Hello.
Good day to you.
My name is Primrose.
How are you?
Hello,
this is Primrose Daniel Katie Boyce Jasino interviewing Peggy
Nelson on the 2nd of November 2018 at 3 p.m.
at Barri the Honors College.
Oh,
I record for like 30 seconds in silence.
Hello.
This is Primrose Singer and Katie Voice
Jasino interviewing Doctor Dean Peggy Nelson,
the former
Vice Dean
of Barra,
the Honors College on 2nd of November 2018,
3 p.m.
At Barret,
the Honors College.
This interview is part of the Barret Oral History Project.
Our goal is to preserve a record of
Barrett's history in honor of the 30th anniversary.
Thank you so much,
Doctor Nelson,
for taking the time to sit down with us and share your experience.
My pleasure.
Hm.
Can you tell us when and how you got involved with Barrett?
Sure,
um.
I was uh uh.
A fellow in the Center for Environmental Studies
and on the faculty in anthropology.
When Dean Jacobs was hired here at ASU
and uh he
contacted me.
And asked if he could just come talk to me
because he knew I'd worked a lot with our students,
especially in the social sciences,
and he's a plant biologist,
so,
um,
he wanted to learn more about that.
So
I said,
sure,
tell me what you want for lunch.
I'll get us some sandwiches,
and we met in a conference room over in the Center for Environmental Studies,
and we talked for about an hour and a half
and,
um.
At the end of the talk,
he said,
uh,
would you like to be the associate dean of Barrett?
And I said,
uh,
no,
thanks.
I don't think so.
Um,
I'm really very happy doing
what I'm doing.
And he said,
well,
think about it.
So the next day I wrote back and said,
yeah,
maybe I would do that.
How about just for,
you know,
a year or two
because I have
these other things,
and he said,
OK,
sure,
and,
um,
I was with Barrett for 15 years
so I,
from the,
from the
first week
working in Barrett,
I completely
loved it.
I could honestly say I could get up every day and be happy.
And when was this?
When did you start?
I started in um.
Well,
the meeting with Mark
Jacobs was in the fall of 2013,
so it's 2014,
I think,
would be my year.
Ah,
2013 and 2014,
wow,
um,
I'm sorry.
2003,
2004 and 2004.
Not at all,
not at all.
Uh,
so what are some of the memorable events of your time as the vice dean of Barret?
That's a very hard question
and.
I've loved
every aspect of Barrett
in which I've been involved.
I
Very much love
working with the faculty,
uh,
so I worked with all the faculty and,
and,
um,
was part of the growth of the faculty from
7 faculty when I started to 40
faculty when I left
and.
Uh,
I was part of the interview of the only person in Barrett who was
part of the interview committee for every single person who's on the faculty here.
Um,
so I got to see how that changed and grew and,
um,
the diversity of people who are interested in being part of Barrett,
uh,
so that was wonderful.
Um,
I would,
I've been involved in a number of projects that the students have initiated,
um,
and.
Uh,
one of my favorites was that,
uh,
I was having trouble
figuring out how best to communicate
to the students
to get them to
pay attention to something that was really important.
So for example,
we have money,
we still do
have money for students who are,
um.
Working on research,
but they really can't afford the time because they're working 2 or 3 jobs.
That's true.
So we have a fund,
um,
which eventually became called the BiDStrip Fund,
and it will
pay the students $2000 to work with a faculty member.
Now who wouldn't want that?
Everyone would love that.
Can I tell you how you spell the,
the name of BidStrip,
B I D.
TRUP,
it just started off as something we call the Faculty Student Research Fund.
Um
And.
We,
we started it because students um.
There were too many students who couldn't
afford to do research because they just didn't
have the income to stay in school.
They didn't work two or three jobs.
And one of my students came in,
was late to a research meeting,
and she is covered with mayonnaise,
and
I said,
Where have you been?
She said,
Well,
my second job is at Jimmy John's,
and then I'm going to go from here over to Costco and put stuff on the shelves,
you know,
until midnight.
I said
we've fixed this
anyway.
I had this,
we had this great fund and people weren't applying for it.
Now,
why weren't they applying?
They just weren't hearing the messages.
So,
um,
I,
I asked
the students,
I mean,
in just a general meeting,
I was with the students who are all RAs,
CAs they're called CAs,
um.
I need a communication committee.
Just people,
you tell me,
here's my message.
Tell me how to frame it and
how to put it out there because it's different for different things.
And then what a fantastic group of students.
I mean,
just
step right up.
They're so creative
and uh we went from not enough applications to even spend all the money.
To
needing to triple the size of the fund because we had so many applications,
so you actually tripled the fund after that.
I actually you actually tripled the fund after that.
Wow,
yes,
that is amazing,
you know,
all of the students.
