MP: Can you tell us a little bit about how you chose to come to Scripps College?
KN: I chose to come to Scripps for a number of reasons. The most forceful reason at the time of my decision making was my father unabashedly discouraging me from - I was living in San Diego at the time and he didn’t want me to be as far away from home - I had been accepted to Stanford and he didn’t want me to be that far away from home. He really wanted me to go to UCSD and live at home and his big bribe was that he was going to buy me a car. But I definitely did not want to live at home (I mean my parents were really nice) but at that point I was the only child living at home and both of my parents were in their sixties at that point in my life. And my grandmother was in her eighties and I affectionately (although I don’t know how humorously they felt about it) I called it living in the geriatric ward, and I really really wanted to be at Scripps. The fact that it was a single sex college didn’t really seem to factor into my decision. Because of the consortium I never thought of it as being single sex, it was however really nice to live in that environment, in a single sex dorm environment. Even though it could be wild and loud at times, it was pretty predictably mellow and considerate by comparison to what I observed in some of the coed or male dorms on other campuses. Was that your question? (laughing)
MP: Yes! No that’s great. And did all of your older siblings go to college?
KN: No, no. My oldest sister went to Smith. She would have started college in 1965. That did not heavily influence… I mean it was really kind of purely coincidence that I was at Scripps. I have a lot of brothers and sisters to go through…. I have a sister that is just 2 years older than me and she graduated from Cal Poly Pomona. And none of the other three… am I accounting for everyone? Yes, none of the other three went to college.
MP: And what about your mom and grandmother?
KN: Neither of them went to college. My grandmother was born in 1902 and my mother was born in 1922 (and they are both deceased) and no, they did not have the opportunity to go to college. I, in many ways, consider myself a second generation Depression survivor. I am pretty thrifty and frugal and homemaker-ish, and I really owe that to the fact that I grew up learning how to do all that stuff because they had to do all that stuff. My father went to college though, in New York.
MP: Which dorm did you live in?
KN: I lived in Dorsey for two years and I loved it, then I spent my junior year in Vienna, which I loved even more. Then I came back, and my friend who was supposed to have my back in dorm draw and get us into Dorsey or Browning or Toll… um, we were in Kimberly our senior year. And it’s lovely, the showers are better, but that’s not where we wanted to be. We were right by the back door upstairs and it was loud. We had a lot of fun, but after all these years I still feel a sense of disappointment coming back to campus. Like, you’re kidding – that was the best – what number did you get? I was just dumfounded – we’re seniors! I mean there were other seniors in the dorm that chose to be there so we tried not to be too snooty about it.
MP: Was there a sense of dorm camaraderie?
KN: Yes, there was. Well, particularly at Dorsey because we were really into it, and basically I lived with the same group of women for two years. Obviously new freshmen came in but I was an orientation leader my sophomore year. I think the whole orientation process really brought us together as a freshmen group within the dorm, and it was a lot of fun. The women that I lived with in Dorsey are still some of my very best friends to this day. I have lost touch with the woman I lived with in Kimberly though. Hm. (laughing)
[5:10]
MP: And did you eat meals in the dorms?
KN: Yes, and that was the greatest. I loved that. The upside to that was that you could wander down, you know as long as the dining hall was open, you could wander down and eat whatever, wearing whatever, and looking like whatever. It was really small and quiet and the people who worked in your kitchen got to know you. I think about it now and its really amazing. My daughter is a senior in high school and we visit colleges and the dining halls are just enormous, and I just think “I bet they aren’t getting eggs to order and I bet they don’t know how they want their eggs made every day” – not that I ate eggs every day. That was really nice. The downside to it was that I really didn’t meet a lot of people that didn’t live in Dorsey. I mean I met people in class and I made other friends, but most of my closest friendships were people that I lived with in Dorsey.
MP: Do you remember any specific rules or traditions that were part of dorm life?
