General Education

Troy: It changed me completely. I think I had a narrow view of the world coming out of high school, coming out of Rochester, Minnesota. Being in the residence halls, being around people who were different: different backgrounds, different sexuality and gender identity, people from poverty, people from around the world. I mean we always had international students. And, you know the Upward Bound experience was very, very, powerful. I think the classroom though, again I mentioned Dr. Parker before, just kind of blew my world and my thoughts apart. And then, in the School of Education at the time, we had a course that was, I think it still had the same title, “Understanding Human Differences.” And this was a course back in the [19]80s that was looking at “oh, what do you do with a student with a disability? You might have a gay student in class. Or, oh my god you know that there’s black people?” It was very kind of—I felt—basic. But it was cutting-edge at the time. Then, fast-forward to 2001, I got to teach that course for 12 years. And one of the things that I asked students to do, I said “let’s be real. This class is about values. I am not gonna ask you to change your values. I’m gonna ask you to examine your values and be able to hold up the mirror and ask you if you can still look in that mirror and say these are my values, these aren’t values that were given to me, I’ve freely chose them and I have explored them.” And so, I think college is that time to explore. And, you know students will explore with relationships, students will explore with alcohol, students will explore with majors, students will explore drinking, different eating. You know taking the opportunity to go home with a roommate to a farm when they’ve never been on a farm before. Or that farm kid saying, “hey wait, we are going up to Minneapolis and we’re doing what?” “Oh my god, you’re taking me downtown and there’s gonna be homeless people, gay people, a variety of international identities, different colors” and stuff like that. It's those opportunities. I look at my own family, my eldest brother went to a technical college in rural Minnesota for a year. My twin brother went to Duluth for both his undergraduate and graduate years and ended up doing school counseling. I ended up doing my graduate work in counselor education, but working with college students. We were all raised with this kind of conservative values. And you could say conservative, Christian, Republican, whatever. It’s funny because my twin brother and I diverged from those, where my oldest brother who didn’t do a four-year education still clings to that stuff. Not that that’s right or wrong. But I wonder, and I’ve had these conversations with my eldest brother like “why would you believe that?”… And he said, “you don’t live where I live.” And I said, “you don’t go into the homes of Hmong families like I do. I live by them.” You know that’s the kind of experiences that you need to get past. So, I would say to students today, to students tomorrow, don’t think you’re coming here as a finished product. You have so many opportunities to expand yourself, refine yourself, and then become who you want to be…College is the developmental time in young adulthood where you’re free. Like no one gives two crap if you were prom king or prom queen. No one cares that you were the star quarterback or the head cheerleader. No one cares that you were the class president…You come move-in day, guess what? People are gonna see the name on the door and might say “hi”. But if you go and say “hi,” that might be the start of a really cool friendship or an opportunity to learn something different than your own experience. So as my good friend Patrick Heise says, “college is life, drink it up.” And just, I say soak up every opportunity you can. It all becomes a part of who you are. And again, I’ve said multiple times, I feel so blessed I’ve had this experience as an undergraduate and still get to come to work every day at the campus that I went to.

Tiffany: Professor [Chuck] Lee, who was the second Director of the Oral History Program used to have this way—where there was a point where it was time to stop—he would say “let’s end it there.” And I just think that your last answer gave us a “let’s end it there” kind of moment [laughs], if you feel the same way… In this long conversation, are there any things that we haven’t touched upon that you think are…

Troy: No, I’ll stand by the things I’ve said. But again, I think it’s so cool like hearing this project when you first presented it to me…maybe it's the part History major in me, maybe it's my love of UWL, maybe it's my care for students, that I’m like going “I hope this is something that can help students understand.” At this point in time, there are a lot of similarities to what I went through in 1984-89 and the world is completely different, but what can we learn from that? Because as the big famous phrase goes, “those who forget the past” are what? “bound to repeat it” or whatever. I had a great time. Thank you.

Peter: When I started going to La Crosse on, I mean from La Crosse to Milwaukee and weekends to work. I had met someone else in one of my classes. and he just made mention that you know we got a 4 bedroom home. There's another bedroom there, but it doesn't have a window so they can't rent it out. So he said, you're looking for a place next year, and I said, sure he goes well for a $100 a month. We'll let you live in that in that room the bedroom without a window which I'd never had a bedroom by myself. So I couldn't go wrong with that. So yeah, yeah, because I was paying for everything. And it's just like I didn't really care. I just want the cheapest way to get through to school.