Um,
needed that money,
so we were getting the word out there,
and I think that if
we had even more.
We would.
Dean Jacobs would just put more money,
and donors love putting money into that.
That's how we dealt with the fund in the first place.
We talked to a donor and they said,
Yeah,
that's a great idea.
We'll give you,
what,
how much do you have in there?
50,000.
We'll give you another 50,000.
So
you know.
It's good,
it's a good thing to get donors to act on,
and it's fantastic for the students.
Oh,
I wonder if my next question is going to beat what you've already told me,
but what did you like best about your role in this development of Byron?
Well,
there isn't anything I liked best,
and
again,
I loved working with the students on all kinds of things.
I love working with the faculty,
and one of my responsibilities was to meet every
year with each faculty person individually and just
talk to them about what they're doing,
how's their teaching,
how's their
research?
Can,
can we help in some way,
um.
I love that.
Uh,
really knowing,
um,
and I got a chance to read the research,
published research of every faculty member,
which I also loved just knowing what people are doing,
um.
Gosh,
what else?
Well,
Uncle Barrett has a fantastic,
you may not know this if you're new,
but the staff here
is.
Completely committed to the students,
they work together
beautifully
and,
um,
and always in the best interest of the student.
There's no place else I've ever worked where everybody's
first thing they say that's important to their job
is
to do what's in the best interest of the students.
That is true.
I have experienced that firsthand,
um.
So can you tell us a little bit about the human events?
The human event.
Well,
that's an interesting question because
I've never traveled.
Really,
yes,
no,
uh,
because I came here from
being a faculty member in anthropology
and I taught
honors there,
um.
But I've never taught the human event.
Now I've,
I've read lots of human events,
so have I.
I've talked to faculty about teaching the human event.
What I
believe,
I believe before I even came to the honors college,
is that the human events.
Should be
taught to everybody.
All 77,000 ASU students should have it in some form
because it's really not the content
that I,
this is my own opinion,
you know,
if I was teaching it,
I might feel differently,
but it's really not the content
of a particular class
that it's about.
Darwin,
that it's about Shakespeare,
that it's about,
it's that's not the critical thing.
The critical thing is that
every student in the class
learns how to become a good critical thinker and an argumentative writer.
And that serves you no matter what you do.
Yeah,
absolutely,
it's it's transcends all this book.
Everything and we had,
we've,
I've heard,
um,
chemistry majors say I wrote better lab reports after I took the Humira.
I mean,
I wouldn't have thought that's the case,
but actually it is because it's the logic,
you know,
figuring out you
have to make an argument.
How do you make the argument?
You,
you learn how to do that,
so.
The Bart students are
very fortunate to have it.
You must be in the history of ideas.
I am in the history of ideas,
yes,
which is
structured a bit in the same,
well,
pretty much the same way,
um.
And we developed that because
The value of the human event
was so critically important
to our first year students.
Our 3rd year students didn't get anything like that,
so the faculty and
The deans
developed this thing called the history of ideas to make sure that,
you know,
we weren't just serving
our students from the freshman year,
but we're really serving our students from the minute they arrive.
The minute they arrived,
that's why you're required to take it.
That's,
that's why we sit when students said,
well,
I can't fit it in.
Yes,
you can,
because it's so critical to your future success,
so this is why it's important,
like this is why you think students should take it
and never should it go away,
never should it get bigger,
never should it become a lecture class
and.
And
always we in the honors college because we know its value should be thinking,
how can we get this into.
The classrooms across the university,
we haven't succeeded in that,
we should.
Well,
hopefully that we,
we get there.
um,
so you said that you talked a little bit
about the relationships that you build with other faculty.
Can you tell us a little bit
about fostering faculty connections and relationships,
not just in Barrett but across the ESU.
Um,
let's see,
how do I.
Barrett is successful in part
for all the reasons I've told you,
but also because
it's
Well supported by all of the colleges of ASU,
so you can go to any college,
and it's not,
you know,
the deans will always say of the other deans,
oh yeah,
we're for that,
we'll support that,
but it has to trickle down.
And,
but you can go to the faculty in
any college at ASU,
and they will say,
oh,
Barrett is extremely important.
Working with honor students is extremely important.
That comes from
Janet Burke,
who is in my position,
Janet Burke.
Yeah,
is that B U R K E
E?
She was uh.
When she finally
when she left the university,
retired.
She was actually the head of Anza.
Can you spell that again ONSA
Office of National Scholarship.
Advising.
Uh,
which is Kyle,
you know.
Um,
but
before she took that role,
she was in my role.
And she had started something called faculty honors advisors.
They were about.
A dozen
of them
around the university.
What time is this if I may,
I'm sorry,
uh,
I was wondering,
like,
do you remember the time when this happened?