KN: I can’t really think of rules, I mean there weren’t curfews or anything like that. We did get in trouble for a couple of things. I don’t know why, but it was frowned upon getting on the roof. And the south facing, on the terracotta tile (we didn’t damage anything), but we used to sunbath up there. Naked. And that was frowned upon. But we did it repeatedly, I mean we didn’t get officially in trouble with the college, but the RA – “you’re going to fall off the roof!” – she had really valid safety issues. But we just didn’t want tan lines. And… I wasn’t part of this group, and I will maintain the anonymity of those involved… Some of my very dear friends were living in Browning senior year and they “borrowed” – this is when the Scripps pool was kind of small and crappy and the patio furniture was kind of old and collapsed. But they “borrowed” some of the patio furniture from the pool and they hauled it up to their balcony room in Browning and had a very nice setup. They got in a lot of trouble. They were not – I should have taken that room – they got actually thrown off campus senior year. They were living in the – they were new at the time – the apartments on CMC’s campus down on the corner. No meal plans, off campus. And they were really mad. And I thought it was a bit of an overreaction because they clearly – ok they shouldn’t of done it, I’m not defending that - but it wasn’t like they took it off campus, it wasn’t like they broke anything. They could have just, you know, slap on the hand and put it back, I don’t know. I was living in Kimberly. I guarantee you if I had been in the balcony room with them I would have gotten in trouble too because I would have been involved. That bitch. But no, no curfews. The dorm tradition that I am reminded of every Christmas whether I want to be or not is the – every dorm had a Christmas Party. One of my very very good friends, oh we were such dorks, both years we lived there (because apparently we were unabashedly not embarrassed after doing it our freshman year). Both years we lived there, I am not kidding, she busted out her accordion and I busted out my flute and we played Christmas carol duets at the Christmas party. I still just marvel at that. She, of course, in my opinion bears the bigger geek badge because she played the accordion. Oh – in our Lands of Salzburg nightgowns – that was just spectacular. But I loved that about Dorsey.
[10:08]
Dorsey used to, I don’t know if they do anymore, Dorsey used to host the Oktoberfest party. It was in the courtyard. I think I understand why they don’t do this anymore. In the courtyard of that old dorm, all throughout the dorm, the place would smell really bad for long amounts of time afterwards. But we would get kegs of German beer. Actually my orientation advisor – I was a freshman, she was a sophomore, her sister , who was also at Scripps, was a senior – and her family lived here in Claremont, and a bunch of us went over to her house and we made soft pretzels for this Oktoberfest party. We had sweatshirts made and sold them, it was the greatest thing ever, but it really trashed the dorm. So that was great, I still have my Dorsey Hall Oktoberfest sweatshirt , they were pink, they had nothing to do really with the whole Oktoberfest theme, but it was a great party. All the dorms at Scripps used to have traditional parties like that. Ragers.
MP: So you were allowed to serve beer on campus?
KN: Yes, very openly, yeah. And at Harvey Mudd they served all kinds of…they had a Tequila Party. They had a party called Long Tall Glasses, I think they actually still do that one. But there was something, another tequila themed party that always happened at Harvey Mudd. And that my first year, a woman in my hall actually got alcohol poisoning from that, and that was pretty scary. We all had singles. I never had a roommate at Scripps, which is almost unheard of now, and she didn’t have a roommate either. At the time we though “oh my god I’m just glad that somebody checked on this this young woman” (whose name will remain anonymous) because she didn’t have a roommate! And you know, they took her out in an ambulance from the dorm and that was kind of a scary wakeup call, because to that point – I think it was in the spring - to that point I think it had been a little wild, and that had a, no pun intended, sobering effect on all of us because it was really scary. And I know that that’s not terribly uncommon, but I had certainly never witnessed anything like that. But yes, the alcohol policy – I don’t even know if there was one, or if there was, it wasn’t enforced well or it was very lenient. My husband works at Pomona College, and I know it is very tightly, well they try to tightly control it.
MP: Ok, switching gears a little bit, what was your major?
