Kathleen Blee Interview

Kathleen Blee Interview

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Kathleen Blee Oral History Interview

Jillian Elton

12/15/2022

Kathleen Blee

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University of Pittsburgh

Video

00:29:26

00:00:02 - 00:00:26
Jillian Elton: All right. So as I mentioned, not too many questions. Just some to get a general idea about your career and your time here at Pitt. So I wanted to start with asking you about your undergraduate experience. I know you went to Indiana University, and I wanted to see what activities you were involved with. If you can remember any clubs that you were a part of on campus, anything like that.

00:00:28 - 00:01:28
Kathleen Blee: Yeah, so...So I went to Indiana University. I started in 1971 and left in 1974. So that was toward the last peak of the Vietnam War. And also a number of other civil rights movements and the beginning of the feminist movement, so forth. But I don't recall clubs. That campus, I would say, was not organized in that same kind of way as it is now. But the activism around the antiwar movement, but also Black Power Movement was very strong there then and the beginnings of a feminist movement that was really what defined that campus and I was involved in. Those in a number of ways.

00:01:29 - 00:01:40
Jillian Elton: Okay. And so were there any discussions about like any sort of women's program starting up at that time at Indiana University, or was it still very much just activism based?

00:01:41 - 00:02:06
Kathleen Blee: It was just a very beginnings of what would become feminism then. So I don't... never even recall hearing that word. So that obviously was beginning in the society, but it was very much overshadowed, I would say, by activism around race and around the war.

00:02:06 - 00:02:20
Jillian Elton: Okay. And so I know that you were involved with and are involved with sociology, and you have a particular interest in postcolonial and race studies. Is that sort of what sparked your interest in that, or was it something different at the time?

00:02:21 - 00:03:43
Kathleen Blee: That's really got me interested in social change and sort of, social justice and social inequality and all those kinds of issues. So my undergraduate major was sociology, but I took a lot of courses in political philosophy and political science, and also history and many of them sort of coalesced around this issue of power, structure of society, power structure of the United States vis a vis colonial and other areas outside the US, obviously like Vietnam and also black struggles. But so this was. So to end the civil rights movement, but a period in which black power movement, black nationalism was really as strong, yes it was actually quite strong on that campus, Indianapolis, which is very close to Bloomington, had a very strong black nationalist movement, and that influence was really felt on the campus. So there was black power strikes, there was anti war strikes. It was a very activist campus, even in Indiana.

00:03:43 - 00:04:18
Jillian Elton: Yeah. Yeah. So when you arrived at Pitt in 1986, I know when you were working at the University of Kentucky, you were working in the women's department there as well as in sociology. And so when you arrived at Pitt, what was the sort of structure like here? I know that at that time, like we had already developed like a women's dedicated women's studies program and classes dedicated to that and faculty. But what can you tell me a little bit more about what the structure was like at that time?

00:04:18 - 00:07:10
Kathleen Blee: Sure. So maybe I'll go back here just for a second. So after I had my bachelor's degree from Indiana, I went to graduate school at Wisconsin and I was focusing on studying this in sociology, the state and power structures more generally with actually no focus at all on gender and my dissertation. But, and this is sort of revealing of how things go. There was pressure from undergraduates for the department, which is a very large department in a very large university, for the department to offer a course on women, sociology and women. Never had been done. Right. So this is like 1980 or 1979, something like that. So that they turned to me and said, "You have to teach it now". I had zero background in this, right? Yeah. It was just, you know, oh, you're a woman, you should be able to teach it. And so I started teaching that. So I actually came into the study of gender, not through my scholarship and learning, but through needing to teach this course. And I got really interested in it and, but still my dissertation was not in that area. So I went to University of Kentucky. It's my first job and they had a small but really good women's studies program that was interdisciplinary and the directorship rotated and I took a time there as director of Women's Studies and really liked it, then became associate dean of the college. And part of what I was responsible for was interdisciplinary programs like Women's Studies. So I have a lot of places. So I moved to it in '96 and I was recruited to be the director of Women's Studies. So that was actually what was advertised and with my faculty appointment in sociology. So I came in as director. The program was really well established by that time it was offering courses. I can't remember if the graduate certificate had already been launched or not, I'm not sure. But the undergraduate program was really solid. It had a lot of students, it had a lot of faculty participation. It was well run. And so I took over from Marianne Novy, who is a professor in English, who had been a [director] right before me. But, you know, all the previous directors who were still around were on the steering committee. So I got to know some wonderful people very quickly.

