Elizabeth Schetina interview

              Ann Kirkpatrick: Well how does it feel to be back on campus?

Elizabeth Schetina: I love being back on campus. I love Denison Library. It’s beautiful—it’s
more beautiful than when I was here.

AK: Where are you from originally?

ES: I grew up in Santa Barbara—I was born in Massachusetts, but I grew up in Santa Barbara.
And I finished high school in Ventura County, and I live in Glendale now.

AK: What did you study while you were at Scripps?

ES: I was an American Studies major. Oh, first I have to tell you; I went to UCLA for freshman
year. Not a positive experience. Too big, too impersonal, you know. And the dorms were like jail
cells. So then I visited someone who was at CMC, and stayed with someone then from Scripps,
and so then I transferred. So I was only here three years.

AK: So what about Scripps drew you to the campus and encouraged you to transfer here?

ES: I was just amazed when I came on campus, I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is where I should
be.” Obviously how beautiful it is, the dorms, the warmth of the women, the other students, the
way they talked to each other, the way they debated their work, the way they talked to the
professors. It was all…professors in the dining hall, this was unheard of. So all of it, the whole
package.

AK: What were some popular majors among Scripps students?

ES: I was American Studies, and that was very popular. International Relations was just kind of
getting going, it was very popular. English, Dance, French, German, there was a lot
of…Women’s Studies was still pretty new still. So there was Women in Antiquity, or you know,
Women’s Studies in general, there were a lot of classes like that.

AK: What were some of the colleges that a lot of your high school friends went to?

ES: Oh that’s a good question. A lot of people went to UCLA. Some friends went to CMC that I
kept up with. University of Chicago, um, gosh, that’s really all I can remember…UCSB.

AK: Can you describe a normal day as a Scripps student?

ES: Oh that’s a good question. Okay, so let’s think about that. I lived in Browning. So
probably….some of this might be unique to my experience. I worked, I had work study, so I
worked at the Mary B. Eyre Children’s School, which I guess now is just called, whatever you
call it at CMC, the Children’s Center or the Children’s School, but it used to be on Dartmouth.
So I would go, I had to go there early. So we used to have the dining halls, you know, each
dining hall was in each dorm. So it was before the dining hall even opened, so I would go down,
and because we had this same woman—her name was Louise—who was our dining hall
supervisor, she would let me in, I would leave my card, I would take breakfast, and I would walk
to Dartmouth to the school and work. She would swipe my card when it was time, and I would
pick it up later.
I would usually wake up one of my friends, who was class of ’84 on my way out, because
she never would wake up, and I’d work for a couple hours then go to class. Almost always we
had lunch in our own dorm, in Browning or Dorsey, and then dinner we would have all over,
down at Pomona, or at CMC. Sometimes in the afternoon we went to the Hub, played Pac-Man,
Ms. Pac-Man was new, watched General Hospital. What else…We used to have desk duty, that
was part of your day. Do you guys know what desk duty was? Good, now you do.

AK: Could you describe that?

ES: Sure! Because we didn’t have phones in your room. You had the phone on the wall. So let’s
say your mother’s calling you. So she would call and you would answer the…someone had to sit
at the desk, you know when you enter the old dorms, there’s a desk there, that doesn’t have
anything now, but it had a switchboard, just like old school. You’d answer the phone, and they’d
say, “Oh, may I speak with Ann please, this is her mom.” “Oh sure, hold on!” and you’d take the
plug, and you’d plug it into Ann’s room, and you’d push the button, and it’d ring through to your
room. And then if you weren’t there, it would ring back, and you would pick up the phone,
“Could you tell Ann I called, and have her call me back?” “Of course,” and we’d write a little
note and put it in your box. The mail was delivered in your box. Whoever was on desk duty had
to sort the mail.
There was the usual parties on the evenings, on the weekends, at the Wash and CMC. I
didn’t often go to those, but I went sometimes. We often went to see the sporting things if there
was women’s volleyball or lacrosse or something. We could not walk to the movies, there was
no movies in the Village. None of us had cars. Some people got cars when we were seniors or
juniors. So there were a lot more movies, or probably you guys have it too now, but there was
always a movie on the weekend that people were showing.
We went, there was a lot of, I remember a lot of visiting when I was a junior, we had a
journalist program and a lot of journalists visited. I don’t know why, but I got to be in charge of a
lot of them, you’d greet them when they’d arrive on campus. You’d take them and they’d give a
lecture, and walk them to Wilbur for dinner. They would stay at Wilbur usually. It wasn’t a
dorm. So there’s always something, a performance, a lecture, a movie, something like that. We’d
study.

5:40

AK: What traditions were in place that you were still continuing in 1980, and 1981, ‘2, ’3?

ES: Traditions, well desk duty was traditional, of course. Let’s see…well one thing I remember,
and it’s kind of weird to even talk to you guys about, we had Secret Santas. Everyone in the
dorm who wanted to participate would participate, and you would leave little gifts for your
person you were paired with, and then we’d have one holiday party at the end. We had Christmas
trees in the living room of each dorm. And one of the…the professor who was assigned to your
dorm would come dressed as Santa Claus and hand out the gifts. You would put your gift for
your Secret Santa under the tree. And it is true that we used to sit on their laps. Which I’m just
sure would never happen now. I have pictures to prove it.
That was one, there was always a professor who was sort of assigned to your dorm who
would come and have lunch there, that was nice. I’m trying to think of other traditions…we had,
um, the dorm had its own committee of governing the dorm. We had, let’s see, the date room,
which is now a bedroom I’m sure, in every dorm. The date room used to be the headmistress’s—
no, the date room was the room where your dates would wait when they would come to pick you
up from the dorm. But we didn’t use it as a date room, we used it as, it was like a den. Somebody
would get, you know, people would pay to get a TV in there. People would put their money in
together. The dorm that was like your dorm mistress’s room, I think, was usually the RA’s room.
Trying to think of other traditions…We had, you know, student government. There was
the college council, I don’t know if you guys still have the college council, but with President
and Vice President. The last year that I was here I served as Vice President, and that put you in
charge then also of the judiciary committee. And I wanted to go to law school, so that was a
good fit for me. And the judiciary committee was made up of the Vice President of the College
Council, and one student from each dorm, who was like the President of their dorm. And we
would resolve issues that the administration didn’t want to get involved in, thefts, things like
that. There was a big case in one year about some diamond earrings in Mary Routt. It was, turned
out to be very sad. Somebody ended up withdrawing, and she wasn’t doing well. So we did that,
I assume they still have the….the juniors would carry the ivy garlands for the seniors at
graduation, I think that’s still there. We still do that. Elm Tree Lawn, that whole graduation
experience was just very traditional and fabulous. That’s all I’m thinking of at the moment.

