I realize now that I’d never thought specifically about attending college, but my grades were very good in high school, and I think I just assumed I’d be going. My father was a lab technician at Dow Chemical and my mother was an LPN nurse. Money was very tight with 5 children and college wasn’t something that seemed possible. My grades were good enough to get grants to cover my tuition and fees and I borrowed the rest from a nearby bank.
I didn’t have much difficulty with the application and had been accepted at other Michigan schools…but my pal, with whom I played guitar, was a year older and was at Western. I started as a Psych major, but found that I loved performing in high school, so I attended the WMU Theatre Department’s orientation show…and was blown away. I went back to see it the next night rather than the other activities planned for the incoming freshmen. Theatre in high school was in a cafetorium…heartfelt, but not working towards career excellence. I stayed a Psych major and took the classes but was cast in shows and loved being around the theatre and the students there. My B.S. in Communications was the Theatre degree at that time at WMU…there was no Fine Arts degree in Theatre.
I didn’t see my father much and we had a sometimes-difficult family environment, but years later, after he’d died, my mother told me he was always proud that I went to college.
My siblings have all gone on to be successful and obtain certificates or degrees in their chosen fields, but I was the only one to attend a four-year program at a university. I am proud of that, but to this day I tell young people that you learn so much about life that isn’t found in books when you go away to school.
A profound experience in my life was during that Orientation session for incoming freshmen. We were all standing in a common outside area and the leader was speaking to us over a megaphone. He instructed us to “pair up” …and then each couple to “pair up” with another couple. Finally, the team of four incoming students would pair up with another team of four. Now, there were eight students standing in a bunch when the leader announced that one of the students was an imposter…they were already in college and meant to help guide us over the next three days.
I had noticed the counselors were specific about manipulating the pairing up so that each group of eight students were racially mixed. I grew up in a small farm town in mid-Michigan that was almost all white. I’d never really thought about it unless I was playing football against a team with Black players. But even then, I didn’t have any thoughts one way or the other. With whatever difficulties my Dad had, I never heard him say anything racist, so it wasn’t a part of my upbringing.
Getting to know those students in our Gang of Eight was profound. I had open and honest conversations about race and got to know people I may never had met otherwise. That positive experience has stuck with me since the summer of 1974 and has carried my sense of belonging and race ever since.
I ended up with a career in the Arts having senior level positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, CEO or Elmhurst Art Museum and all while performing in three of the longest running comedy dinner theatres in Chicago for over fifteen years. I took the position of Executive Director of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo never expecting I’d live in Kalamazoo again. After retiring, I served on the board of directors of Public Media Network serving Kalamazoo County and recently resigned to take on the position of Director of Development to help them fund raise and grow. PMN’s programs focused on unheard voices from our Black and BIPOC communities and my honor to be a part of it is a direct extension of that Western Michigan University Orientation session that summer so long ago.