When I joined the HC English faculty as an adjunct instructor in 1992, I was thrilled to have made it through the doors! My husband had accepted a post-doc position at MARC (Meat Animal Research Center, USDA) in June, 1990, and I was tired of being a stay-at-home mom who knew almost no one in Hastings. I had a shiny, new PhD, and I wanted to use it!
Dwayne Strasheim was then the dean, and I had made an appointment with him to let him know I was interested in teaching. He invited me to campus to meet with the current department chair, Dwight Marsh, and other faculty members in the Gold Room.
It was a great meeting. We all talked about what sorts of literature we liked. I was surprised how much the others disliked Willa Cather; I had studied her in my M.A. program and had grown to love her work. (Only later did I realize that all Nebraskans are forced to read My Antonìa in high school. That's way too early!)
Two years later, Dr. Strasheim phoned me to ask if I would teach a last-minute composition class. I was delighted, but I had to tell him two things: that I was adjuncting at U.N.K. and that I was pregnant and expecting at the end of November. He said no problem, we could work around my schedule.
My HC students that term were a complete delight. Some had learning deficiencies, but I was really pleased with their sincere efforts to understand the reading and to ask unguarded questions. We had wonderful rapport.
When Thomas was born in November, the day before Thanksgiving, I was out Thursday but back in class with him in a basket the following Tuesday. When that term ended, I grieved that I would no longer join the circle.
However, I was invited back the following spring, to my delight. I'd like to gather up some recollections of the Gold Room in that era. It seemed that everyone met there at 10, 12, and 2, and they frequently reconvened at the Barrel Bar at 4.
The Gold Room prided itself on tackiness. I remember a velvet painting (maybe Elvis?) with a tear dripping down, a frame holding plastic grapes, entitled "Great Big Grapes," a bulletin board with a tie that read "male chauvinist pig," and other similarly out-of-fashion stuff.
Conversations were "deep." They tended to be about politics and other news, about which I had no time to read then. The faculty were mostly male, and they were the main speakers. Dwight once said his only concern about me was that I didn't spend enough time in the Gold Room. I replied that I didn't make enough money to pay for babysitters while I spent time in the Gold Room. He was contrite.
People remember the Gold Room as from a time when faculty members came together to share intellectual ideas in a type of Golden Age. That was true. But it was a great time for faculty solidarity. We had enough time to socialize and to care about one another. We all looked out for one another.
That is now a kind of "gone era." We are now more equalized in gender than we were then. No one smokes in buildings anymore. But we have had less time to spend on one another, so we have become more separated. I think the caring is still there.
I think often of my former students, but I'm in touch with a lot of them. Many have become close friends over the years. If others wish to contact me, I'd love to hear from you! cmalloy@hastings.edu
Dwayne Strasheim was then the dean, and I had made an appointment with him to let him know I was interested in teaching. He invited me to campus to meet with the current department chair, Dwight Marsh, and other faculty members in the Gold Room.
It was a great meeting. We all talked about what sorts of literature we liked. I was surprised how much the others disliked Willa Cather; I had studied her in my M.A. program and had grown to love her work. (Only later did I realize that all Nebraskans are forced to read My Antonìa in high school. That's way too early!)
Two years later, Dr. Strasheim phoned me to ask if I would teach a last-minute composition class. I was delighted, but I had to tell him two things: that I was adjuncting at U.N.K. and that I was pregnant and expecting at the end of November. He said no problem, we could work around my schedule.
My HC students that term were a complete delight. Some had learning deficiencies, but I was really pleased with their sincere efforts to understand the reading and to ask unguarded questions. We had wonderful rapport.
When Thomas was born in November, the day before Thanksgiving, I was out Thursday but back in class with him in a basket the following Tuesday. When that term ended, I grieved that I would no longer join the circle.
However, I was invited back the following spring, to my delight. I'd like to gather up some recollections of the Gold Room in that era. It seemed that everyone met there at 10, 12, and 2, and they frequently reconvened at the Barrel Bar at 4.
The Gold Room prided itself on tackiness. I remember a velvet painting (maybe Elvis?) with a tear dripping down, a frame holding plastic grapes, entitled "Great Big Grapes," a bulletin board with a tie that read "male chauvinist pig," and other similarly out-of-fashion stuff.
Conversations were "deep." They tended to be about politics and other news, about which I had no time to read then. The faculty were mostly male, and they were the main speakers. Dwight once said his only concern about me was that I didn't spend enough time in the Gold Room. I replied that I didn't make enough money to pay for babysitters while I spent time in the Gold Room. He was contrite.
People remember the Gold Room as from a time when faculty members came together to share intellectual ideas in a type of Golden Age. That was true. But it was a great time for faculty solidarity. We had enough time to socialize and to care about one another. We all looked out for one another.
That is now a kind of "gone era." We are now more equalized in gender than we were then. No one smokes in buildings anymore. But we have had less time to spend on one another, so we have become more separated. I think the caring is still there.
I think often of my former students, but I'm in touch with a lot of them. Many have become close friends over the years. If others wish to contact me, I'd love to hear from you! cmalloy@hastings.edu