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An Interview with
Dr. Jadwiga Maurer

Conducted by
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JV\~'J ~QtS()I\

Oral History Project
KU Retirees'Club
University of Kansas

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JADWIGA MAURER

Ph.D., University of Munich, 1955

Service at the University of Kansas
Associate Professor - 1970-74
Professor - 1974-2001

Q:

I am speaking Dr. Jadwiga Maurer, professor of Slovak
Languages and Literature, who retired in May of 2001. We
are speaking on November 29, 2001, at the Adams Alumni
Center on the University of Kansas Campus in Lawrence.
Let ' s begin at the beginning and if you could tell me where
you were bor n and when .
A: I was born in 1930 in Kielce, Poland, which is a medium
sized city in Poland, which has grown a lot I understand.
Q:
What did your parent's do?
A: My parents were teachers. My father taught at the high
school, which of course in Europe, at that time, was much
more highly regarded than it is here, teaching high school.
My mother was also a high school teacher. She taught
Polish literature, but she stopped working, as so many
women did, when I was born. She taught maybe three-year or
so. They came to Kielce from other parts of Poland and
this is where they got their positions.
Q:
Where is that city in relation to Warsaw?
A: It is between Warsaw and Krakow, in central Poland.
Q:
Were you the first born in the family? Do you have
brothers and sisters?
A: Yes, I was the first born and I am the only child .
Q:
You said you were born in 1930, which of course brings us
to the obvious question of what happened during the war
years since Poland was such a battle ground.
A: I am a survivor of the Holocaust and I even if I wanted
to tell you, which I think would not be terribly useful, of
all the places that I have been during the war, I couldn't.
We left Keilce in 1939 on foot. Then we had all kinds of
adventures. I was in convent school in the last year of
the war . Before that were in Krakow, we were hiding in
various places etc., and at some point, I went to convent
school. The last year of the war, we spent in Slovakia,
which was a little bit different, although it was allies
with Germany s o the occupation was not quite as stern as in

Q:
A:

Q:

A:

Q:

A:
Q:
A:
Q:

A:
Q:

Poland . Then we returned to Krakow, which was the place
from which we left to Slovakia in 1944. I went to school
in Slovakia and I went some to school in Poland just before
the war and a little bit during the war. After the war, we
lived for a year in Gdansk, and then we left for Munich.
This was in 1946 in the so-called American zone. There was
no Germany then. We were going to immigrate, but with one
thing and another, I finished my schooling in Munich and I
also graduated from the University of Munich. We were
there for about 10 years, which was much longer than my
parents intended .
You said you went to school for a time in Slovakia. Did
you speak the language?
Yes. I learned the language very quickly . Slovak is
very similar to Polish. I do not think I could put two
words together now. I don't even know if I would
understand everything now, but at that time, it was very
easy for me . I was reading and speaking in Slovak.
Sometime people did not even recognize that I was not a
Slovak. I forgot it as quickly as I learned it.
Did your parents find it more difficult to deal with the
language than you did as a child did?
Yes, I think so. However, as I said, it is close to
Polish. Naturally, it is different, but it is not too
difficult to learn.
Why were you in hiding? You said you had to hide for a
while during the war.
Well, because I am Jewish and that is why .
Okay, I did not realize that. The whole family survived?
Yes.
That is amazing.
Yes, it is amazing.
Looking back on your experiences then, do you find it
sort of ironic that you ended up in Germany and going to a
German university?

A:

No, see everybody kind of hints that at that or asks
that.

Not at all because there was a big exodus from

Eastern Europe and as I said in the beginning, Germany was
a place where it was in the American zone of Germany, so
there was no Germany.

It was divided up in these zones and

this was the place to go if you wanted to leave Eastern
Europe and go somewhere else.

Most people went to the

United States, some went to Australia, and some went to
Canada.

These were the immigration countries and at that

time, it was very natural.

Now, after all these years,

people often ask me, who I felt about it.
misunderstanding.

It is a bit of a

It is an interpretation that they draw

from knowing about Germany and knowing about Germany later
on.

Then when we stayed off, there was a very large

community of people who also came from Eastern Europe, so I
went to German schools, but it was not quite like what
people have in mind when they say about me and Germany .

Q:

Since the area you were in was in an American zone, did
you have much contact with American's at that time?

A:

No much, but I married an American.
of American.