What about 2013,
2014,
when I came in,
she moved to a different position,
um.
And when I saw that I could.
I,
well,
I could see that it was working very well
for those 67 or 12
departments in which there was somebody who
was so all faculty members advisors are faculty members in another department
in the university
whose job it is
to
Serve honor students
in addition to everything else they do in their department,
and all the departmental expectations,
they also agreed to to serve honor students,
help them navigate those majors.
So
I worked really
one of the primary things I did was
talk to them and then just go out to departments and talk to them
about
how honors could work within their.
Department,
what would be the best kind of honors?
What would be the best kind of relationship for them to have with their,
and every one of those is different,
you know,
what,
what the physics department wants
is really different from what the dance department wants,
is really different from what
CC,
the School of Earth and Space Exploration,
what they want.
So
what I did over
the time I was here was to build that
number
from
about a dozen
to.
I think when I left,
it was 125 or 30.
Wow,
and how did you do,
how did you build these relationships?
By one on one,
you know,
going out and talking to people,
um,
I
had some connections in departments,
so I started there.
And said,
um,
you go to a department and said
I'd say the 70 honor students you have,
uh,
are you interested in having more
honor students?
They actually represent 2% of your
Undergraduates,
would you like,
what would you like it to be,
and how would you and I together
make that happen,
um,
and
each one of those was slightly different,
um,
and I was getting a little bit,
my brain was getting a little full of stuff
trying to to try to address all of that,
but what happened is we built it into something that became
more systematic.
In fact,
at one point I had built it big enough that it was.
It was just like a big um
trying to think of something like if you're trying to hold a ball that just keeps
coming apart and rolling off your hands
and it was like a patty
yeah,
some of the faculty owners advisors get melting
chocolate ball or something
um and
uh what a couple of the faculty owners advisors came to me and said,
you know.
We really think that you need to have some rules,
and we wanna
help make those rules,
and I said,
well,
that's fantastic because I don't wanna be out there saying,
OK,
all of you who are volunteering for us,
here's your rules,
but if you make them
and give them to us and
we work on them together,
then I'd be happy to distribute them as the,
as the,
um,
guidelines that come from faculty owners advisors to other faculty owns advisors.
To help them be successful.
And that was great.
That was,
that was a
sea change.
And then people really wanted to participate because they could
see what it is they were expected to do,
you know.
I,
I was doing it on sort of one on one and whatever and
come up with some good expectations.
It became easier
to manage.
It became much easier to manage,
except then it got bigger and bigger and bigger because we want
every major
in which there's a Barrett suit to have a faculty on his advisor,
and there are now about.
At the time,
I started doing it,
there are
probably about 60 different majors.
Now Barre students have.
150 different majors.
So we need somebody and then,
um,
Karen Broome,
who is on the faculty,
she's the faculty chair right now,
um,
she
started working for me.
So part of her job
was to work with me with the faculty honors advisor until
we transitioned all of the faculty honors advisor work to Karen.
Uh,
so she
meets with them,
trains them,
answers their questions,
gets the support she needs.
I work with her,
worked
with her,
uh,
to,
to make sure that everybody's getting.
What they needed because some
faculty owners advisors want a lot of structure
and some of them want no structure.
That's
true.
Some of them want need
resources,
you know,
in departments where
there may be only 3 or 4 faculty,
they can't do the same things
as people can in departments where there's 150 faculty,
so.
Um,
we're just sensitive to those differences,
and,
um,
and they're our friends.
They're our best friends.
Anytime we need help,
we pull in the faculty honors advisors,
you know,
and,
and
what great ambassadors for us if we have 150,
120,
150 people out in the university who are faculty who say,
I'm an honors faculty,
I'm a faculty honors advisor.
Um,
then we're really integrated into the university.
So that's been one of my
favorite
projects working with faculty.
Um,
and
why was this important and meaningful for you being advised in?
Because
it serves students so effectively.
I know that when you come to the university.
You can learn a tre tremendous amount
from a lecture class,
but
when you really learn.
Really deeply learn is when you're working one on one with a faculty member
and the faculty owners advisor is that person who can work one on one with you
and can get you
to the right person.
To do research with one on one,
because they know if someone comes to me and says I want to do my
research on the organic chemistry of phosphates.
I say,
wow,
that's a great idea.
Uh,
but I don't know who those people are,
and I could spend
many,
many hours trying to find out who those people are,
contact them,
they don't know who I am,
but if I contact the faculty and advisor and I say,
This student
would like to work on the organic chemistry of phosphates.
How can we,
how can we do that?
And
um,
can I help you?
How can you help me
in finding someone to work with her?
And,
um,
it works every time.
So the students are
so effectively served
when there's somebody who's really their advocate
at the departmental level,
and Karen and I decided.
