Frank Douma '92
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- Frank DoumaFrank: Okay... We can start it. My name is Frank Douma. I currently live in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I am a member of the Grinnell College class of 1992.
- Frank DoumaFrank: Grinnell is a special place to me, as I’m sure it is to just about anyone who’s been providing this information. But, I came to Grinnell... I knew of Grinnell because my father attended here. He graduated in ’51 and the 60s and the related events happened in-between then and when I came. So, I was never pushed to go to Grinnell. It took kind of my own discovery in high school that Grinnell was not just the place that my dad went to college, but actually a very good school and well-respected as a place to get an education.
- Frank DoumaFrank: I toured the campus, like most students do when they’re looking at places to live- or, go to college, and it was apparent very early on that this was a good fit. I only visited one or two other schools after that and they did not have the same feeling. I knew that this was a place where people did not have to demonstrate their abilities academically or intellectually or what have you. They knew they were good, and that was good enough for each other so we could move on, enjoy being people, and have a chance to hang out and do whatever was more interesting because we knew we could take care of the classes.
- Frank DoumaFrank: What impressed me most with my visit was that it was middle of semester and midterms were being given in the classes. There were not a lot of students running around, tearing their hair out, worried about how they were gonna do on their midterms. They were instead playing cribbage in the hallways, in the dorms, or watching television or something like that, and I could tell that these are people who kind of know where they’re at, more or less, and are comfortable being able to make their own decisions and go forward.
- Frank DoumaFrank: When I got here, it wasn’t necessarily the situation that everybody was that cool and laid-back. There were times when you did have a very tough situation and it required you to have to make tough decisions, and if you didn’t make the right ones, there were tough consequences. But, the thing about Grinnell is that it... there seems to be recognition that this might be first time you have to make those decisions and so if you make the wrong one, you’re not gonna necessarily have to be set back permanently. There will be consequences but you have a chance to recover.
- Frank DoumaFrank: I’ve noticed that not only in my classmates but in Grinnellians that I’ve seen and had an opportunity to interact with since, that they- I’ve started to just, adopt the saying that, “When the going gets tough the Grinnellians chill out.” There’s knowledge that it’s gonna be tough and you’re gonna have to work hard but in the end, you know you’re good. You’re gonna make it and things will work out all right if you do your stuff.
- Frank DoumaFrank: Professors that I particularly remember. I came to Grinnell in 1988, 1989. The Cold War was still going. I knew people that were convinced that President- it was some accident of fate that President Reagan hadn’t blown us all up already. So, I came with an interest in Political Science and in Russian and East European studies and I thought that would be a great way to make my mark in saving the world.
- Frank DoumaFrank: Unfortunately in 1989 to 1991 a few others decided to do it for me and didn’t... and it was kind of a watershed moment that I was going to have to start thinking about what else it is I like to do. Along the way though, Wayne Moyer was my advisor when I started, as a tutorial, and he remained my advisor all four years with my Political Science major. I also was deeply influenced by John Mohan, Russian professor, and took a number of classes from him.
- Frank DoumaFrank: I was back on campus in April of this year, 2012, as a speaker for the Rosenfield Program. I had a chance to interact with some students. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Political Science and Russian and East European studies, Central European studies, is still a... something that students are greatly interested in and declare and take classes in. I was a little surprised when one of them asked me, given kind of my perspective when I came in, “Was it worth it to go with that?” I was surprised at how quickly I said, “Oh yes, it was.”
- Frank DoumaFrank: The- It was a privilege to be able to read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky under the tutelage of John Mohan. And, to understand that The Brothers Karamazov is not just a long book, but it's a book that you can remember the lessons from every time you hear the last movement of Beethoven’s ninth; that Anna Karenina is not just a book about infidelity and trains going into tunnels, but it’s a story that shows, even people who believe that their purpose in life is to be intellectual and deep thinkers, can and should recognize the ability to do something with their hands, and not be completely surprised when they discover there’s value in being able to do that.