There was a presence

Generally, at that time, and much longer, it

was sort of like an American colony in that area.
the British zone.

Not in

I do not know how it was there and the

Russians in East Germany later on.

The American zone,

western parts of Germany, it was sort of like an American
colony for many years .
Q:

Did you go to that zone deliberately?

A:

Oh yes.

They were actually inviting people to come .

There was at that time, a government, an American General ,
and I think the

commissioner was General

Clay and then some other General, McMillamy I think was
high commissioner of that area where Munich is.
invited people in, refugees in.

They

Of course you have to

think of it as Germany was already full of refugees because
of forc ed labor and people came out of concentration camps
and people who fled to the West.

There was this push to

get to the West before the Russians crossed the borders.
It was not like that was single, I do not know how it
breaks down in numbers, but there was an enormous
immigration or push to the West .
Q:

What did you possess at that time.

Did you just have

your clothing or did you have some books and things like
that from your old life in Poland?
A:

No, we did not have anything from the old life, however,
we like everybody else, acquired new things.
apartment; we had things that we bought .

We had an

My father worked

in various institutions that were refugee institutions and
later, he was also a lecturer at the University of
Those were different times and
kind of hard to explain, but it was like a new life.

We

did not bring anything from Poland and I think that is how
most refugees lived.

There was some help from various

organizations in the beginning.

People started working and

studying.

Q:

When you started going to school in Munich, who were your
teachers?

A:

It was a German school.
school .

It was a normal organized German

Of course, I did not know any German.

My parents

did, but there again, living in the country, even though we
did not have much traffic with the German's, I learned.
the beginning,

I had private lessons to help me out.

you live in a country, you learn it differently.

In

When

I learned

rather quickly.
Q:

You must have a
certain degree.

for languages to a
When you went to, what I would call high

school, did you have it in mind that you were planning to
go on to a university at that time?
A:

Oh yes.

My parents raised me with the idea that I would

be going to the university.
thing .

That was a given sort of

Q:

What were you interested in studying at that point?

Did

you have certain subjects that you liked better than
others?
A:

Yes, I studied English literature, Slovak language and
literature's, which was a different department, and
history.

You had to have one main field and two other

fields, minor's so to speak.

I say so to speak because you

go through dissertation if you going for Ph.D. in your
major field, but in your minor fields, you were examined
almost the same way as the major.

The system was a little

different and the German system evolved in the meantime
too, is different.

Now, I could not tell you exactly how

they do it.
Q:

You chose the University of Munich because it was there?

A:

Yes, because I lived there.

Q:

Did you live at home and go to school?

A:

I always lived at home.

Actually, I was thinking about

this the other day, that unlike other people, and most of
my colleagues, I have never lived alone.

I always lived

with my parents, and then I got married and lived with my
husband and my family.
Q:

Do you recall any particular teacher's at the university
that were inspiring to you.

A:

Yes, actually all of my professors were inspiring and
they were all famous people in their fields.

Q:

Mostly men?

A:

Three of them were men.

I do not thing there were more

than two or three women at that time, who were professors
at the University of Munich.

One was, I remember, was in

medicinal chemistry, and one associate professor was in
history.
was it.

I would say maybe there were two others, but that
There were women lecturers on the lower levels,

but on the higher levels, faculty was all males.

This was

not, of course, on the books anywhere, but that is how it
was.

Q:

I sort of interrupted you in terms of asking you about
the people who inspired you.
that.

A:

I would like to go back to

Could you tell me a little bit about those people?

Well, when you say inspired, maybe we are not thinking
exactly the same thing.

I mean they were people who were

very famous in their fields and who were very good
lecturers and inspired that way for scholarships, for
studying,

for research .

me at a personal level.

I would not say that they inspired
In Europe, I think in my parents

time and before the war, during the whole 20th century, I
think that was a concept that was fairly important to the
European universities because there were large number of
students and, of course, you could get acquainted and I did
with some of my professors.

They did not take much

interest in the student's affairs and conversely students
lived in a different world.

The way we have it now, there

are much more relationships with professors.
how it is now 'in Europe.

I do not know

I think that the huge crowds of

students in Germany still are not conducive to one on one
anything.
Q:

That certainly was true when I was in college in the
1960's.

I did not know my professor's.

I would never

think of calling them by their first name or anything like
that .

I did not ever call them on the telephone.

understand what you are talking about.

