Carly Schuna ‘06
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- Carly SchunaCarly: My name is Carly Schuna. I live in Madison, Wisconsin and my class year is 2006.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: OK. So Carly, why did you come to Grinnell College and what is your first memory of the campus?Carly: Oh, good question. Grinnell was actually the only school to which I applied.Chelsie: Oh wow.Carly: I applied early decision. I came here to visit with my parents, and I think I visited a couple of other schools before this. Macalester was one of them that I remember seeing. I think one of my first memories was walking up to Quad dining hall and having someone hold the door for me and that seemed like a really nice thing. I decided that I wanted to come here because it just- I loved the way that the school felt. I loved the vibe. I felt really comfortable here. I’ve always been sort of a weird person and I felt like there were a lot of weird people here, and that was a very good thing for me, personally.
- Carly SchunaCarly: Um, yeah, I sat in on a couple of classes. I could tell that they were really hard and challenging and I liked that one of the students in one of the classes turned around and said welcome to me with like, a really big, genuine smile on his face and it made me feel really good. Yeah, so, I mean, I never really wanted to go anywhere else. It was clear to me that this is where I wanted to go to school and I certainly haven’t regretted it. I’m very glad that I went here.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Awesome. OK. Was there a professor, student or staff member who had a particularly strong influence on your life?Carly: Yeah, there are a couple people. One, a professor that I can remember in particular, is Professor Erik Simpson who was my advisor. He-Chelsie: Is that Sociology?Carly: No, he's English. Yeah, he’s the Chair of the English department right now, I think.Chelsie: Oh, yeah.
- Carly SchunaCarly: He is the best. So awesome. I was in his tutorial, which was on Frankenstein, so it was a really cool Tutorial. We watched like, Young Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Sometimes we would go have class at his house. We would have breakfast with him. It was really great. He was just like, the kindest professor- made everybody feel really really welcome. He was an excellent advisor and probably like, the smartest person that I’ve ever met and the smartest person that I ever still know. Just like, so intelligent and considerate and wonderful in every way. It was great to work with him while I was here.
- Carly SchunaCarly: And then another student that I can remember in particular was my friend J.R., who unfortunately- he was killed in a car accident when he was driving back to Grinnell over winter break. This was, I think my junior year, so his sophomore year. He was class of ’07. His name was J.R. Ewins. And- oh, he was just like one of my best friends at Grinnell. I met him when he was a prospie. He was a good friend of the guy that I was dating at the time, when he came as a prospective student. He had just the hugest smile, such a nice guy. So yeah, he and I hit it off right away and we remained really really close friends.
- Carly SchunaCarly: He would always come and knock at my door and come in to study in my room. I was a Student Advisor, so he would come in and just- He had this distinctive way of knocking at my door where he would not, like, show himself. He would just knock with his hand so it was impossible to tell it was him until I said something and he came in and showed himself. Yeah, he always did that and he would come in and just hang out in my room for hours at a time with all of his textbooks. He would fall asleep in my room. But yeah, he and I were really really close, so it was awful for me to hear about his death but I know that there are a lot of students who will always remember him. But yeah, he was definitely a complete shining beacon during my time at Grinnell. So, he’s one of my favorite Grinnell memories.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Okay. What are your best memories of your time at Grinnell College?Carly: That’s kind of a tough question. I feel like, in general just my whole time at Grinnell is what I really cherish rather than specific memories. Like, I mean- I don’t... I feel like I have trouble remembering specific instances, like, "This one Waltz," or "This one party." But, just in general, the way that I felt when I was here. Like, just so accepted and happy and confident and like I belonged here. Y’know, like it was great to be here with the exact mix of people that was here at the time, like all of my friends and the professors and everyone just, the feeling that that produced is really what I treasure most about Grinnell.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: OK. I like that answer. What did your dorm room look like? You can talk about all four, first one, anything.Carly: Yeah, my first year I lived in a quad. I think, actually before I graduated, the quads were all abandoned and turned into triples or something so there were a lot of us shoved in there like sardines, but it was not a pretty dorm room. It was sort of ugly. We didn’t decorate it really. Not a lot of stuff on the walls. Everything was sort of jammed together. I ride a unicycle and I kept my unicycle in the closet because that was really the only place there was room to keep it.