KN: Well I got my degree in political philosophy and art history, I changed majors very significantly. I came in as a Biochem major, and after the first semester of sophomore year I knew this probably wasn’t for me, I was pretty miserable. I mean I was doing ok, but I pretty profoundly didn’t understand organic chemistry. And pretty recently, I would say within the last five years, I’ve talked to other adults my age and they say “well nobody really understands”... I mean these are physicians! And my vet! “Well nobody really understands organic chemistry that much”. Like, wow. Not that I had to be perfect in everything, but I was really unhappy. And my grandmother died that semester and my boyfriend was graduating and there was just a lot going on. And I had been taking political philosophy and I had taken some Poli Sci at CMC and philosophy here at Scripps and I decided that if I wasn’t going to be a science major, then I would like to study abroad. So I went to Austria, and I took an Art History class just kind of to fill out my schedule, and that was spectacular, obviously. And I came back to Scripps my senior year and sat with the registrar to look at what I had taken and the slots that were left in my schedule, because there was no way that daddy was going for three semesters, I had to accomplish this in my last two semesters. And I had been eagerly anticipating using some of my AP credits my senior year so I wouldn’t have to - no, that didn’t work out. Not that I told my daughter that story, “no, you’ll really want to use those, Lily!” So we planned out that if I took this number of Art History classes and this number of Poli Sci… and I had all of my other requirements taken care of. And I graduated on time and I’m pretty sure I only had to take four classes every semester, and a two semester thesis.
[15:38]
MP: Were there a lot of requirements? Outside of your major?
KN: Yeah, well I don’t know, because I kind of wound up making my own major, we kind of (I’ll be honest) we kind of took was I had already taken and made that fit. There were a lot or requirements when I was in Joint Sciences. It would have really precluded my being able to study abroad, and that was also an important factor in changing major, because I really needed to be able to - being two hours away from home, from San Diego to Claremont, was good, that was a great start – but going to Europe was really important for me to grow up. I grew up a lot. It was sink or swim…I was no longer the youngest of six children. There was no internet, no cell phones, you know, I really didn’t talk to my parents that often, so that was really important for me to be able to do, and I didn’t realize how important it was going to be at the time. It really turned out to be sort of developmental for me.
MP: When you were on campus how often did you talk to your parents?
KN: We had phones in our rooms, they were hardline wall phones, I don’t even know if those are there anymore. And you had to do desk, oh that was the greatest. Everybody had to do desk, which was the switchboard in the dorm, and there are – don’t even know if they mailboxes are there anymore, the little cubby holes? Yeah, we used to get snail mail. Somebody would have the job of going to Balch Hall to the mail room and dragging the mail bag to the dorm and putting the mail in the cubby holes. So we had the phones in our rooms, and I think I talked to my mom once a week. And she wrote a lot of letters, and you know I have a lot of siblings, so I got a lot of letters and care packages and stuff. I can’t even fathom how different it is to go to college now, how easy it is to be in touch. I mean as a parent now, anticipating that, I really feel like self-cautioning to let my daughter have her college experience, and not be following up, texting her, asking to Skype. Well she could have to teach me how to Skype first, so that will be a self-limiting activity for me, because if she doesn’t teach me before she goes there will be no Skyping. (laughing)
MP: So you didn’t have cell phones and didn’t have access to the internet or any of that…
KN: Um, this was 1983 when I started college. I don’t know when the internet was invented but it’s probably right in there, right within that five or eight years, so no.
MP: So all of your studying and research was done in the library?
KN: Books! Yes! And I tell my daughter “you have no idea”. I mean she obviously, in my opinion, is getting a far superior high school education than I ever did, and I would say, based a lot on the fact that she so easily can get information and be comfortable at home doing it. Yeah it was all books. A lot of time in Denison. A lot of time in Honnold. And getting books transferred from other colleges in the library cooperation.
[19:59]
MP: Did you cross register in classes at the other schools?
KN: Yes. Oh yeah, I took classes everywhere except Harvey Mudd. In fact my two thesis readers, one was at Pomona and one was at CMC. I don’t know how I ended up with that, but those were the two professors that I had studying the most with at those schools so, yeah. Again, it wasn’t like being at a single sex college in a lot of ways for me. And I remember just really finding it interesting that I
certainly had a lot of friends that took most of their classes here, English majors or Literature majors mostly studied here at Scripps. I mean they had other experiences but I was mostly off campus.
MP: What was the Core program like?
KN: I think it was just, actually I’m pretty certain it was just our first year. And I think it was just the two semesters. I don’t know if both semesters were called Reading, Writing, Thinking, but that was definitely the name of one of the semesters, and everybody was pretty much reading and doing the same kinds of activities, even if you had different professors, it seemed to be very much a shared experience though that graduating class, or though first years. And I know it’s very different now, and it’s one of the things that when I brought my daughter on the tour here last April and we went to the information session, she was most enamored of the college for that, for the fact that you could choose something you were interested in as part of the theme of Core, that professors from all disciplines taught Core. Because I’m pretty sure it was just focusing on Language Arts and development of that and development of writing as a first year student. But the Humanities Core was definitely an important part of the education.