I

While you were

going through college, when did you decide, or how did you
come to the decision that you were going on for graduate
work?
A:

In Germany, there is no college or you can say there is
graduate work.

You go through the university.

You start

in let's say in four year's you finish your courses , for
your Ph.D. you have to take let's say in each field,

two

seminar's and this and that and the other thing, sort of
like we have here so they had requirements.

Those

requirements at that time, it did not mean that everybody
who took the seminars was going to get a Ph.D.

On the

other hand, if you wanted your Ph.D. you had to go take
these classes.
dropping out.

I decided to finish, and I never thought of
Because in my mind, I was not going to stay

in Germany, or because I was not going t o work for the
state and be a teacher, I might have become a lecturer.

I

had an of fer to become a lecturer in Polish from the
University of Munich.

Because I

thought I might go

somewhere else , it was very vague, but the immigration was
always moving somewhere and I decided to get a Ph.D.
because that was more universal than getting the Boards,
which amounts to a state exam, which is almost the same in
terms of requirements, but would only qualify you only to
teach in German schools and whatever .

You might be able to

get a job on a newspaper or something, but I

thought a

Ph.D. was a Ph.D. and if you wanted to get the State
Boards, you did not have to write the dissertation etc.

I

thought the scholarship was more interesting.
Q:

What did you write your dissertation on?
It has been published in a book.

A:

The reason I was sort

of sighing is that, for many people it is very esoteric.
wrote it on the

Perfect Ten's in Polish and I

am not going to go into a long explanation.
~~~~~Perfect

I

The

Ten's in Polish does not officially exist.

It is a little complicated.
Q:

I can understand why you sighed!

I

won't ask any more

questions about your dissertation!

A:

No go ahead, but I am warning you this may not be the
most interesting subject.
~~~~~~~~~'

Let's say grammatical English

so later I switched to literature.

I

thought Linguistics was interesting to me and I was good at
it.

Q:

So you were interested in it as an academic study, but it
is not what you wanted to do with your li fe or how you
wanted your career to develop?

A:

No even in academic study, I was more interested in
Literature, but the main professor in Slovak languages and

literature, as I said a famous person in his field,
Professor

was a linguist and so

while he would have accepted the literary topic for a
dissertation, I do not think he would have been that happy.
I decided this was interesting enough and I passed exams
and the dissertation together, suma cum louda, which was
almost an unprecedented feat in Germany, so apparently I
chose well.
Q:

I would say so!

When did you get your degree, what year?

A:

1955.

Q:

Were your parents alive through all of this and I assume
very proud of what you had accomplished?

A:

Yes, they were very pleased that I had finished and that
I did so well.

I, however, later on, decided that, I still

taught Linguistics at Berkley when I came, but I decided
that literature was more interesting to me later on.

Q:

So you get your degree and then what happens.

What do

you decide to do?
A:

I did not really decide anything.

I had some offers for

jobs, but that is somewhat beside the point.

I met my

future husband.

He was, at

He was an exchange student.

that time, at the University of Chicago finishing his
masters.

Then he was drafted into the Army and came back

to Germany as a soldier.

We got married in the summer of

1956.
Q:

In Germany?

A:

Yes.

I did not think I would live much longer in

Germany.

That was the turn of events really.

Here I was,

a person who was basically was almost a child, came to
Germany to immigrate, but I did not.

Now, I was on my way

to the United States anyway.

Q:

Did you know English at this point?

A:

Yes, English was one of my minors, and I would not say
that when I came here in 1956, that I could have talked to
you like I do now, but almost.
read books and everything.

I knew English; I could

Q:

You were comfortable in English.

A:

Yes.

Q:

When did you and your husband come back to the states?

A:

We came in the fall of 1956.

Q:

Where?

A:

At that time, his parents lived in Lancaster
Pennsylvania.

He is from Pennsylvania.

for a little while,

We stayed there

then we went back to Germany and lived

with my parents and he worked for Radio Free Europe.

He

was a letter class mailman for them in the mailroom and he
tells me there were a lot of things people started in the
mailroom.

Then we came back and he decided to continue his

studies and also go for his Ph.D.

By that time, we had a

son, and we decided on Berkley because there were three
Slovak departments at that time.
the United States.
Columbia.

They really counted in

There was Harvard, Berkley, and

The two Ivy League schools were very expensive,

of course, and we did not have any money , so we thought
Berkley might be a the place where were might get
something.