AK: You mentioned going to the Hub and to the Wash, so what were some more of the things
you did for fun on the weekend?

ES: We went to the library of course, on the weekend. We didn’t…you know there was always a
movie that we would go to. Well you know I don’t know, we did a lot of listening to music on
our cassette tape players, and dancing in the halls. Some people did play drinking games, I didn’t
usually. Not that I had anything against them, but…some people walked to Wolfe’s Market on
the weekend, it was a big event. That was about all that was there. Sometimes I babysat for
professors, for their…I did that a lot, it was a good moneymaking…I’m trying to think of what
else we did.
Well there used to be the exchange with boys at Caltech. They arranged dances that they
would take a bus or a vanload of Scripps women to Caltech to dance because there weren’t any
women there. So a lot of people ended up dating boys form Caltech. So that was an exchange
that we did. Once we went into Los Angeles, this was a big event, to go to see the Academy
Awards, the people walking into the Academy Awards, and that was big.
We did have vans to rent, we didn’t have ZipCars, and they weren’t good vans. They
were like the big old vans that you would use for a team. The school would take sometimes,
there would be trips to Pasadena to the museums. There was a series you could buy, very cheap
as a student, to go to the theater in Los Angeles and you would go once a month to the theater
with professors in the van. I’m trying to think of what else we did for fun.
We used to slide down what used to be the laundry chute in Browning Hall, down into
the basement to do laundry. We’d play with that a lot. As I said, there was always somebody
who was doing their play or performance. There was, you know, the shows in the auditorium.
Both Balch and the other one. Once Ronald Reagan visited the campus, that was a big event. We
worked on protesting, I worked on the newspaper. It was a five-college paper, and it used to be
right behind the bookstore, the Huntley bookstore. There was a little section, so we spent a lot of
time there developing photos and things like that. And that was the only paper. Scripps had sort
of a newsletter, but they didn’t have a paper.

11:25

AK: What were the attitudes about drugs and drinking at the 5C’s?

ES: You know I don’t remember—I was thinking about this—I don’t remember anything about
drugs. I mean, I think the idea was that drugs were sort of a CMC thing, that, you could if you
wanted drugs you could go there. I remember there was, you know, a lot of marijuana, there was
some mushrooms and things like that, but that was not a big part of the community, I don’t think
at all. Alcohol was probably about the same now. I mean it was very…people weren’t worried
about it, you know, nobody…it was easy to get, it was easy to go to the Wash and drink and, you
know, even in dorms people would have or people would bring Coors or Michelob Lite, that was
a big thing. Wine. But it was very relaxed. Nobody was…there wasn’t any sort of upset.
Can I tell you the Coors story? I don’t know if alcohol companies still do this, but at the
time Coors offered to do a, like, to come on campus and set up a party. They would bring beer,
basically, free beer, and we had to put banners up that said Coors Beer and things like this. And
then you could sort of do your own party with it. And at the time on the College Council, some
of the women were upset because there was the idea that Coors was sort of an anti-feminist
corporation. And this was still big to sort of think in terms of…I mean it’s easier now, people
label corporations, you know, blue or red, and people are very sensitive, sort of, to what
corporations do with their money and to what causes they donate, but people weren’t really then.
And so we sort of researched it and we found that yeah, heck, Coors was a pretty bad company
for women and for minorities. There was no women executives, it was very, you know, they had
a sense that they were donating to a lot of anti-choice and a lot of anti-women. So we decided as
a College Council that we weren’t going to allow Coors on the campus. And it wasn’t about the
beer, it was about their advertising. So a lot of women sort of, a lot of other students were upset,
they thought it was sort of an anti-beer thing, but it was really a feminist thing. So it was good, I
was very proud of us, we stuck to it and we, and Coors ended up having their party at Harvey
Mudd and at CMC, and so we didn’t get their advertising at all. So it was good, and I think we
all ended up going to the party or at least walking past, but the idea was that we didn’t want to do
their advertisement. So that was kind of an interesting story with alcohol. And that was really, I
think, one of the first times people were really thinking about where you put your money. You
know now, if Target donates to a, you know, an anti-homosexual agenda politician, people know
about it, and people complain and won’t shop there and there’s, you know, much more
awareness than there was then. So that was interesting. But it wasn’t about the beer; it was about
the Coors corporation.

AK: What was the school’s alcohol policy like and how strictly was it enforced?

ES: You know, I don’t know what the alcohol policy was, but I don’t think it was enforced,
because, as I said, if we had a party in Browning, even a party that was in the living room, we
had liquor. And I don’t remember…I know now you guys have wristbands and things like that
for people who are over twenty-one, and theoretically it you now keeps the people under twentyone
from getting alcohol, but I don’t remember anything like that. It was pretty much freeflowing
if you wanted it, but I don’t think it was a problem or anything like that. I remember,
you know, if you were having a party, you usually have the people who are twenty-one who
collect money, and you know, pick up some twelve-packs of beer and it was fine. We didn’t have
anything like a house mother or anything like that, that was long gone. And we didn’t have tea.
They had quit tea and they hadn’t started it up again, like you guys have tea. So we were pretty
much…that’s not answering your question, but I don’t remember it being any kind of a problem.

