Christopher Schedler, Sara Schedler, and Gilbert Schedler

00:03 I am Christopher schedler and I am 52 today is Wednesday, July 29th, 2020 and I'm in Ellensburg, Washington. I'm here with Sara schedler who is my sister.

00:26 Sara schedler mine 41 years old today is Wednesday, July 29th. 2020. I'm in Stockton California and my conversation partners. Are there my brother and my dad Gilbert Chandler today is July 29th, 2020 and I'm in Stockton California and I'm talking with my son Chris and my daughter Sarah.

01:02 And just to say this is Sarah again that I'm speaking with my brother Chris and my dad.

01:11 I am so thank you for being here. Both of you and Dad.

01:17 I want just a little context for our conversation since you and I have a lot in common in our career paths were both College professors. We both teach literature. Do you are also a professor of

01:32 And chair and religious studies and I was a double major in English and religion. I mentioned to you before how you've influenced know my desire to teach and my love of literature you you name me after one of your favorite authors DH Lawrence. My middle name is Lawrence and I wrote about Lawrence in my dissertation and my book order modernism. We are teaching paths have overlapped briefly, but you started teaching in 1967 and you retired in 2004. I started teaching in 2003 and I've been teaching for 17 years now. So there's been 50 years 50 plus years where we've been involved in higher education and a lot has changed in the way that we teach so I want to talk a little bit about teaching with

02:32 You and we're still dealing with a lot of issues in higher education and in American society today that you faced as a new professor in the 1960s and that were still facing today. So I was hoping we can talk about some of those kinds of issues and compare them across our are different Generations. So first question, I want to ask you is why did you want to become a college professor?

03:03 When I was 12 years old, I got a bicycle and I bicycle to the local library in Louisville, Kentucky. And the first book I pulled off. The shelf was Ernest Hemingway. Old Man in the sea, and I read it and I don't think I understood much but I went back and back to that and literature was a way of becoming open. I was raised in a parsonage. My dad was a minister and I wanted to get a broader view of the world. Although I wouldn't been able to articulate it at that time, but I loved literature and it is so enhance my life that I can always stop. Well, I would want to be a high school English teacher, but as it went I finally did go on to do my doctorate and

04:03 It it was a love affair. I mean I got my Ph.D is in religion and literature and and I taught both intro to religion world religions and The English Department. So anything I read and that was exciting to me I could teach and so it's it's been a wonderful Arc in my life that at that I had these vocational opportunities at so that's another interesting connection that Hemingway was your kind of introduction to literature and I ended up writing about anyway to in my dissertation and Bucky's been an author that I've worked with throughout my career. So in terms of literature you said for you you it opened you up to a wider world. Do you feel like that is what you want students to get out of literature to or why? Why teach

05:03 Literature, what's the value of literature for four students and deepens your feelings about life and yourself and and I love working with younger people. And I know how hard I had to struggle to win my own way of looking at the world and I I thought that that would be a wonderful thing that I could contribute to help people young people open up their world and think broadly about the world and and themselves and so that was my way of going into teaching

05:50 So that in terms of your favorite aspect of teaching is that is that what you enjoy like seeing students opened up to New Perspectives or what? What what do you enjoy about teaching?

06:06 Well, yes, I was lucky enough to teach many seminar type classes in to sit around a table and and have the text of James Joyce who is Will one of my major authors that I specialized in then and just to chat with them and get their feedback and then the find out what they're thinking and CC the the Sparks coming alive in their eyes. It was I loved my work. I love my work and and I talked a couple years before I came to University of the Pacific talk for a year apart time at Washington University. And then I taught at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, but it always loved young people and I I loved interacting with them informally and and encourage them to ask me any questions about their life and their amp

07:06 Mission San and I thought for a while. I might even want to be a dean of students to to do a lot of counseling with students. So in the classroom was a fun way of doing it more intellectually.

07:23 That sounds like the the conversation the dialogue the discussion was what was really interesting to you in terms of teaching and sharing ideas. I know that also in terms of opening students up to a wider world you actually traveled with students as well throughout the world at least early in your career, right starting a cluster College a based on the kind of Oxford a plan in England and we sent our entire sophomore class to India and then that was about 90 students and I went to India for a year of with the students and I was a kind of dean of students while we were in Bangalore India and I taught American literature to graduate students at University Bangalore and the Fulbright lecturer became ill and I did almost all the Fulbright lecturing in the India from the top.

