We can stop as well.
Oh
wait
Maybe
OK,
hello,
this is Emily Holdaway and I'm Joshua.
I'm interviewing.
Ivy,
Doug,
Chris,
Abby,
Ahani.
This interview is part of Barrett Oral History Project.
Our goal is to preserve a record of
Barrett's history in honor of our 30th anniversary.
Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us and share your experience.
It is November 2nd at 4:22 p.m. in Vista Del Sol Community Center.
Um,
um,
Doug,
we're gonna start with you for your introduction.
Sure,
uh,
my name is Doug Rice.
I was in Barrett from
2008 to 2012,
and I'm now,
uh,
back at ASU as a grad student in environmental engineering.
Hi everyone,
my name is Ishini Choksi,
and I'm a senior studying economics and business law at Barrett,
um,
so I'm currently a student.
Hi everyone,
my name is Abby Baralla.
I was a student at Barrett from 2014 to 2018,
so I just graduated this past May.
Um,
I'm now a Teach for America Corps member
teaching sixth grade English language arts in Denver,
Colorado.
Very cool.
Uh,
my name is Ivy Bonele Gervis,
and I was in the university honors program from 1992 to 1996,
and I am actually the founding,
uh,
member of the Barrett Honors or Devils or just Honors Devils at the time.
And I now work for ASU
and I am,
uh,
in the school of sustainability.
It's tough to follow that one up.
Uh,
my name is Christopher Schwartz,
and I was in the honors college from 2009 to 2011,
I believe,
and,
uh,
I'm now a doctoral student back at ASU studying archaeology.
Awesome,
um,
so you kind of briefed us about this,
but,
um,
if you could describe your affiliation with Barrett,
um.
Do so if you
There?
All right,
I'll,
uh,
start again.
Uh,
I joined honors Doubs the spring of my freshman year
and
I participated in it,
uh,
until I graduated.
Um,
I joined honors levels,
the,
uh,
my sophomore year,
the fall semester of my sophomore year of college,
and,
um,
as a senior,
I'm
Um,
I joined the honors levels fall of my sophomore year,
um,
and was in the club for 3 years.
I was one of the co-presidents my junior year
and then the events coordinator my senior year.
And when I started ASU as a freshman,
I noticed that we had a lot of recruitment type events and we had a lot of students who
were coming to campus specifically because they wanted to tour
the Honors College and they wanted to learn more about our programs.
We had people requesting overnight stays and
they wanted to visit classrooms and things like that.
So,
We saw the need to
create an organization that would help with that and that would,
um,
set up these agendas and things like that and basically
just act as a recruiting organization for
the honors college in a way that
other organizations were recruiting for the university.
So
I got together a bunch of friends,
we had a big meeting in the common room and
we collected information from people who are interested
in that's how it all got started.
And I joined Honors Devils my
2nd semester,
my junior year,
I believe,
um.
And what was the other part of the question?
Is there a second part of that question?
Oh,
well then that's what I did.
So,
what attracted um you all to um join the Arms College?
I can actually start with that,
um.
At the time,
ASU and the honors college at ASU were sort of very scrappy underdogs,
um,
to what was going on at the UFA
and I really liked that about the program that
um there was a lot of excite.
Exciting stuff going on.
It was growing,
there was an opportunity to
really create something as a foundation that could be built upon in the future.
And so when I decided I was going to stay in state,
for me,
it was really a natural decision to come to ASU and to join the honors college.
I can follow that one up actually.
I was supposed to be,
um,
a freshman at the University of Arizona,
and I got
pulled to ASU at the very last second,
um,
largely
by my parents,
um,
who wanted me to go to Arizona State and for a long time,
I think until probably I joined the Honors College,
I really struggled to find a home,
um,
at ASU and didn't really have
a close network,
didn't have a lot of friends that I was really tight with,
um,
and most of my friends had gone on to the University of Arizona,
so.
Um,
and once I joined the honors college,
that kind of,
things kind of turned around for me.
I kind of found a home and,
um,
you know,
like-minded friends,
and,
uh,
also became a community assistant
in the honors college,
and that,
that had a big role in it,
and then joining the Honors Devils was kind of the,
you know,
icing on the cake.
It was a good,
really good fit.
I can go.
Um,
I'm from Denver,
Colorado originally,
and I desperately wanted to stay in Colorado for college,
um,
and I had been convinced to come and visit Barrett because I had gotten a
letter from them saying they would pay for my plane tickets to come and visit,
so my parents said,
um,
but when I came and did my visit day,
I completely changed my mind about what I wanted to
do for college because when I came I loved the.
Campus,
but I was hugely impressed by the community atmosphere in Barrett because
when I got to do an overnight stay with a
student and like actually talk to the students here,
I was so impressed that everyone was so
focused on school and like wanted to be committed and scholarly but
in a really caring and compassionate way where people were supportive of
each other and not acting hyper competitive and it was just the
community environment that really seemed like the right fit for me.
Yeah,
definitely to kind of build off of that.
Um,
my older brother went to Barrett,
and so I know I'd always visit him when I was in high school and middle school,
and
I would visit him in Sirius and I would go to the dining hall with him and
it was my favorite thing and honors hall was
honestly the coolest place I'd ever thought of.
They had a ping pong table,
like that's awesome.
Um,
and so kind of seeing that and realizing that I didn't,
I never toured another school,
um,
so I guess being a tour guide,
it's kind of hard to relate because I've never been on a college tour,
but I knew from day one that there is what I
wanted and I never had to really look anywhere else.
In some ways echoing uh
the last,
uh,
or some of the things the other people said,
but really,
uh,
for me when I visited Barrett,
that was when I was won over.
um,
I was from Oregon,
so
I was thinking of going to school in Oregon or California
and my mom made me go visit ASU.
