Memories of the '60s Students and staff remember a decade of change Interviewed by Cynthia D. Stowell Jim Westwood ('65) Then: Student; College Bowl team member Now: Attorney I started as a freshman in '62 when Portland Stale was four buildings on four city blocks. By the time I left in '67. the campus was on its way 10 coming into full bloom. We had the support of the legislature. We were on the move. . There was always the sound of jackhammers in the background during class. We lived with the noise because we knew thaI Portland State was growing. And we lived with the traffic noise because we knew we were part of the community. o In the early spring of '64, an ad appeared in the Vanguard saying, 'Do you want to try out for the C.E. College Bowl Team?' I'd always been a trivia buff, always liked to watch College Bowl. So I said, 'Sure, why not? I'll do il for a lark.' Ben Padrow was the coach in far more than name. I remember him saying early on that when we went back to New York, we were going back 10 win. Padrow was the sparkplug for the whole team ... We also had some very bright people on the team. I think of Mike Smith, who claimed that he had a garbage can mind. He knew a liltle bit aboul everything and a lot about several other thmgs. He came up with some of the most amazing answers during that period. There was larry Smith, who was counterculture from the earliest days, a free spirit if ever there was one. Robin Freeman was a Bohemian, Jack Kerouac type ... such a renaissance man. Robin had an amazing grasp of philosophy and the arts; Mike was the sdentisl and I helped him a little on that; my other major area was history. Among us, we were a pretty _1I·balanced team. Shortly after we'd won our fifth game and been retired as champions, the Oregon State _ 10 I PSU Perspective, Summer 1986 years of • memorzes legislature invited the team down to Salem for an appreciation day. As the captain of the team, I addressed both houses of the legislature. One of the members of the house passed a note up to the Speaker which said, "Make darn sure that guy registers Republican." It was signed by Representative Packwood. o Portland Stale was pretty liberal politically. was sort of the house conservative, but my friends were not. We had some dandy arguments over politics and the war in Vietnam but we got on very well. I had a column in the Vimguard where I would expound on things conservative. II was well·received; my views were respected if not agreed with. Portland State has always been an open academy. o We spent many an hour in the old Chocolate Moose, having beers, talking about the sorts of things that collegians in those days talked about ... All around Portland State was a very alive urban selling, with apartment houses, laundries, taverns, students and retired people ... But the main hang-out was the cafeteria in College Center, where your group had its own special table, a very clubby atmosphere. Even though we came to school in the morning and went home in the afternoon, there was quite a campus feeling. o My idea was, I'll attend Portland State for a f ~ ~ ~ d ~ J . e ~ l f k ~ ~ ~ t : , ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a f ~ ~ f ~ ~ : I ~ ~ ~ ~ r r liked the people, I liked the instructors, I liked the atmosphere. I liked the intellectual challenge at Portland State. Marguerite Marks ('63, '65 MST) Then: Student; Foreign Student Adviser Now: Professor Emerita, Education As a mature student coming back, I didn't know you needed to have someone hold your hand ... There were veterans on campus, bUI a woman my age was quite unique. But the students were so good to me on campus. They accepted me. I may not have known how to take some of those awful, ghastly tests ... bUI as a mature person, you do have experience that you bring ... Phoebe Misner in the registrar's office said I needed an academic adviser and that the beSt one on campus was Charlie White in the history department ... I became a history major as a result. o Both Dr. Webb and Dr. Dmytryshyn helped me to see that ethics and morality had nothing to do with politics. Here I'd been very busy in politiCS, being a lobbyist for the PTA. Oh, I couldn't accept that! But even to this day r go back and read Machiavelli's The Prince. This is one of the things that the history department taught us-to go to the original documents. o As a graduate student, I tutored a young Japanese woman from Sapporo. She was having terrible problems with English and some of the concepts of western civilization. But I did help her and she got on the Honor Roll ... That summer, the Dcan of Students, Channing Briggs, asked me if I would be interested in being the Foreign Student Adviser. There were only 24 (foreign) students at this period. Well, I was hired ... and was told thai 75 Saudi Arabians wefe coming for a language program. It soon built up 10 200 students and more ... Agencies like the International Institute of Education would come to visit and tour the campus and they found Portland State an exciting, interesting place. So we received more and more students from these places ... The community was excellent, what it was doing with Portland State then. I'd go out to the community and get home stays for the students--board and room scholarships. o Those were halcyon days, and not until the Seventies did we come on hard budget times. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ f ~ r m r ~ ~ ~ t ~ h ' : ~ d e ~ c i ~ i f d t ~ t ~ ~ v ~ ' ~ ~ la had the full support of the administration.
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