A few years ago that what what we really need to make sure is is there's
never more than 50 students to one faculty owner's advisor in a department.
So in some measures
we have,
I think in
life sciences we have over 400 students.
So
one faculty honors advisor is not gonna be,
might as well be in a big lecture class,
right?
That's true.
So we ended up,
um,
creating,
I think there are 8 or 10 faculty honors advisors in life sciences now,
so that it really would be a,
no,
more than 50 students to a faculty member.
Even then I'd like it to be 1 to 10,
I mean.
I would too,
but,
but we don't expect the faculty owner's advisor
to do all the research with the students.
We expect them to
help the student find the right place.
Another,
I,
I'm just keep answering you.
This is answering an earlier question,
but you got me.
A few years ago
I
um
Was paying a lot of attention to.
Which students struggle in finding research to do for the thesis,
by which students I mean in what majors,
and the life science and
physical science students really
struggle very much.
Why?
Because they have labs,
because they get into lab relationships,
because people in the engineering and the
life sciences and physical sciences can accommodate
quite a few students in their labs.
There's,
there's a guy in
engineering who has 25 other students in his lab,
yeah.
They just can because they have these research
projects and they have these big labs,
but if you go to a history faculty member.
Uh,
he or she might have one.
Because
they're writing a book,
you know,
who can help them work on a book?
Someone could do research with them and interact.
But,
so,
um,
it was the social science and humanities students who were
really struggling,
um,
more than that.
It's not that no physical sciences students were struggling,
but
it was less common.
So I,
um,
I went to the,
to one of the deans in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and said,
you know what,
you have 30,
more than 30 centers.
And the centers are filled with faculty
who rarely have contact with students because
centers don't teach classes.
That's true,
so the
faculty don't meet students,
especially undergrads.
So why don't we create a program
where we
go to the centers and say,
what research would you like to have students engaged in.
With which faculty
supply us with all of that.
We'll create a web portal,
advertise to the students.
The students apply,
and
we in the Barrett look through them all to make sure that
they are really in Barrett and they really are gonna do research.
And then we send them off to interview with the center faculty.
The Center faculty pick the students.
Every student who gets picked.
Becomes part of a cohort,
which I taught.
Along with the dean with one of the deans in,
um,
CLAS,
we met with them 4 times in the semester.
We talked about how do you do research,
how is your research in your field different from your research in your field and
his and hers and so on,
um,
and
how do you come up with the research question?
What's that process?
Because the students had to do that while they were working with these faculty
anyway,
it was.
Incredibly exciting.
It started off with 30 students,
and I don't know what it is now.
Um,
Mary Ingram Waters,
Doctor Ingram Waters,
teaches.
She took over my spot,
so she runs that program now and teaches in it,
but
it was extremely satisfying to see these students because
more than half of them ended up doing a thesis for that project.
So they were early on.
We were targeting sophomores.
We really wanted to get the students in at the sophomore level,
um.
So
that was just really exciting to see work with faculty of centers,
work with the deans at another college,
and then create a program that's really serves the students.
So at the end of the day you had relationships that were multifaceted,
the the faculty,
the students,
the deans,
everyone,
that's the fun part.
Oh,
that's absolutely amazing.
Uh,
so
I'm going to move to something a little bit more different.
Uh,
so can you tell me more about your relationship with uh ASU athletics?
Oh,
sure.
Um,
My relationship with ASU athletics started
when I was a faculty member in New York.
I was at a,
a university.
Which didn't have a division one athletic program
and the president of the university said we're going
to have this we have to create this.
I need,
uh,
and the NCAA requires that every
Division One
school
have a
a faculty
athletic
board.
So,
um,
he asked me to be
the president of the university in
New York.
Asked me to be on the board,
and I got
very
well educated
in what it means to have a Division One athletic program.
So when I came to ASU.
I went to see the athletic director and I said.
I'd like to be on the athletic board whenever you have an opening.
I'd like to be on the board because I just
find it's such an interesting aspect of the university,
and
that population of students needs people paying attention
to what they're getting from their university experience.
Coaches are paying a lot of attention to
what they're getting from their athletic experience.
Someone's got to be paying attention to what they're getting from the
full university experience.
I mean,
academic,
social,
athletic,
all wrapped together.
So,
um,
he said,
well.
That's great,
no one ever volunteers.
Uh,
and so,
uh.
I joined it or I was invited to join the athletic board,
um.
I don't remember when I joined,
it was a long time ago,
it was before I
came into Baron,
even before and and.
It was a fascinating experience.
There are so many.
Dimensions
to being a student athlete,
uh,
there's so many dimensions to what governs,
um.
Schedules of student
sports events
and um the way students were recruited.
The way they're treated
um.
And everybody's young.
Well,
not everybody,
but
mostly the students are young,
you know,
they're between the age of 17 and 22.