He had a GI bill and he had a TA ship, but

after a year at Berkley, I got an offer and I had a
wonderful job.

In fact,

I was an assistant professor and I

was promised tenure at Berkley.

When I look back the way

women live now, I do not think any woman would have left
that job to follow her husband, but I did because that is
what people did in those days.

I taught Polish literature

and some linguistics.
Q:

So you taught Polish literature and linguistics at
Berkley as an assistant professor?

A:

Yes.

As a lecturer first,

professor.

then as an assistant

I was promised tenure, but when he finished,

was very strict.

it

I do not know if they would have employed

my husband or not, but it was very strict and they do not
employ their own students.

It was an idea that maybe if he

went away for two years and came back, sounded awfully
complicated and there were plenty of jobs at that time .

Q:

What year was this when he finished.

A:

We moved to Indiana in 1965, but he was through writing
his dissertation, but we had two jobs, two positions in two
departments at Indiana.

Q:

So you left Berkley also with the intention of getting
another academic job?

A:

Oh yes, I had already looked for it when we decided to
move.

At that time, it was very easy because the Slovak

departments were being built up by the government and
expanding.

Coming from Berkley, there were only three

departments in the whole country that counted.

We had

offers from other places like Illinois, we had an offer
from Yale, but it was sort of tentative for me, so we
decided not to take that chance.
Q:

What was it like moving from Berkley to Bloomington?

A:

It was like moving to a foreign country.
different .

It was totally

Even now, some friends from Bloomington, who

were once my students, they say that they remember that I
said one day,

"Oh I know how the British felt in India."

It was town and gown.

It was totally separate.

bad, it was just different.
Q:

It was not

Kind of colonial.

Did you ever see that movie about the bicyclist?

Did

that bring back memories when you saw that?
A:

Yes.

Q:

Yes, that was definitely a town in gown kind of thing in
that movie I remember.

A:

That is very true.

I do not know how it is now exactly,

but I suspect not much different.
Q:

So you were hired as an associate professor?

A:

I was an associate professor of Slovak languages and
literature at Indiana University in Bloomington .

Q:

Your husband was in the German department.

A:

Yes.

He was an assistant professor and this was a huge

department and they had like 14 assistant professors or
something.

He was not terribly happy there and we had two

children by then, a son and a daughter, and he went to the

MLA convention, not with the idea of looking for a job, but
he got an of fer from Kansas because some people that we
knew at Berkley were in the German department at KU.

Then

we moved her e and that was in 1968.
Q:

Again, did you come with the idea, or did you already
have contacts set up to have a job here?

A:

I d i d not.

It was not a package deal .

The reason was

there may have been more reasons that we did not negotiate
anything, but the main reason was that I had started
writing and publishing in Polish immigrate papers and I
started writing essays and fiction.
a year or two off and write.

I thought I would take

When I started working again

in 1970, I got a very prestigious award for a book
collection of short stories and so I took a job when they
offered it to me.

Looking back, I would not recommend it

to people now because now there are so few jobs and the
market is so tight that it is a great risk to do that.
Shortly afterwards, there was not that many jobs all of a
sudden.
Q:

So you hit a lucky time really.

A:

Yes and the academic market is always up and down as you
well know.

It is very hard to figure out.

Now our

daughter will be up for tenure next year .

Q:

Where is she?

A:

She is in Illinois.

Q:

When you said you wanted to write and wrote some short

At the University of I l linois.

stories that won an award, was this all in Polish?
A:

Yes.

Q:

Why were you writing in Polish?

A:

I really do not know.

I always expressed myself in

fiction in that language and now I am all of a sudden a
well-known writer.

In Poland, people write to me.

I wrote

two volumes of short stories and a lot of them scattered in
papers or periodicals and when the Communist regime was
overthrown, I had possibilities in Poland, but of course,
this is my home.

I would never move.

I cannot tell you

why.

I am a person who believes very much in expression in

a certain language in a median and to me for more literal
things of fiction and essays, Polish is the language in
which I think. I express myself the best. However, I have
published in English in scholarly papers and the thing is
that once you separate like that, it is very hard to do
anything else.
Q:

So Poland is the language of the imagination and the
English is the language of scholarship?

A:

You put it better than I could.
Well, I do not know about that, I was just trying to
understand! Did you bring your children up to be
bilingual?