15:38

AK: How did you communicate with your family and how often did you do it?

ES: Oh that’s a good question. Well we had our phones on the wall. And it was expensive, it
wasn’t, you know, it was a big deal to call long distance. I wrote letters to my family. My mom
worked and she would usually type me a letter at work on her break or something and send it to
me, and I would get it the next day and I would write a letter and walk down to Foothill, there
was a mailbox, and post it there. So we basically wrote letters back and forth. You probably
didn’t talk to your parents but once or twice…once a week, twice a month, something like that.
Because it was too expensive to call.

AK: How often were you able to visit home?

ES: Let’s see…my family lived in Ventura County at the time. I probably didn’t go—we didn’t
have Fall Break—I probably didn’t go home until Thanksgiving. And then for Christmas, but I
don’t remember going home in between at all. They came out when we, like when my friend and
I won the election for College Council, my family and took us out to dinner. It was a big deal if
somebody’s parents came to campus and took you out to dinner. Because there weren’t that
many parents around at all. They sort of, like, dropped you off, and that was it.

AK: What kind of music did you listen to?

ES: That’s a good question, too. I remember The Supremes. The Supremes were very big. The
Police was very big. Gosh, that’s about all I remember. I’m trying to think of what else…I think
there was the usual sort of rock, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Supertramp, that was big. So sort of
like the rock and roll, and Browning Hall was really into The Supremes, that was big. That’s all I
remember.

AK: How did you listen to music? You mentioned cassette tapes.

ES: Cassette tapes! That was it. If you had your little cassette tape from home, you were pretty
lucky. It was all cassette tapes, nothing else. If you were like really set in your dorm room, you
have a little black and white TV and a cassette player and a typewriter. That was like, if you had
those three things, everyone wants to be your friend.

AK: You mentioned movies bring brought to campus and screened. Do you remember any
movies that stood out?

ES: I remember we would always watch Halloween at Halloween. And The Nightmare on Elm
Street, that’s what we call it. Uh…that’s a good question, too. Gosh, I can’t remember. I know
there was sometimes movies we would go down to Pomona. There was like, there would be a
director or an actor or something would be there. But if you’re asking…I can’t remember
specifics. I’ll probably remember them after I leave. We would…Pitzer always had movies on
Friday night, too. Just, you know, it was a dollar if you were a student, that kind of thing. But
again, I can’t remember too much. We used to watch Little House on the Prairie on the black
and white TV. That’s true. And people would watch All My Children, or General Hospital.
AK: What was the art scene like? I remember you mentioned going to see plays.
ES: Mostly it was…I don’t know if it was a five-college orchestra, we’d see that at Garrison.
There was always…I remember a lot of sort of lunchtime concerts with other students
performing. And then if your friends were doing Midsummer Night’s Dream, or something in
Balch, we would do that. I can’t remember doing…I can’t remember any printed art, like you
know paintings or fine arts like that at all. I’m sure they were around. We did a lot of the, you
know, photography, with the five-college paper.

AK: What was the fashion like?

ES: [laughs] This is a good question. I can very clearly remember that. It was, people were really
at the time into wool skirts, like pleated wool skirts and knee socks. And penny loafers, very big.
I’m trying to think about the time. It was around the time of Princess Di and the Sloane Rangers,
sort of the preppy look was big, like pink Lacoste polo shirts with the collar up. A lot of
sweaters, the skirts were really big. There, um, Lanz nightgowns, L-A-N-Z. Do you guys have
those nightgowns? I know you don’t. Don’t worry, you can still buy them from the store.
They’re sort of like granny nightgowns, they have lace like this [traces collar with hands] and
they’ve long sleeves and they have lace around here [motions to wrists]. Everybody had one.
Everybody had one. You could sort of get them at your grandma’s shop, where she buys her
pajamas and her underwear. But everybody had those wool nightgowns, I mean the flannel
nightgowns. There was nobody who did not have a Lanz nightgown. So I remember that. I guess
that’s about it. Some people had bikes, bikes were not as popular, but you would always ride
your bike with your knee socks and your wool skirt.

21:12

AK: What kind of food was served?

ES: Oh, the food was so much worse. It was, as I said, it was in your dorm, but all the dorms had
the same meal. Sunday night was shrimp and steak, big night, breaded shrimp and steak.
Tuesday or Thursday, I don’t remember which, was turkey tetrazzini, which was a casserole with
the leftover turkey. We had tuna surprise, which was basically tuna casserole with peas and
breadcrumbs. This is pretty much all I remember. Sometimes we had just, like, chicken breast,
but not very often. It was usually just, like, pieces of beef in some sort of sauce. There was
mashed potatoes. We didn’t have salad bar. We had the nifty little tea cakes in the morning, the
little square cakes that have hard frosting on them. That was a pretty big day, when you had the
tea cakes.
We would go to the Hub because they had onion rings, French fries. Sometimes we’d
walk into the Village and eat at the Village Grill. Two dollars, you could get a grilled cheese
sandwich, bag of chips, and a soda. That was big. That Greek store was still there, Yianni’s,
we’d go to the Greek store. When people had a car, you’d go down Foothill to, there’s a Mexican
restaurant and it’s still there, and they would actually serve you if you were not twenty-one. They
tried not to, but they didn’t ask too many questions. It’s still there. There used to be the Betsy
Ross, it’s a realtor now, but it’s past the hotel, there was the Betsy Ross you could walk to, and
they had French fries, that was big. There wasn’t a lot of choices.

AK: So you mentioned earlier something about date rooms. Can you describe more about what
the dating scene was like?