00:07:10 - 00:07:34
Jillian Elton: Mm-hmm. Did you ever feel sort of, I know you mentioned that it was advertised that it was to be like Department of the Women's Studies, but did you feel ever overwhelmed because of like, that's not what you did your dissertation on or like you didn't? Did you feel like ever that there was there was too much going on that you weren't prepared for?

00:07:34 - 00:08:37
Kathleen Blee: Well, so I didn't do my dissertation on that. But I had been at University of Kentucky for 15 years and I had been working in the area of gender there. So that's when I was studying, started studying women in far right politics. So, and I was teaching courses in Gender and Women's Studies, which was then called in at Kentucky for many years. And I've been director there for several, several terms, several terms. So I felt this was a bigger program, I think, but not really all that different from the Kentucky one. So that didn't seem like a big leap. And I came on, I think I was half time. Half of my time was devoted to directing the program, the other half in sociology. So it didn't seem overwhelming. It was just that sort of my time was just divided.

00:08:37 - 00:08:56
Jillian Elton: Yeah. I was going to ask if you notice any big differences between the University of Kentucky Women's Program and the one here at Pitt, whether that be like difference in what undergraduates and faculty wanted to focus on, or differences in how classes were arranged. Did you notice anything like major?

00:09:00 - 00:10:03
Kathleen Blee: I would say in Kentucky, if my memory is correct, the program was very much just within the departments of the Liberal Arts. But Pitt is much more at a university in which the undergraduate program is has a lot of students in the biomedical sciences. And so I would say that. Was more... it's more expansive here, even though it's still in the College of Arts and Sciences. And this program was older, Right? This one program is one of the oldest. So, you know, it was sort of more institutionalized. It grew up in a different era, but in some ways, they were still similar. They were both programs and they were both programs that had wrestled with the issue of whether to become a department or not. And at that time decided not, Kentucky eventually became a department.

00:10:04 - 00:10:20
Jillian Elton: So when you were coming in as director, what sort of goals did you have for the program? How did you want it to grow or is anything wanted to change? What was like sort of the undergraduate and faculty relationship like at that time also?

00:10:20 - 00:11:50
Kathleen Blee: So. If I recall, now, this is a long time ago. One of some of the agendas I had were to. I can't remember if it started then or just expanded the graduate side because it had been pretty much primarily an undergraduate program. So organizing a graduate curriculum that was brought across the campus was one of them. Developing building out the faculty. When I first came it was primarily, or almost maybe all, but one person were faculty whose entire appointment was in other departments and would just teach in Women's Day. So there were only one dedicated women's studies faculty member. So growing the instructional pool and stabilizing that and also creating a predictable set of courses that students could take and making sure that we were reviewing them to be responsive to changes in student needs and interest. I guess those are some of them. Also, just to get the program more known across campus. So that's when we started a regular newsletter and more speaker series, just all those kind of things to. Amplify the program and its direction.

00:11:50 - 00:12:28
Jillian Elton: Mm-hmm. So I was going to ask also, what sort of was the main topics that, I know that you have your particular interests in, like as you mentioned, right wing gender studies and like race studies. But I was wondering like, if that was primary topics that were being discussed at the time, like what did it seem like undergraduates and faculty were really pushing for to study? Because I know when the program first started, it was definitely still like just all women's studies, women's history. So I was wondering if it was still like that or there were some larger topics that the department was shifting to.