MP: Why do you think it was important?
KN: I personally benefited from it because had I not had those Humanities classes balancing my workload with all the classes I was taking at Joint Science, I would have had a lot of trouble graduating. I would have had a pretty difficult time….I mean I’m glad that I kind of fell into taking German language my freshman and sophomore year. I really wanted to take Spanish, I thought that would totally be a smarter language to study being that I was living in southern California. But I certainly wouldn’t have been living in Vienna as a junior if I hadn’t taken German. It was just that the Humanities Core was a great way to get people thinking about things, intellectual topics, that they probably hadn’t been exposed to in high school. I certainly hadn’t been. I went to a pretty crappy public high school in El Cajon, California, and just the exposure of the topics and the literature and the writing coaching as huge, very center to how I became a better scholar.
MP: Did you learn about feminism in any of your classes?
[24:12]
KN: Yes. And I actually developed such a gender neutral way of referring to people and groups of people that even years after I graduated I still referred to someone who was pregnant as a “pregnant person” not a pregnant woman. And I laugh, but that was how significant that was for me. I kind of got it a little bit as an undergrad, because I grew up in a family that definitely was very supportive of that idea, I have three older sisters, and my mother and grandmother certainly had a rough go of it as young women growing up in the time they grew up. So it was definitely something I was exposed to. I didn’t completely appreciate it, I’ll be honest, until almost a year after I graduated I was working for the May Department Stores, and I was in the training department at that time, and I was making a presentation to the board of directors, and of course I was a nervous wreck before I was going to do that, I was all of twenty three. Everything was fine, I had my flipcharts – no PowerPoint – flipcharts and markers and all talking and training and teaching when I realized, I am the only woman in this room. I looked around, and I actually just stopped talking, it was as if everything… it was the epiphany that they were right. It really is bad in corporate America. It certainly was a pretty sexist environment at May Company in the late 80’s early 90’s. that was stunning to me, that the board of directors of a retail department store, where the vast majority of employees were women, there were no women represented on the board. It was stunning to me. And I felt badly for being skeptical as an undergrad.
MP: Was that your first job after college?
KN: Yes. I started working there right after. I went to their executive training program, and worked there for seven years, then I worked for the Target Corporation for about eight years after that. Target was far less sexist, it was a completely more reasonable environment to work in.
MP: And do you think that was a change that came with time or just a difference in the two companies?
KN: That’s a very good question. Both, however, I was hired by one of the first woman district manages at Target, and she was looking to recruit women and to support women and to promote women…and she was pretty tough, wasn’t probably the style of management that I tried to emulate, but I could certainly see why… she was very affective – she was smart and funny and affective and got really good results and it was very clear why she had done so well in that environment. And yes, that couldn’t have been more different. There was kind of a group of us that she hired all at the same time, and I’m still in touch with some of those other women, although we were all of different ages and backgrounds. It was clear that Robin was trying to make an impact, and did – she hired… the whole group of us really did well, and she was a great mentor.
MP: Did your major and what you studied at Scripps help you decide what to do after? Or how did you come to be in that position?
KN: Well back then companies used to come to campus and recruit. I knew I had to get a job, I really didn’t want to go back and live with my parents – I mean they were really lovely people – but at that point I really didn’t want to go back and lived at home, so I was highly motivated to go to a lot of different interviews and find a job. No, my degree in Art History and Political Philosophy did not translate to retail merchandising and retail management. However, I could think and problem-solve very quickly, and I could communication. ((laughing) That may not be evident in this interview) but I could communicate very effectively verbally and in writing, and that surprised me how much that differentiated me from other executives, especially the writing part, being able – because there was email at that point in 1993 – being able to communicate.
[29:56]
MP: So other than cross registration and academic mixing between the campuses, what were the other interactions like? The social interactions?
