Kathryn Cline Byrd '69
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- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: I'm ready. My name is Kathy Byrd, legal name Kathryn Cline Byrd. I’m from the class of 1969. I came from Colorado but since 1974 I’ve lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.... Are we ready?
- Tamara Grbusic & Kathryn Cline ByrdTamara: Yeah.Kathryn: Oh, okay, okay. Why did I come to Grinnell? I did not want to go to school in Colorado. I wanted to get away and be on my own as much as I could convince my parents to let me come. My mother had gone to the University of Iowa and had always been interested in Grinnell, and recommended it to me. I was really too shy to have been happy at a huge university. So, I came to see Grinnell, which was at that time about 1100 students. I came to the College, sight-unseen as a freshman. People didn’t travel around looking at colleges as much as they do today. When I first looked at the campus I was impressed by the trees. I was in Mears Hall as my first dorm and that was definitely an adjustment.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: As for professors that I think had an influence on my life, Herbert Prescott, who was a professor ofJjournalism, and I never had journalism courses from him, but he did teach some courses that were preparing those students who were going to get an Iowa teaching certificate, some of the education /required courses. And the philosophy of the College at that time was, you were really being prepared for graduate school, but if you were going to get a teaching certificate, the course may look like you’re taking something having to do with education but the content and method of teaching was definitely Grinnell.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: Anyway, Mr. Prescott, and we called all our professors Mr. in that day, didn’t call anybody Dr., put me under- took me under his wing and worked with me in a number of different ways and took an interest in me even though I was not a journalist, and one of the things he did for me was to call – every year one senior was picked, English major, to be the assistant in the Writing Lab. Those students who were possibly going to have some trouble with their writing skills were sent to the Writing Lab to see if their skills could be improved. The unfortunate situation, or maybe fortunate, depending on how you look at it, is that Mr. Prescott was in the hospital a good deal of that time so I was kind of left on my own, but that was my introduction to college teaching and really to teaching in general and I enjoyed it.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: Best memories of my time at Grinnell. I think it probably has to do with being with my friends, with whom I was especially close. And I certainly liked my courses, too. I was a conscientious student, didn’t miss many classes, turned in my assignments on time, did what I was told. But, I also liked very much to sit with my college friends, particularly after dinner, listening to Jim Morrison and The Doors. He hadn’t died yet. But, we would have a little bit of wine, which somebody had procured and smoke cigarettes, which none of us does anymore and just philosophize about what amazing people we were.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: Our dorm rooms look, from the inside, pretty much the same as they do today. I lived in Mears, which hasn’t been a dorm for many years. I lived in Haines basement. I lived in Read where my roommate and I that year had what was called a triple, but there were only two of us in it so we each had a little teeny tiny bedroom and then a living room basically, and everyone liked to meet there, and then I lived in James.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: This- until my last year, we had North Campus and South Campus being segregated by gender. My senior year, they integrated the campuses by dorm. I don’t remember that they did it by floor. I think they were just doing it by dorm at that point. But at any rate, it was- our rooms were small but we decorated them to fit our own personalities. I question how I ever got my clothes into those teensie tinsy closets, and I guess I must’ve done a lot of laundry down in Loose because I had clean clothes, but I don’t remember trucking down there too many times.