I think she did because I loved it,
um,
and I,
I did,
I'd say a part of it,
uh,
you can't really talk about Barrett without talking about
ASU as well and I did really like ASU,
but
Barrett also clearly offered
a different experience that some of the other schools
that I was interested in were also offering,
so it was a nice,
uh,
mix of both worlds.
I could still go to football games on Saturdays,
but
also have.
You know,
find friends who cared about
talking about intellectual things over dinner,
which
it could be a little harder to find in some of the other dining halls,
so it was,
it was a really nice mix.
Um,
how would you describe Barrett's
You guys are gonna go first on that.
People who,
people who have been closer.
I think
um the word that just like
comes to mind for me immediately is the idea of it being a community
and I think it's a community in a lot of different senses.
I was a CA as well and so I worked for housing for 3 years and
I felt like I was really connected to the on-campus aspect of the Barrett community,
but I think that the Barrett community also.
Goes so far beyond that because even when you talk to
Barrett students who live off campus or who are on another ASU campus,
there's still that sense of like oh
you're Barrett,
we're this Barrett family like it's all one big community so I
think like the word community is a big and broad description,
but I think it really applies to the Barrett experience.
You said experience too,
and I feel like a shared experience is a good,
it's probably a good way to describe it,
um,
and just to echo some of the things Doug said,
you know,
being able to sit and have a conversation about,
you know,
16th century Russian poets
while you're
having dinner is kind of a fun and something you
might not be able to find other places on campus,
and I think that comes from a shared experience,
um,
and taking classes together that
are on topics that are broad and,
and intellectually stimulating,
so.
I think one of the things they've successfully done is
through all iterations of what the honors college has been,
there's always been the human event,
and it has
changed,
you have different perspectives on it and everything,
but that experience of taking that class,
it sticks with you,
and,
you know,
I still have my books from Human event.
I do too,
you know,
and,
um,
and every actually everybody I know who was in the
honors programs like college still has their human event books,
um,
and
it creates like that foundation that you can talk about like you can bring these
things out and you know that everybody has a certain level of experience with,
um,
you know,
the Odyssey or with philosophy or different things
and so there's that sort of jumping off point and I
think it's a thread that kind of creates that community,
not just.
Among the people who are in your class,
but everybody who's really ever gone through the program.
Just to kind of add,
um,
off of the community,
I also think supportive is one of the biggest things about Barrett,
um,
not just your peers,
but your professors,
the faculty,
the staff,
advisors,
really,
if you have any questions about career goals or weekend plans,
like there's someone to talk to
who will definitely have an idea for you.
So I think that's
a really big aspect.
Yeah,
um,
Chris honed in on the word experience.
I think that's a good one too.
Um,
everything,
I mean,
it has a very,
uh,
physical presence on campus,
especially now that it's absorbed Vista.
If you told me in 2008 that all of Vista would be buried,
I would have
bet you that no,
that wasn't gonna happen.
But
here it is.
So there's a really big physical presence.
You have the dining hall,
uh,
students,
but
yeah,
there is that sort of,
uh.
The
less physical aspect to it of
Talking,
meeting people,
um,
and also,
uh,
in terms of opportunities like
the scholarship office,
scholarship office helped me a lot.
Um,
I've,
I think that I probably got into research because of my honors project,
um,
and yeah,
the human event like
that certainly helped me grow,
uh,
intellectually and as a person to be exposed to some,
uh,
works of art that I wouldn't have otherwise maybe found on my own.
And it's
it's funny that you talk about the physical presence,
because
uh when I was in the honors college,
it was,
it was McClintock Hall,
like that was.
Yeah,
and we all pretty much fit into it.
And,
um,
so it was just one building around a
central courtyard and everybody kept their doors open
and
the dean would sort of wander through the courtyard
and hang out at the picnic table and,
you know,
we all knew,
everybody knew everybody who lived there
and
I joked about how we didn't have to give
tours of our residence hall because you could basically
just stand in one place and be like,
here it is.
But,
you know,
even then it was sort of like that was the hub of everything we got that hall because.
The university was gonna tear it down anyway,
and so they were like,
yeah,
sure,
honors,
take it,
whatever.
And
and it really became like the heart of the program,
and I knew people who.
Had gotten to the point where
they knew that they weren't going to meet the qualifications to finish,
but they didn't want to leave McClintock,
so they stayed
in the program because it was just like the best place to be.
That's awesome.
Um,
besides being an honors levels,
um,
did you have any,
um,
other involvement in Barrett or,
um,
any special projects that you?
You were in
College?
Time for everybody to talk about your thesis.
Go.
I mean,
a bunch.
Um,
I think it sounds like you were also a community assistant.
Yeah,
I was a community assistant,
um,
when the new
honors college of the South Campus,
honors college opened,
I should say
Southeast campus,
uh,
honors college opened.
Um,
so that was cool.
Did that for 3 years.
That was a great experience.
I was also in the community of undergraduate research scholars.
I don't know if anyone else did that.
That was a really neat.
It was like putting together an NSF project summary and
like really kind of honing your research a little bit,
and it was a year-long.
Thing where you coupled like a paid internship,
uh,
that you then kind of drew into an honors thesis,
um,
and,
and also put together a research poster and all these other,
uh,
things for this class that
was all people doing interdisciplinary research,
uh,
that Peggy Nelson led,
and that was,
that was a really cool experience that I think probably drove me into,
um,
staying as a graduate student,
moving forward with that.
What else?
I'm sure you guys did a ton of things.
I didn't do much else in
Barrett or in the honors college,
um,
I pretty much,
I mean,
Honors Devils was kind of my full-time job while I was,
um,
doing it
and then I was involved with other things on campus.
I've been involved with START,
for example,
which is a student admissions relations team and
that's kind of formed a little bit of,
of Honors Devils
and,
you know,
some other organizations and things like that,
but.
Primarily,
I was just,
I was involved with research.
I did do an honors thesis,
um,
that I eventually used part of for my master's thesis,
so
it also worked out really well for me and what I ended up doing in the future.