Q:

A:

No, they have not shown any interest . Maybe vaguely to
please me sometimes and I tell you another thing. It is
not easy to do that when both parents speak some other
language. My husband still does not know maybe three words
of Polish and only then if he recognizes them. Nobody
showed any strong interest. Also they are in professions
that they do not need it.

Steve is a lawyer and free lance

journalist and Elizabeth is an economist .

Those are not

exactly the fields where people want to learn more
languages.
Q:

So you took a couple of years off and devoted yourself
more to fiction.
academics?

A:

Then what happened to bring you back into

There were some people who I did not know in the History
department and Political Science who knew about me and they
went to the Slovak department and asked them you they did
not make me an offer. I did not even know about it. Then
they made me an offer, but it was not an offer that I
really wanted . I do not remember exactly how it was, but
after half a year or so, they made me another offer, and I
became a visiting associate professor.

Q:

What year was that?

A:

1970.

Vis iting was only to keep me out of the regular,

but I think they only kept me on that a year.
Q: Then let's say after a year, you became what?
A:
Q:

Associate professor of Slovak Languages.
At that point, when you became an associate, were you
given tenure automatically or did you have to go through
the hoops that most people have to go through?

A:

No I was not given tenure automatically, but I do not
think it was terribly nerve wracking or involved.
Q:
When did you become a full professor?
A: Maybe like in 1973 or 1974 and I was also, at that time,
acting chair of that department.
Q: How big was the department at that time?
A: Well, it was fairly big for being a relatively new
department. It only had three full professors', four with
me, which is about what it has now. They had two assoc i ate
professors and a couple of assistants.

For a Slovak

department in the Midwest, it was fairly big .

Q:

When did the department come into being at KU, do you
know?
A: No, I do not know exactly, but probably in the early
60's.

Q:

Was there a renewed interest or renewed push for Slovak
languages as a result of Sputnik and those kinds of things?

A: Yes.

There was, at that time, Slovak departments were

doing very well because there was some support from the
government for quite a long time after Sputnik. They
hired, you know maybe not a lot of people, but they hired
and there were quite a few ~~~~~~~~- students .
Q:

Here at KU?

A:

Yes. There is nothing between here and CA that offers's

Ph.D's .
Q:
Really?
A: Yes. All the states around us do not have a Ph.D.
program in Slovak like Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Colorado;
they do not have any.

Q:

Is that because any one person or a couple of people who
pushed for graduate work at the department here?

A:

I think it was a combination of things .

There were a few

people who pushed for Slovak studies in general and
supported the department.

One of them was Professor

Vacouse, the late Professor Vacouse.

many years.

He has been dead for

I think there was a lot offered to KU for the

Slovak program from Washington and they hired Professor
Conrad, who was at that time in Texas and who had been a
student here.

He is a native of Kansas City.

it up that way.

They built

There was money and there was also money

for exchange programs, which were funded by the government,
but ran out at KU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q: So you felt like the administration was supportive of
Slovak languages at that time?
A:

I think so and I think it was supported because that was
the thing to do.

If you are being offered money, you do

not turn it down.

It went very well through the 70's and

part of the 80's.