ES: The dating scene…it was probably not much different except there was no Facebook or
anything like that. It was mostly people that you met in your classes. Boys—young men—who
were in your major, like if they were taking classes at Scripps or if you were taking classes down
there. As a I said, a lot of girls went out with boys from Caltech. Which was pretty funny, they
were bussed in.
It was, you know…people were pretty flexible about having boys in the dorm. The one
rule, and I don’t know if you guys still have this rule, is there was no boys in the browsing room.
But, and then, as a dorm you had to vote on the bathrooms, which I don’t think you do anymore.
You had to…each, you know, the cluster of women who had the rooms around that bathroom
would vote whether or not you felt comfortable with allowing men to be in your bathroom. And
usually, I hate to say this, but the girls who voted against letting men in there were kind of…I
don’t want to say ridiculed, but people would be, “Ugh! You’re such a problem.” So if anybody
in your dorm objected to it, to having men in the, using the bathrooms, you had a little sign on
the bathroom door. I don’t know if you guys have heard about this. And it had a little arm that
pointed and it would say…it would point to “Men Within” if there was a guy who, you know, if
your boyfriend was going to the bathroom, you had to tell him to put it pointing to that so that
other women who didn’t want to share a bathroom with boys wouldn’t go in there. Or there was
a place to put it “Woman Objects,” which means you’re using the bathroom and you don’t want
any men coming in. Or it could go to where it was neutral, nobody cared. So if you were that
student, that resident, who objected to having men in your bathroom, when you would go in you
would put it to “Women Object”. So that was still, like you know, it was a big deal having boys
walk around in the dorm. You were supposed to, obviously, accompany them. They weren’t
supposed to just leave your room and go to the front door, you were supposed to walk them to
the door.
But I think that most people went out with people, like, that they met either at parties or
in their classrooms. I took a lot of classes at CMC in American Literature, and those had very
few women because CMC was still Claremont Men’s College. So that was a good way to meet
guys, too, because there were a lot of guys and not a lot of women in the classes.

25:30

AK: Was CMC co-ed but still called Claremont Men’s?

ES: You know, I was thinking about that when I was driving here, I think it was co-ed, but it was
still called Claremont Men’s. It was either right when they were transitioning the name, or they
had already transitioned, it was right at the transition time. And then, at the time, living in
Browning and with the other women living up here, we just couldn’t imagine that anyone would
want to live at CMC, any women would want to live at CMC, because it was pretty much gross,
like beer-soaked and you know. It was really a guy’s kingdom. But a lot of women took
International Relations classes there, things like that, Government. And that was kind of, as I
said, that was kind of a new major.

AK: Did you participate in any sports programs?

ES: No. I swam. I used the pool because I had swum, I was on the swim team in high school, but
I didn’t compete. We had…the pool was where, on the other side of Routt and Frankel, where
the new dorm is. It was not that great of a pool. And then we had one tennis court we used to use,
and it was kind of where the Field House is, in sort of a field of weeds, basically. And we didn’t
have the nice field that you guys have for soccer and lacrosse. We did, we had like softball
games and things like that, that people would arrange just pick up games and things like that, but
nothing organized.

AK: Were the women’s sports as popular as the men’s sports at the 5Cs?

ES: No. I think Scripps women were pretty supportive of the women who were doing sports. But
it wasn’t…it wasn’t as supportive. I was talking to…in the summer, I met with a friend who was
class of ’84, and she had heard about this woman who came to Scripps to play volleyball. And
she just couldn’t believe it; she kept saying, “Can you believe somebody went to Scripps to play
volleyball?” Because for us, the sports weren’t emphasized or promoted, and here was this
woman who chose her school based on the fact that she wanted to play volleyball. So that’s new
for Scripps, to have people wanting to be on their teams, and to be recruiting people who can
play ball and can play volleyball and can swim and play lacrosse. So it’s kind of new.

AK: So you mentioned spending a lot of time at the Hub; did you ever spend any time at the
Motley?

ES: Yes, the Motley was right here on the other side of Denison. You know the courtyard where
you come out of Denison? It was right there. Oh yeah, that was an art thing; we used to have
poetry slams all the time, but we didn’t call it poetry slamming, we just called it a poetry reading,
but it was basically like an open mic night. And it was very small compared to your Motley. I
remember maybe two couches? And it just was coffee and drinks and things like that. I don’t
even remember any pastries. But we would go there often and, not to study, but to read your
poetry or hear somebody else reading poetry. Support your friends, that kind of thing. But it
wasn’t sort of the hangout where you would drink coffee and have a sandwich at all. I did like it,
it was where, it had the painting on the wall, the “Motley to the View” painted on the wall. It was
nice. It was mostly a very small group of women who ran the Motley. And they were—when I
came—they were all upperclassmen. They were kind of cool.

AK: How visible were gay and lesbian students on the 5Cs?

ES: Not very much at all. There were a couple women that we thought, “Oh, she’s probably
gay.” Nobody had any…it wasn’t like a problem or anything like that. I don’t remember any men
being openly gay. I think it was much safer for women to come to Scripps and be openly lesbian,
but it wasn’t…you didn’t see girls walking around together holding hands, you certainly…and I
really don’t remember any men who came out or anything like that. I think it was, felt safe for
the women who were homosexual at Scripps, but it wasn’t a big thing. There wasn’t a Gay and
Lesbian Students, that I remember, Support Group or anything like that. It just wasn’t very
visible. But I do remember—know—that there was some women who were. But they didn’t…it
wasn’t sort of as open, for anybody.

AK: Was there a dialogue about the gay civil rights movement?

30:02

ES: [shakes head] I don’t remember any of that.
I’m sure you guys have heard this, this is probably off-topic. We were…in the seventies, there
was how the schools were labeled, like for women. And if you…I’ll just tell you, it’s tacky of
course, but it was “Pitzers to bed, Scrippsies to wed, and Pomona girls--just good friends.” And
it was still pretty much, I think that a lot of people—women—who wanted to be out went to
Pitzer because it was sort of more hippie, not as serious academic, you know, kind of the more
psychiatry, not shaving your underarms kind of a place. And that, I mean the “Pitzers to bed,”
that’s kind of what people…this is kind of the dating scene.
“Scrippsies to wed”—so we were still kind of trying to get past that, like, you’re not coming to
Scripps for your MRS degree. Which is kind of what it was in, you know, the sixties. Not so
much in the seventies, they were trying to get past it. But when I married my husband, his cousin
went to Pomona, and the first time I met her she said, “Oh you went to Scripps, Scrippsies to
wed.” She said, “I can’t believe you didn’t get married at Scripps.” I was like, “What? Where
does this come from?” But she was at Pomona in the seventies, so. It’s more like in the dating
scene question, anyway I wanted to say that.