- Carly SchunaCarly: Yeah, sophomore year I had a bit of a bigger room because I was a Student Advisor, so I had a loft bed and.. Actually sophomore year, I think my friends and I always had this thing where we would celebrate each other’s birthdays in surprising ways. So, for my birthday sophomore year all of my friends hand-wrote down all of these poems that they thought were beautiful by like a wide variety of poets and there were dozens and dozens of them. There were probably like 200 or more, and on my birthday they broke into my dorm room while I was gone and put them all up on the wall all over my room, so my whole room for sophomore year was covered with poetry. Like, the ceiling, the walls, the floor, everything. So, that was pretty awesome. Yeah, I mean, that’s what I remember the most. My other dorm rooms were all kind of boring so that was probably the coolest decoration I ever had.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: What kind of clothes did you wear everyday as a Grinnell student, or on special occasions?Carly: Again, I don’t really remember. I ‘ve always had sort of quirky fashion sense, but I never had a lot of money to spend on clothes while I was a student. I mean, I still don’t have a ton of money to spend on clothes, but I wasn’t able to wear like, totally, things that I thought were completely cool because I could not afford to buy them so I would go to Second Mile and pick out- try to find like, treasures there. But yeah, mostly... I mean I don’t think I ever wore anything like, super scrubby. Like, I wouldn't wear like, sweatpants to class or anything, but... Yeah, I don’t think I wore anything super stand-out either, but I lived for Waltz because I loved dressing up for Waltz in like, totally fancy clothes and doing my hair up, that was the best. So yeah, I loved occasions where I could dress up. Any excuse to dress up, I would love that.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Okay. What book influenced you most in college?Carly: Again, a really good question that I don’t necessarily have a good answer for. I was an English major, so you would think that I would have like tons and tons of answers, but I don’t because what I’ve always wanted to do, and what I do now is write children’s books. I’ve always wanted to be a children’s book writer, so in English classes we didn’t really read a lot of children’s books, and by a lot I mean any.
- Carly SchunaCarly: So, in the writing classes that I took I would be writing children’s literature and everyone else would sort of be writing like, Great American Novel type of things so no one ever really understood this stuff that I was working on. It was sort of enigmatic even to a lot of the professors, so I was reading a lot of children’s books in my spare time in college. I don’t know if any of them stands out in particular, but after I graduated I was awarded a Post Baccalaureate fellowship in the humanities and I studied Humor in Children’s Literature for that semester after I graduated, and I was paid to just read picture books and middle-grade novels and young adult novels like basically all day, and find out more about children’s literature humor. So that was the best, and I would say that was... Y'know, those books were most influential on me when I was here at Grinnell ‘cause they relate most directly into what I do now.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Right. Okay. What memories or images do you have of the town of Grinnell?Carly: It’s exactly the same as it was when I was a student. I was just walking downtown and it’s the same. I guess, I remember when they were building those- like those star patterns that are in the middle of the street now, like in the crosswalks. Those star bricks. Those- they were being constructed while I was here so I remember that vividly and thought about how cool it was gonna look when they were done and it does look cool. I remember walking down the street and seeing Chuong Garden and being able to smell the scent of Chuong Garden. It smells exactly the same. It’s a great smell. But, I never walked through town too much. I would go to Stewart Library a lot to check out children’s books and I don’t think very many college students had Stewart Library accounts but they should because there are great books there.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: How has Grinnell changed since you were a student?Carly: I don’t feel like I can give a very accurate, because I’ve only been back on campus now for like, ooh, like, less than 24 hours, so I don’t really feel like I can judge. Honestly, it hasn’t been that long since I was a student. It’s been like five years so, I mean, there are other people in my class who are complaining about how Grinnell has totally sold out now or something but I don’t really see that. I mean, the campus center is... I don’t really love the new campus center.Chelsie: The JRC?Carly: Yes. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. It just seems to have, I guess to me, a little bit less personality than some of the other, older campus buildings, but I think part of that is just because it’s brand new, so maybe it hasn’t been able to develop a personality or a vibe yet. So.. But really, I think it’s very similar to when I went here. I don’t think a whole lot has changed and if it has I’m unaware of it.