We also have this institute

~~~~~~~~in

Slovak and East European studies and the

lector, Maria Carlson, was very good at running that thing
and we still get support from Washington from the
Department of Education.

This is a little bit different,

this is the age of
Q:

This is a little bit off the subject of your own career,
but just for my own interest, if a Slovak languages
department is writing grants, who would they be writing the
grants to?

Who would be the most likely people to give

them money?
A:

The government still gives grants and there are
foundations.

All the well-known foundations and then there

are special branches of foundations that have to do with
Eastern Europe and you would be putting in for those grants
if they are available from them.

There are not a great

deal maybe not as many institutions as in Science, but
there are foundations that give grants .

Q:

Enough that you can usually count on somebody that you
can write to and maybe get some money.

A:

This has become very fashionable or the thing to do so a
lot of people apply for grants.

Q:

Let's go back to a lit t l e bit earlier time.

When you

came to Lawrence, did you have the same feeling that you
had when you went to Bloomington, or did you feel like
maybe you were going to like it here?

How did you feel

about Lawrence when you first came?
A:

First of all the big change was California to anything
else and from Berkley to Bloomington.

Because I already

lived in Bloomington, I did not find Lawrence outlandish or
anything.

I think life here was good and I thought it was

going to be good.
Bloomington.

We settled in much better than we had in

I do not regret leaving Bloomington at all,

but one of the things that I think was wrong with
Bloomington was that we lived in university housing and it
was not permanent.
permanent.

You could feel that it was not

There was not any shock.

Q:

How old were your children when you came to Lawrence?

A:

Well, Steve was born in 1958 and we came to Lawrence in
1968.

Q:

Elizabeth was born in 1964, so she was little.

I have heard a lot of people talk, I do not have children
myself, but I have heard a lot of people say that when they
came to Lawrence, they sort of had a feeling this was going
to be a good place to bring up children.

Did you have the

same kind of feelings?
A:

Yes, it was sophisticated enough, but small enough, and
did not seem to have any problems with crime.

You know all

those things you would have if you went to the big city.
Also,

it did not have the problem of public versus private

schools.

It had good public schools and there was no

problem of that type, which you had in many other places.
Q:

When you first came to KU, how many women were in the
university at that time?

Did you feel like you were in a

minority as a woman professor?

A:

Yes, oh yes.

There were very few.

I think the

statistics are right when they say there are about between
9 and 12% are professors, associate professors maybe 30%,
then assistant professors almost 50%.
at all at that time.

The upper levels have changed very

little and nobody knows why that is.
out.

It was not like that
Obviously, women drop

It was not like that at that time, because even at

the assistant professor level, there were not very many
women.

I was the first woman in my department and the only

woman for a long time.
Q:

Was that difficult?

A:

No, it was not difficult because I was use to it.
were two women at Berkley.

There

There were other women at

Berkley, but they were not on the regular tenure track.
They were lecturers.

This was not tenure tract and this

was not going anywhere.

Q:

Did the women who were on the faculty, at that time, did
they try to get together and of fer support to each other or
be any kind of a voice in the University?

A:

That came later.

Q:

How much later would you say?

A:

Oh, ten years later and I do not think much came of it.

The women were trying to organize at a certain time and I
cannot tell what year that was exactly, but there was even an
association that even negotiated with the administration.
That must have been in the late 70's.

There were meetings

etc ., but as the big push was made, women elsewhere were
protesting etc., all of the local associations fell apart.
These women joined these national organizations.
never seen that much organizing here on campus.
certain women who were trying to organize groups.

I have
There were
This is

insignificant, but t o me this was so strange, when they told
me when I got the job, I had to remain as a dependent on my
husband's health insurance.

I could not understand why and

they explained to me that it was the same thing.
the same thing!

It is not

Later, they did change that, so yes, there

(

was some pressure, but the pressure came fr om somewhere else,
from above.

Q:

What about salary's, were you paid less?

A:

Yes, my salary, until the very end suffered from that.

think it suffered from two circumstances.

I

One, that women

were generally offered less simply on the theory that they
are going to accept it because what are they going to do .
Also, that I was married.
income.

They kind of looked at the family

They did not say this, but you knew it.

Women's

salaries were lower and you did not need any study to see
that .
Q:

They were just lower across the board .

How difficult was it to raise a family and be a full time

professor?
A:

Was that something that you were use to?

Yes, I think that it is difficult and a lot of it is in

the attitude of how you start.

That is why I do not believe

in waiting until your children are bigger or wait for this or
that .

I do not think that is a good idea.

We set out to

have these two careers, so that both of us work.

I was n ever

the full time housewife and my husband was never a full time
househusband.

We shared a lot of things .

It is difficult.
Q:

I cannot compare .

My daughter is in that situation now.

When you first entered the department here, were most of

your students male and did that change over time?