Um,
I was also a community assistant for 3 years here at Vista del Sol,
um,
and I was a senior community assistant for 2 of those years,
so I was pretty heavily involved in the world of Barrett housing,
um,
which is
a super exciting,
like busy and overwhelming thing,
but it was one of the best things that I did in college,
um,
and then obviously honors levels is my
other big really big Barrett specific involvement,
um.
I did my honors thesis in classics,
uh,
which was partially because I was also very
involved in our two classics clubs on campus,
our Classics Honors Society and our Social Classics Club.
Um,
and so I got to kind of draw together my
varied interests with my classics interest for my thesis,
which was a really wonderful and fun experience.
Um,
I think all of my,
um,
on campus involvements right now all relate to admissions,
which is kind of funny.
So I'm actually,
I was part of SART for my 1st 3 years,
and then
I'm also the vice president for business ambassadors,
which is the business school like recruitment team,
um,
so I like to see prospective students all day long,
um,
free lunches,
yes.
Lots of polos.
Um,
one of my goals was to have a family come visit ASU,
and then I would help them out with
SART and then do a business ambassador's info session
and then give them an honors college tour and just see them all day and say,
if you want to see ASU,
you gotta see me,
um.
But yeah,
and then I also work on campus as a TA.
Oh
cool.
Excellent.
Um,
I'm trying to think back,
uh,
really I think was the main thing I was involved in.
I did also take a number of the HON honors courses,
and those were two of my favorite those were
some of my favorites that really stick out was,
uh,
one was about life in the universe,
like how it came to be.
Another was
cancer and like new treatments for cancer,
so
those were classes that I mean
you just can't take them unless you're in honors college and
I had the opportunity to do that in a small setting
um
and for my thesis.
It didn't really have anything to do with my undergrad degree,
which was in biology.
My thesis was in psychology.
I'm not I'm engineering,
so I didn't really
relate to any of it,
but it was a really unique experience and I learned a lot about
a field that I wouldn't have otherwise known much about,
so.
So why did you all become honor stones?
Michelle.
You should hear I came from,
but
yeah,
Michelle,
uh,
I,
I had a great visit.
That was a part of it too,
but actually it was really my visit which Michelle played a huge role in,
but,
uh,
um,
I stayed with an honors double and
I came at the very end of the year,
so they were actually doing their end of the year meeting and
welcomed me as a prospective student to join them at Chili's,
and
it was a lot of fun,
uh,
so it was,
it was pretty,
uh,
I wanted to get involved with something and it was a natural choice for me to
get involved with.
It was Sean,
not a maker.
That's why I did it.
I'm sure you'll be like,
yeah,
Sean would give the most incredible tours,
just like so excited to do anything.
Michelle knows.
Um,
and I didn't,
I honestly knew nothing about Honors Devils,
but Sean was a,
was a CA with me,
and I would like to see him giving these tours,
having the time of his life with people
and be like,
what is he doing,
right?
I don't even know who he's talking to,
but I'm like,
I wanna do that.
That looks like fun,
um,
and he was super connected with the community and had friends everywhere he went.
I was like,
uh,
I want that.
That's a cool experience.
So,
um,
I think I was just trying to,
trying to meet more people,
and this seemed like a really good way to,
to get in there and learn more about the community.
Um,
I
knew like when I was coming to Barrett as a freshman that
I was gonna want to be a tour guide for Barrett because
I had had such a great time on my visit day and what had really stood out to me about my
visit day was that I got to have lunch with a
history major and I double majored in history and anthropology,
um.
And none of the other schools that I went and visited during my college search
process made any effort to connect me with somebody who was in my perspective major,
um,
and so that had just like stood out to me as a really big thing.
And so after that day I was like,
OK,
well,
wherever I go to school
I'm gonna be that history major for that one kid who wants to study history.
So
a big part of it for me was like coming and I knew that I wanted to be able to help
other people
in
smaller majors find people who they could connect with when they came to visit.
Um,
I will,
I think the first reason was.
Oh,
the free polo,
um,
but definitely just kind of sharing my love and passion for the school and
like I said,
meeting with prospective families,
like they have so many questions and I think
the best way for them to learn is to meet like an actual student and talk to them.
And so the fact that ASU does such a good job of no matter what you want to study,
like how Abby was saying that they will have a student there
who can share those experiences and kind of helping to be that student.
So I have a funny story about the polos,
and if you were at the reunion last year,
you heard the story,
but
when we first started honors levels,
we wanted a way to identify ourselves as prospective students,
but,
um,
there was very little budget,
there was zero budget basically,
and so
Dean Humphrey was able to find enough to buy 6 polos.
And they were all double XLs
and they had the logo,
which is a completely unauthorized logo and you guys can never use it again,
um,
and we handed them off so if somebody had a
visit that day where they were working with a student,
they got.
a polo and they had to wear it over their regular shirt
because I had to wash them at the end of the week.
And sometimes you would be on a tour and you'd have to hand it off to the next person,
so you'd ask the student to wait just a second,
you'd go find the next person,
you'd take the shirt off and they'd put it on.
So
you guys have the luxury of having like your
own polos with your names on them and everything,
and we like,
we had community polos that it's,
but it was,
it identified us as the person they were looking for,
so it worked.
What was one of your like favorite stories that you have like as an honors?
What was your favorite
11 of your,
like a moment that sings.
I just really wanna hear this.
The best one I had was
I gave a tour.
Actually,
I don't even remember the tour.
I like have no recollection of giving this tour.
I know that I had given a tour to a student,
for sure,
because the student found me.
The next year,
we're both living in the um in the dorms,
and the student found me and was like,
oh my God,
you're the person
who gave this like incredible tour,
and they were like,
I didn't even want to go to ASU like I had no interest in coming and you gave this
awesome tour and it was so good and you were so excited.
And like now I'm here.
And I was just like,
at the time,
I'm like,
OK,
like,
you know,
I'm starting like with a group of friends like,
oh,
it's so good to see you.
