John Malkinson '79
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- Brenna RossBrenna: So you know, you... Say your name, where you currently live and your class year.
- John MalkinsonJohn: John Malkinson, I live in- outside of Chicago, Illinois. I’m the class of 1979.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Alright. So, I guess, starting off: how did you end up coming to Grinnell?John: I applied to all similarly-sized colleges and back in, I would say in my era parents didn’t take their kids to visit colleges as much, so I literally went- I saw none of the colleges I was applying to except I did have a friend that was going to Grinnell to visit, so we came. I had, the drinking age was lower, although it was still... Well, I had my first beer when I came as a prospective student and I wasn’t really blown away by the place at all. I had no idea what to expect, but people I knew were going so I kinda- I got in at all the other places and I just came here. I picked it because, in part, they had no foreign language requirement and I’d already gone through seven years of a foreign language. I needed a break from that, and there were no fraternities or sororities, which was a big plus in my decision-making.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Alright, so what’s your first memory of being on campus?John: Actually, the first memory I have is the first day of Orientation, being with four students that I hadn’t- I had just met for the first time and the President of the College drove up in a golf cart with a keg on the back, and poured each of us a beer and talked to us for twenty minutes. I had- I’d never been around anything like that before. It was very surprising and, for the first time, I really realized right then, it was going to be an interesting four years. The level of supervision was a little different than what I’d grown up with.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: So, was there a professor or student or staff member who influenced you during your time at here?John: I don’t know if I would say – well, I guess, I’ll say yes. I became able to write as a result of being here and I attribute that in very large part of a couple of the professors here. But, none of the people that I remember are here anymore.
- John MalkinsonJohn: One was an instructor in Political Science, named Jim Miller, and he was great because I got- in my very first college exam I got a D, and I’d never had a D in my life before. I was devastated by it, and it was due to just some quirky- I wasn’t used to the work volume and the reading and I just missed one whole concept in a book and, of course, that was what they asked the question about. But, I was so in shock by it and he was great and worked with me the rest of the semester and I would meet with him before having papers due, at his invitation, and at the end of the school year he pulled me aside and said, “I want you to know I’m throwing out that first D and you’re getting an A in my class,” so it was terrific. So that really helped keep me here and on a good track.
- Brenna RossBrenna: So what would you say is maybe your best, or it could just be your most memorable memory of Grinnell?
- John MalkinsonJohn: I probably can’t talk about a lot of them, memorable memories of Grinnell. And you do a lot of growing up when you’re here, which I found now that I’m older and I have nieces and nephews who are going away to college, and I have my own views in retrospect about what college does for you, and all the great things that happen when you’re in college, but it’s hard to tell other people those things. They don’t really, and I understand that they don’t really listen, they have to learn for themselves that it’s the first place you really start to grow up. And, to be in a small environment with a small number of people that you have to talk to every day is just- there’s no experience like it from all walks of life.
- John MalkinsonJohn: I came from a school of 5200 students, and I was meeting people who had class- they graduated out of a class of 10, 14 students from different parts of the country. So, you learn a lot from people and I’d say – but my greatest memory is kind of the free, secure feeling you had that you could do just about anything you wanted within the confines of the campus and... socially and academically, so y’know it was fun.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Very cool. So, where did you live on campus?John: First room was Read third. I was basically a South Campus person. I was on North Campus one year only because the better-sized single room was on North Campus. So I did that, but I liked South Campus better. I don’t know if th- I don’t know anymore whether it’s, now that they have centralized dining and everything, if it makes a difference like it did before. I have no idea.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: A little bit. What did your dorm room look like?John: Oh, there was nothing remarkable- there really was nothing remarkable about my rooms as I grew up. I think, I used to put.. one year I would put articles that I- I guess I intended to be provocative, on the outside of my dorm room door. I would find obscure headlines and things that other people probably wouldn’t choose to talk about, and stick them on the door to see if it would spur conversation.Brenna: So what-John: I always wished I had a photograph of that but that’s the other thing that’s changed is, now y’know in the digital era, we all have pictures of everything. I have maybe 10-12 pictures from the entire four years I was at Grinnell, which is unfortunate.
- Brenna RossBrenna: How would you say that Grinnell and students have changed since your time here?
- John MalkinsonJohn: For people that come back at reunions, I would say that’s probably an impossible question to answer from their own perspective, but I did come back here for the first time in 32 years, I guess, when students were present about two months ago. It’s hard to make an assessment on two and a half days of being on campus, but I would say overall and based on the conversations I’ve had this weekend with students that the student body is more conservative now, and more academically oriented. I think the students in our era- nowadays everybody says when we’re at reunion, "Well, we don’t know if we would-" people are saying they don’t know if they would get in if they were applying today.