00:12:29 - 00:15:23
Kathleen Blee: That's a really good question. I would say when I came women's studies, not just here, but as a field was still pretty much in the women's studies mode. I mean, it wasn't an accident. That name was still there. So the shift to gender studies is later. That was starting to happen when I was director. But but when I first came, I think that was barely on the radar. One of the bigger issues was this issue of whether it should become a department. What were the pros and cons of becoming a department? And during the time I was director. A number of programs around the country shifted from programs to director programs to departments. So the difference is departments can have their own faculty programs typically don't. I mean, that's roughly the idea. And I went to a lot of women's, national women's associations, so forth, and that was a big topic and there was a lot of pros people. Programs that made that shift sometimes felt like the benefits, sometimes felt like they really were hurt by it. And I would say also maybe partly because of that and partly because it's a beginning of the shift from women's studies to gender studies. You started to see more conflict within women's studies, gender studies programs. So, you know, over this department. Who needs who is obligated to work, who is rewarded for working there and and also later, but very soon after this shift from women's studies and gender studies, which, you know, looking back on it, it seems sort of obvious, but at the time was really provoked a lot of internal conflict. So it was I'd say a difficult time for women's studies programs nationally because they had generally been kind of safe havens and really super supportive and sort of for the first time, there was really a pattern of internal conflict. I mean, this only lasted a few years, but I would say that's a pattern I noticed. It happened here. But I would say to a lesser extent than it happened in many places. It didn't tear the program apart. And, you know, people had awkward conversations and often didn't feel feeling good. But, you know, people kept that basic structure and the general supportive, supportive atmosphere of the program, for the most part, persisted.

00:15:23 - 00:15:29
Jillian Elton: So would you say that tension lied more within faculty or with undergraduates?

00:15:30 - 00:16:40
Kathleen Blee: So I would say at that time really among the faculty. So the women's studies then didn't. We were on the 20...I can't remember..-fifth floor. 26th floor. And a tiny little office. And then we were in on the ninth floor in a tiny little office. So I mentioned this because there wasn't really room for undergraduates to hang out. I mean, undergraduates would appear to do to transact some business, to get something signed, but there was no real space for undergraduates to just hang out and meet each other. So undergraduates and graduate students had less of an influence in the program, partly because there was. You know, they weren't around. They were only in classes and many students weren't even taking certificates or minders then. So people weren't even with the same people in classes. So that sort of that great body of of undergraduates that develops in women's studies came later.

00:16:40 - 00:16:41
Jillian Elton: Okay. Okay.

00:16:41 - 00:16:43
Kathleen Blee: And what a breath of fresh air that was.

00:16:43 - 00:17:09
Jillian Elton: Yes, it was. I was about to mention that now with the Women's Studies...GSWS Department being on like the fourth floor and having that space there, it's definitely much different. And I know that the campus women's organization had been prevalent around campus, like around this time. And do you think that was as a result of not being able to organize and meet directly like at the department?

00:17:10 - 00:17:56
Kathleen Blee: I just think that academic programs at that time were more separated from campus life than they are now. So it would be it would have been unusual not just in women's studies, but any other place for undergraduates to have much of an impact on a department or a program. You know, it was just...undergraduates had clubs and undergraduate life, and it was much more separated from academic programs than now part for a bunch of reasons. Like there was an undergraduate research faculty and students mostly interacted in classrooms, not so much beyond. So it was really different and looking back, much more impoverished way of being then than what we have now.

00:17:57 - 00:18:02
Jillian Elton: Yeah. So you prefer the much closer connection between the undergraduate population and faculty now?

00:18:03 - 00:18:16
Kathleen Blee: So yeah, I think it's it's been everybody's benefit. I think it's really rejuvenated the programs and I think it's yeah, it's we'll never it's unimaginable that we would go back from that.