I was like totally nice about it,
but I feel like that's like a,
that's a moment that stays with you,
you know,
like you did something that someone was so excited about that,
that it like maybe changed the course of,
you know,
how they were gonna go about their life.
So
it was cool.
It was really cool.
I would,
yeah,
that's definitely the best feeling and not just like the tours,
but when you do like luncheons and some of the special events that we have,
um,
meeting with students,
I think,
um,
I met with a girl,
um,
who was from South America and so I think I
was asked to do it because I'm minoring in Spanish
and so
let's be real,
a minor in Spanish,
I'm not fluent,
but I was trying my best to talk to her
and,
um,
just realizing we had so many just.
Random things in common.
We both like to do yoga and like a couple of things like that
and we both wanted to study economics and we had all these things in common and
kind of realizing that
Barrett has so many different opportunities in such a diverse population,
but still
I could connect with her in broken Spanish over all
of these things over one lunch in the dining hall,
um,
and so it's the moments like that where you realize that
Barrett really is or can be for anyone.
I would kind of echo that idea of like
the best moments are when you find people who are
just like you or have things in common with you.
Like I know
I'm sure that we all have
funny tour stories of like ridiculous things that happen,
but the,
the ones that like I think really stick with you for a long time are knowing like.
I gave it to her to this student
who was from Colorado or a student who also wanted to study history.
Like I was always extremely excited when I would get texts from Rita that were like,
we have a history major coming this week and I was like,
OK,
I'm ready.
I'm ready for it,
um,
so like those days when you get to talk to a student who you can really connect with,
those were always my favorite memories.
Um,
yeah,
I,
I remember,
uh,
being impressed with a lot of the students.
Like it definitely felt like,
um,
the quality was
getting better actually,
which is what you wanna see.
I mean,
that means that they're maybe a little smarter than
I am or my friends are,
but it was cool to see,
uh,
Barrett grow and,
um.
I was all my freshman year,
I was in the old dorms,
not the McClintock one,
but like the center complex,
and as we moved over to the new dorms,
you could really feel like the buzz and the excitement
amongst the students that we were giving tours to,
uh,
so that was,
that was fun to see.
I do actually have a story.
I was having lunch with a friend of mine,
and she and I have been friends since she overnighted with me when she was touring
the honors college,
and now she is a professor,
uh,
in Kentucky and she's back here doing research and she's like,
you know what,
that night that I stayed with you,
I thought you were the coolest person ever.
And I was like,
no one has ever thought I was.
The coolest person they've ever met.
I'm like,
I,
I know I'm not the coolest person you've ever met.
She's like,
No,
I thought you were like the best.
I thought you were so cool.
And I was like,
wow,
I had no idea,
you know,
it's that kind of thing where it's like you
have this influence on somebody without even knowing it.
And then later on,
they're like,
you changed my life,
and it's really amazing to hear that from somebody.
Yeah,
and like.
I gave some good tours,
but I definitely gave some bad tours,
you know what I mean?
Like,
not every tour
was my finest material,
so it's like,
you know,
you have good days and you have bad days,
and sometimes visits go really well,
and sometimes you're like,
yeah,
I probably could have gone better,
but like,
you know,
to get that good feedback and,
and have it have been a standard thing,
not something that stood out in your mind,
it's just a cool,
I think you probably had a similar experience,
yeah.
So what were some common events and like duties that you had as an artist.
I think mine were different from yours
because
you have to remember this is before everybody had email.
Only engineering majors had email
and we didn't have smartphones and we didn't have text messages and stuff.
So,
the beginning of the semester,
everybody filled out an index card that had their name and their major,
what room they were in,
and it had their class schedule on it.
And so if I had a student coming to visit,
I had to go through all of the index cards.
And find the person who was the right major or
had the right schedule and try to put together like,
OK,
they're gonna go to
um human event with this person,
they're gonna go to lunch with this person,
they're gonna do this and sort of work out
the whole thing for the different people who came
and then go to their door.
And knock on it
and say,
I got somebody coming,
um,
here's the shirt,
and,
and then they would take the student around.
So it was,
the organization was a little bit different then than I think it probably is now.
Yeah,
maybe a little.
Um,
I don't know,
we had like the weekly tour rotation,
um,
so in some weeks you were slammed,
and some weeks it wasn't too crazy.
Uh,
it was always fun to go to some of the,
the other events.
Um,
I know there were like awards receptions and things like that.
I can't remember the,
the specifics of them now.
I feel like it's such a rush,
but
that was kind of cool.
You get to see,
um,
some new faces and,
and mingle with some students who are doing
like some exceptional work and some other kinds of fun things.
What else do we do?
We do a lot of,
um,
like lunch events in the dining hall.
Um,
so that's always fine.
And then,
um,
like the admitted student days or the sun Devil days.
Yeah.
So those students who know they want to come to AC,
that's kind of fun too,
because they usually have questions and they're more interested.
Um,
so that's good.
Well,
the big group tours.
Yeah.
With,
with like the admitted student days,
right?
Yeah,
on like the Saturday mornings,
I remember some of those.
And sometimes we have,
you know,
like 4th graders come and they are just,
you just want to see it.
And so that's also fun when you have
like a lot younger students who have never heard of,
you know,
a dorm or something like that,
and they get to see the ping pong table.
excites,
excites everyone.
It's,
um,
into doing tours like that.
I remember bringing like when they were anthropology students
or whatever major you have students that would come in
who were like
freshmen and sophomores in high school
and they're like,
oh yeah,
I wanna,
I wanna study anthropology.
I wanna do archaeology.
I'm like,
man,
I wish I had known that when I was a
freshman in high school like I just figured this out.
I'm a junior.
That's so cool.
Yeah,
right.
You could really teach me some things about myself.
So that was,
those were fun.
What do you think is the biggest change you've seen in um Barrett,
the Honors College,
um throughout the years?