There's a few older but not too many.
And you know,
young people,
I,
I'm not saying this to be disrespectful,
but they just don't have a lot of experience,
so they make their own decisions.
And
it's not because they're bad,
it's because they make the wrong decisions because they're young.
So
we need to understand that and then help them get
to the right place so the decisions come out better.
It's the same thing here in Barrett
or in the university,
uh,
but especially different for athletes because they're so visible
and people can be so.
Overwhelmingly.
Adoring of them
or can be so negative about them
and uh normally just a student
on campus doesn't have those ends of the spectrum
um.
The spotlight is too is quite big and they need a bit of guidance.
Yes,
yes,
there was a student.
I'll just give you an example.
I won't even name what sport it was.
But there was a student who was,
ah,
late to class all the time.
And,
and this is really true.
The student was really speaking the truth.
And so the coach called him in and said,
You can't be late to class.
You know,
you're gonna
hurt your grade,
and that's gonna hurt your position on the team,
and you're not gonna want that.
And so the student said,
Well,
coach,
the problem is
everybody wants to get my autograph.
So when they see me.
Going to class,
they'd want to get my autograph,
and you've told me that I always have to be
obliging,
obliging to people who want
to get my autograph or to say hi to me or shake my hand.
So it always makes me late to class.
The coach said,
Look,
you gotta put it in perspective,
you know.
But,
and he was honestly,
he wasn't just making that up.
I don't think he was honestly saying,
as you know,
as an 18 year old boy,
that was his interpretation,
and so he was late to class,
it was hurting him,
and he didn't even think about it.
Uh,
yeah,
he was doing the right thing.
Um,
oh,
that's quite an experience,
um,
or you've done a lot,
and I'm just wondering,
so what do you feel like is your legacy here at Barrett?
My legacy.
I don't really feel like anything is my legacy,
because
everything that happens here during the time I was here
was a team.
Effort.
I didn't do anything
by myself.
I always did it with other people
and um.
Uh.
The and Dean Jacobs and I work very closely together on everything.
I would say that one of the things that has
changed in Barrett during the time I'm here is that.
Every time we
make a decision.
The mantra,
the understanding,
what's front of everybody's mind is what's in the best interest of the students.
That's changed
at a,
at a big university.
How has that changed?
Well,
at a big university,
any bureaucracy,
federal government,
any bureaucracy,
big company,
there's lots of rules,
and people are,
um,
socialized.
To follow the rules
and to consult the rules,
so,
um,
if you
want to drop a class.
There's a set of rules about that,
right?
So,
um,
what
happens in many bureaucracies in most places is people just look up the rule,
and then they say,
well,
actually,
you see,
you missed the deadline by 2 days,
so we're not gonna be able to drop you from that class,
right?
That's a terrible way to.
Um
Operate
with young people.
Maybe it's a terrible way to operate with everybody,
but it's a terrible way with young people in part because of what I was just saying.
Young people
are learning
how to make good decisions
while they're in college,
and
So
That's true at ASU too,
you know,
there's a set of rules,
and you consult the rules,
and then you tell people what the rules are.
Um,
we here
have.
An entirely different mantra
which we evolved over the time
that I was here.
I don't,
I would never say I
evolved it.
I made it happen.
I was just
part of the,
I was the,
I was the
one of the voices
saying every time,
what's.
The best of the students,
so you may come in and want to drop a class,
and we'll talk to you about that
and find out
why you need to drop that class.
So I had a student come in to say
she wanted to drop a class because she got a B on the first test.
I said
that's no reason.
That's not a reason,
right,
because you can raise that up to an A plus if you want to,
you know,
don't,
don't let that
change the direction of your life.
Anyway,
so she couldn't drop it.
I wouldn't,
I wouldn't wouldn't help her,
right?
Another student could come in with an entirely different set of reasons,
and I would say,
oh,
absolutely,
this makes sense.
So
everybody's not treated the same.
In terms of the rules,
everybody's treated the same in terms of.
Us doing what's in their best interest.
And that understanding of their best interests comes from talking to them,
not from me sitting here thinking,
Well,
what you need is,
but
us understanding together
what it is that,
that you need
and moving in that direction.
So that is,
I wouldn't say that's my legacy,
but that certainly is a legacy of.
That Barrett leaves
at ASU
always,
um,
the leadership,
the team that's been here,
um,
has made that happen.
I,
I think if you talk to anybody on staff now,
this wasn't the case when I came,
but now.
Um,
they would all say the same thing.
So it's fair to say that
even though you don't consider it your personal legacy,
but,
uh,
the spirit of team building and always putting the
student first is something that you contributed and admired.
And even though ASU is this big university,
it still lives on.
Yes.
Hm.