AK: So the early 80’s was the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Was that talked about a lot
on campus, and did it affect any attitudes about sex?

ES: That’s a good question. I think, I remember it more when I went to law school, people
talking about AIDS and safe sex and protecting yourself. And I think, certainly in Los Angeles, it
was later when people started saying, you know, “Oh, I have a friend who has AIDS,” and things
like that. I don’t remember talk about AIDS. We knew that you could get, you know,
contraception and things like that at, um…our health clinic wasn’t where yours is, I guess yours
is Tranquada, something like that. Ours was, I’m going to try to remember the name, but it’s not
the health clinic anymore. But you could get, you know, condoms and things there. But it wasn’t
like, the RA wasn’t handing them out. It wasn’t that open. So I think it was really…and that was
not really about safe sex, but it was more about just pregnancy prevention.

AK: Was it Baxter Health Center?

ES: It was Baxter, because we called it Baxter Quackster. Thank you for remembering. Yeah, I
don’t remember a lot of talk about AIDS at all.

AK: Was the issue of race often discussed?

ES: Race was more discussed. It was part of our issue with Coors. And there was a lot of
discussion about increasing diversity at Scripps, because there was maybe, I don’t know, but
maybe two black students. That was something that we did talk about, and trying to make
Scripps more diverse. And then from that, people also talked a lot about affirmative action and
what’s appropriate and what…you know, is it, to get the diversified student body, what are you
willing to do? You know, lower standards or, you know, provide special help for students. So
that was more talked about.
See we didn’t have also, like, the Gender Studies and the Race Studies. When we had
Core, we had…you took Ancient World, Ren and Ref, Medieval World, Modern…
Contemporary Era, and then Music Appreciation or Art Appreciation. And that was what you
took, there wasn’t sort of the in-depth studies that you guys do, like this class, your seminars
where you look at, you know, masculinity and culture, or race and culture. That was more, still
pretty new, I think.

AK: How did Scripps change while you were here?

ES: That’s a good question. Well one thing I was thinking of, when I came, we didn’t have a
Dean’s List at Scripps. And sort of, as part of the College Council, and we talked about it a lot,
and the answer we pretty much got from the administration was, “Well we’re not competitive.”
And we really felt, the group of us, that…particularly I thought that first of all, we need to be
competitive with the other Claremont Colleges. And while we are a women’s college, it was sort
of the idea that women aren’t competitive with each other, we’re supportive of each other. And I
always felt, well gosh, we needed to be competitive with other women’s colleges, these colleges
on the East Coast. And competitive with each other, and you could still be collegiate and
collaborative and be competitive and sort of push ourselves academically out there in the world,
you know, look how smart all these women are. And that was really a new idea, to be sort
pushing ourselves academically, bragging about ourselves, and saying, you know, anyway…
So we ended up with a Dean’s List, and it took about a year and a half to get a Dean’s
List, and you guys have a Dean’s List. So I was very happy about that. It felt like Scripps was
taking itself more seriously academically, pushing itself more in the world. And now, in the 90’s
and now, Scripps has done an incredibly good job about being competitive and obviously the
amount of alumnae donations that we get and being competitive with other women’s colleges. I
mean, we passed Mills years ago, we were way ahead of them. And then we just keep getting
better, and I think part of that was acknowledging, “Hey, we can all be super smart and be proud
of being super smart and still be a collaborative school,” and put ourselves out there and say, you
know, “We’re just as smart as this school,” and things like that, and also if you wanted to attract
really high quality faculty, that was important. So that was something that changed while I was
here, and I was really proud of that, that we got that going. It was a little thing, but it felt like it
was important to move us past, you know…we’re here to get our BA’s, we’re not here to get our
MRS.

36:32

AK: How did Scripps’s identity as a women’s college play into your decision to attend, or to
transfer?

ES: Yeah, to transfer…oh, it was very big. Because that was, at the time, too, where there was a
lot of discussion of how girls were treated in elementary school classrooms. Stuff had just been
published about how teachers favor boys, they don’t call on girls, and about this whole problem
with girls not excelling in math and science. That was very new research, kind of, at the time, I
remember when all that came out. And so it absolutely played into my decision to come here.
The idea that women are in charge of everything, that women are taken seriously, that the
professors are there, you know, they’re part of the commitment to women’s education. I thought
it was great. It was great, I think it’s very important. And don’t ever call it a girl’s school. I get
really mad when people call it a girl’s school.

AK: Did your parents attend college?

ES: My mom went to a women’s college, she went to University of Mississippi for Women,
which is not co-ed anymore, and my dad went to…he went to MIT and Illinois Institute of
Technology. And University of Chicago, too.

AK: Did you take any Women’s Studies classes while at Scripps?

ES: I don’t remember…well, I took Women in Antiquity with, um…she’s not here anymore, I
can’t remember her name. Christiansen and Watkins I think? No, Wickham. Cathleen Wickham.
They were fabulous, so that’s one Women’s Studies class I took. I don’t remember any other
Women’s Studies. Certainly it was always part of the discussion at Scripps classes, whatever you
were having, it was sort of the women’s point of view. And we had a class called the Humanities
Internship Program, which they don’t have anymore. It was a semester’s class, and basically it
was about getting women into the workforce, because that was still new, too, and having other
women, other women who had graduated before and women that people knew, promoting
getting young women into the work force. So this was a semester class and the professors would
help you get a job or an internship and you would basically then meet together to talk about
women’s issues in work. So I guess it was sort of a Women’s Studies class. I worked at the Los
Angeles City Attorney’s office in the Domestic Violence program, which was very cool. So I
guess that was kind of Women’s Studies, too.

