out
10:40
make those punching ends and punching
10:41
outs count
10:43
whatever you can do to leave a legacy
10:45
here so people know that you were here
10:47
whether it be
10:49
doing documentary film whether it’s
10:52
running for office whether it’s doing a
10:54
big community service event for the
10:56
people of stockton whatever it is
10:58
so that when people say your name
11:01
that
11:02
they realize not only are you
11:04
what pacific represents but that you’ve
11:07
elevated pacific and made it better yes
11:10
100
11:12
we have to
11:13
we have to take up the space because no
11:15
one is going to give us anything we have
11:17
to take it
11:18
we have to demand what we want you know
11:20
i i was done asking years ago i i demand
11:22
everything that i want
11:24
and i’m very specific so that’s what i
11:26
would say to students you have dreams
11:27
and goals
11:28
be specific and demand what you want and
11:30
take what’s yours that’s right
11:32
thank you so much thank you very much
11:35
pleasure all this amazing information
11:37
you are an encyclopedia yes thank you so
11:40
much yes i try to keep it at top of mind
11:43
yes gotta know your history you gotta
11:44
know where you come from and
11:46
it helps you move forward it’s a good
11:48
foundation for you whenever you feel
11:50
like you can’t do it you can look behind
11:52
and look at all of the black graduates
11:54
that have come before you and say oh if
11:55
they can do it yes i can certainly don’t
11:58
associate yeah take your place
12:00
i like that thank you please
12:02
thank you so much you’re welcome good
12:04
talking to you
12:05
thank you
campus so how did you raise the funds to
0:15
have these people come and speak
0:17
so asop originally gave us
0:20
some funding but
0:22
they withdrew their funding
0:24
from us
0:26
when they found out who we were bringing
0:28
in terms of uh when dr lewis faircon
0:30
came
0:32
but it was interesting because at that
0:33
time of course he and i think he still
0:35
is a fairly controversial figure with
0:37
the nation of islam however at that time
0:39
people didn’t know that he was a
0:41
classically trained violinist so he was
0:44
actually here to talk about the power of
0:46
a liberal arts education
0:49
and he played for us
0:52
so
0:53
it was very different than i think what
0:55
people were
0:56
expecting and even though our funding
0:59
was removed from him
1:01
being here
1:03
there was funding to bring david duke
1:06
here
1:07
and david duke is one of the
1:10
leaders of the ku klux klan
1:12
and
1:14
even though we protested and had issues
1:16
around that um
1:18
he was allowed to come and speak and and
1:20
had a crowd
1:22
at his perform or his lecture
1:24
so is there any
1:27
images are there any images to say or
1:30
any film recordings or anything for for
1:33
yourself for what you guys did and they
1:36
say david duke is there any evidence of
1:37
that i believe in the pacifican there is
1:40
a photo of david duke and the
1:42
controversy around him being here
1:45
there might be a picture of louis
1:47
faircon perhaps in the pacific inn
1:50
but i don’t think either were captured
1:52
in the yearbook i don’t think i would
1:53
have to look back
1:55
the university kept a lot of things
1:57
quiet and really focused on football at
2:00
that time and sports and
2:02
happier topics they really didn’t dive
2:05
into a lot of
2:07
controversial things so if there is
2:09
evidence it would probably be in one of
2:11
the older
2:13
articles in the pacific and i would say
2:15
it’s probably where you would find it
2:16
but i don’t think it was captured in the
2:17
yearbook
2:18
in addition a lot of our events were not
2:21
covered by
2:22
the staff because what black students
2:24
were doing was not of interest to
2:27
the campus recording our history wasn’t
2:29
our priority
2:31
we did have black fraternities and
2:33
sororities on campus at that time
2:36
but they were fairly small and they
2:39
operated differently than the white
2:41
fraternities and sororities they didn’t
2:43
have houses where people could go and
2:45
live
2:46
and things like that when people pledged
2:49
sometimes they had to pledge at sac
2:50
state or uc davis because we didn’t
2:52
always have a chapter here so
2:54
it was a different time so there were
2:56
definitely more black people here
2:58
at that time
3:00
because of football because of the black
3:03
greeks that we had on campus so there it
3:05
did feel like there were more of us when
3:06
we were gathered together but in the
3:08
day-to-day school experience you still
3:10
probably were the only black person in
3:12
your class for the most part right so in
3:14
comparison to then normally
3:18
this is the
3:19
