Daniel Lowery and Aimee Perhach

00:03 Hi, my name is Daniel Lowery. I'm 65 years old and today is January 6th, 2018. We're in Chicago, Illinois. And Amy / hatch is my partner and I was her professor for several classes at Calumet College of st. Joseph.

00:22 My name is Amy / hatch. I'm 25 years old. Today is January 6th 2018 in Chicago Cultural Center, and I'm I was a dance students for classes.

00:39 As you know anybody I know so it's really really want to thank you for agreeing to do this and it really means a lot to me and for me here.

00:55 I tried to think of like some specific things. They sent that you've done so much for your life and it's been a long life.

01:07 So I find it very hard to narrow down. Should I ask about specific things that you've done about that? I thought about like some of the qualities that I admire most I want to kind of but first I would like you to tell me about your childhood like growing up and your life up to up to and including my hedge like a quick snapshot is I grew up in Northwest Indiana my twin brother and I are the oldest of seven children.

01:42 My father was a cement finisher. My mother was a seamstress. They work very very hard to feed all of us. It was a different era we grew up in the 50s on the early sixties. I suppose you'd say now we were poor but we didn't quite understand it that way by Backstreet M. And it was in we grew up in a small town. So where everyone knew everyone else and we knew our grandparents. We had a large extended family. So it was a it was a very good good childhood. We are also involved in the church very significantly the Catholic church. So that was a big part of our life at that time at that time to continue with the snapshot when this was the remember. This is a 1960s. There was no Pell Grant so I have wasn't able to fear the oldest of seven kids. You don't go to college if your family is poor. So I worked in the steel mill for a year-and-a-half.

02:41 Turn them some money to go to college went to college fell in love with my wife and Barbara in College Saint Albans some 43 years that we've been married majored in history and philosophy went to work for the federal government. What's with the federal government for 20 years and then found my way into Academia or somewhere along the line or in a couple of masters degrees on a PhD and I was at Indiana University Northwest for for 10 years and now Calumet College of st. Joseph for the last 11 years, including six years as president. So that's a snapshot. I'm also a deacon in the Catholic Church.

03:23 St. Mary's Catholic Church in Crown Point you and your mother remembers of St. Mary's as well. So we have a dual relationship. Not only they College relationship at the church relationship as well after it's been interesting. So that's a broad outline, you know, so

03:42 I'm curious what you were like as a young person. I don't know that I'm the most reflective person in the world, but I suppose you would say I was very I was a very serious student. Neither one of my parents had a high school diploma, but they took education very seriously and encouraged us in our studies. So I was very very serious. Yes. I did go in high school. I did go to the cemetery thinking that I had a calling to be a priest when I was a young man for a couple of years. So well, this was the late 1960s and there was a lot of unrest both politically and I would say in the church as well.

04:28 So like many many students, I went through something of a rebellious. That during the 1960's and and so I drifted away from the church for a. Of time. It's only as an adult after I had children myself that I found my way back.

04:43 Speaking of the sixties and I told her to ask you once told me you fully experience the 60s experience with us an interesting time the 60s you've heard all the stories of the sixties, of course, but it was we went from the optimism of the Kennedy administration to 1968 which saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Bobby Kennedy the Vietnam War. It was just a whirlwind of a ride the 1960s and just a lot of turmoil not unlike politically.

05:29 Experience we're going through right now to me this feels a lot like the 1960s the polarisation in society the political poll hours in the generational polarisation three different causes very different causes but it feels almost the same way. Then I think to me what's most interesting of the most interesting parallel between the two as we don't quite know where our current situation is going to hand and that's the way we felt in the 1960s. It was hard to see through to the other side weather was Vietnam weather was the generational divide. It was hard to see what it was going to look like 10 years down the road and that's that's one of the parallels to today. It's hard to imagine what we are going to be politically and socially 10 years from sodium the imagination falters and that that was the that was the parallel between the two two time. So, I think

06:26 But somehow I obviously they pulled through intact while we got through it. But you have to remember the 1970s were pretty miserable experience both for the country economically, but also socially we were we were kind of adrift in many respects in the 1970s. So the recriminations from the Vietnam War continued deep deep deep into the 70s into the 1980s leave them. So that was a very difficult experience. I would hope that somehow we're going to come out of the cart experience in better shape than we came out of the 1960s, but we'll see that I only said that because I'm using that language of like the end of the world probably noticed I have had very well. It's not the end of the world. It's it's opaque. We don't know what it's going to look like. You know, it's hard to imagine.

07:24 What's going to happen over the next year let alone what's going to happen over the next 10 years.