AK: You mentioned the anti-Coors campaign and how that was a success at Scripps. Can you
tell us more about the dialogue of the feminist movement at the 5Cs?

ES: Wow, that’s a good question, too. I think at the time there were still a lot of women, both at
Scripps and at other colleges—I don’t include Pitzer in that—certainly Harvey Mudd and CMC,
that were uncomfortable with the “feminist movement” and it was, there was still a lot of…I
don’t want to say prejudice, but antagonism toward people who said they were feminist because
it was a “Oh, you’re anti-men, are you a lesbian?” And there was still a lot of that kind of
question. And women who were very outspoken about women’s issues or feminist issues still, I
think, took some criticism from men.
This was pretty, you know, I started here in ’80…I guess The Feminine Mystique was
from ’63 or ’64, but people hadn’t read it. It was not anything that anyone talked about in my
high school. And it was not anything that my parents read or supported—not that they didn’t
support it, it wasn’t something they would, they wouldn’t have brought into the house, you
know, The Feminine Mystique. That, the book Our Bodies, Ourselves, that was pretty new, too.
So it was still really…I think it had caught on with older women, but it hadn’t really caught on, it
was just really catching on with young women, sort of the mid-seventies, end of the seventies. It
was the first time I had read any kind of feminism writings was at Scripps. I do think that there
was still a lot of prejudice against…I remember in high school, because I had the highest grade
in Calculus, boys were just mercilessly teasing you, because, “Why are you doing so…oh, you
shouldn’t be best in the class, you’re a girl, why are you even taking math?” You know, that kind
of thing. That was in ’79, so I still think it was very young as far as people being willing to speak
up and be a feminist, out you know…and take the consequences. It was getting better, I think.
Certainly by the time I left, people were very comfortable with it.
But when I went to work in a law firm, there were still the women who were, “This is the
first woman in this law firm, this was the first woman partner.” It wasn’t like now where you
could go into a law firm and half the attorneys, half the partners would be women. It was still,
sort of, you could meet the pioneers when you graduated. The people you were working with
were sort of still the pioneers of getting into work.

41:47

AK: What was the reaction on Scripps campus towards the failure of the Equal Rights
Amendment?

ES: Oh, people were pretty upset about that. I do remember people being very upset, and it was
sort of at Scripps, we didn’t understand what the…what was the anger or the upset about it. It
was a very clear amendment; everyone has equal rights regardless of sex. And I know it’s very
hard to get a constitutional amendment. But people couldn’t understand—certainly Scripps
women couldn’t understand what the problem with it was, and it was so obviously inoffensive
and needed, and I think it sort of reflected, still, the society’s view that “Whoa, what’s this
feminism thing? You’re doing fine, you don’t need special protections.” I don’t remember
people at other colleges being supportive about it, either. I do remember we were pretty upset
about it. People were pretty anti-Reagan when he came to campus.

AK: Do you remember when Sandra Day O’Connor was placed on the Supreme Court?

ES: I do. That was big, too. I think people were very proud of that. I was at law school when
Antonin Scalia was…came on the Supreme Court, and people were very upset because he was
anti-women and anti-feminist issues. And there was still the thinking, I mean, it just was such a
milestone to have O’Connor on the Court. It was big. People were very proud. And there still this
sense, though, that people were satisfied with sort of the token, we have…there’s one woman on
the Supreme Court, so it wasn’t like…Now, there’s three, which is kind of unheard of. But at the
time, it was almost like, “Okay, we can relax, we have a woman on the Supreme Court.” It was
still the idea that these were…we were getting token people and not just, you know, not fully
integrating, it was more of a token thing.
It was a time, people still said things like, “Oh, she’s a lady doctor,” or, “oh, I went
to…we hired a lady engineer,” is what my dad used to say. “We hired a lady engineer!” I said,
“You mean an engineer?” “Yeah, a lady who’s an engineer!” Now we can just call her an
engineer, but at the time people still talked like that. So it was like, “Oh, we have a woman
Supreme Court justice,” instead of just a Supreme Court justice. So I’m happy that we’re way
past the tokenism, just having one woman on things. The law firm can relax because they’ve just
hired a woman. You know, that kind of thing. “We did what we have to do.” So, I’m sure you
can talk to some of the women who graduated in the 70’s who went to work, and probably more
like the 60’s, too, and didn’t tell people they were married because they wouldn’t have gotten
hired if you were married. It was, I mean, it was still changing pretty fast.

AK: What were the class requirements at Scripps?

ES: Well, we talked about the Humanities requirements, which I loved all those classes.
Renaissance and Reformation, Medieval World, I loved those classes. We had to take…I think
we had to take a writing class. We had the Humanities requirements, and then you just had your
major requirements. You could get out of math and science by what you took in high school. I
had to take one science. I didn’t have to take any math. We had our thesis, which we wrote in
the…your fall semester of your senior year. People didn’t…you didn’t have a minor, most
people didn’t have a minor. Some people had a minor if it was Dance or Music, but it was
extremely rare, and there weren’t any double majors or things like that. People…that was really
rare, too. So you just did your requirements for your major.
It was good, because we had a lot of time to take other things. Even though I was
American Studies, I took three semesters of British Literature just for fun. And I loved the
Shakespeare teacher. We had the Joint Science Center, it used to be I guess where Steele Hall is
now. It was where the, now your art building is, that was the Joint Science Center. But again, it
was still like, “Oh, we’re having, you know, Scripps women are now going to take lab sciences,”
and things like that. It was still new that we had our own science building, things like that.

46:08

AK: Did you take many classes at other campuses?

ES: I took, there was a professor at Harvey Mudd, who I think is still there, Hal Barron, I took
two classes from him in American History. So the answer is yes. I took…there was a professor
of English at CMC that I took a lot of—Fossum—I took a lot of American Literature with him.
And I think that was it. I never took anything at Pomona. I took French at Pitzer one year,
because that fit into my schedule. So I did. And we…there was a lot of switching back and forth.
I mean, it wasn’t a…there were very few classes that were just Scripps women.