Well,
you know,
legacy is a tough thing,
you know,
you say,
um,
I can say if you ask me,
well,
what's the legacy of my research,
there's certain things that I wrote about and published about,
so
that's there,
even though still that's team effort,
um,
but in an organization like this
where
you can't have a legacy
if
The other people in the organization.
Are not all on the same page with you.
Not for you,
but with you,
um,
and so.
Legacies are funny that way,
I think,
um,
but that's how they're built to know.
Yeah,
well,
people say that it's their legacy,
but I don't think so.
I mean,
you know,
Michael Crowe might say this is my legacy,
but really
it's not his.
It's
his whole,
it's the whole team of people that made that happen.
Well,
thank you so much,
Doctor Nelson.
So I'm going to move on a little bit further and I
ask you,
what are you most proud of about Barrett?
Oh,
the students.
That's easy.
What they've done,
where they are,
which students?
How do you mean that?
Uh,
yes,
what they've done,
where they are,
um,
you know,
the students,
uh,
in Barrett.
I don't know whether
It's partly that students come in to bear it because
they want to make a difference in their lives,
other people's lives.
They want,
they have a vision.
They want to do this or that.
They don't necessarily end up doing this or that,
but they have
a drive,
or maybe it's that
they,
some,
some come into Barrett and they find a drive,
but every student leaving Barrett seems to have
something that they want to do.
That's important
and it could be important for their.
Community
for science,
for justice for.
The state,
the nation,
the country,
the world,
the climate,
um,
but.
They leave having that,
and it's what drives students to complete their thesis when they
are sick and tired of it,
and they just wanna graduate,
because it really is something that um is important.
And um
I'm incredibly
proud
that.
Our students
are
in that way
so accomplished.
And,
and
relieved.
That,
um,
they're gonna take over the world because
it's time for someone
it's time for change,
um,
and,
uh,
and our students are really well prepared for that
across the spectrum,
you know,
some of our students are incredibly conservative,
some of them are incredibly liberal.
I don't mean that
I favor one end or the other of anything.
Some of them are very science oriented.
Some of them
can't stand science.
I've had them in the same classes.
Um,
but they all are doing something important.
Hm.
Well,
that's something to be proud of,
yes,
yeah.
Hm.
Ah,
so after all these years,
uh,
15 years,
that's a long time,
uh,
and you've moved on.
And now how do you see the future of Barrett?
Well,
I think that.
I think that
because Barrett is such a team oriented college.
We have the ability to
move.
To whatever's important.
So when we realized some things are important,
we moved to it.
We realized that students needed funding to do research.
We,
we moved to it.
We realized that students needed research opportunities
with faculty to move to it,
um.
I,
I think we realized.
A couple of years ago that's
that um.
Students needed much more exposure to.
Uh,
the other,
I'll call,
I'm an anthropologist,
so I'll just call the other in anthropology.
To people in places other than themselves and their own
experiences
and even if a student has been
to 6 places in the world,
well,
there are 6000 million more places they could be,
um,
and,
uh.
And,
and,
and so it's so extremely important
that students get experiences outside of themselves and
outside of even their safety zone.
So how do you do that?
For some students
they're just afraid of it,
so you need to
have some.
Ways to help them
not be afraid,
um,
for example,
One of the things I haven't,
I never had a chance to develop,
but what I wanted to develop
was a
travel abroad course
where it was just a week.
The travel was a week,
the course was a semester,
so you take a
course
starting at the beginning of the semester
and you
study a place,
we'll call it.
New York City,
yes.
Or you know,
or Singapore,
we'll take Singapore.
They study Singapore,
and the way you study it is that the person teaching the course,
me,
I've identified people in Singapore
who will.
Each week
one of them
Skype in with our students,
so our students will read about what that person does.
It could be somebody who is a bootmaker,
then somebody who's a politician,
somebody who owns a vegetable stand,
somebody,
and
so for the whole first half of the course
you
Skype in and talk to these people in Singapore,
learn about them,
um,
and
then.
Right in the middle of the semester you go to Singapore and
you meet them all face to face and you talk to them.
You understand that you get to
even better understand their lives.
Then you come back
and then you write about those aspects of Singapore
and your own.
How that affects your own personal experience
of
travel.
And exposure to other people in other ways.
I never got to develop that.
I proposed it.
I tried to get a grant
because it's the travel part you have to have
a grant for because you want anybody in the
in Barrett to be able to go.
I mean only 20 at a time,
but,
but you don't want people to be eliminated from it because of their
funding and
um.
It tends to be true that people on the lower income
levels have had less travel,
so they will tend to be more reticent to travel.
So that's why this is a great course for them,
but you have to have the money.
To travel
anyway,
I think that Barrett needs to go more and more in that direction.
We need to expand the global experience of our students,
and we need to make it more.
Easily possible for everybody to do that,
um,
that's a big challenge.