- Frank DoumaFrank: I was able to, through Professor Moyer, participate in an internship program in the summer of 1991 in Southeast England, looking at the beginnings- or the anticipated changes from the opening of the Channel Tunnel. That set me on the course that I’m still on now, looking at transportation and land use as a career, and the relationship between the two.
- Frank DoumaFrank: It’s kind of unique that I had to leave the country to be able to start building my vocation in that way, but then I came back and I went to the University of Minnesota and got a joint degree with Law and Public Policy. My interest in transportation and public policy that I had picked up in England gave me that entry into the world of research into that work that I still am engaged in.
- Frank DoumaFrank: Being here at reunion, I’m impressed that the dorm rooms still seem the same. You walk in and you think, “How am I ever going to survive any time here whatsoever?” And the- by the time you have been there for only a few hours it is your space. You’ve turned it into something that meets your sensory needs, be they sound or vision or even smell, I’ve discovered.
- Frank DoumaFrank: I was intrigued however, that there was still a phone with a cord still in it. That is something that, as I'm- was running around with my cell phones, I don’t even notice that there’s telephones in hotel rooms sometimes now and to see that it was still in the dorm room, I wondered how much it got used. On the flip side, it was interesting to note that most of the hall phones now appear to be storage closets.
- Tamara Grbusic & Frank DoumaTamara: We don't use the dorm phones.Frank: The dorm phones are decorations now?Tamara: More or less.Frank: I kind of imagined that, but as my cell phone ran out of battery power I was glad it was there as a backup, in case I needed to get contacted.Tamara: Yep. That's what it is most of the time.
- Frank DoumaFrank: Something I noticed when I was here in April about the way the students dress now and how students dressed when I was here as a student is that in both cases I’m sure somebody would tell you that students really don’t care what they look like. However, when I was here in ’92 that meant you therefore had to make an effort to not look good. If you wore, like the clothes I’m wearing right now, a shirt with a collar and slacks, and leather shoes, you would be looked at as if, “What are you trying to do here?” You’re not looking right.
- Frank DoumaFrank: But on the other hand, I noticed in 2012, not only were the people still looking like they just rolled out of bed two weeks ago, some looked like they actually went to the closest and put together something that more or less was supposed to go together. These folks interacted on the completely same level. It was, I think, a sign of even further progress in terms of students being even more comfortable with each other and who they are and who they wanna be, and being accepted for that.
- Frank DoumaFrank: Looking at some of these other questions, I’m not sure there’s too many other things I would want to cover. I would like to kind of take a few minutes talking about some of my favorite places that may not seem to be quite on the forefront anymore. I know that KDIC still exists, but that was something I never even considered when I was coming to school and I ended up having a jazz show on KDIC for every semester I was on campus, and the audio tapes I still have from that are wonderful treasures.
- Frank DoumaFrank: As I came back here for Reunion, I played the tape of a time when a friend and I took over another friend’s radio show - intentionally! He was not able to make it so he asked us to take over. We completely hijacked the format though, to the music that we wanted to play. And- you know, when you’re talking on the air, or as you are right now, to hear yourself say the same thing 20 times over sometimes, it sounds a little stupid the way you say it and you wonder if I could’ve said it differently. But, the opportunity to just go and do that and be recorded and play what you wanna play and make that kind of difference... it’s not making a big difference in other people’s lives but it’s an opportunity to grow and understand who you are and what you like.
- Frank Douma & Tamara GrbusicFrank: And, you know, as we get into ages of iPODs and podcasts and video cameras that are small enough on computers that people can be virtually anywhere whenever they wanna be, I think the opportunity to still be able to broadcast yourself, even just to the campus community, is a neat way to express yourself somewhat differently, and I hope KDIC remains something special here for years to come. I think... I think that probably is the main things that I would like to contribute.Tamara: Thank you.
Alumni oral history interview with Frank Douma '92. Recorded June 3, 2012.