07:30 There's also a little bit more of a

07:33 End times feel about the current situation because of issues like global warming interesting. We were talking about nuclear war again.

07:44 That's something we talked about in the 1960s and and pretty much not so much thereafter.

07:51 So so that some of the anxiety The Angst you know that's associated with the current time. That seems very familiar with two 45 years ago those about to erupt in during that time. So that there are parallels having said that it's it's it's a very different our fault lines politically at that time. We're very much over. The war. The war was the issue. We were all young man. We are all worried about the draft and where our number was going to come up in the lottery trying to decide. What was the right thing to do.

08:31 We also had friends and family members who died or were injured in the war?

08:38 That's something that's quite different from the current time. Because were we been in war for many many years now since 9/11.

08:47 But it's a volunteer army. And so those who are dying or or and are injured aren't family members of the middle class for the most part. They're young man women to now from Farm communities and also from urban areas not so much from middle-class Suburbia. So in essence that's kind of isolated also a little bit from that time. He spends at the same time. I have to tell you back then, you know, every loss of every soldier gets recounted on the news every night no back then we could lose a hundred men in one day and it was just it was a body count and we get a body count. Listen to Walter Cronkite every night and you tell us there was a body count for the United States. We lost 35 soldiers and the North Vietnamese the Viet Cong lost 3000.

09:42 They were those were alternative facts alternative facts did not begin in the current political regime be at alternative facts back then as well largely manufactured by the defense department so their similarities, but there is also very very deep differences. The commonality is the opaqueness of what's next. That's that's how it was hard to imagine then it's hard to imagine right now, I think

10:07 May I ask what how did vietnam.war like affected your life anxiety over the draft. I remember I was in college at Eastern Illinois University and we had someone who had just come back from Vietnam for some reason he had his uniform.

10:30 In his dorm closet and we're all still remember there was no internet. We had one room in the entire dorm floor that had a black and white TV with a small screen and head rabbit ears with tin foil wrapped around it and we could get a couple of stations and we all sat around probably about 15 of us in that room watching a lottery numbers to come up.

10:54 Amanda

10:56 And it was kind of an interesting experience because this was the second year of the lottery the first year. The numbers are gone up to something like 1:18 or 1:20 and my number came up and I think it was 111 or something like that. And this this young man went down to his closet pulled out his uniform came back into the room where we had the TV and he just draped it over me and said here try this on so but we had to decide at that time, you know, do you

11:26 Do you go to Canada or do you go into the deep go to servapure drafted? And that was a real existential question that each of us had to face and at that time I had decided that that if I was drafted I would go cuz the idea that someone else would would go because I was not available. I couldn't quite live with that. So that was the ethical decision that had to be made but we spent a lot of time over coffee and over beer, you know debating those questions. What should we do? If you were opposed to the war I had a cousin was killed in Vietnam. I had a classmate in the Seminary who was killed in Vietnam. So had an impact on those we knew on families we knew.

12:11 And and because the draft was something we all experience our whole generation and wasn't a volunteer army. So it was a very different kind of experience and we have now I didn't have to go when I was delighted and because that was not where my interests were calling me at that time in my life. So

12:31 But it was

12:35 You know, it's just it it if I have been called up. I would have gone them.

12:40 Can we pretend I can't imagine you having been military person?

12:45 Well, you never know. I was you know, when you're 22 years old, you're not a finished product. So I was probably pretty malleable at that point. Like I suppose I could have done a lot of different things lunch or 65. You're pretty well stuck in your ways you are what you are. So that's a different experience. So I would have had to have gotten a haircut. So that's certainly true at that time. But did you look like I was thin and had long hair and and my nickname in college was ranked.

13:18 Because I always had wrinkled clothes. I did I couldn't afford an iron so so a pretty basic didn't have two nickels to rub together at that time. So my wife and I would go on a date the entire day was going to the the Student Union to share one Cherry Coke cuz that's all I could afford. So I was I was a poor student in every sense of the words in every sense of every sense of the word.

13:49 Dial Barry Davis if that was a different time, but without Pell Grants course at that time tuition was about $1,500 a semester 2. So that was College was much more affordable than that.

14:08 I have of course. I have to ask him Zyrtec about your younger days. Did you ever get in trouble with most straight-laced arsenide home? So no. I don't. I don't I don't know that I know nothing to speak of how's that for an answer? No, I never I never had any brushes with the law or just normal family Clash of some things like that, you know fist fights with Brothers. We get all the normal stuff, but that was about it at the sisters of Notre Dame at the Catholic grade school. We went to and they did a pretty good job of keeping us all in line. So so not so much trouble.