AK: How did having guys in your class affect the environment of the classroom?

ES: I think that I usually, for Scripps classes, I liked it better when it was just Scripps women, or
other women. And I think can probably still tell who are the Scripps women and who are women
from Harvey Mudd or from CMC, based on how they sit, based on how they discuss, based on
what they know from their ancient world—at the time we were in Ancient World—philosophers
and…I always liked it better when it was just Scripps women. Because it is…a lot of the guys,
you know, they expect to be called on, there was the idea…you don’t want to generalize, but
they, you know, just by being guys and showing up, that’s half their thing, you know. Most of
the classes that I had at other colleges were mixed, and I enjoyed them. I didn’t really have any
problem, but I did like when we just had Scripps women in our classes. I think the discussions
were more…I don’t know, I remember them being better, livelier. And because we had all had
the same Core classes, you know what the other people were talking about if they wanted to refer
back to something.

AK: What classes most influenced your choice in major or your choice in career?

ES: Well, I knew that I wanted to go to law school. That’s a good question. The Humanities
Internship Program really sealed it for me about being a lawyer. I think it was…I really liked the
American Studies professors themselves, and I think that sort of also helped me decide to be an
American Studies major. I don’t…that’s all I have for that one. That’s all I can say about that.
I loved the interdisciplinary classes in for American Studies, both at Scripps and
particularly at Harvey Mudd there was classes like The American Dream and things like that
where you would watch Wizard of Oz and, you know, do readings for, you know, first person
readings, firsthand accounts. And literature and songs, folk songs, everything like that. I loved
the interdisciplinary classes and I think that’s what made me choose American Studies because it
was interdisciplinary, with history and literature and culture and things like that.

AK: What did you think of the general ed requirements and would you have changed them at all?

ES: I would have not been interested in science, but I think it’s important to have science. No, I
loved them. There was, when they switched to the Core, the Humanities requirements that you
guys have now, there was quite an uproar from the alums. Most of the alumnae liked that, and
felt it was an important part of Scripps, was sort of the general survey of history through music
and literature and, you know, historical events. And, you know, we were very big on firsthand
history and things like that and so when you switched to the Humanities seminars, I think a lot of
women felt that they were going to lose that sort of tradition of everyone having had that, you
know, Renaissance and Reformation, Medieval World, and Appreciation of Music.
I think it’s awesome because it kept the interdisciplinary studies of it, and I think it made
it much more relevant to the sort of academic world now and still kept the, you know the
academic interdisciplinary-ness and also the sort of the general survey that you guys still get. But
people were pretty upset about that, so I wouldn’t have changed anything. The question is if I
could have had—if we could have had—what you guys have in Humanities…I think that,
knowing what I know now about what you do with your Humanities, your year and a half…I still
would have kept what we had. It was good. I think what we had was good for then. I think you
guys are much…the students now are much more worldly and outward-looking, and I think that
your Humanities program is perfect. But I wouldn’t have changed ours at all.

51:17

AK: What was the most memorable thing you read while at Scripps?

ES: Oh gosh. I was talking, I was thinking things like The Feminist Mystique and things like that,
sort of revolutionized our thinking. I think, well I loved American Literature so I was talking
about The Grapes of Wrath, that was the best thing I read here. Sophie’s Choice, that was another
book we read that was big. I think mostly what was sort of the most important—most affecting—
memorable things of what we read were the idea of starting to learn about women’s lives in the
Industrial Revolution, and women’s lives in antiquity, in ancient Greece, women’s lives in the
Renaissance. And that was really, as I said, nothing I had thought about in high school or
anything like that. And to sort of think about how women’s daily life was actually history, the
women who worked in the mills, the women, you know, whatever the women were doing in each
society, what was their role? And how they were sort of making history and keeping the culture
and things like that. That was sort of a whole new way of thinking. I remember reading a lot of
stuff about the Underground Railroad and some firsthand accounts of freed slaves and things like
that. That was sort of revolutionary to me to think about their point of view and gosh, we can
actually find out what they were thinking about. So I think that those kind of readings were very
important and shaping our sort of academic view of, you know, what’s history and who is
history, and who makes history, and things like that. That was really important.

AK: Did you study abroad?

ES: I didn’t, it’s the…the regret of my life. No, because I transferred, so I had to take all the Core
classes. And I loved Scripps so much, I really didn’t feel like I needed to go. It was hard, because
all my friends went for a semester. One of my friends went for a year. I didn’t, at the time, I
didn’t want to leave at all, because I just loved Scripps so much. And it was such a different
experience for me, coming from UCLA.

AK: What were the hot button issues on campus? You remembered there was a lot of anti-
Reagan sentiment.

ES: There was a lot of anti-Reagan. I think you’re right in mentioning the Equal Rights
Amendment. Gun violence was actually sort of just becoming sort of something people talked
about because John Lennon had been shot, and Reagan had been shot at. That was sort of a
beginning discussion, and also, sort of, mental health issues were becoming kind of something
people talked about, sort of in an anti-Reagan frame of mind, about funding for mental health
care and things like that. And sort of that was when the homeless problem really blew up in the
country because people were sort of pushed out of institutions from lack of funding. That was a
big issue. I think it was still mostly feminist issues were very big, about being accepted and not
having to be sort of, like I said, the token “lady doctor” in the office, that kind of thing. That was
a big issue.

AK: What do you remember about what was going on at the international level?

ES: You know, I was thinking about this, too, because I was thinking what you said, you were
going to talk about political things. I don’t remember anything internationally that went on. And
I think…I don’t want to say we were more closed off, but we didn’t have the internet, obviously.
We didn’t have…we hardly even had TV. And you could read the paper, but you generally read
the paper in the library. People didn’t have the LA Times or papers around. So I really don’t
remember. The only thing that was kind of at that time that was big was sort of the drought in
Africa and sort of evolving hunger issues in the world, but I really don’t remember very much at
all. And I don’t think we were ignorant or not outward-looking, I just think we were less
knowledgeable about the world. It was less a part of our daily lives.