A:

I do not, there were a lot of women in graduate school in

languages, but a lot of them never finished.

Most of the

people who finished were men, but there were some women who
finished and there women around as graduate students.

I

cannot tell you what proportions.
Q:

What sorts of things did you teach in those early days

when you first entered the department?
A:

I always taught the Polish language on the advanced level

and we always had a TA for first year and they still do, and
Polish literature, comparative Slovak literature's and as I
said in the v ery beginning, I taught Linguistics.

Then later

I also taught Slovak women writer's when this became

fashionable that each department had something in women's
studies.

Q:

Was this of interest to you anyway?

A:

Yes.

We do not have that course anymore, over the years,

I taught a lot of different courses.
with the Slovak studies.

It was also up and down

There were some years were you

simply had to teach language.

There were always students for

language and maybe one course in Literature.

We also had

individual study, and that is very important in smaller
fields because if someone wants to go and do a Ph.D. in
Polish, we do not have enough courses for that person, so
they have to take individual studies.

We had a course called

Topics where you can accommodate such people.

That is

dedicated for something that they need.
Q:

Do you think you liked being in a department where there

was a graduate program as opposed to not?
A:

Yes.

We have very few graduate students now and I still

think that our department was always, as long as I can
remember, get the graduate studies.

I think also that the

money that still come in like the government are for graduate
studies.

Very little is done for undergraduates.

I guess

with the idea that they have to go through college somehow.
Q:

Do most of the people who go into graduate work in Slovak

language s let say in Polish literature, would they already
have a fairly good command of the language?

Would that be an

absolute necessity?
A:

No.

In fact,

there are some places where you have to,

what now is fashionably called heritage students like
Chicago, Detroit, where these people are Polish descent and
maybe bring from home some knowledge, various degrees, but
the places I have been in always had a cross-type of American
students.

Somebody asked me to write an article, this person

is in England, on ethnic origin of my students and I turned
it down.

First of all, it is not that interesting, and

secondly, I am not that interested in the whole thing.

I

think that this is a mistaken idea often when people look at

American universities and they here of Polish course, and
that probably goes for other languages, they assume that
these are people from the Polish community.
further from the truth .
various reasons study.

Nothing could be

These are various people who for
There is a small percentage at times

of people who marry into the Polish community, but this is
usually short lived.
is it.

They take a couple of courses and that

Most serious graduate students, something happened

that they started Slovak languages.

Most of them started

Russian because Russian is everywhere.
they took it as a minor or something .

Then they switched or
Lately, there has been

a group of people who were in Poland teaching English and
they got interested in study Polish when they came back.
Q:

Have you done any translating?

A:

~-

Q:

Does that interest you at all?

A:

Not particularly no .

translator.

I appreciate if somebody is a good

It is very difficult and grateful job, but no, I

have not done any myself.

Q:

You said that when you first entered the department, or

shortly thereafter, you became acting chair or co-chair?
A:

I was acting chair .

year to Russia.

That was when our chair went for a

They voted on it and see I was the only

woman at that time, but they voted me in.
Q:

Did you like that role?

A:

Yes.

Did you like administration?

For that time, that role was very good .

Administration has changed so much now; I would not want it
now.

The chairs are always writing memos to answering what

it is we all do all the time and sort of on the defensive all
the time and I do not like that very much .
Q:

Thousands of mission statements and that sort of thing .

A:

Yes, exactly .

Q:

What lead you to think about retiring?

A:

Well, I think that this is one of the things that a

person has to decide for themselves and now that there is no
mandatory retirement, there wil l be both people who retire

maybe too early and people who hang on forever .
that i t was time .

I decided

I have been teaching for 40 years.

to write still and I

I want

just decided, and my husband also

decided, that i t was enough.

I know that there are people

who have a very hard time quitting, but I do not think I did.
I am retired, but I still take an interest in the department
and I have an office, which I share with my former student,
who is an instructor.

I just thought it was time.

did not giv e it any other thought.

I really

I first went on this

in retirement, but my husband did not ,
he just quit one day and that was it!

Q:

Over the years that you were in the department, did you

see any changes in students?
A:

I had very few undergraduate students.

Because of the

subjects that I taught, and because of teaching Polish
Literature, which was required for a Ph . D. but there was
always a majority of graduate students, and I would say
graduate students are pretty much the same.
changed some, but I
me.

Maybe they have

do not think it is that noticeable to

Undergraduates, everybody says that they have changed

some, but I suppose if somebody decides to get a Ph.D. or
even a masters, they usually have the same type of
commitment.
Q:

I think having spent most of your t ime with graduate

students, you would not necessarily have the same feeling as
someone who had spent more time with the undergraduates .
What about KU as a university?
university as a whole?