KN: Oh there was a lot of social interaction (laughing). There were a lot of parties…sporting events, we used to go to the football games. I had a fabulous job as the ball girl for the CMS football team, that was great, I never managed to have the confidence to parlay that into any social life or dates for myself, but it was hilarious. Some of my friends from Dorsey would come to the game – because they didn’t believe me. Like, “really? You’re on the sidelines? Really? Don’t you talk to them?” “ohmygod I couldn’t talk to them!” I was really a dork. So yeah, there was a lot of socializing. after that whole tequila thing first year I was a little cautious of going up to Harvey Mudd, although we still kind of did. I don’t remember actually going to dorm parties at Pitzer. They did Kohoutek, and I know they still do it… we would go to Kohoutek. They had a lot of big dorm parties and outdoor parties at Pomona and at CMC. Harwood Halloween was hilarious. It was really impressive, given that we were all on campus with whatever resources we had in our dorms to create costumes, it was very impressive, the costumes people would come up with. It was pretty great.
MP: What was the most memorable costume?
KN: A friend of mine… ohhh it was probably not the most respectful thing….it’s not that bad. We had really dark dark glasses, which probably wasn’t the best costume accessory for a nighttime party. And then we had white sweatshirts that said “Venice” across them cut out with little felt letters and glued on. And we made white canes with red tips, and we were Venetian Blinds.
MP: That’s pretty clever.
KN: And I gotta say, the glasses were pretty tough all night. And we had to stay together, because it had to be a plural. There should have been more of us that would have been even funnier. It was a pretty easy costume so you can steal that idea. I was a helicopter one year, because that’s what you want to do when you’re already six-foot-one, you want to get the fan thing and sew it to a hat and wear that all night. And you know, there was a lot of risqué costumes. But if I was going as Venetian Blinds and a helicopter, I didn’t come up with too many risqué ideas. And that was kind of eye-opening for me, I had a pretty sheltered high school experience, so it was interesting.
MP: What was the dating scene like?
KN: Most of my friends dated or had boyfriends. I had a boyfriend most of my freshman year and all of my sophomore year, and then we got engaged when I was a junior, then we broke up at the end of that (thank god). And then I came back to Scripps for my senior year and met my husband-to-be a week into my senior year. Obviously I didn’t know he was going to be my husband at that point, but I really liked him obviously. But I think most of my friends kind of dated not as exclusively. But then some friends just kind of went from one monogamous relationship to another monogamous serious relationship. I get the feeling its very different now, and that scares me, being the mother of a seventeen year-old. But yeah, I think it was very different than it is now.
MP: What were general attitudes towards sex?
[35:02]
KN: Again, I came to campus with a very sheltered high school experience. I actually remember the first night -I could not make this up, this is a true story – the very first night in Dorsey, our OAs, the sophomores, made us strawberry daiquiris. I could not make this up if this was not true. I had had very little alcohol at that point in my life, so I was like wooooah college is going to be fun! College is at least going to be tasty! And I remember sitting on the floor – probably voluntarily, we hadn’t fallen on the floor at that point – and this girl was sitting next to me, who to this very day is one of my dearest dearest lifelong friends. And I remember her telling me about how she was on the pill, even though she was raised Catholic, she had had sex with her boyfriend from high school. And I just remember being dumfounded, like you’re kidding! – people…? Wow! I was so naïve, and to this day I think it would have been nice if one – one! I have five older siblings – if one of my older siblings had maybe tried to help me out there and explain that not all the world was as ridiculously strict as you were raised. Yes, that was shocking to me, it was really shocking to me. I hadn’t expected that.
MP: But did you then become more used to it?
KN: Oh definitely. There would be fire drills, and I don’t know if- I hope they don’t still do fire drills with the frequency they used to do fire drills – were you just trying to count men, was that the point? Yes it was pretty common that there were men. And then it didn’t bother me, once I realized,
“oh wow, they are very nice, reasonable, kind people, and they have sex”, and it was amazing to me, really revelatory.
MP: You mentioned briefly that you were engaged when you were a student here.
KN: Yes, I was.
MP: Was that at all common?