That's a big,
big funding challenge,
but something I think that.
Is extremely important.
Um,
well,
I love that you keep.
Well,
I love that you use the word we,
even though you've moved on.
Uh,
my question would be,
why do you why do you still care about that?
Oh my goodness,
well,
I'll I'll I'll be very candid,
um.
As I moved into my 60s,
in my mid-60s,
I thought,
um.
When am I going to retire?
Why would I retire?
And so I thought,
well,
what's gonna happen is
I'm just gonna get
cranky.
When they get tired of the things,
you know,
in any job,
and,
you know,
any group of people you work with,
there are people who are annoying,
right?
And so
you,
in order to make things work,
you don't let that get under your skin,
but I thought,
oh,
it'll just get under my skin more and more.
I'll get
annoyed with people,
students,
staff,
faculty.
I'll just think,
oh gosh,
this again,
um.
I never did.
I kept getting up in the morning and saying,
I love going to work.
Going to work,
not,
not every second,
you know,
there's
challenging things,
but,
um,
and so I realized if I
decide to retire
because I don't like my job,
I'll never retire.
Oh.
And so I had
to
come up with some other reason,
no,
I had other reasons too,
um.
And I can talk about that,
but that's not about Barrett.
But so Barrett is,
I believe so deeply in Barrett.
I believe in
um.
What it provides to students,
the way it treats students,
uh,
the way that students have such a voice
in the Barrett experience.
I love that
and I'll always be,
I'll always say we
are doing this,
um,
because I'll always feel like I'm part of it,
even if I'm not actively.
Directing parts of it
and the same thing,
you know,
that
I've never been,
I've been an academic for 40 years.
More than 40 years.
Oh,
that's a reasonable time.
I'm
not frightening.
Yeah,
just remember that so when you could say I've been an academic for 40 years.
Um,
and I've never been in a college where.
Because
everybody in the college,
all the faculty are here because they love working with students,
all the staff are here because they love working with students.
We don't always agree on everything,
you know,
just like a family squabbles,
but,
um,
but they all do.
It's always
a
team effort in the best interests of the students.
And so what could be better,
um,
and I
support it completely.
Hm,
and I'm still part of it,
just
lurking in the shadows,
and I'll look up and I'll be in the corner.
Oh,
that's amazing you're here and you're telling us all this at
Bage at 30,
so you're still here.
Can I ask a follow-up question?
Um,
I was wondering that reminded me of something you said earlier about
wanting,
like imagining the human events
for everybody at ASU.
And again,
when you were talking about the faculty.
Um,
honor,
honors faculty advisors and sort of communicating and
integrating Barrett with the rest of the university.
So I was wondering sort of
how you see
that aspect of Barrett going forward,
this relationship between Barrett and the rest of the university,
and,
and what kind of,
yeah,
how you think that will change,
what you would like to see with it and
what your thoughts of it on it are
with the human event or just in general,
just in general,
yeah,
um.
I think that uh.
I think that having this big network of faculty honors advisors
is very valuable
for,
it's not just valuable for the students,
it's great for the students,
but it's really valuable for the college,
for the understanding of the college.
There's a lot of misunderstanding that can be competition.
Um,
Rarely does Barrett ever see itself standing
in competition with any other college.
They just don't feel that way about us,
um,
and we don't feel that way about any college.
We'll help any college with whatever goals there are
as long as it's got students in mind,
um,
so
given that platform.
I think that we could.
Significantly expand.
Research and internship opportunities for students with faculty
because that one on one
is absolutely critical
and it should start early,
not necessarily as freshmen,
because freshmen
need to get their feet on the ground sometimes and you know,
some of them are ready,
but many of them are not.
Um,
but we could expand
the opportunities for students to reach.
The other thing that we could do is to,
if the university were.
Will need to think this way.
This is the harder one.
Our faculty who are so good at teaching small seminars,
you being one of them.
They're so so so good at it,
could teach other faculty at the university.
We could have workshops here.
We could
partner with faculty and other departments to say.
You want your department to have something that's human event like.
Let's co-teach
on
just one class
to get it started to see how that is
and then
let other faculty in the department sit in on it and see how it goes
and see what happens with the students because
once they see that the students are gonna
Go from here to here in one semester,
um,
they're gonna want their students to be like that,
right?
They're gonna want that maturity of thinking to happen
for their students too because it's,
it's frankly easier to teach people.
Um,
but I think that's,
that's a future
that we could really make a difference and that's what
I got the opportunity when I.
Uh,
was at the end of being in Barrett in May to meet with Michael Crow.
And he said,
what would,
you know,
give me some advice.
And I said,
human event for everybody.
I love that.
He said,
how would you do that?
I said,
well,
I have some ideas if you're ever interested.
That's great.