It's huge,
uh,
I mean,
that's,
that's really,
it has grown so much and.
It's not just the number of students,
but the number of people who work there like having
not only your own recruiter,
but like a whole recruiting team
is just,
you know,
it's it's everything is so much bigger and everything is so much.
Um,
better organized.
No,
I don't wanna say that because it wasn't like it was disorganized,
but there was,
there's so much more support and there's so many more resources and everything,
and
I think that's good and bad.
I think it's really nice for me to hear that
even though it's grown,
it's kept that sense of community,
and you guys always feel like you're supported and you
feel like you have a place there and everything because
I think that's the thing that.
You're afraid of when you watch something that you care about change,
that it will lose the things that make it special.
And I feel like
Barrett has done a really good job of
embracing growth and embracing new things without losing
that sort of core of what it's about.
I think that we probably all experienced like
different eras of change in Barrett's history.
Like I know,
um,
for me,
my freshman year was either the 1st or 2nd year
that Barrett had like just started creeping into Vista,
um,
and then
being in housing,
I got to like watch that expansion fully happen to the point where now we're at
at least close to 100%.
if not all the way at 100%
um,
and that was a really exciting change to watch and to be a part of to see like
the whole upperclassman half of the on-campus Barrit experience really
develop because being on campus was very important to me
and I loved being able to see that happen and like come to fruition where we
had a really solid upperclassman Barra community that
could be all together over here at Vista.
And that's funny because I was talking to Dean Jacobs about
the new building when they were building it in like 2008.
And I said,
you're never going to fill that whole building.
Like,
you never,
I mean,
we were talking about,
OK,
well,
if it doesn't fill with honor students,
maybe grad students would live there,
you know,
there was,
I'm not sure anybody
anticipated that not only would it fill the entire community that fast,
but it would start to like put tendrils out into
other buildings and take over Vista and like,
I don't think anybody
could possibly imagine that.
He was actually upset about being Vista being built because like they got a pool,
they're going to pull our students away because they've got a pool.
And then it turns out you guys were like,
all right,
yeah,
so we'll just colonize the pool.
Now it's our pool,
and um I think that's been really fun to watch,
even just 10 years ago,
I don't think anybody expected this to happen.
Yeah,
I don't know,
it was,
I saw the transition from center
to,
to the new
um honors college,
and then,
and it was,
that was like,
it was normal,
you know,
I'd seen that it was being constructed.
I'm like,
oh,
this is great,
the college is expanding,
this is gonna be a really nice space for it.
But for some reason,
the move to Vista was super strange for me.
I'm like,
oh man,
they're called Vista,
like.
How can this happen?
So,
but I mean,
it's cool to see.
I mean,
it seems like students are still really extraordinary students,
so.
Um,
it's good that they're making room for more.
What do you think truly made um your buried experience?
It's a good question.
I think it was the opportunities that came with being in Barrett,
so
there were a few things that like you had to do,
um,
but for me it was really
the doors that were opened by being in Barrett,
um,
and certainly I could have done a better job of taking advantage of those.
There were really a lot of
opportunities,
but,
um,
yeah,
I mentioned research a few times.
Uh,
I,
I did enjoy doing my,
my project and.
That while I don't want to do research for my whole life,
it did
make me realize it was something I was interested in and got me involved.
Um,
I also had a lot of help from,
uh,
the scholarship office and I ended up doing a Fulbright um after graduating,
and
those were pretty two defining,
uh,
components at least in my like
early to mid-twenties of my personal development,
and
I don't think I would have done either of those if it wasn't for her.
Uh,
for me,
it's the people that are in my life,
um,
that were in my life when I was here and are still in my life,
and,
um,
my best friend is still one of the people I was roommates with.
Um,
my husband is someone that I knew when I was in
the honors college,
although I didn't date him at the time.
Um,
my best friends,
all the people that I'm with all the time.
Um,
there's still people that I knew when I was here.
And even though I moved away and came back,
like those bonds stayed and we're still a strong community.
Um,
and there's also,
this is going to be sad,
so just,
uh,
forgive me,
um,
Michael Cochise Young was the assistant dean when I was here,
and I had the opportunity to work for her when I worked for the Flynn Foundation.
And,
um,
she has since passed,
unfortunately,
but she was at my wedding and I was very excited.
And I had a moment when I was working as the
assistant director of the honors program at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire,
and
I had all these students coming up to me at their graduation saying,
you made such a difference for me.
They were like introducing me to their parents,
and they were saying,
I got into grad school because of her,
I did this because of her.
And
I realized at that point that all I wanted was to be Michael for someone.
And to have the same kind of influence on someone that she had on me,
and I was able to tell her that.
And
just to be able to say,
I just realized that.
You did this for me and now I'm doing it for other people,
and those people are going to make a difference for other people and
it's gonna be this unbroken chain of her influence
making so many people's lives better.
And
so I feel like
that's the thing that
I get the most from my experience and honors is
taking what I learned from the people around me and making
things better for other people.
Yeah.
I mean,
it's just,
it was,
it was a really
fundamental kind of moment for me.
I think
just to follow that up,
the people is,
is a really big one for me too.
I'm still friends with a lot of honors college students,
um,
spend a lot of time with them,
people I love most of my life,
um.
And yeah,
and I think none of that would have happened if I hadn't
lived in the dorms and been here
and on campus and in the honors program,
um,
really helped me find personally find a community
of people that I wanted to be around.
I want to spend time around,
helped me,
you know,
get out of the country and do an internship,
um,
somewhere that wasn't in the US and kind of get attention from some professors
that encouraged me then to go to grad school and do that.
But it also helped me to,
you know,
hang out in Michelle's office for like.
You know,
a couple hours on a Friday afternoon and be
there hanging out with people and having fun and feeling like I was like a really
important part
of,
of the community,
not just
the faculty,
not,
you know,
but also the staff,
like when you're part of the friends of the staff,
like you know what's going on and you know,
you know,
and you get to show those experiences and,
and,
um,
and meet new people.
