William Schooler '71
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- Sophie HaasSophie: Yeah, so whenever you're ready.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: My name is William Schooler and I currently live in Des Moines, Iowa, and I’m a member of the Grinnell College class of 1971. I originally came to Grinnell in 1967 and was really recruited to come and run track by Ray Obermiller.Sophie: Mhm.
- William SchoolerWilliam: Grinnell, in 1967, was pretty much the... oh, what anybody in the 60s would’ve thought a college would be like. It had a fraternity, sorority type of atmosphere to it. All the men were on North Campus and all the women were on South Campus, and you had hours and each dorm had someone that watched over the students to make sure that they were in, and if you didn’t have the girl back into her dorm early enough, they’d lock the door and she couldn’t get back in.
- William SchoolerWilliam: It was really very traditional. We made trips to South Campus to serenade some of the women’s houses. It was probably everything that you would expect of that time period.
- William SchoolerWilliam: Between the end of the ’67 – ‘68 class year and the beginning of the ‘68 – ‘69 class year the whole world changed, completely turned over. My sophomore year, I lived on South Campus, which was the first time men had been allowed to live on South Campus. They opened the dorms up. There wasn’t a problem with when you came in or when you went out or who was there, really.
- William SchoolerWilliam: When I got here, I heard people talking about IVs, and I- to me, an IV was an intravenous injection, that was a medical term, and could not figure out for the longest time what people were talking about. Finally, I did learn that IV meant illegal visitation, sneaking people in during the times when you weren’t supposed to be in.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: My freshman year, we had maid service. The maids came in, cleaned the rooms, made the beds, cleaned everything up for you. And by my sophomore year, all of that was pretty muchly ended.Sophie: Hm.William: The campus obviously became very radicalized with the war and being consumed with that.
- William SchoolerWilliam: We had a book that was read, it was called The Harrad Experiment. It was about college students that actually lived together in a dorm, and the whole campus read the book and took time off to discuss it and from all of that, oiled up one fellow that lived with the girls and that got pulled before the campus senate and then they had a big trial, and... All of the traditional, structural trappings of college pretty muchly began disintegrating very early in ’68.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: And.... it was- became, into ’69, a very tense, difficult time. There were professors that were at each- at each other’s throats, and students that were at each other’s throats over politics and who should be running what and there was constant worries about the National Guard and the State Attorney General.Sophie: Mhm.William: And... It was just a really, really, crazy time.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: I had a girl that I was dating, who, at one point decided that the revolution had come and everything was gonna be swept away and she called her parents to tell them goodbye, which I tried to talk her into not doing because it wasn’t a very smart thing to do. And she did it anyway, called ‘em said goodbye, they were gonna be killed in the revolution and all of this, and she wasn’t back the next semester. She was the one that got swept away.Sophie: Mhm.William: But, it was a time of a lot of really, extreme paranoia.Sophie: Right.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: By the time I graduated in ’71, a lot of that had just- it had been too emotional, too much too long. I think a lot of it had kind of burned out and disillusionment was coming on... It was probably one of the more difficult times in my life, but probably one of the most cherished times in my life because of the decisions and things that I had to either stand up for or stand up against, and probably made it the one encompassing thing that shaped my life and how I approached everything from then on.Sophie: Wow.
- Sophie Haas & William SchoolerSophie: What kinds of things were you- did you feel like you were standing up against?William: Well, one of the things was, after Kent State and going into Cambodia, a large segment of the student body, after the college holiday, did not want this campus to reopen. Personally, I wanted to finish my classes. I wanted- I was in track and field and had a chance with the team to go to Nationals. If the cam- if that closed, then that was all gone.Sophie: Mhm.William: I just did not feel that they had the right because they didn’t want to continue schooling that year, that everybody else be forced to do that.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: And I remember, the day that all of the professors marched into a building to sit down and debate what the school was going to do, most of the student body was out in central campus, lining the sidewalk. And I had a sign that said, "Protect my right to continue my education."Sophie: Mhm.William: And I took quite a bit of guff about that, and any signs or anything that I put up that was supporting keeping school open were torn down or burned.Sophie: Hm.William: It was a very intolerant time. The people that were driving the movement did not want any other outcome or any other discussion, except what they thought was right.
- Sophie Haas & William SchoolerSophie: And were those other students or the school’s administration, or..?William: It was really the other students.Sophie: Mhm.William: I had an American flag on the antenna of my car and I bought a whole bunch of ‘em because every night they would- somebody would burn it, so next morning I’d put on another one. It was the students that- The faculty, although there were faculty members that disagreed vehemently, I never felt that they put any pressure on the students. I thought this pressure came from the students.Sophie: Right, Yeah.
- Sophie Haas & William SchoolerSophie: Wow, that’s so interesting. It must’ve just felt so different from the beginning of your time here to the end.William: In two years, really, everything in the whole world seemed to change. I remember the night we stood in South Lounge, in the Forum, and we were- everybody was there, watching, because they were drawing the numbers for who was going to Vietnam, and... It was a really stressful time.Sophie: Uh-huh.William: Y'know, if they drew your number, and then there was a number of students that got drawn and knew that they were just going to go, y'know, and broke down and cried, and... My number was such that I wasn’t in immediate danger, but at the rate that they were taking people, it was a 50/50 shot whether they would get to me.Sophie: Great.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: And what you could do was expose yourself to the draft and say, "For this period of time, if they get to me, I go, whether I’m in college or anything," and if you got through that period, then you get to use a deferment. And I decided, I was just- I wasn’t going to live with that hanging over my head and I just said, "Well, if they take me, they take me. If they get to me, I’ll just watch the numbers." Luckily, I think they ended up about five numbers from me, drafting.Sophie: Wow.William: So, I never did have to go. So I was able to go to law school then, right out of Grinnell.Sophie: Wow. That’s wonderful.
- William Schooler & Sophie HaasWilliam: Well, I don’t know if it’s wonderful. It was.... it was such a bizarre time.Sophie: Mhm.William: You really didn’t- there were so many people that believed things that were not true-Sophie: Mhm.William: -and were so sure of what was going to happen that you ended up questioning yourself a lot, whether you were wrong and maybe they were right.Sophie: Right, yeah.... Yeah.
- Sophie Haas & William SchoolerSophie: Well, do you have anything else you want to add, or-?William: Nah, I don’t think so. I think that’s... pretty much the... The overriding thing when I think of Grinnell, is going through that.Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. Great, thank you so much.
Alumni oral history interview with William Schooler '71. Recorded June 1, 2012.