- John MalkinsonJohn: The student body is a lot more diverse now, which I think is great. I think that also lends to the conservative nature, ‘cause a lot of the people from, students from foreign countries are more academically oriented and the party animals seem to be the ones bred in the United States. But, that’s my overall- my overall impression is more conservative. The school itself seems more conservative, to me. Maybe that’ll change a little.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Maybe. So socially, how was Grinnell?John: Oh, well, Grinnell was great. Really no social boundaries, other than some semblance of reason within everyone’s two ears, and you could walk anywhere you want, go anywhere you wanted to and find a group of people to sit and talk to. It was very free, open. Socially, it was fantastic. The parties we had were, I think, unrivaled. I don’t think it’s the same. I know about some of the parties that the students have now and I know that they revere them as much as we probably revered ours but I still think ours were better.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: So what were –John: But you know, the interesting thing is that everybody worked really hard, academically, but there was definitely more, more socializing and having fun and partying, I think. People were generally outside. I just noticed, when I was here a few months ago, that just other than Mac Field, a few people playing Frisbee, there weren’t a lot of people outside. They seemed to all be inside. (Coughing) Oh, that’s gonna sound great.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: So, what was the political climate like?John: Democratic, for the most part, with a few... I had a roommate who was- ran for Student Government President on the Anarchist ticket. He was a little... he was a bit of a fringe. He was the unknown roommate when I moved into the triple. I didn’t know him when I moved in. But I think it was very.. it was liberal. Jimmy Carter was running for President. He came here to the College. We all shook his hand and listened to what he had to say and I think the students were all pretty favorably impressed at that time with him.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: All right. What activities were you involved with on campus?John: That’s a hard one for me to think about. I just keep thinking of all the socializing. That was my main activity when I wasn’t studying. I did a few things. I was a campus Tour Guide. My college girlfriend and I were Campus Security, which is a lot different than now. I was really surprised to see police on campus from the community, here. I’m trying to think of the other things that I did. Oh, Judicial Council, Health Services Committee. They were gonna eliminate the Health Services office completely when I was here so we were trying to make sure they didn’t do that, that type of thing.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: What are some of your memories of the town of Grinnell?John: I’ve actually noticed more as I come back for reunions than I did. I think I have a much better appreciation for the architecture and historic nature of the buildings in the residential and in the business district than I did when I was here. When you’re here as a student you tend to be more oriented on the places you’re gonna go. Y'know, where’s the drugstore, where’s the bakery, where is there a bar where, back then- where is there a bar where there won’t be a bunch of townies that might get us in trouble. That seems to have changed, I thought that was interesting.
- John MalkinsonJohn: It's a digression, but when I was here a couple months ago and I went in town with a couple of younger alums and they took me to a bar in town which was about 60% townies and 40% students and it was very crowded and it was a lot of fun. Everybody kind of stuck to their own groups for the most part, like Sharks and Jets, but it was still- everyone got along and I enjoyed talking with them, so things may have changed a little which is good.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Very cool. So, where was your favorite place to be on campus?John: In front of the Student Forum, probably. The Forum was great. (Coughing) Excuse me. It seems different to me. I think it’s hard to separate what’s nostalgia for everything being better when we were here as compared to now but that area in front of the Forum now is like, just seems virtually unused and I can understand it ‘cause there’s nothing.. It’s more of a mid-point between destinations now, since the Forum isn’t used, but that was, in the 70s when I was here, that was the main area where people hung out.
- John MalkinsonJohn: They hung out a little bit on Mac Field, but that was mostly jocks. So the people from South Campus were not gonna really go there very often. When we occasionally would eat at Cowles would be about the only time we'd ever walk across Mac Field, and I remember many a time falling asleep on the grass in front of the Forum, so, yeah, that was the best place. Or the roof on the- The South Campus Loggia roof was a prime spot for a long time.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Very nice. So what’s something that has disappeared from campus that was important to you?John: Hm. I think it, y’know this is more of a- intangible. I can’t think of anything... the buildings that come and go. We have nostalgia for buildings like Darby Gym. I was here when Springsteen came, and George Thorogood played there and The Police and Ultrabox which was all just fantastic. And the building’s gone. It was a big hubbub at the time. In retrospect, I don’t know how much that really matters. So the structures I don’t think matter so much except fo the... I'd say the dormitories, I don’t ever wanna see those change.
- John MalkinsonJohn: But to me what seems to be gone is more of the... the school doesn’t seem to be the isolated sanctum that it was when my class was here. By that I mean, it was a very self-sustaining community. It was a little bit more separate from the town. Maybe what I’m sensing is part of the result of the College’s ongoing efforts to be more and more involved with the town and I think maybe with that has come more and more town involvement with the College and that’s, to some degree, the part that I don’t appreciate as much.
