Laura Allender Ferguson '89
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- Jarren SantosJarren: So, I'll have you start by just saying your full name and where you currently live and what your class year was.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: Okay. Is this-?Jarren: Yeah, sure.Laura: My name is Laura Allender Ferguson. I graduated in December 1988 but I'm class of '89, and I'm from Chicago.
- Jarren Santos & Laura Allender FergusonJarren: And so, how did you find out about Grinnell, or why did you initially decide to come here?Laura: Oh, I put all the flyers from all the colleges out on the floor in the living room. There were about a hundred of them, or more, and I started going through them, and Grinnell's was bright green, very pretty. And, so it kinda stuck out and my mom thought it looked like a great school 'cause my grandfather had- she just thought it reminded her of a school that my- a college that my grandfather had helped start, and.... So, I applied here and Oberlin, and.... a bunch of other places and I ended up choosing between Oberlin and Grinnell, and Macalester. And Grinnell had the best financial package.
- Laura Allender FergusonLaura: And... Let's see, I'll answer this... So, Mr.Stone in the Computer- in the Mathematics department at the time, and now Computer Science, was probably the biggest influence, and a bunch of us hung out and played with computers. It was the early days of Sun and programming, and I think, if we'd - There wasn't a Computer Science major 'til after we graduated, but... it was a - The foundation he gave us was really awesome, because he taught us to learn new languages and that was really the most useful thing.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: So, I guess, the one thing I wanted to make sure I talked about was why there's a Rabbi on campus, 'cause there's a particular story about that. So, when I was a freshman, we had a... advisor who was two hours a week who lived.. she was two hours a week every other week, and she lived in Des Moines, and at the time it wasn't like you had a cellphone or a- even a phone in your room. There was a phone in the hallway.Jarren: Right, yeah.Laura: And so we didn't talk to her a lot, and....
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: I'm trying to remember how this worked exactly, but I signed up to.. lead High Holy Day services 'cause I was enthusiastic, and.... But I also had an Economics exam scheduled for that day and the professor was kind of scary, and I thought I had to take it, and I was gonna fast. So I fasted and I led services, and let's just say the test did not go as well as I'd hoped. 2 in the afternoon, you're pretty darn braindead by then.Jarren: Yeah.Laura: And, so the advisor wasn't around to tell me that I probably could've gotten out of the test, and later the professor was like, "Oh, yeah, of course." "Really? OK."
- Laura Allender FergusonLaura: Fast forward about three years and.... we had a concert scheduled with someone who is a... a fairly famous Jewish singer. Her name is Debbie Friedman. She passed away two years ago, but... at the time, she was someone I knew as a child, and I- I helped organize to bring her. We raised a lot of money to have this concert, which we did once a year, and she got very ill, and she was not able to come. And the money was then re-allocated for someone else to come in her place, and the group that came, I guess, people didn't know about it, and there wasn't a lot of warning, and we had literally seven people in the audience. And, I mean, the amount of money spent was absurd for that.
- Laura Allender FergusonLaura: And after that, she didn't come back in the fall, the advisor, and... We were locked out of our.. office. We had like an office for Chalutzim in the Forum, but because we didn't have a student advisor- a faculty advisor, we were locked out of our office and we needed our materials. So we got here in the fall and it was gonna be High Holy Days again, and we had no advisor; we couldn't get our stuff. And we finally worked through some of that, but.. it became really clear that, you know, all of the experiences that had happened had been, you know, student managed, student led... And, we really needed some more support. It just was too isolating, and too hard.
- Laura Allender FergusonLaura: We would go for High Holy Days. One day, like, we'd go in the evening for the service in Des Moines or Iowa City, and then we'd drive back, and the next day we would be- we'd have run the service. And, so that was just- that's a lot for a 19 year old, and so- At the same time, we had a lot of success, but it felt like we were being held back in terms of... what students could manage to pull off.
- Laura Allender FergusonLaura: And so we went to talk to Chaplain Haas, and he was just terrific. When we started talking to him about arranging to have a.. maybe have a visiting Rabbi, or we talked about having Rabbi on campus maybe half time. We talked to all the Jewish faculty who might have kids who were- would wanna have a resource like that. And so, the conversations went on, and we did focus groups and a lot of research, and.... by the time I left in December of '88, you know, the plans were under way, and they- It happened. It took another year, and then they brought a Rabbi as a part-time faculty in. I don't know exactly what the positions were, but it's amazing now to see all the things, all the supportive pieces that are in place: the Kosher Kitchen, the Shabbat table.... and the Rabbi, who's here, and it's a tremendous resource when you're in the middle of nowhere.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: And I think, for any minority group, it's important to have as many resources as can be arranged, so that they feel supported whether they're Muslim, or Christian, or Jewish, or if- If you're not in a group, that's- If there's enough people here where it makes sense to have some support, it can really make a big difference, 'cause after all it's when you're between 17 amd 21 that you kind of hit your identity crisis. "Who am I gonna be when I grow up?"Jarren: Yeah.Laura: "What am I gonna be doing?" And having that support is just so important... And- anyway, I'm grateful for the facility that they have, and for the commitment to it from the administration. I don't know. That's mostly what I wanted to... get on record, but....