Brenna: Right? So yeah, leading into that with paying for everything all on your own. I know you said you worked for Lindy's Sub and Pub. And what were there any other jobs besides that and student teaching that you did throughout your years of school?

Peter: All I did in La Crosse was Lindy’s Sub and Pub, and they had 2 locations, so I worked between the 2. And then I have another brother Richard, who had a roofing and siding place, and he had a hard time getting employees. So he reached out to me to start working for him that summer. Which I did. And then that turned into me just getting a schedule that allowed me to get my 3 or 4 day weekend, and just do a heavy load the other days, so that brought in, you know, a lot more money which allowed me to, you know. Get out of school without all the debt.

Brenna: Oh, that's great! That's awesome. So then it seems like you are working a decent amount. Would you say that school or your job kind of took more of a toll on you, or was like, more difficult to balance for you?

Peter: I mean it was. Any work that I had was not work that I brought home with me. Work was work. And I enjoy work a whole lot more than studying. So the school work was the tough part. Making sure I was staying on top of things because it's sort of up to you to take care of things. It's not. Okay. I gotta. you know, go to my job from this time to this time. It's like I have to make sure I put time aside. So that was the harder of the two.

Brenna: Definitely. Yeah, And do you think that though having to work and pay for all of that on your own, did that encourage you to really like nailed down like I need to do this? I need to do this?

Peter: And because of my schedule, you know, I had a lot of early morning classes, and you go there. It's like sometimes, There's so many people missing and it's just like, yeah, I'm paying for this. I'm gonna make sure. I'm here. So. But I think that yeah made me focus. I didn't just sleep in. I went to my classes.

Brenna: Yeah, definitely Good! Good. Good. That is, the early classes are what get me for sure. It's hard. Did you ever work like any late nights that at all would interfere with that?

Peter: Yeah. I had worked some late nights at Lindy's because it was also the bar. But I don't know, I never really had issues getting up for that. For the next morning classes. And I didn't have as many morning classes back then, because I had all 5 days to schedule my classes.

Peter: I couldn't read until my second grade. I couldn't read it all, so life hit me hard with school. It was just tough. And then I you know I include. Once I got reading under my bell. I improved. But I graduated high school. I think I was right at the middle. I was one above, you know, so I had half I I was in new. you know. I've just made it into the top fiftieth percentile. So which didn't, you know back then, or now you'd have a hard time getting into any university with where I ranked where back then I was able to. but I wasn't coming in as a strong student, either. I had to work for all my classes in college.

Brenna: Gotcha. So then kind of like looking back to your first year of school. Do you think you changed a lot? I mean, you said, obviously with joining the education program made you enjoy school. But in ways outside of the actual academics, do you think that you change from your freshman year to your last year in any way, just through your college experiences?

Peter: What I learned, I don't know. I'll call it shortcuts. I learned when they say you know your tests are going to be based on this this and this. If you had to read 3 books, and they’re only have 3 questions on that test. I didn't read the 3 books. I just had. I didn't have time to do everything to fidelity. If I was going to read those those books.I was much better off getting good notes and studying those notes, because that's generally where the majority of that information came from. And I guess you know, going back to an earlier question. If I was prepared for a class. I was always the very last person that left that exam. I needed the whole time plus more. And you know I was never tested, for you know, having learning disabilities at all. But to get more time I was tested, and I don't remember what I qualified for, but it gave me the ability to have in most cases as much time as I needed to take a test. So that was that was huge

Mike: Now you're curious. Okay, so the first one is “continue to learn.” The second one is “continue to laugh.” And what I mean by that is not that you have to go do stand-up comedy, it’s to find some enjoyment in life. You should find a way to smile. You should have…you need to be able to look at yourself and laugh too, okay. The third one is “continue to live.” And that means you can't be on the sidelines. That’s an athletic reference but—and there's a great way I talk about this I usually quote Teddy Roosevelt and his critic speech. Which is a fab—I have a plaque of that too in my office. And so that’s the third L, “continue to live.” The fourth one is “continue to love.” And that one is basically to show care and compassion. To me that is why people volunteer in their lives. You volunteer in your communities. You volunteer to help others. And that to me is important if you're fortunate enough to be a leader in an organization, that care and compassion for others is what is probably gonna help you have a great team of people to help you be successful. So those are your four main Ls and if you do all four of those then you're blessed with the fifth L [which] is “leave a legacy.” And that legacy, you can leave a legacy, but it’s just as important that others are leaving a legacy with you. And so, it's a circular act. So those are the “handful of Ls.”