So I feel like people are really open in the honors college.
It's a great thing.
Yeah,
they create that safe space for you to kind of push yourself out of your comfort zone
and
and know that
if you do fall,
somebody's back there,
but if you don't,
you've done something you never expected.
I'll echo it again.
The people are
the biggest thing by far.
I mean,
I'm,
I'm currently living in Denver,
Colorado,
and I happen to be here right now for homecoming weekend because
as I was thinking about it,
I was like,
yes,
I'm coming back because I wanna go to a football
game and like have a fun ASU experience again,
but a lot of what I'm coming back for is to be able to see people.
Um,
my afternoon today is spent coming around and seeing friends,
professors,
staff members,
people who I got to interact with for the last 4 years,
and I think the fact that
I still feel so drawn to be.
And to see those people speaks a lot to what
my Barrett experience was and what those relationships formed were,
and I think that
down the road 5 years from now,
I'm still going to feel the same way.
I'm still going to want to be able to interact with those same people because
what Barrett is,
is that community and those relationships and the experience that you have.
I know Pig Pearl?
Yes,
of course.
So he's also a former.
So
it's even across the years those relationships,
um,
just from being part of this organization.
Um,
I was just going to highlight that also it's the culture that
Barrett creates and that kind of fostering that sense of success,
but also in a non-competitive way,
and I think because
all the students at Barrett are so successful and so,
you know,
accomplishing so many things and have all these ambitions,
but we're never
pitted against each other.
We're never thought like,
oh well,
I shouldn't apply for this or tell my friend about this
because they're going to take the spot away from me.
Um,
so really kind of getting that mindset of collaboration and community
is such a big hallmark of Barrett.
And
I think that's why we have so many opportunities and why
we just keep those relationships forever,
because even if you know someone else got the internship that I wanted,
I never feel bad or resentful because
Barrett know Barrett tells you about all these different opportunities.
There's always something out there for you.
That's one of my funny tour stories,
actually,
is we had a student come
and we brought him to lunch with the dean and
so everybody was there and we were talking and he's,
we're like,
hey,
do you have any questions for us?
And he said,
What are all of your SAT scores?
And it just went dead silent.
Like,
like he had just dropped a stink bomb or something and I was like,
we don't talk about that like this.
That is,
I,
you know,
I know you're in high school right now,
but
yeah,
that you leave that behind.
Um,
what were some memorable events you attended while you were?
Like as an honors level or
just more generally,
oh my gosh,
OK.
Well,
no,
I just had a
Michelle's the hot dog eating contest.
Yeah,
that was,
that was pretty bad.
We had like a,
well it was a group hot dog eating contest,
right?
I know my team won it because I was pounding those hot dogs.
No,
I would,
what I was gonna say that was,
well,
that was an extraordinary experience.
Um,
I don't think I've eaten a hot dog since then,
uh,
but no,
I had,
um.
I was taking
a buried cities and Lost Tribes class,
and it was Laura Popova taught it,
who I still am in contact with,
who's,
who's awesome.
Yeah,
she's really cool,
yeah,
but she was out for the week and Peggy Nelson was teaching the class.
This is like my first,
I don't even think I'd switched to being an anthropology major.
I just was like,
I'm interested in anthropology.
It's my junior year and I changed my major six times.
It's whatever.
I'll figure it out.
But Peggy Nelson's teaching the class and,
and I have this class session where I'm like talking a lot and I'm like,
oh maybe we should talk a little bit less and
At some point,
Peggy was like,
Chris,
can I talk to you after class?
And I'm like,
oh man,
what did I do?
Like,
I'm in trouble,
this is terrible.
And so I go and talk to her after class,
and she's like,
Like,
what do you,
you know,
what are you doing with your life?
What are you doing when you graduate?
And I'm like,
uh,
I don't know,
like I just started getting interested in,
in archaeology,
anthropology,
and she's like,
well,
have you done field school?
Are you doing this?
And I think she was just like,
I was really excited in the class and she pulled me after and she's like,
well,
you got to come do some fieldwork if you want to be an archaeologist.
And I was like,
I haven't even thought about being an archaeologist,
but
I guess this is what I should think about right now.
I'm a junior.
Um,
and I think if she hadn't like picked me out
and made me talk to her after class about this,
I,
I was supposed to go work,
um,
that same summer
with her,
um,
on a project in the Embrace region of,
of New Mexico,
but I ended up doing a totally different thing,
um,
through the Community of undergraduate Research scholars class that she taught.
Um,
and so it,
it ended up great,
but I think if she hadn't like pulled me aside and then like,
what are you doing with your life?
I probably
might still be asking,
what am I doing with my life,
you know,
so that was cool.
That is really good.
She taught my
ASM 101 class.
Yeah,
I was a social anthropology major
and she still remembered me like after all this time,
I was like,
oh wow,
congratulations,
you know,
you're,
you're in the honors college now,
and she's like,
Ivy,
you did this great project for my class,
and I was like,
oh my God.
And that's just what she's like,
yeah,
she's really cool.
I went to my first opera
as part of a of the honors college,
and that was super exciting,
I actually now I really love opera and I used to when I worked in Wisconsin.
We organized a trip to take our students to Minneapolis
to see an opera once a year,
and so I got a chance to share that with people.
So that was really exciting.
And then
I got to meet all kinds of people.
Barry Goldwater came to lunch with the Dean a couple of times,
we got to meet him,
and,
um,
there's always just really interesting people around,
and they're bringing lecturers in,
and if you have the chance to meet and talk to people,
that's just really cool.
I had a chance to do a lot of cool stuff like that.
Yeah,
definitely the centennial lectures and things like that.
I was part of GLAS my sophomore year and so we
would help organize those events and that was really fun.
Um,
and then
like you said,
like I think,
um,
it was former Senator John Kyle who came with a lunch with the dean
and they used to have students that get to talk to him and hang out
and it's a very casual environment and I think
that just is such a cool opportunity.