How would you evaluate the

Maybe your opinion has c hanged over

the years as well.
A:

No, I always thought that it was a very good university.

It is what they call a research university.

It has a very

good library and I think that the professors here,

this may

sound cynical, but like professors everywh e re else , they
could be at Harvard, Yale, or Berkley.

I also think thi s

idea that students have there are good professors and bad
professors,

it is a lot of nonsense.

I think that you get

(

something from everybody who is taught that much and studied
that much.

Unless a person is completely gone or something.

I think you can study yourself to death if you take the
proper courses.

There are universities where things are

stricter, but there are universities where things are much
more lax.

I know that we get these ratings as a play school,

but then again it is undergraduate mostly.
little books, whatever they are called.

We get in these

From that point of

view, maybe the undergraduate programs are not as serious as
I think.

Q:

So you feel like KU was a good place for you?

A:

Yes.

Q:

You do not have any major quams with the university as a

whole?
A:

Or the leadership?

No, I do not.

If you go into central administration, and

there are things, we for instance, both my husband and I
think, that much too much attention is placed to sports.
Sports are an integral part of the university, but there of
course those are complaints when people have certain ideas
how things should be.

Q:

Do you feel like the leadership has stayed pretty much

the same in terms of their goals and aims from the time that
you came until now?
A:

Probably not, but it is hard for me to put my finger on

it because there are so many aspects to it.

I do not know.

At times the leadership does not seem to pay too much
attention to the college or humanities and other times it
seems like they try to
for me to tell.
college.

It is hard

I think much depends on the deans of the

I have worked here so many years now, I remember

various deans and everybody has their favorite or ones that
are not such favorites.

I do not know.

I think if you are

in the central administration, like if you were an associate
dean or something like that, you might have a better idea of
what is right and what is wrong.

Q:

You said that you hoped to do some writing.

Are you

going back to fiction and that sort of writing?
A:

Yes.

I like fiction mostly.

I do not know yet exactly

what, maybe short stories.
Q:

Do you go back to Poland very often?

A:

No.

I have been the first time in Poland since we left

in 46, in 94 .

Then I was invited by Polish television in 95

for an interview for a show so I was there again.
going to go to Poland again.
September 11.

I was

I had it all organized on

I was ready to go to the airport.

Now I do

not know when I will go again.
Q:

You may try to reschedule that possibly?

A:

Not in the same area because I was going to speak at a

conference and I do not know if this opportunity will come up
again.

Q:

Anyway, I will go sometime.

Going way back, I meant to ask this earlier and we got

sidetrack.

When you married your husband and moved to

America, your parents stayed in Munich?
A:

Yes.

Q:

Did they ever come over to see you.

A:

Oh yes, many times.

Q:

But they did not settle here?

A:

It was hard at that time because of health insurance and

various things.

It was very hard for Europeans of a certain

age to come here and settle permanently .

They did stay

several months each time they were here .

They came to

Lawrence at least twice maybe three times.
Bloomington .

They were at

They were at Berkley.

Q:

Do you think you will continue living in Lawrence?

A:

I do not know.

Moving is always very stressful and

moving without just any particular reason, I do not know.
thought about it.
stay.

We

I thought about it, but probably we will

We will probably take some trips and go somewhere in

the winter.

It is difficult to move from the way it is .

There is really no particular purpose for us to move
permanently .

If you had some purpose , it would be different.

Q:

Some people want to get away from the weather.

A:

The weather would be the only thing probably, you know

hot summer, cold winter .
Q:

But a lovely fall!

for sure!

At least this fall was lovely that is

Is there anything we have not talked about that

concerns your life and career that we should talk about or
any questions that I have not asked that you think might be
important?
A:

I cannot think of anything.

everything.

I think we have touched upon

We talked about my writing and my teaching.

Maybe I should mention this year before I retired, I received
an award that I particularly liked and that is from the
Center for Teaching Excellence for Graduates.

That was the

first award given for graduate teaching.

Q:

That is an honor.

A:

I particularly like that because that was voted in by our

students .

Q:

Are you still in touch with former graduate students?

A:

Some.

I see them at conferences and a lot of them are

professors now.

There are also students in the department

that are still not finished with their dissertations and they
have jobs here like in language lab etc.
Q:

Will you continue to serve on their committees until they

are finished?
A:

Not unless they particularly ask for me .

I would not

volunteer for anything.

Q:

Do you have grandchildren at this point?

A:

We have one grandchild, Elizabeth has a son that is three

years old.

Q:

So traveling to Illinois might be on your agenda some of

the time!
A:

Yes .

Q:

Mainly, you want to get back to your writing and see

where that takes you at this phase of your life.
A:

Yes, we may travel some too.

Neither one of us is a

great traveler, even though we have been to so many places .

Now with all the restrictions traveling by air, it is not

(

very pleasant.
Q:

If you cannot think of anything else, I thank you very

much for agreeing to be interviewed!
A:

Thank you for asking me!