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Okay. Describe something that is no longer available on campus but that was meaningful to you. For example: buildings, programs, activities....Carly: Well, I don’t know if Grinnell still has a Juggling Club, but if they don’t there was one when I was here that I helped start and that was really fun. It was really basically only me and like two or three other people. I don’t know if there were a lot of jugglers at Grinnell. We knew other people who juggled but we were the only ones who got together regularly and now I’m in a quite good Juggling Club in Madison. I’m probably the worst juggler there but there have some world class, world record-holder jugglers there so it’s... Juggling Club has been really meaningful for me for a long time, so I don’t know if that’s still present but that would be one thing that shaped my time here that I remember fondly.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Okay. Describe your favorite academic experience or class at Grinnell.Carly: That would definitely be the Frankenstein Tutorial. It was hands down the best class. It was just so fun. The papers were great. Watching the movies was awesome. I got along with everyone in the class. I got to write a paper diagnosing Victor Frankenstein with bi-polar disorder.Chelsie: Oh wow, awesome.Carly: It was so fun.Chelsie: That's awesome.Carly: Yeah, it was an all-around great class.Chelsie: And, you had Erik Simpson as an advisor?Carly: Yeah, Erik Simpson. Yup.Chelsie: Awesome, you stuck with him all four years.Carly: Yeah.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Where am I? Describe your favorite place on campus.Carly: I probably have two. Well, Quad dining hall was definitely one of my favorites. It was just great eating meals there. My favorite place for studying was the Burling second floor. Those little tiny couches that overlook the big window in front of the library where you can see people walking in and going out. It’s the perfect amount of distraction, because they’re not right there when they walk in because you're a floor up so it’s not like it jogs you out of your work but if you’re reading something that’s really boring you can look up every thirty seconds. So that is definitely my favorite place to study, and those couches were quite comfortable, actually.
- Carly Schuna & Chelsie SalvateraCarly: And where... oh, where else? I was thinking of one more place. Oh, favorite place on campus... I can’t remember it now. It was… Well, I like Mac Field. I think Mac Field is beautiful. I like the Observatory as well, but yeah. And there was one more place but it’s gone out of my head.Chelsie: Okay. If you remember-Carly: I’m old.Chelsie: -We can like, bring it back again.Carly: Alright.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: If you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently during your time at Grinnell College?Carly: I wouldn’t have done anything differently, because I mean, I probably made some decisions that were maybe like not the smartest decisions at the time, but if I didn’t make them then I probably would have made them later so I don’t really have any regrets or anything. I think I had a great time at Grinnell and it’s shaped who I am and who I will become, and I wouldn’t change a single thing.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Okay. Did you meet your spouse, partner at Grinnell?Carly: I did not.Chelsie: OK. How would you compare the students of today with your classmates? I don’t know how much you can say about that.Carly: I can’t. I can’t say anything about it!Chelsie: She's been here for less than 24 hours.Carly: Yeah, I don’t know! You guys seem pretty awesome to me, I mean.Chelsie: Yes.Carly: I don’t know.Chelsie: You don't know.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Okay. Describe student and campus life as you experienced it during your time at Grinnell.Carly: That’s a really broad question.Chelsie: Yeah. You’ve probably been talking about it this whole time.Carly: Yeah, I have. I don’t know if I can say much more. It was... yeah. I don’t know. I've covered it.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: OK, this is kind of a broad one too. If you were writing a history of Grinnell College, what would you include from your four years here?Carly: Oh. I guess I would include one thing I can think of, that was a notable campus event, was... I think I was a freshman. It was the spring of my first year. There were like three students on campus who all committed suicide in the spring, and that was like, just a terrible time for everyone on campus. You could feel it wherever you went. The mood was just awful, and everyone was feeling this and like pulling together and sort of asking like, why this would ever happen. So that, that is probably something that would go in like a formal history.
- Carly SchunaCarly: But, I don’t know. I guess... I mean, some of the things that I remember mostly that are Grinnell-specific are, self-governance is one thing that seems to be notably different from what other colleges have and I think Grinnell’s system of self-governance works very well and is most of the time very effective. Also, the open curriculum and the fact that you can choose whatever classes you want, that was one of the things that really attracted me when I was looking at schools and I still think it’s such a great thing. But, y'know, I had to take some math and science courses but I could pick which ones I wanted, and I only had to take a few and there was no core curriculum that I had to take. I just loved that kind of freedom being available and being able to choose what kind of classes you want, so.... Yeah. That is an awesome thing. But, yeah, I think those are the main things.
- Chelsie Salvatera & Carly SchunaChelsie: Okay. Do you have any other things you want to add on? Anything else you want to talk about?Carly: I don’t think so. These are really great questions. Whoever came up with them did a wonderful job.Chelsie: Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time.
Alumni oral history interview with Carly Schuna ‘06. Recorded June 3, 2011.