14:56 So

14:57 You mentioned that you and that you work for the government. How did that that was the most that was the majority of your tell me about that time? I'm sure you know when we went to college or something. It's very different than today's college students in the vast majority of today's college students are very job-oriented. They're looking to get a credential bunch of ticket to move on to the rest of their life. That was very very different attitude from the one that certainly that certainly that I had and many of my friends had at that time again, we were we were kids of the 6 days and so we were interested in pursuing our interest and so I would take classes that I was interested in not even thinking about a job.

15:48 And so I ended up being a history and philosophy major.

15:53 Well, I graduated immediately looked at the want ads cuz you couldn't look online and I did not see a single job for a philosopher or historian.

16:02 So - now what am I doing? Well at that point I was married.

16:07 And I needed to do something. Certainly. I had thought perhaps law school, but I really didn't feel called to the law actually thought about the military actually has a way to get up a further education. That was an option, but then I settled on a working for the federal government. And so I started with the Social Security Administration in 75 and I stayed with them for the next 20 years and had a wonderful career and I learned a lot a lot on those jobs and worked with a lot of really finding people and I would say those are the formative years of your life. That's when things settled in and so the habit I have professionally today or not the habits of an academic even though I've been in Academia for 22 years so that the work habits of a dedicated we would say bureaucrat.

17:01 So even if I'm not teaching I tend to show up at work and I tend to show up early and I tend to stay late. So those are the years in your 20s in your 30s where you're really formed an inner inner into the stable habits that sustain you over a lifetime. So so as much as I love Academia, and I've been in Academia for 22 years at at my heart. I'm I'm a government employee if I in terms of my habits in terms of my habits, and so had a great career with the Social Security Administration.

17:36 And what led to your leaving that? Well, I had served 20 years my two children were about to head off to college.

17:48 And I had done started doing some Consulting on the side.

17:52 And I was doing that Consulting on behalf of Indiana University Northwest or I got in a master's degree in Business Clubs doing consulting in healthcare on the side and it really just kind of took off there was a lot of interest in that Consulting at that time that I was doing an essentially. I had a consulting firm that was trying to hire me and Indiana to head up a new division in healthcare.

18:17 And Indiana University Northwest found out about it and they made a counter-offer.

18:23 And counter-offer was not as good financially, but it was it was it was such an offer that it would have allowed me to get a PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago. So that was something I always I thought that was the other path not taken that I never have that opportunity. So I went with the IU opportunity the Indiana University opportunity and that it did allow me to get a PhD and at each which I enjoyed. I been an Adjunct professor at IU for for about 5 years. And so I made the big decision to make the big jump and that was a hard decision. It was a hard decision to walk away from a pension in a career and everything. You know, I can still remember saying at Ami Furniture hadn't arrived at IU yet. So I I had a card table and I was sitting at that card table that very first day and I said what have I done?

19:12 I just walked away from a career and and it turned out it was it was a very good thing that allowed me to have to take that other path not taken something. I have to remind students today is that most of our students will have multiple careers not just multiple jobs and it didn't it's part of staying alive is to be open to those other opportunities those other careers.

19:37 Eventually got from from IU at 1 to after 10 years that are you.

19:45 I decided are you at that time was a very unhappy place? It was a very unhappy faculty and I did not want to spend the last third of my career at an unhappy place in the president at Calumet College of st. Joseph had been kidding lyric routing me for about five years. And so I said while Dennis are you serious about this and he said yes, and I said, well, let's do it.

20:09 So before I knew it, I was at Calumet College of st. Joseph and within a year-and-a-half ice. I somehow went from Professor to the dean academic Dean and then three years later. I was president when he first went to when I originally came there cuz it wasn't. Well. I have a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, you know, I have a history and philosophy background. So I am grounded in the humanities, but I have a masters in business and master in pastoral studies at Catholic theological Union and a PhD in public administration. So my background has been in administration weather business public or church and so I taught Capstone courses in the business program strategic planning belt on a lot of the Consulting I had done over the years.

21:03 Once I became president, as you know why I gravitated more toward the social justice course that we teach which is a foundational course at the college introduction to Catholicism some philosophy and I took a course on religious existentialism. For instance. It was an independent study very interesting course from my perspective note then send me into numerous life crisis or crises something. I'm glad I could help with you.