00:18:16 - 00:18:50
Jillian Elton: Okay. Yeah. So was there anybody that you worked with, whether it be an undergraduate in a class or like a faculty member that you really worked closely with? I interviewed Roberta Salper, who was one of the first faculty and helping the department get off the ground. And she mentioned a couple of people, like around the time, that helped her gain her footing at the department or just involved with like national activism at that time. And I was just wondering if there was anybody that you could remember that was particularly helpful.

00:18:50 - 00:19:26
Kathleen Blee: So a lot of the people I would have been. You know, are gone from now. Marianne Novy. What was her name? McAlister. I mean, she was...she was very active in politics, Carol McAllister. But she passed away. Maurine Greenwald was still sort of active. Irene Frieze was active then. You know, so this is like the first wave, right? The initial first guard of people were still very active at that point.

00:19:26 - 00:19:26
Jillian Elton: Okay.

00:19:27 - 00:19:42
Kathleen Blee: So Carol McAllister had...she was a really, a strong activist and a really good influence on moving what was then women's studies in that direction. She's a wonderful person to.

00:19:43 - 00:19:48
Jillian Elton: Thank you. That's actually very helpful. So can you tell me a little bit more about your.

00:19:48 - 00:19:49
Kathleen Blee: Also, Carol Stabile.

00:19:50 - 00:19:51
Jillian Elton: Yes, Yes, Carol.

00:19:51 - 00:20:11
Kathleen Blee: Stabile is another one she was active in and she was the director after me. I think so soon after me, but also another person who is very activist oriented, very involved in the community. Okay.

00:20:12 - 00:20:23
Jillian Elton: Um, so tell me a little bit more about your particular studies. And were you teaching any classes when you came in as director also?

00:20:23 - 00:20:30
Kathleen Blee: Oh, yeah. I taught in both women's studies and in sociology. I think I split my classes that way.

00:20:30 - 00:20:46
Jillian Elton: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about what your classes were like when you first came to Pitt or worked at Kentucky and then what they're like. Like as time moved on? Like, have you found any particular new interest to focus on, especially in today's current political climate?

00:20:47 - 00:22:19
Kathleen Blee: So. Most the classes I've most frequently taught. Certainly since I've been at Pitt have been different kinds of gender studies, feminist theory. I've taught a lot feminist methods. Enduring Politics, that kind of stuff. And similarly in sociology, I taught gender but also teach research methods. I teach research methods a lot in sociology. I actually have never taught a class in the area I study because it's, I think to really understand....So I studied really far right extremism, right? Neo-Nazis and so forth. So to really understand that, you have to be immersed in primary material that I think would be very difficult to assign in a classroom. So oddly enough, I've never actually. So my research has been not entirely but heavily on extreme, extreme, violent white supremacy, including the role of women in those movements. But it's not been in my, and you know, I do a lot of activism and community work in public speaking, but it's never been in my teaching. So oddly enough.

00:22:20 - 00:22:27
Jillian Elton: Yeah, I mean, I definitely understand that. I mean, you can only do so much in a semester, so I definitely understand that.

00:22:27 - 00:22:41
Kathleen Blee: And just the materials really, I mean, it's beyond offensive. It's assaultive. I just think it's...that would be ethically pretty odd to assign that in a class. So.

00:22:42 - 00:22:52
Jillian Elton: Okay, So last question. Future directions for department? Ongoing issues that you have ideas about? Anything like that?