Uh,
kind of echoing that,
I know I took a class my sophomore year at Bearwood is.
It was an honors section on the history of the US presidency.
Um,
and it was like the coolest class in the world just in general,
but,
um,
over the course of that class,
our class was filmed for C-SPAN one day,
which was really cool,
and then
at another point,
John Dean,
who was one of the people most directly involved in the Watergate scandals,
was coming to Barrett,
um,
and so our class got to have dinner with him
and was like ask him questions and have a conversation with him,
and it's all of those like.
Little things where it's just like that was just one day in my life,
but that was a really incredible thing to get to do and it
was all because those are the connections that Barrett makes for you.
I,
I too remember going to some interesting lectures,
um,
both through Barrett and also just that would be
in the greater ASU but they would be advertised heavily in Barrett,
so
you definitely come across the flyers,
um,
this is a bit of a loose interpretation of the question,
but it made me think of a life event for me which is
I met my fiance in the Barrettt,
uh,
dining hall,
so.
It's like kind of we'll always have a place in our relationship area,
so
we kind of joke about that sometimes,
but it's true.
That's where we met,
so.
It's nice.
And then there's the social things too,
the experiences that you have.
There was one,
there was one night,
it was during finals,
and
um you woke up in the morning and the whole
sand volleyball court has been transformed into a kingdom,
and there were like sand castles,
and they had dug out a river and like lined it with plastic so that water was in it
and just over the course of finals,
more buildings just popped.
Like nobody played volleyball
and everybody just kept building more stuff and so you would go
out every day and there'd just be more stuff in this volleyball court
and,
you know,
that just makes you,
it takes some of the stress off to just know that there are these creative,
interesting things going on,
even if you don't know what they are,
like they're happening all around you.
Not that I had anything to do with.
Um,
what do you think is the best thing that you took away from Bar?
Well,
our spouses,
apparently.
That's pretty good.
I didn't get that.
Like,
come on.
That's,
that's definitely my answer.
If it wasn't my answer,
that would be my answer.
Um,
yeah,
I mean,
I think,
uh,
yeah,
my fiance,
uh,
some really good friends.
I'm meeting,
I'm actually meeting up with a friend tonight,
um.
Who
I,
uh,
was actually roommates with one year in Barrett,
um,
so yeah,
I think,
uh,
I think it's really the
people and the relationships like
and even just here like seeing Chris,
like man,
I,
I can't remember the last time I saw you just be like oh what's up Chris.
Michelle every once in a while,
like,
uh,
yeah,
it's,
it's really,
uh,
I think that that is probably the biggest advantage of Barrett's size.
It's big enough where there's
someone for everyone,
but it's also small enough where
it has that smaller community and it's not too hard to strike up a conversation with.
Yeah,
I would also say like a willingness to give back
to that community or to,
to anyone,
you know,
who wants like kind of what you were saying earlier,
um,
but just
to be,
you know,
open to bringing new people into your community I think is a big thing that I,
you know,
as someone who's searching for
like a,
a group of people like that,
um,
now,
you know,
I'm like still happy obviously to talk to honor students.
I don't think they're as interested now that I'm
a graduate student and like.
But like,
you know,
if a potential student wanted to talk,
I'd be happy to tell them about the anthropology program and give them a tour and,
um,
and then to treat other people that same way,
you know,
to be inclusive,
to
invite people to come do things with you and,
and your friends or your colleagues,
um,
I think that's a big part
of what it is and especially a big part of what Honors Devils was,
for sure.
And also I think that like genuine love for learning,
I think a lot of students have,
um,
which really starts,
I would say for me it started with the human event like maybe this isn't your major,
but
we genuinely want you to care about these different issues and taking that
not just for your 4 years but going forward no
matter what you're doing or if you change your mind,
change your major,
change your career,
you genuinely want to learn something new and I think
Barrett students all kind of fall under that umbrella.
I think,
again,
the people in the relationships are the biggest takeaway for me because those
are something that I'll have for the whole rest of my life,
all of the relationships that I made here at Bart's.
Um,
I think that Barrett also does a lot just to prepare you for whatever.
Future,
I think that Barrett did a lot in terms of the
extracurriculars I was involved in to prepare me for future life,
um,
and then academically Barrett makes sure that you're ready.
Like you're not
just taking honors classes to have more academic rigor to read more.
Like there's,
there's a very good purpose
to what you're doing and the things you're
doing for Barrett in those honors classes,
and they're meant.
To prepare you to go forward,
like,
I know for a lot of people writing a thesis or
their creative project is the next step into grad school.
Um,
for me it was more of like just a
passion project but something that I feel like has prepared
me to still have academic conversations and to be able
to talk to people about those kinds of things.
So
Barry,
I think,
gives you all the relationships and very literally prepares you for your future.
So,
Doug,
um,
when you met your fiance,
did you just start talking?
hall or
or it's kind of a funny story actually.
I'll try not to get too long a version,
but
she actually came up and struck a conversation up with me
and just as like a total idiot,
I thought she,
I was wearing a shirt that said Dayton,
which is where she was born,
and my parents went to school there.
And so she's like,
Oh,
are you from Dayton?
And I was just like,
oh no,
but my parents went to school there and I just went back to my like
meal with my friends.
And
then and that was so I was in the dining hall and then a year later it was like
midnight or something finals week and I've
just been like studying in the dining hall
after class and I saw this gorgeous woman walking and I was like looking at her
and then she saw me and I was like,
oh my God,
I was totally staring that was really bad
and then I looked up and she was still smiling at me
and I was like,
OK,
so,
and then uh
I saw her again like a week later and then we started talking.
And probably like
a year later,
she,
she recognized me,
but
it wasn't until like 6 months later or something that she was like,
oh,
I think I maybe met you one time and like
now she's like,
yeah,
I totally knew who you were the whole time.
It really was in the dining hall that we met like several times,
so yeah.