Yeah,
that's amazing.
So,
uh,
actually,
I'm going to just,
uh,
ping off,
um,
what you're talking about the,
the proposal that you had just before you left.
Um,
why do you think it would be important
for Bret students specifically to learn about,
say,
people in Singapore and how they're living their lives and
then write about it?
Why do I think that
Yeah,
like what do,
what do the students then get out of it other than just talking to?
Well,
there's two important things at least.
One is for students who are.
A reticent to travel.
Having
the opportunity to get to know people who are at a place before
they go so that there's more comfort in going to that place,
seeing how people are living by
Skyping with them,
seeing how they're living there.
That's valuable for a lot of students,
um,
but secondly.
Getting to know somebody
who lives in a different environment
from your own
who thinks in a different way from the way you think,
um,
and who,
um,
lives and works.
In a different way from you from what you've experienced,
um.
Profoundly changes people's lives.
A lot of students when they go on and travel abroad will come back and say,
wow,
that's changed my life.
I didn't realize this or that.
I'm thinking
you came from
Nigeria,
Zimbabwe
to the United States.
Didn't that change your life significantly?
Absolutely.
I'm sitting here talking to you.
It's just uh.
Uh
There aren't other classroom experiences you,
you can study,
um,
you could take a class on the history and culture of Singapore,
but.
It's not the same as actually talking to someone,
going to where they live and.
And and that just
really changes people
and that kind of change.
I don't see any downside of that.
That's gonna change is important,
absolutely,
especially.
I was gonna say especially today,
but it's always been through my lifetime this has been true.
People who don't have experiences outside of their
where they grow up,
their,
their family and their communities,
um,
tend not to
appreciate.
The perspectives and challenges of other people
and we need that.
We really need that.
Why,
why do we need that?
Why do we,
uh,
because,
um.
When people don't appreciate the perspectives of others.
They.
They,
they lose
the richness
that can be
part of their thinking about whatever their problems are.
Take,
um,
climate change,
for example.
If we don't appreciate the experiences of people in
other parts of the world with respect to.
Pollution,
water.
Just a weather
mhm.
Then,
um,
our only ideas about solutions come from our,
come from here,
just come from what we experience here in
Phoenix,
Arizona.
We are less accommodating
and less aware
really of what it is that climate change represents.
We only know what it represents here,
um,
so then our solutions are narrow and less successful.
Absolutely.
Absolutely,
ah so.
What would you tell someone new or that is considering
coming to bear it?
Oh,
well,
they couldn't make a better choice.
Here's,
here's part of what I did
used to say when I was,
I,
I did a lot of recruiting in California
and I grew up in Northern and Southern California,
and so I know
the big
UC schools very well.
I grew up in Los Angeles.
I grew up in the Bay and then later in the Bay Area
near San Francisco.
I know cow.
And uh
There are lots of really great schools,
great universities,
just
phenomenal with.
Nobel laureates and.
All these famous
people,
but as an undergraduate student.
Before you decide to go anywhere,
you have to say,
what do I have access to.
So University of Chicago,
for example,
has,
I don't know how many
Nobel laureates,
lots of them,
and they advertise that
you want to come to college and be,
you know,
chin to job with a Nobel laureate,
come to University of Chicago.
Well,
undergraduates don't work with those Nobel laureates.
Whereas here in Barrett,
that is exactly what we do,
we get students in.
The offices of in the labs of in the classrooms of
people who are at the very top of their field.
One of the Nobel laureates here at ASU teaches
honors courses,
only honors courses.
Um,
he's
phenomenal,
um,
and he
works really closely with students.
I think he has 7 honors thesis this year.
Uh,
he's an amazing person.
That wouldn't happen in another place.
It wouldn't happen in Cal.
It's a great university,
but undergraduate students,
it's not about undergraduate students there.
It's about.
Postdocs,
PhD students,
and researchers,
so
go there when you're a graduate student,
but don't go there as an undergrad.
Come to a place like this where you really
know you have access to all those wonderful things that a big university can offer.
And um
where the people have your interest at heart,
the pod.
It's true,
it's true.
Well,
that has happened to me,
so that's why I was asking what you tell another student and it's a,
it's an enriching experience.
Good.
I'm glad it is for you.
Oh well,
Doctor Nelson,
thank you so much for your participation today.
And if you have any more thoughts,
um,
to share later,
please feel free to reach out.
And if you have any questions about this interview or our 30th anniversary project,
please contact,
uh,
Wistein Fruit.
She was here just a while ago,
or Rachel Deonna,
and I
think that we gave you.
Details on the,
on the,
on that form.
Yes,
so thank you so much.
I have,
it was such a pleasure talking to you so much for coming.
It was fun.
I was on the edge of my chair.
Wonderful.
So.
Yeah.