00:22:53 - 00:25:39
Kathleen Blee: So now I have a different, I mean, an additional relationship to GSWS which is so I'm the dean and GSWS is a program in my school. So I've had multiple discussions with various directors. As the directors change about the issue that continues to come up. So it is GSWS best serving faculty and students by being a program, or what should it change your department and know? I'm actually very, as Dean, completely agnostic. You know, that's a decision will have to be made by GSWS, But it is not an easy thing to figure out because, you know, as a program, it has good reach into a lot of different departments and in arts and sciences and beyond. So people from all from many, many areas participate and teach. If you make it to department, you gain some autonomy. So that's a good, hire your own faculty. But the downside is that places that have made that shift sometimes find that people who are not appointed in that department stop participating. So it's just there's not an easy answer to this. I mean, this is the same issue that ethnic studies programs slash departments have gone through. And, you know, I. I don't know which is the right answer. So I'd say this is still on the table, but I don't think it's as divisive as an issue anymore. So the program has made this big shift clear shift to. A much more comprehensive, intersectional and focus on gender studies. I don't seem to be controversial at all anymore, except maybe in the tiniest corners. It's has a great undergraduate program, a great graduate program, you know, really solid group of students and faculty doing top line research. So it's a really in wonderful shape and. Probably almost any direction that goes in will just add to its strength at this point. So are you enjoying being in GSWS?

00:25:39 - 00:26:26
Jillian Elton: Yes, I was actually going to just ask about your hope for undergraduates because I started as a biology major with the intention of going to medical school. But then I took one GSWS class my freshman year. I absolutely loved it, and I just continued to take more and more until I decided to officially make the switch. And this is my full time major now, and I'm planning on going through to grad school and hopefully combining my interests. But it's...I never thought that like there was, because none of this stuff is taught in high school or anything like that. And so coming to college and having these topics is just...especially like all the history, the very intersectional intersectional history that's not talked about is very, very interesting to me.

00:26:27 - 00:26:53
Kathleen Blee: So one of my very good friends is if I see the medical school here and I'll just channel what she would say, which is there's not one route to medical school. And you know that old idea that there's a pre-med track and you follow the track and that's how you get in. That is not so true anymore. So I just have to tell you what Ann would say.

00:26:53 - 00:26:55
Jillian Elton: Still an option. Yes.

00:26:55 - 00:27:07
Kathleen Blee: So that's still on the table. You should think of that, if that's your passion. There's certainly a lot of desperate need for feminists in the medical profession.

00:27:07 - 00:27:25
Jillian Elton: Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit of a mixed bag. I definitely want to be involved, but maybe through public policy. So that's what I'm looking into. But what is your advice? Do you have any advice for undergraduates who are maybe taking a GSWS class or full time GSWS majors?

00:27:26 - 00:28:48
Kathleen Blee: I think, I think it's a first of all, it's a wonderful major on its own, right? I mean, it opens all kinds of explorations of different parts of the world. Right? You know, you can see so many things through a gender lens that really tilt your understanding in important ways. I also think it's a major that is really great to combine with a second major. I know a lot of our students are doing double major, major and minor, and I think GSWS is one of those majors that enhances any other major minor, right. It just anything else you're interested in or passionate about? You know, if you're a music major, you know, I would encourage people to also be a GSWS arts major. I mean, the whole understanding music through a gender lens is really interesting and important. So I guess that's my advice is a wonderful standalone major, but it's a really a spectacular way to combine that understanding with whatever else you're passionate about, which I know a lot of students do. And students are wonderful, wonderful and just extraordinary and combining knowledge in different ways.

00:28:48 - 00:28:56
Jillian Elton: Yes. Yeah, I agree. I think it's fantastic to combine and it definitely changes your whole perspective on your other classes or whatever else you're studying.

00:28:56 - 00:28:58
Kathleen Blee: So what year are you?

00:28:58 - 00:29:03
Jillian Elton: I'm a junior, so I'm a third year. Halfway done now, but yeah.

00:29:04 - 00:29:05
Kathleen Blee: More than halfway.

00:29:05 - 00:29:12
Jillian Elton: Yes, but yeah, that's exciting. So thank you so much. I have no more questions. Do you have any questions for me?

00:29:13 - 00:29:18
Kathleen Blee: No, not really. Well, this, you're making this into a repository right?

00:29:19 - 00:29:19
Jillian Elton: Yes.

00:29:19 - 00:29:21
Kathleen Blee: Students can draw from?

Jillian Elton

Kathleen Blee

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