um late 80s early 90s
3:21
in comparison to those times and to now
3:24
do would you say there’s more less the
3:27
same number of students
3:32
to me
3:32
it feels like less because i don’t see
3:36
them as often i i’ve been told that it’s
3:38
about the same
3:40
or a little bit less i think part of
3:42
that is
3:43
because the school has become
3:45
exponentially more expensive than it was
3:48
in my time
3:49
i think the most i ever paid for tuition
3:51
if i remember correctly was 21 000 a
3:53
year
3:54
and now i think it’s much much more
3:57
than that although that was a lot at the
3:58
time
3:59
what they’re paying now is
4:01
is really
4:02
a lot
4:04
to manage and so
4:05
i think
4:07
most of the students that i encounter
4:09
are commuter students they come they go
4:11
to class they leave they don’t
4:13
necessarily get engaged in student clubs
4:15
or organizations they don’t have the
4:16
time because they’re working
4:18
to make up their gap
4:20
in financial aid or they perhaps are a
4:23
bit older
4:24
and have transferred from community
4:25
college and so they might already have a
4:27
family children a spouse partner that
4:29
they’re responsible for and you know
4:31
they can’t be here at eight o’clock at
4:32
night for a student club meeting or for
4:35
tigerlands or any of these other events
4:37
and so
4:38
uh i i think it’s much more at least for
4:41
black students i feel like it’s much
4:43
more of a commuter experience than it is
4:45
i live on campus experience i think as
4:47
soon as students are able to live off
4:49
campus they do
4:51
because it’s cheaper
4:52
and i think
4:55
it’s hard when you’re not
4:57
connected when you first get here
5:00
to build on those relationships so when
5:02
i was here as a student you know
5:04
everybody was on campus all four years
5:06
it was cheaper to live on campus than it
5:07
was to live off so we all lived here all
5:10
four years most people became resident
5:12
assistants or got involved on yearbook
5:15
staff or ran for homecoming queen or
5:17
whatever ran for asop president or
5:19
whatever we were engaged and involved
5:21
in the student experience all the way
5:23
through and so we all saw each other
5:25
every day
5:26
once we found each other that that
5:28
always takes time when you first get
5:29
here but once we found each other we
5:30
were together
5:32
as often as we could be sunday nights
5:33
we’d be in the basement of southwest you
5:35
know
5:37
listening to whatever the latest music
5:38
was or telling jokes with each other
5:41
just you know being fun just having fun
5:43
together
5:44
nowadays i don’t really see
5:46
that and i think part of it may be
5:48
because of social media and cell phones
5:50
and things where people don’t
5:52
necessarily have to connect in person
5:55
you
5:56
can connect in other ways and now that
5:58
covets here i don’t know if
6:00
people getting together in person is
6:03
going to build the same kind of
6:04
relationships going forward there’s a
6:06
certain amount of fear there
6:08
so i think it’s hard i think students
6:10
may have the desire to be engaged but
6:12
and be more involved at the time do they
6:15
have the time
6:17
i think is is tough for them
6:20
you had mentioned earlier about um
6:23
advice that you would give to students
6:25
as mick make sure you go
6:28
like have a call about relationship with
6:29
your professors yes use the cash
6:32
hours um is there a quote that you
6:37
for yourself encouraged you you may have
6:39
heard or you
6:40
you you created as a writer that you
6:42
would share
6:44
to help
6:45
i’m going to be specific about african
6:46
african-american black students male and
6:48
or female
6:50
on campus now how to help them kind of
6:52
climb over the different hurdles that
6:54
they still experience unfortunately it
6:57
still exists yeah maybe not the same
6:59
degree maybe a different way i don’t
7:01
know more subtle yeah but nonetheless
7:03
just ways to help encourage them to
7:05
continue
7:06
and i like this t-shirt yeah i will
7:08
finish when i started yes
7:10
i think when i was a student
7:12
i
7:13
didn’t have a particular mantra that i
7:16
went by i i will say i had a traditional
7:19
southern mother
7:21
who
7:21
[Music]
7:23
basically spoke her visions over my life
7:26
into existence and so i actually had
7:28
been told i was going to college since i
7:30
was in probably second grade
7:33
so i wanted to skip junior high in high
7:34
school and just go straight to college
7:36
because my mom was always pushing me
7:38
that college was the thing you know
7:40
these other things you had to go through
7:41
to get to college so
7:43
it was already
7:45
decided that i would be here so
7:48
i felt like
7:49