- Laura Allender FergusonLaura: I guess, the other thing, is that, you know, the best thing about Grinnell, and this is related to that experience, is that when you- It was the idea that if a group was made up of, you know, five people or ten people, you could just step up and lead, and in a way that's really true even when it's a hundred people. If you're willing to be the one to stand up and say, "Hey! Let's do this." people will just follow you, and that was a- really a phenomenal learning experience that maybe doesn't pay off right away, depends on what you do in your life. A lot of times you're not expected to lead, but when the opportunity comes up, or when there's an emergency, or when there's just a gap of leadership, it's a great thing to know you can do that.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: The other thing I learned is that if you put a sign of every floor of every dorm on campus, people will show up. So, one time I organized a showing of the movie "Shoah" about the Holocaust-Jarren: Hm.Laura: -which is an 8 hour film.Jarren: Yeah.Laura: Except that it was not a film, it was a video. It was on videotape.Jarren: Right.Laura: And... we ran into a little logistical issue.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: We're sitting in the lounges of the dorm, and there were 80 people the first day-Jarren: Wow.Laura: -if you can imagine, completely overflowing the room. It's an 8 hour movie, wood floors-Jarren: Yeah.Laura: -hard chairs, and... eventually it turned into more... half that, 40 people or maybe 20 people at the very end, but a lot of people saw it, and it was kind of an amazing thing just to... see the enthusiasm for understanding history and context, and... and everything. And also, for me, a lesson in marketing. Make sure you plan for the consequences of successful marketing.Jarren: Yeah.Laura: So it's something I think about pretty often actually, and...
- Laura Allender FergusonLaura: So... It says, "What are your best memories of your time at Grinnell?" In addition to all those stories, I mean, I think hanging out with my Computer Science, computer geek buddies. We- the "Grinnell Electrical Equipment Community", we sometimes called it. You know, every meal was just filled with talk about technology and computing. I guess now it doesn't seem so unusual, but at the time it was, and our friends wanted to talk about Biology, so they wouldn't sit with us. But that's okay 'cause we still love them, and it's so good to come back and see everybody here.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: Hm..... Let's see... So I lived in Langan Pit my freshman year, and... it really struck me how serious this school was, 'cause there were ten freshmen on Langan Pit, and only five of us made it through the first year.Jarren: Wow.Laura: There was a lot of partying on that floor. I was not really a partier, but... The kids who partied a lot didn't make it, which was unfortunate. [Phone rings.] That's really loud.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: But, you know, then I moved- I actually moved off campus early and had a dorm room and an off-campus room, which was- My parents bought a house across the street, 'cause they were from Chicago and it didn't seem expensive, I guess. And, so I lived there, and... To this day, I still think Grinnell owes about, you know, 25 rolls of toilet paper, but, besides that- 'cause I paid for room and board, right?Jarren: Yeah.
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: But... I don't know. Living off campus was good, and I really was so close it didn't feel different. I ate at the dining hall, I hung out, and.... I think, if I had to do it again, maybe I would have sucked it up and kept my dorm room, although it really wasn't up to me. I got like, last in the lottery, so...Jarren: Oh.Laura: What are ya gonna do?
- Laura Allender Ferguson & Jarren SantosLaura: That's pretty much it. I lived off campus... I- I decided to graduate early, and I don't know that I recommend that. I was feeling kind of down about school sophomore year, and... so I was like, "Well, I have enough credits, so-" 'cause I had some extra credits from things, and... So I decided- I applied to graduate early, and then my parents got all gleeful when they found out: "Oh! you get to leave early! We don't have to pay for half a semes- half a year!" So I left early, but... The good news is that I got out before the recession in '89 and got a job easier than my friends, but the bad news is that I didn't get to be in school for that semester, so I- I think, stay in as long as you can get away from- with it, with your parents or financially.Jarren: Hm.Laura: And that's it. I think I'm out of time, so...Jarren: Oh, thanks.Laura: Thank you.
Alumni oral history interview with Laura Allender Ferguson '89. Recorded May 31,
2014.