So funny.
How did you and your husband?
Mine is the worst story.
I was dating his roommate.
Oh
We were sort of like the three Musketeers,
like we did everything together and um we
had all the same friend group and everything,
so
the first relationship obviously didn't work out after I graduated from college
and it was much later we had just remained friends and we were both
single at the same time and we decided to see if it would work.
And we hid it from all the rest of our friends in case it didn't because we didn't want
anything to get weird.
Um,
yeah,
and then we ended up,
yeah,
we ended up getting married.
Um,
where do you see Barrett in 10 years?
More buildings
Definitely
more buildings.
The whole Tempe campus will be there.
Everybody else gets shoved off to like the other campuses.
I I don't know,
I mean,
I hope,
whatever it is,
I hope it'll have the same core to it.
I,
you know,
I see.
Students are changing and students are more and more involved now,
um,
with so many things and there's so many demands on their time.
And I hope that
this will continue to create a community where
people come together and do things in person.
Um,
and create that kind of community of support and everything because
I think we need it in a world where there's so much
demanding our time all the time.
It's important to have something that you can go back to and be like,
yeah,
we stayed up until 2 in the morning talking about.
Whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not,
you know,
like these are important conversations that you need to have with people,
and,
and those are the kinds of things that I think build those relationships.
And so as long as that keeps happening,
I think
it'll,
it'll stay strong,
yeah.
I see Barrett as a good model for
how to prepare students for the future.
Like when I think of very
future oriented,
uh,
technologies or industries,
I see a lot of Barrett students in there
while still maintaining this component of
a liberal arts education,
as you said,
everyone takes a human event.
Like you still
get that,
uh,
foundational education that.
I think maybe some people that go straight into tech or these more um.
Advanced industry type things,
there's no,
they don't see any reason to bother with that,
but Barrett forces
you to do that or offers the opportunity depending
on where you're at as an 18 year old,
but
I think that's a,
that's a really good thing and that
um I would think Barrett would continue to lead
in in that sense of providing those opportunities while also maintaining.
liberal arts background.
I mean,
I was just gonna say,
I hope it doesn't change too much.
That's,
I think that's exactly what I've said,
but
I,
you know,
I hope it kind of,
I think,
I hope it retains the,
the same sense of community,
um,
despite.
What is probably a very likely growth in size,
um,
but yeah,
I hope it maintains the same community.
I hope it maintains the same values.
Um,
the human event
was simultaneously one of the most painful and
and engaging experiences I've had,
um,
as a person,
I think,
um,
so I mean I hope it doesn't change too much.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for um sharing your experiences and stories.
Um,
is there any other stories or just
personal things that you would like?
There are so many
stories.
I know I'm like,
you probably shouldn't tell all of them on camera.
I just think that Barrett offers so much to its students and has
provided so many opportunities that I think
us as honors doubles and former honors doubles
can,
it's like the least we can do is to give back and do tours and talk about
like things like this and talk about how much we love the college because
it really has
shaped our future in our lives.
And so if I can take an hour of my day and help someone else
join Barrett.
I think what what characterizes people
in
Barrett is you start things,
right?
Like you see a need and you're like,
you don't wait for somebody else to do it,
you just do it.
And so,
you know,
that's how I started Honors Devils and that's how
my friend Brent started Sparky's Buddies,
and that's how somebody else started Blast and that's,
so
we were always the ones who were looking for a place to do something.
And
that I think is really also essential to the core of what Barrett is all about is
people
seeing a need
in the world or in their community
or in Barrett
and saying,
I can do something about that and like actually doing it.
Yeah,
I don't think any of us would give tours
of somewhere or a place that we didn't,
you know,
really believe in,
right?
Like that wouldn't make any sense.
So
I,
I think it's a testament
to bear it that,
that Ivy just
saw this demand.
It was like,
wow,
we need this,
and that it's
kept going for so long
and that people are happy to do it,
right,
that,
that
it's still something we enjoy talking about and thinking about.
So
competitive to be a tour guide.
That's exactly right.
We're pretty excellent.
It
says a lot
that
floored me when I found that out,
actually,
but I was just like,
wait,
people compete to be an honors student.
You don't just put shirts on them.
We had this whole like idea we were this
sort of loose collective like we didn't have officers,
you know,
we had like a panel of chair people and all
this other stuff we had a we had an executive committee
instead of having officers like we were very much like we want to be the most
egalitarian sort of
organization that we can and so,
you know,
but it's still,
there's certain people who end up doing
the work,
um.
But
it is,
it's to see
that it has grown and that it's so important and
people like come back with their memories and stuff,
it's just so cool,
it makes me feel like.
I have a legacy here,
you know,
no matter what else I do.
That
all these happy honors.
Joshua,
did you have
Questions?
Well,
thank you so much for your time
um
innovation
we need.
Uh oh,
we need to say specific things.
Oh,
no.
Uh,
it's supposed to be the ASU aspect.
All I,
all I need is.
Since there's
2 guys,
I need 2 guys and 2 girls,
and you guys can
volunteer between the three of you.
We,
we're kind of using as the pillars of our video for Innovation Day is
because we're highlighting the 30th anniversary of Barrett and everything,
um.
We are
kind of building it around Barrett is innovative.
Barrett is community.
Barrett is excellence.
Barrett is global.
So what I need is for one of you,
for like you to say Barrett is innovative and kind of speaking right into the mic,
and we're gonna kind of use that at
your voice over a graphic that we're,
we're putting.
So
I just need you guys to record this,
and that's,
that's what we'll take from you guys.
Can I say innovative?
Barrett is innovative,
yeah,
and,
and we will,
we're not gonna
necessarily care,
so we want it as clear and
speak into the mic,
you know,
say it with authority,
not,
not like a question like Barrett is innovative.
Barrett is innovative,
yeah,
um,
and we could do a couple of takes.
Are they recorded?
Do it really like
super philosophical.