KN: No. I don’t think it was. I know one student that got married the week after we graduated, she got married in Margaret Fowler Garden, or maybe she got married on Elm Tree Lawn and had her reception in the Margaret Fowler Garden. No, I don’t think it was very common. And most of my friends didn’t marry people that they met here. I was thinking about that. Most of my friends married people, some in graduate school - my girlfriend (my partner at the daiquiri party) did go on to medical school, and met her husband in medical school, and they’re both… he’s a surgeon and she’s a psychiatrist. I think most of my friends met their husbands at other – not here. I’m trying to think….one of my friends married someone from Harvey Mudd, they graduated the same year. But no, it was not common to be engaged, and I broke the engagement when I realized that he didn’t want me to go back to Scripps and graduate. And I thought “that just doesn’t sound like someone who profoundly loves and cares for you and wants the best for you…they would want you to finish your degree, they would want you to graduate, and if it were to be, then come back and get married.” Much to my mother’s huge relief.
MP: And you met your current husband your senior year. Did he go to the Claremont Colleges?
[39:46]
KN: Well he was working at Scripps at the time. He had graduated from the graduate school, he’s and artist and he got his MFA in May of 86. We actually met at an art opening at the graduate school, and he thought that I was a graduate student – and I am absolutely certain that I never told him that I was a graduate student – someone else that worked at the college that knew him that knew me (because I had worked in the development office), introduced us, and he somehow thought that I was a graduate student. So this mutual friend of ours would organized going to Juanita’s and getting burritos or eating together in Kimberly dining hall or something. And I’m still friends with her too, I caught the bouquet at her wedding, and I told my husband – we weren’t married at the time – well come on, because she introduced us and I caught the bouquet at her wedding (probably because she through it directly at me) it was probably a sign. So my husband and I went out alone on our first official date, and I guess he didn’t pick me up in Kimberly…I guess I met him at his office and we went to our date. Then he was dropping me off at Kimberly, and he kind of had this moment of “well why do you get to live here? I didn’t know that the graduate school had housing on Scripps campus.” And I said “well I’m a student here”, and he said “I know but I didn’t think they let graduate students live here” and I said “I’m a senior! Not a grad student”. And of course he freaked out and thought he was going to lose his job, he can’t date a student… and I was basically dismissed from the car at that point. He was really freaking out. He worked for the art gallery, and had nothing to do with any of my classes, any of my professors, anything like that. And I really liked him. So I had worked in the Development office and I knew the President of the college at the time, John Chandler, and I felt very comfortable with him. I went up to his office, and I said “John, I have met someone, he is a staff member at the college, and he’s freaking out that he’s going to be in trouble if he dates me, and if it is a problem, then that’s cool, but I just want to know if that would be ok”. And the only thing he asked me is “Kim, just please tell me he’s not married”. And I said “oh gosh no no, he’s only twenty six” and blah blah blah. Because I guess he had been through
that, and that was kind of something that was rumored about, students dating professors and so forth and so on. I couldn’t actually site any exact examples, nor would I if I could… So I left the president’s office and walked over to my husband’s office - Malott Commons used to be the art gallery- and knocked on the door (laughing) and said to him, “Look, John Chandler says its ok if we date, so the ball’s in your court”, and then I left. And he was standing there like, the poor guy… that’s a Scripps women for you! And we got married five years later and have been married for twenty years, so thank you, John Chandler, for letting that happen!
MP: So the art studio was in Malott? Were there any other major differences on campus?
KN: The gallery was in Malott. I think the studios were upstairs, then in Seal Court, I think that was all studios. Where the mail room is now, and the little store, that was all studios too. There was also a kiln…a kiln yard. Paul Soldner would fire raku and stuff, that was so awesome.
MP: Were there any other major differences in layout?
KN: Well the Field House, which is a fabulous addition to campus – it’s pretty much the nicest pool within ten miles, trust me. Well that’s very very recent. The fabulous view I had from my dorm room in Kimberly was of a parking lot, and I think there were tennis courts there, where the parking structure and Field House are. Yeah there’s a lot of building. The new dorm, that goes by three initials…
MP: GJW
KN: Yes, that is obviously very new. And Joint Science, where the art studio is now was Joint Science. So the whole new Joint Science thing created the space for the gallery. I don’t know what was in Steel Hall when I was here, I thought they were administrative offices. But I know now they’re classrooms because that’s where my daughter takes Italian. Yeah there are a lot of changes, but I really have to hand it to Scripps, they do a great job with some architectural continuity and integrity, unlike this enormous monstrosity that CMC built just across the street. It’s so hideous. I mean I live here and I’m just so glad I’m not a CMC grad. You know, tear down the rest of campus…to me its always kind of looked like army barracks, CMC. I mean it’s a good school, it’s fabulous, but…
[45:50]
MP: Going back just a little, you mentioned that you worked for the football team. Were the athletics still Scripps, Mudd, and CMC?