21:43 It's right now, but I've finished the actual course for now because they're obviously taking that while taking all the other class. I didn't have the time to really all that. So I realize that now I have a whole stack of tissue known as you now know you moved from life crisis to life crisis. It's a momentary thing. So so if God bless you on your journey through so much at a wonderful point in life now that I step down as president and then I'm a professor Ken that I can teach just the courses I want to teach which is a great blessing It's a Wonderful blessing so, you know what these are the kinds of things opportunities. I wish I had had in my 30s 40s and 50s, but if you keep waking up every morning you you you actually eventually get old enough to have those opportunities to teach what you wanted to eat, So it's my teacher primarily in Argenta program now particularly some of the Court courses on critical thinking but also social justice and introduction to philosophy and so

22:46 Social justice has been a major Focus for your life and your understanding of social justice and how that is grounded in my religious Faith this idea of social justice. I think the gospels are clear.

23:05 I reading this morning is from 1st John John's first letter and it says that we are to Love In Deed as well as and word. We can look at Matthew 25. We can look at all of Luke's gospel to be a Christian. I believe again growing not just Christianity, but growing clearly out of the Jewish scriptures as well the need to attend the obligation to attend to the needs of the anawim those who live on the margins of life. So I see that as a religious obligation, not much. My life has been in the in the non-religious public sphere.

23:46 As you know, I did head up a nonprofit organization called the quality of life console which was co-chaired by the presidents and chancellors of six universities and we worked on public policy issues in Northwest, Indiana, so we didn't talk about religion there. But most certainly my motivation is been primarily tied to my my sense of my face and the obligations that at 10 to that that was what is great things about moving to Calumet College of st. Joseph so I could for ground those foundational beliefs as well as talk about public policy issues. But but again being grounded in with a Masters in Business pastoral studies and public administration a PhD in public administration a lot of a lot of the actual work I've done has had to do with the ministration issues or a building consensus of a public nature publishing studies having to do with quality of life.

24:46 Northwest Indiana and trying to maybe add a little bit of reason to public discourse they have in a very divided geographic region.

24:58 Except that's one of the things that of your life. That's kind of inspired me the most it like that's something that I feel. Rhymes Like social justice issue is butt and a guy to Catholic background, but I don't know where that's going to take me at 10 to let some things kind of inspired me to realize it may not always be exposed to like church-related Bible story about that. I could not have told you when I was your age where I thought life was going to leave me. I didn't have a clue.

25:35 But I remember probably 1978 or 79 had a friend. We were both young the supervisors with the Social Security Administration. I remember this conversation is clear as a bell. We're sitting having coffee at a coffee break. And for some reason we started talking about career steps and he pulled out a piece of paper out of his pocket and it laid out every single step of his the next 35 years in his career than what he was going to do and where he was going to do it.

26:07 And I remember looking at it and saying for my gosh, first of all, I'm impressed. I've never I have trouble thinking about tomorrow level 35 years from now the other part of me thought well, that's kind of silly because you don't know where life is going to lead you.

26:25 So in many respects from your perspective it look make my life may look like a planned life. It was not a planned life. There was a lot more Serendipity than you can possibly imagine what I would also like to thank from a faith perspective that there were no judges of the spirit here and there and put it this direction or that direction but young people have narrow if I if I could suggest some wisdom. It's it's maintaining an openness to what life is going to offer you.

26:58 I'll because you just don't know and some of the things that life offers are difficult some of the things that life offers are traumatic some of the things that life offers have a certain Wonder to it and it's obvious to see God's grace but you have to be open to those things. And so when you're looking at someone my age, it looks like a clearly well plan coherent life while I can tell you it was anything but anything but and but I would I would encourage, you know, don't be ossified with a plan that that young man. I was talking to a 1978 or 1979. None of those steps. He had imagined came true. It doesn't work out that way. That's not the way life works you remain open to those experiences.

27:49 Some of which may not be so wonderful on the one hand.

27:59 After I get a little bent out of shape, sometimes when you asked me just because I'm that kind of person that like panics about things a lot. But I've always appreciate that whenever I have like some sort of idea of what I'm doing that you always ask like about the Big Bear this fits in the big picture at that and it's always appreciated because I'm right. I know I tend to go out at this time. So the little bit sometimes like button my response to that but I'm going to speak out of both sides of my mouth here. Okay, you have to think about that. You have to think about those things and to a certain extent every time you open go through one door. You are closing another door.

28:45 But I've been amazed over.

28:48 You know.

28:51 Say the last 45 years how opportunities that you can't even imagine open them themselves to you. I could not have imagined. I just couldn't have imagined enjoying my career with Social Security Administration so much and how much I would learn it was incredible. I could not have imagined ever going back to school and yet it seems like I've been in school my whole life. I could not have imagined ever becoming a deacon that was that was so far beyond the pale light. I just couldn't even imagine that I couldn't imagine having five grandchildren how much fun that would be.