55:31

AK: What career or life did you imagine for yourself after graduation?

ES: Pretty much the one that I got. I wanted to be a lawyer; I wanted to go to law school. I think
I always thought it would be good to be able to combine sort of my career with working abroad
or something like that. But I went right to law school. Actually I took a year off, but I did, I mean
I didn’t work. I worked actually I worked as, I’ll tell you, I worked as a nanny for a professor.
But I already planned, you know, I always planned to go to law school, so I just went straight on
to law school. And came out, got a job with a law firm. So it all worked pretty much the way I
wanted it to. For a while I lived with another woman from Scripps. She was working downtown
also, in downtown LA, and I was working in downtown LA, so we were sort of the single career
gals, you know, that kind of thing. And it was great, it was fun.
I knew that I wanted to have children—this is another topic of discussion, whether you
could have children and work. That was a big thing, too, to talk about. What kind of
accommodations workplaces should have for women who have children, whether it’s fine or
appropriate to get a job when you get pregnant; morally, you’re taking time away from your
employer. These were still sort of the issues that we talked about. Which now probably seems
like nothing you guys would even need to discuss, about whether you should get pregnant when
you’re working, right after you get hired. Is it that they don’t want to hire you if you’re going to
get pregnant? You know….
I sort of did exactly what I wanted to, and I always felt like Scripps completely prepared
me for…I thought law school was easy compared to Scripps. It was certainly less supportive an
environment. And less fun, you weren’t just with other smart women. It was more, sort of cutthroat.
But I never found it any harder than Scripps; I think Scripps prepared me very well. And I
think it prepared me very well also to be a mother because sort of the interdisciplinary approach
to everything, you know. Not just as far as educating your own kids, you know, going to the zoo,
getting a book about animals, seeing a movie about it, learning about it, you know, all of that I
think really came out of the whole interdisciplinary approach. Sort of in my whole life, I’ve like
carried it with me. And other Scripps women that you probably have talked to feel the same way,
that interdisciplinary idea and being educated about everything just makes everything in life
better, whether you’re just reading the newspaper, whether you’re raising kids, whether you’re
working, whether you’re just in the bookstore. It’s like, “Oh, this would be interesting to see how
this plays out,” and, you know, that kind of thing. So for both my professional life and being a
mother, I think Scripps was…really prepared me for it.

AK: Are you still working as a lawyer?

ES: No. I liked being a lawyer, but I have to say I didn’t like the hours. And if I went back, I
would not go back to a firm, I would go back to, you know, perhaps an NGO or something like
that, that was more service-oriented. I’m working now as a teacher, which I tremendously enjoy,
and again I feel like Scripps’s interdisciplinary is all, you know, pretty much infuses everything
that I do.

AK: What is it like to have your daughter Catherine attend your alma mater?

ES: I am so happy about that. It just makes me so happy, and I feel like I didn’t push, although
she was, you know, she came to alumnae reunions when she was one years old. She was, she’s
been here ever since. So I think that she wanted to go to a women’s college, and saw the benefits
of a women’s college based on my experience and how empowering it was for me and for my
friends as far as thinking and being who you are and being proud and speaking up and explaining
yourself and figuring things out. I think that the sense that that was how a Scripps graduate was
certainly influenced her.
I’m just thrilled for her to be here, I love it, I love Scripps. We were great, but you guys
are really great. I think you guys are way smarter than we were. You’re more worldly, you make
more connections. I think you’re more socially aware. I mean, we were great, but I think you
guys are even greater. Certainly the facilities are incredible. In the 90’s, I think, the campus as I
said did a great job with fundraising and developing and technology, in the, you know,
technology on campus, emphasizing the sporting, building the Field House. I think Scripps is
awesome.

1:00:46

AK: What was the significance of your class’ rose garden mural?

ES: Okay, this is a big topic, and I just saw a friend of mine on Tuesday and I said, “Where is
our rose garden mural?” Because it’s sort of the big mystery. Nobody can remember A) if we
had one, and B) what it was. The class of ’84 is there, the class of ’82 is there…so we’ve sort of
decided for our 35th reunion, we’re going to paint it again. So I can’t tell you what it was, I’m
sorry. And I, you know, I emailed…after I saw her on Tuesday, I emailed some of our other
friends and they all said, “That’s the question! We can’t remember if we had one.” So I don’t
know if we’re getting old, and we can’t remember things, or if somebody somewhere has a
picture, but we don’t have a…I can’t answer your question, I’m sorry. I feel like such a Scripps
failure, not having our thing on the wall.

AK: That’s all right. Well, do you have anything you’d like to add?

ES: I don’t know…I’m interested, I’ll probably think of things. If I think of something good, I’ll
email you. How we thought of, you know, what else was going on in the world. I feel sort of
uncomfortable that I can’t remember things internationally that we were worried about. Because
I’m sure there were things, but it doesn’t stand out in my mind like the Equal Rights movement
and issues of feminism. And I think I certainly don’t feel, like, now I feel and I think you Scripps
women now feel sort of a kinship with women around the world and sort of a moral obligation to
serve women around the world who have less than we do and things like that, and I don’t
remember feeling that. I certainly felt that we had felt an obligation to each other, to support and
push each other forward, but I think you guys have a much more global view.
Trying to think of anything else that’s just interesting culturally. We had to have our
thesis typed, so you had to have it done, you know, six weeks before it was really due. Because,
and you know, you had to pay somebody else to type it. I guess some people typed it themselves,
but it was too much work. And we had to get it bound. We loved…we did cuttings from the rose
garden, we used the flowers. It was terrific.

AK: Was there anything we touched on earlier that you’d like to discuss further?

ES: No, I don’t think so. I told you about the Dean’s List, which I was very proud of, and I’m
glad we have that. So no, I don’t think so.

AK: Well I’d like to thank you very much for coming out today for your interview.

ES: Sure! It was my pleasure. Talk to you soon, thank you.