KN: Yes, and I got that job because Jody Burton, who was the basketball coach and I think she still is, really wanted me to play basketball for her. I had played basketball in high school and we actually wound up being San Diego CIF champions our senior year, which was definitely saying something – I played varsity basketball my freshman year, and trust me it’s not because I was terribly talented – that was the level of talent. But there was a whole group, there were seven of us that played together for four years, pretty much all year round, and we loved it. We won two games our freshman year, so to be the San Diego section CIF champs our senior year was huge. But I could not commit to competing with them. I worked out with them for a while and it was very time consuming. Of course my mother was ecstatic that I was going to play college basketball because I had these two brothers who were far more talented athletes than I ever was - actually one of my brothers had all of these kinds of basketball scholarships, he’s fifty six now maybe? Anyway, he had all kinds of basketball offers to play basketball in college and declined to go to college. I don’t remember a lot of knock-down drag-out fights between my older siblings and my parents, but that
was notable, he wasn’t going to go to college. And then my oldest brother did not go to college, but as a very talented athlete in high school. So my mother was ecstatic that I was going to play, she finally had her college basketball child. But it was so time consuming, and my dad, ever the pragmatist, “well, there’s not exactly an athletic scholarship on the line here so it’s probably not worth your time”. And he was right, it was killing me, from a time standpoint and sleeping. I don’t think I told Jody though, until after football season was over and I finished that job, that was a good job. I had a lot of fun jobs – I made costumes for the Pomona College theater department because I could sew. But yeah, a lot of crazy different funny jobs.
MP: Was there a large amount of racial diversity on campus?
KN: It was certainly more racially diverse than my high school, which isn’t saying much, because my high school was very white. There were some African American kids at my high school, and some Hispanic kids at my high school….the greatest ethnic diversity at my high school were Vietnamese kids who came as refugees to the San Diego area. My last name is Nykanen – this is one of my favorite high school stories – we would line up alphabetically for yearbook pictures, and it would be all the Nguyen’s – Nguyen Nguyen Nguyen Nguyen Nykanen. One year the photographer said “oh wow! You’re not related!” and I said “no, I’m Finnish!”
[49:56]
So coming to Scripps, there were women from all over the world. There was a woman from Japan that lived in my dorm, and someone from Australia, and the RA was African American, and there were lesbians. I hadn’t anticipated that as an incoming freshman at a women’s college, I don’t know how I didn’t see that coming. It was such a diversity ethnically, and the socio-economic diversity, it took me a long time to figure out. I would say the academic preparedness diversity…I mean I did well in college, but I was sitting in class with people who had been to private boarding school on the east coast (and learned to drink there) and women that had lived in Switzerland and had been schooled there, and then me, and my public high school in El Cajon with two AP classes in the whole school. They used to have a – and I know have the Scripps Academy – but there were some women on my hall freshman year that were from somewhere around here, but had gone to some kind of earlier version of Scripps Academy, to get them up to speed because maybe their high school wasn’t as great as it could have been. So there was racial diversity, but there was all kinds of diversity that I had never anticipated, and it was really eye-opening to me.
MP: Did that diversity of academic preparedness kind of even out over the years?
KN: Yeah, I never felt like I was behind, I never felt intimidated that these other women were better prepared. I don’t think I realized they were better prepared, I mean this is really hindsight. I think about my daughter’s high school, and the books she has read and the amount of writing she’s had to do, and the academic requirements to graduate – it’s so much better an education going into college than I had. I was helping her study for her AP Biology final, because I do actually still remember some of that. But I said to her “I absolutely remember not learning this until I was in college. I absolutely remember studying that with my friend Carrie and trying to figure out ways to remember it”, so I’m imagining that the whole college rigor is very different.
MP: Were people very open about their sexual orientation?