29:29 So these are things I could not have imagined when I was in my twenties are in my 30s smoke a so part of it is being open to the wonder that is wife. Do you know and enjoying it now? I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth because of the same time I'm saying you got to think about those things to think about what you have to do is you have to just kind of also accept the fact well other things may happen and and and from a religious perspective. God will be with me in those things both wonderful and tragic.

30:07 And until you that'll give him a measure of peace to your discernment process. I think you know, but if someone had told me that when I was your age would have gone in one ear and out the other so this may be something you'll recalled. That's it is helpful now to

30:26 I take this thing seriously, and I'm sorry.

30:29 I've been nervous about like the fact that things aren't happening on the that is what what is what did Socrates say?

30:39 That's the test and a corollary to the exactions life is pretty miserable to okay. So and so now we turn from Socrates to Aristotle and you look for the main the main the middle. Okay. It's the middle between Socrates first Axiom. It is corollary Middleton.

31:06 I do appreciate that. I've always appreciate that. You reminded me of that from time to time. I had my own timeline of how I thought it's my life Woods.

31:22 I don't want to when I was a member and in this is a trivial example, but when I was with the Social Security Administration and I was Rising very fast in the agency. I was an up-and-coming guy was very political organization. However, if I made a wrong decision instantly I thought well, that's the end of my career or that's the end of my life that every decision seemed more of than other than I could possibly imagine and that was not the case. I was just so wrong about all of that. So wrong about about all of that but again every generation every person

32:02 Has to learn these lessons themselves you cannot imagine how much wisdom you required by making hundreds of wrong decisions over the course of girl do regret not I don't but I think that over examined life is pretty miserable. So I I'm I'm more concentrated on the moment and and what's next what's being asked of me next and so I don't anguish and I think to a certain extent that's given me a certain suppleness into accepting what comes before me to so when that maybe some people may see that is a defect that I don't anguish. I do not English whatever happened yesterday is nothing I can do about it. So I tend to always be focused on the future.

32:53 Compare always really admired about you. And at first like when I first got to know you was more curiosity than admiration at first that you in front of your position. But at that time you were the presidents College like there is certain Aspen Dental Association. We have that what kind of person that is very down-to-earth and well and that comes out of coming out of a family of seven brothers and sisters have a way of holding your feet to the ground part of it is about having a long and loving marriage. Another saying that says that no man is here on the eyes of his wife. They know too much.

33:42 So family keeps you grounded. Okay failure keeps you grounded Faith keeps you grounded. All those things. I think faith is a big part of that to my please remind ourselves everyday that every person we meet every person is incredibly loved by God. Well, how am I to think anything different that also so all those things in life help you stay grounded and I think that's that's a challenge with some some people who are leadership in our country today.

34:18 Don't have those back rounding and so it's it's but I feel very fortunate in that regard. You know there been people around me my entire life. You've kept me while grounded.

34:33 Well, I appreciate you like that. You're being surrounded that you would even when I was a freshman with your no reason to still have urgent like that you well, we needed your tuition.

34:49 We really needed your tuition payment to make to make ends meet. So when we appreciate them so strictly to pay your sentence it did.

35:05 But I've always I really did appreciate that this

35:10 Edit that's always meant watch me. Our relationship has always meant a great deal to me. And those are the people I appreciate it in my life. I know we all have examples certainly. My father was a great hero of mine unfortunate that he still alive and we have one of the great lessons in life is when we grow older to recognize our parents.

35:36 As full human beings even with fault leaving with thoughts and the limit of challenges they face in life and my parents were just kids when I was born. So I've seen them through an entire lifetime and they've been a great example to me as well.

35:54 I don't as you know, I don't come from that but happy birthday or even stable home. So your perspective will change your perspective will change there comes a point of acceptance when we accept our parents even with our limitations as I hope my children, except me and my limitations cuz they didn't always see me at my best. They saw me when I was young and immature and I'm actually a much better grandparents and I was a parent and then I was so that's that's a blessing in life to that you get a second chance with your grandchildren.

36:27 Give me the stern parental shirt at I've sometimes he did that. I wasn't appreciated that done while in college. Now. We've seen you Blossom significantly as a person. Then you have a bright future in front of you and I have no idea what it's going to entail and neither do you but but stay grounded and all those the advice that I would give you

36:56 And I darken

37:00 And I know that I was very afraid like at the end of things that all the important relationship that's also a big difference, you know, when we separated in college from our friends and faculty. We never saw them again never heard from them again Electronics change everything piano in the world today. So we're never really out of touch with the people. We've had life experiences with that's one of the great great blessings of the current day compared to when I was young that wasn't the end of the story.

37:40 So I don't really want to end it by saying goodbye since this isn't goodbye or two.

37:52 Thank you.