even though there are many times i
7:50
wanted to quit that my mother wouldn’t
7:52
let me quit
7:53
if i
7:54
had the guts to
7:56
get on a bus or something and go home
7:57
she probably would have put me in the
7:58
car and drove me right back so
8:00
um
8:01
i don’t really have a quote from that
8:03
time but since that time i would say
8:05
what i tell students is something i
8:07
heard michelle obama say i don’t know
8:10
if it’s originally her quote but i have
8:12
not heard
8:13
other people say it as often as she does
8:16
so i kind of attribute it to her
8:18
but she was speaking about her
8:20
experiences as she was writing the book
8:22
becoming
8:24
and she shared a quote that says
8:26
something to the effect of you belong
8:28
wherever your feet are planted
8:31
and
8:32
that really resonated with me because i
8:34
felt like
8:36
that’s so true in the sense that if
8:38
you’re in the room
8:40
and
8:42
you you’ve earned your way in the room
8:43
or you’ve been invited to the room you
8:45
stepped in the room you’re in the space
8:48
uh you you need to own that space and
8:50
you need to take up that space
8:53
take up all the spaces
8:55
that you can
8:57
of course making space for other
8:58
people’s voices but not to the detriment
9:00
of your own so i would just tell
9:02
students to really
9:04
embrace the fact that they do
9:05
belong here and then it isn’t by
9:07
happenstance or luck
9:09
um
9:10
and even though there are programs like
9:12
affirmative action and so forth and we
9:13
do
9:14
make extra effort for those from
9:16
underrepresented groups to come to
9:18
pacific you absolutely earn your way
9:20
here no one gets a free ride
9:22
to pacific
9:24
and
9:25
for you to persevere through all the
9:28
classes that you have to take in order
9:29
to get a degree here
9:32
when people see that on your resume
9:34
those of us that have been through that
9:35
experience and see that you have made it
9:37
through
9:38
know that you can do anything that is
9:40
put before you when i went to graduate
9:42
school at a public institution i thought
9:44
oh getting a master’s degree is going to
9:45
be much harder
9:47
than my pacific experience because it’s
9:49
a graduate level
9:50
of work
9:51
and when i got there i realized oh my
9:54
goodness i i can do this this is easy
9:57
my master’s degree was light years
10:00
easier than anything i ever did in
10:01
undergrad wow so i felt completely
10:04
completely prepared
10:06
compared to my peers and my cohort
10:08
who were panicking at the thought of
10:11
reading you know 100 pages a night or
10:13
doing 15 or 20 page papers i was doing
10:16
that freshman year so for me it it set
10:19
me on a trajectory that if i can
10:22
make it here
10:23
i can truly make it anywhere
10:26
and the spaces that
10:29
i’m meant to occupy i need to make sure
10:32
that i leave a mark and a legacy there
10:33
so that’s what i would say as well is
10:35
even if you are a commuter student and
10:37
you feel like you’re just punching in
10:38
and punching out
10:40
make those punching ends and punching
10:41
outs count
10:43
whatever you can do to leave a legacy
10:45
here so people know that you were here
10:47
whether it be
10:49
doing documentary film whether it’s
10:52
running for office whether it’s doing a
10:54
big community service event for the
10:56
people of stockton whatever it is
10:58
so that when people say your name
11:01
that
11:02
they realize not only are you
11:04
what pacific represents but that you’ve
11:07
elevated pacific and made it better yes
11:10
100
11:12
we have to
11:13
we have to take up the space because no
11:15
one is going to give us anything we have
11:17
to take it
11:18
we have to demand what we want you know
11:20
i i was done asking years ago i i demand
11:22
everything that i want
11:24
and i’m very specific so that’s what i
11:26
would say to students you have dreams
11:27
and goals
11:28
be specific and demand what you want and
11:30
take what’s yours that’s right
11:32
thank you so much thank you very much
11:35
pleasure all this amazing information
11:37
you are an encyclopedia yes thank you so
11:40
much yes i try to keep it at top of mind
11:43
yes gotta know your history you gotta
11:44
know where you come from and
11:46
it helps you move forward it’s a good
11:48
foundation for you whenever you feel
11:50
like you can’t do it you can look behind
11:52
and look at all of the black graduates
11:54
that have come before you and say oh if
11:55
they can do it yes i can certainly don’t
11:58
associate yeah take your place
12:00
i like that thank you please
12:02
thank you so much you’re welcome good
12:04
talking to you
12:05
thank you
Marshea Pratt, Elaine Hanly, Stockton, April 26, 2022.