KN: Yes, and again I hadn’t anticipated that. The only thing that ever bothered me, if it was a strait girl talking about what she was doing with her boyfriend, I was never comfortable with that. I never wanted to know even – I just didn’t want to hear about it. And I didn’t want to hear about it if it was
you and your girlfriend, I just didn’t want to hear about it. So that was the only thing that every really made me feel uncomfortable, maybe it made me feel more uncomfortable, I don’t know. It’s so funny living in Claremont and being known as being a Scripps grad. People will still joke with me…Oh well I wish that I could now come up with, now that I’m bringing it up, an example…but you know “Oh yeah, we know, you’re a Scripps grad”. Obviously they know I’m married and I’m not gay, but its maybe a way of understanding that I’m far more accepting of gay lifestyles and I am far more easily accepted into groups of lesbian friends than maybe I would be if I wasn’t. “Oh she went to a women’s college, she’s going to be a little more open minded”. And I don’t know that I am more or less open minded, I guess it really comes from my family, and being taught to be an accepting and tolerant person, and being open to other people and ideas, I don’t know that I got that from Scripps, I think I got that form my parents.
[55:30]
MP: What was Scripps’s reputation among the college?
KN: That’s interesting… I think we were well respected. I think that at that time, maybe Pitzer wasn’t as academically respected, although I have to say, I took Statistics there as a senior and it almost killed me, so they had some tough classes. I think that we were well respected for our academics, I mean when you would take a class at Pomona or CMC, you were included. There weren’t factions within the classroom, it was a classroom experience, and not the CMC pod and the Pomona pod and the Scripps pod agitating each other in the classroom – it was well-integrated. I don’t think as an undergrad I thought a lot about… I mean clearly Harvey Mudd was for the genius, and it was really mostly men. Harvey Mudd was really very – I don’t know what the percentage was at the time – but mostly men at Harvey Mudd, and they were clearly the geniuses on campus. And now, obviously, I see it very differently. I think that Pitzer is much more well respected now, and deservedly so. I think it probably should have been back then, I don’t know. But Pomona, and maybe because my husband works there, Pomona kind of, you know, thinks it’s all that. I’ll be honest, they really do, they think they’re pretty hot stuff. It’s a great school, I would not be disappointed if my daughter went to Pomona. I would be delighted if she would go to Scripps.
MP: And the final question, do you remember the mural or painting that your class did in the Rose Garden?
KN: Yes, we are in the doorway, going between the little parking lot there into the Rose Garden – we are around and inside the actual entrance. And it’s still there, it wasn’t the greatest piece of real estate, so I don’t think any other classes thought “oh we should covet that, that’s a great location!” it’s really not.
MP: And what is the painting of?
KN: Oh it’s not a painting. It’s just our names, and it’s a lyric from the Hotel California song. Something about you can go but never leave…. “you can check out but you can never leave”, something like that. So there’s a quote from the song, and we signed our names inside. I remember doing that too. Interestingly, one of my older sisters was here that day. I don’t ever remember her being on campus, but she was here with me that day. That was also, I think, I don’t know if they still do the senior champagne party in Margaret Fowler garden, she was there for that too. I think she chose well, the one day she visited me on campus in four years, those were some fun activities.
MP: Is there anything else I didn’t ask about, or anything you would like to add?
KN: I would just say that it was clearly one of the better decisions I made in my life. I hope that my daughter will heed – I really strongly heeded the advice of my dad to come here – and being on the other side of that now, I hope that our daughter is receptive to feedback, whether it is Scripps or not, our kind of sense of who she is and where she is going to fit in on a campus. Clearly Scripps was a really good decision for me, especially since I changed my field of study, my field of interest so dramatically. To be premed at Stanford and then to change like I did, I think that would have been very very difficult, and I think they are probably – I don’t know, I didn’t go to Stanford so I can’t compare what the campus environment is – but it seems to be a very competitive environment and I think it would have been pretty embarrassing for me to make such a big change or to leave that department. And I didn’t feel that at Scripps, I felt really supported. My friends didn’t think I was any kind of a loser, they were really excited for me that I was going to get to – they were all studying abroad, so they were excited that I was going to be able to have that experience. So it really turned out to be a great decision, and I will try to remind my daughter “you know, as your parents we might have a little insight” but who knows. I think this would be a great fit for her, I mean I know it would be, but she’s grown up here, so I kind of understand if she wants to move away.
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