- John MalkinsonJohn: I don’t really like - and I’m not trying to be a- I’m not criminally-minded or anything - but for purposes of education I liked the approach that the administration had when we were here, which was pretty much to leave the College to tend to its own business with its own students and we had limitations and we lived them within the boundaries of reason, and if they ever departed the College would certainly deal with that but they'd largely deal with it privately.
- John MalkinsonJohn: I don’t think I ever saw a policeman on campus one time in four years. I know of one story where I know they did come on campus. But this one time in four years, it was on, y'know, one moment. Now, every time I’ve been here in the last few years I’ve just- I’ve seen police coming in. I saw them again last night at one of the reunion parties and I just find that to be a more urban- The students aren’t gonna feel that they’re protected and safe.
- John MalkinsonJohn: You don’t feel as isolated from society and that’s one of the beauties of being in the middle of the cornfields, is you get to explore and obviously if there’s something bad, some terrible crime you obviously need the police but it’s usually not that. To me they were just standing around watching the people coming out of a party, like bouncers. I didn’t really... That was something foreign to me and my friends. We were a little surprised by that.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: So knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?John: Well, the only- I guess my only real gripe with the College, which is one of the reasons I was excited to come back a couple months ago, is I didn’t think in our era they did the best job they could in getting us ready for what was gonna face us when we hit the cold reality of the real world at graduation. So, if you weren’t gonna be a graduate student or a doctor or a lawyer, there was very little, if any, guidance. There was a Career Services office which was mostly pamphlets and booklets, with not much human interaction or advice on what to do. There was almost no presentation within one’s major of career opportunities or alternatives to those main ones that I mentioned.
- John MalkinsonJohn: And, things may have gone differently for me if I’d had more suggestions but I think I’m very happy with where I am and what I ended up doing. But, I guess if I was gonna do things differently, I probably would’ve just tried to get more ideas from people. I did try back then but I think some of the professors, frankly, didn’t really know the answers either. They were academics, and they knew how to teach and they weren’t really familiar with any adjunct careers or things that might be outside the norm of what they were used to people being. Y’know, doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief, and now I think that’s changed a little, so that was part of the panel I came back for, was the talk to students about what we did, that my major’s not what I ended up doing, which is OK. You learn how to think and you learn how to analyze and you can tackle just about anything.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Alright. So, if you were writing a history of Grinnell, what would you include from your time here?John: Probably the history of all the musicians and artists that came. We were just here in a great era, and we had the ineviable Georgia Dentel who was- probably put the College on the map in terms of getting entertainment and movies and music to the campus which, when you’re in the middle of cornfields is, you know as a student, you really need someone who’s bringing culture in ‘cause you’re not gonna find it anywhere nearby. So to me that’s the best part of- Y'know, from historically, I would say.
- John MalkinsonJohn: I don’t really know how to- to give you the history of a four year experience would be pretty tough. I can’t think of anything else that they did other than bring great things to campus that were provocative both in the arts and in the humanities, and had great lecturers. Angela Carter came, talked about the power of the people and everything. It was very interesting.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Very cool. And if you were to say there were maybe one or two defining characteristics that defined your class from the class before and after you, what would you say they were?John: I don’t know if everyone lives up to these attributes still, today, but very open-minded, and free-spirited, intelligent, and ready to have a good time at a moment’s notice, all wrapped in one. But one of the biggest, I guess the epiphany I had, I think, on my ten year reunion was when I st- people’s careers at that point had somewhat jelled.
- John MalkinsonJohn: At the first reunion people are kind of floundering around still searching for themselves and what have you. But by then.. Someone had come up to me and said, “Oh, would you like to go to party? I’m gonna- there’ll be a friend of mine who works for the Federal Reserve, and another one who's an editor for the Wall Street Journal and someone who’s a big mortgage banker somewhere else, or an economist, " and I'd probably not have the least bit interest would be my initial, would’ve been back then, my initial thought, that that doesn’t sound like a fun group, but these are the things that my classmates had accomplished and they were very smart and they were extremely accomplished in their fields or they were running their own not-for-profit, and I knew that they were fun people.
- John MalkinsonJohn: So, I learned not to be judgmental. I also realized that in four years I had no idea what most of the people I hung out with even majored in, or what their interests really were at an intellectual level, or for a career level. This- just very few. When I started to hear what people were doing, I thought, wow, I had no idea that you were even, y’know, "I thought you were an artist." Turns out they were an economist. So, you just never know.
- Brenna Ross & John MalkinsonBrenna: Well, is there anything else you’d like to add?John: I think that’s good.Brenna: Alright. Well, thank you very much.John: Thank you.
Alumni oral history interview with John Malkinson '79. Recorded June 5, 2011.