Ashlyn: First I'll just kind of start off, too. So my dad and my mom, and neither of them went to college. So with that, you know, there's that kind of lack of education on their end about what college is about. Specifically, my dad, and I won't go too much into it, I'm not very close to my biological mom. We don't speak that often. But my dad, you know, raised me. And then when I was ten he got married to my stepmom and she went to college. But kind of, you know, growing up, my dad was a little bit harder on me with my, you know, grades and education, and he always had this kind of idea in his head of what he thought would be best for me. But again he didn't go to college, so it's hard for him to know what college is about without that information, and so I had no idea what I wanted to do. Again, just kind of struggling in high school with classes also kind of put me behind I feel like in figuring out what I wanted to do. So I decided to just come in undecided, you know, hopefully Freshman year, I thought, like I'd figure out what I wanted to do. My dad, of course, wanted me to go into some sort of science thing, and there was talk about like physical therapy or occupational therapy. And I thought about it, and I did some volunteering before college in a hospital, and it was just not something I wanted to do. Again, with my struggle in math and science, I knew that it wasn't a very realistic goal, nor did it seem interesting to me. So after months and over, you know, my Freshman year meeting with advisors, I knew that, you know, I wanted to do something that helps people, and I wanted to work with people, but not work in, you know, kind of a medical field. So I was like, okay, you know, psychology, it's pretty broad. It's kind of hard to get a job right out of college just with a psych degree. But there's a lot of room for, you know, opportunity, and you can take it on and turn it into something bigger than just a bachelors in psych, which is, I'll be honest, not really much. And I think just, you know, the classes, too, really interested me, and that opportunity to overlap the psych classes with the art classes. You know, multiple classes like Art Therapy, and how different, you know, therapies can impact people and all that, and I think being able to tie art, which is a huge passion and hobby of mine, into, you know, my degree and time at in college, I think, was really, I think I chose, you know, the best major and minor for me, and it really made my college experience what it was.

Ashlyn: And I've been thinking about this, too, and I should add, I have a very close relationship with my aunt, my dad's sister. She is a professor at Ohio State. For a while she was the chair of her sociology department. So just, you know, my relationship with her has always been very close, you know. She kind of saw and knew that, you know, my dad didn't go to college, and he didn't necessarily have all the finances to help me out, so my whole life, my aunt has been a huge support system for me, and she really helped, you know, to fund my college. She helped, she took me on some tours, and really gave me some guidance again, just because my parents weren't able to do that for me. So my Freshman year, she suggested, “You know, just focus on, you know, this adjustment. Don't feel like you need a job right away.” And that's what I did. I worked all through high school, so I had some savings for spending money and stuff like that. But then, my Sophomore year, I got a job at a daycare. It's called Baby Beluga Nursery. It's right by, I'm trying to think. I think it's on like Nineteenth Street, and that's actually how I met Taylor as well, her kids go there. But yeah, so my second semester Sophomore year is when I got that job, and then I worked, you know, for three months, and then it was like the pandemic hit, and I was so sad. I was like, I love working with these kids, you know. It's great, you know, extra money in your pocket. But there's nothing I can do to stay in La Crosse, because I didn't have a lease yet, so I sadly had to leave. But they were so nice to let me back, you know, the following semester in September of my Junior year, and then again I came back to Milwaukee for the summer, and then they let me come back again for my Senior year. So I work, you know, not a complete like three years, but over the span of three years is when I worked there, and that was, you know, actually my only job in La Crosse. I will add to kind of my last semester of my Senior year, I was a mentor for the Student Support Services. That was kind of a new program we started up, but it was a paid opportunity. And then, during my summers that I came back to Milwaukee, I did work full-time as a waitress. So all those, you know, kind of opportunities gave me some extra cash that could go towards tuition and rent, and anything else I needed. So, you know, for the most part I was working a lot to, you know, pay for a lot of these things, but I was also fortunate enough to have, you know, my aunt, and my grandmother as well, helping me out.