- Kathryn Cline Byrd & Tamara GrbusicKathryn: And when I first came to Grinnell women had to wear dresses or skirts, except when it was a zillion degrees below zero or it was Saturday. We had Saturday classes. By the time I was a, I think maybe my sophomore year, that was relaxed. By the time I was a junior, you could’ve gone in your bath- y’know your pajamas and nobody would care and probably some kids did. On special occasions, there was a formal once a year, and so I went, had some formals but that was atypical.Tamara: What was the formal?Kathryn: It was, y’know, like a prom sort of thing. Okay...Tamara: Like Waltz?Kathryn: No, not necessarily the waltzing but just, you really getting dressed up with long gloves and, y’know, very fancy clothes, and... We had those.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: My... I joined some- a committee called Gaddabout, and that was the committee that put on things such as the homecoming dance or some sort of other. Like, we had Jefferson Airplane before they became Jefferson Starship, and we- They had a very primitive form of light show and we were involved with hanging up photographic papers so that the projectors could show the- this water that was colored with- there was water and oil and it had food coloring in it and you’d jiggle it and you could see it around the room. It was sort of proto-psychedelic. And I enjoyed doing that sort of thing.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: But, later, as I say you could wear pretty much whatever you wanted, other than when I student taught, at which point I had to dress in professional clothes.... What book influenced me most in college? Hm, I’d have to think. I certainly, as an English major, I loved the poetry books and so I think I probably, y'know, it would be those kinds of books. The Yeats, T.S. Eliot, those kinds of books were probably my favorites. And so I would say I was influenced by those.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: My memories or images of the town of Grinnell. I got to see a little bit more of the town during the day time, anyway, because of my student teaching. There was definitely a town-gown... wouldn’t say rivalry, but some discord. I guess I think a lot about the places where one would eat, such as JD’s. My Grinnell boyfriend that I went with most of the time would take me there on Sundays to get filet mignons and such. Pagliai’s was there then but in those days they cut the pizza in squares. We had something called the Rex which I really didn’t go to maybe more than once and the Longhorn which served cheap steaks.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: Has Grinnell changed since I was a student? I was here- well, I’ve been on campus a couple of times, but some times since I’ve graduated in ’69. But, my husband and I were here two years ago. He was speaking at- with some physics students about something called dark energy, which is a current area that my husband researches as an astronomer, and I had students take us around and so on and so forth and I got to talk with some students. I’m extremely impressed with the students. I thought they were very bright, and far more self-assured than we were, far more sophisticated.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: I heard somebody say, “I don’t know if today I would be able to get into Grinnell.” But, at the time I was there, one of the things I noticed when I first came- and I- we were all, in high school, used to being at the top of our class and you come to a college where everybody’s really bright, and that takes a little bit of adjustment, not to be automatically the best... Something that is no longer available on campus but was meaningful to me... I haven’t come across anything that I’ve missed so far, I guess.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: Describe my favorite academic experience or class at Grinnell. Oh, I liked a lot of them. I mean, I was enthusiastic. That’s why I went to a liberal arts college. I can remember a couple of classes where I really learned how to think for myself. One of them was the education course that was required of us, that was education by name but not really by content and a man named... I’m sure it was Dr. Liggett taught that. Not the president, but anyway... And he really challenged us to do a lot of reaction papers, and I real- Y’know he commented that he could see the difference between my- those at the initial part of the semester later and I liked that.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: My favorite place on campus? Probably the Forum, to meet there. That would be where everybody met if they could. I loved the whole campus though, so... Now, if I knew then what I know now, what would I do differently? OK, well I was very shy and a very conscientious student. I had my good group of friends but I would have taken more advantages of the opportunities to be involved in extra-curricular activities and I would have worked to develop my leadership skills, which I acquired later but I would have taken advantage of those opportunities far, far more. I would have done that a lot differently.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: I did not meet my spouse at Grinnell. I met him in graduate school at the University of Texas... How do I- I’ve already commented on how the students of today compare with my classmates, though I must say my classmates have all... that I can, y’know, the ones I ran around with, gone on to get advanced degrees, had good careers. Most of us are in retirement now, and I would- the difference is that I think the students today think nothing about, you know, doing more global things. We were at a period of transition from ’65 to ’69 and things are different now.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: Student and campus life as I experienced it during our time at Grinnell. Well, all I can say is that starting off in 1965, with hours at 10:30 and so forth, and a Dean of Women, and wearing dresses and those sorts of things and then by ’69 just about anything went as far as living arrangements, whether they were official or not. And... so there were no hours. There was a lot of more student activism, so on and so forth. It changed. It was a very, very dramatic time.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: If I were writing a history of Grinnell, what would I include from my years here? Well, I think tons and tons has been written- have been written about the years of ’65 to ’69. I think that I would talk about the awakening of the consciousness, I guess, of the students. I mean, we already know that we had demonstrations on campus and, at my graduation, for instance, there was an anti-Vietnam war demonstration. Those sorts of things. That’s all documented.
- Kathryn Cline ByrdKathryn: But there was a change in the students who came.. or, we- the person I went in in 1965 was not the person who came out in ’69. I came from a sheltered environment. My parents were quite protective, which makes you wonder how I got here, except that my mother thought it would be a good fit, and I came out a far more independent person.
- Kathryn Cline Byrd & Tamara GrbusicKathryn: So, I think that a lot of that had to do not only with the quality of the faculty, in my academic experiences, but also what was happening during those years. And so, the people that went out did not- the women didn’t just automatically assume they were gonna now finish college, get married and, you know, stay home. Those sorts of things. Women had more opportunities, more options and so I think that I would talk about how the students themselves felt different.Tamara: Thank you.
Alumni oral history interview with Kathryn Cline Byrd '69. Recorded June 2, 2012.