08:23 Country to the bottom with fellow Indian professors and it was just a wonderful wonderful experience to do spend a year in India and my father's stand in the wedding was a missionary in in Indiana and so early on he used to have his sabbaticals in our parsonage and I saw all the little inner animals from from India that he would bring back and I've always dreamed about going to India. So that was a black man. You took me a long to and too happy about that. But I told her that there was a Peace Corps peanut butter and chickens and then we take care of you and we all survived.

09:19 How do you think your students would describe you as a teacher?

09:28 I love it.

09:30 I just know I'd love to talk and and I left the sort of challenge them put them on edge to say things that were semi ridiculous and tried to get them to say that doesn't work. And for example when I taught the film in my religious studies class, it would say Professor. There's no religion in this movie, How can you teach that and I'd have good back and forth with them. I would say things like you've heard that God is loving and then this is about love this movie is about love and they just shake their heads, but I got them to think I think so. Anyway, I remember one particular class the Bible as literature, right?

10:30 You

10:35 Draw kids or young adults out of themselves and really to relax and have fun and and I felt they could more readily have their minds when I would say something ridiculous. That would give them the courage to say, okay, if you're going to say something else. Anyway, it was there was quite a bit of laughter in my my classes classes. You are kind of an instigator, right you're playing Devil's Advocate and forcing students into thinking in different ways challenging them and the pillars of taoism are nature Aesthetics humor and silence and the humor big part night. I say, where do you find any

11:35 Humor in the Bible. You guys said love the Bible so much, you know humor is very important in life and and and they put up their hand and say but but Professor that isn't a religion you haven't mentioned God and I said, yeah well know it would say a living religion now in China and then if it's best captures my view of life.

12:00 Do you think that came from you like challenging your own religious upbringing for some way of approaching things up? I talked to Humanities. So for many years and then I will was transferred to the major college with a an appointment in religion because they wanted a younger guy does stir things up with a joint appointment in English. And so I really had to I was now a professor of religious studies in many years chairman. And what is my vision and they Das will what's your vision and I read and I read and I finally discovered taoism and then I'll come in and say I'm a Taoist and nobody would know what that man. That was perfect so I could just go on and on about things so so I have a lot of fun with that.

13:00 Do you think that your teaching changed at all over your career? I mean now so computers and technology is such a part of teaching. Did you ever did he ever use technology in your classes or did you ever change the the way you approach teaching over the course of your career?

13:23 Call my students change who are the first one I taught in the cluster College of we got students that turn down Yale and Stanford to come to Callison and we got students from New York and all over later on. Most of our students were from Central California and Los Angeles soak the student body change and I change to I was forced to do a little with technology. I'm really not very good at it. In fact when the dean of the college said we're going to give every Professor their own computer a years ago. I said, I don't want computer. I don't like computers. And so finally I realized that my students were copying all our papers off the computer and so I had to get a computer so I can track them down and and my secretary was just so wonderful with the computer and cheap. She helped me a lot so that that changed a little bit and then as I said the students change their rich

14:23 They were very liberal and open and it was a late sixties. Everybody was crazy. It was wonderful. And then later on I got more and more conservative students. Zach one student told me my my Minister told me with you go to University of Pacific. Don't take any religious studies courses does although try to do is destroy your vision. Hello, Idaho say go to the philosophy department. They are Roman Catholics over there. They'll teach you religion. So so I had a lot of fun with that. So right and right now because of the pandemic, you know, almost all schools are closed and bakhtiar teaching all their courses online through these kind of platform. What do you think? It would have been like for you to have to teach like this through a computer to your classes?

15:23 Ed's programs in his worked out of approaches to that then I willingly and lovingly pass it all onto you cuz I I would have been lousy at it, you know without being able to stand up there and interact and then make jokes and challenge them. It would have been very difficult for me to make that change. Yeah, I think that that's probably like one of the biggest transitions that has occurred in higher education and in terms of online learning and therapy virus and stuff. Yeah. Yeah and Sarah teaches online to now so that's something bad that you just have to do as an educator now, which is interesting.

16:11 So you were talking about the sixties and your students since so, I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about the social environment during that time. And social protest which we're going on then and and as we see now, so what would you say their social environment was like in the 1960s the late 1960s when you started teaching

16:36 Oh and the Vietnam war is knowing and right before your mother and I were married a piece of the workers down in Mississippi went missing in the end. I was we are both your mother and I are both going to graduate school University of Chicago and I was just thinking you know, why it why shouldn't I go to Mississippi? And it was really tough on me, but I involve myself in protest and march with Martin Luther King in Chicago. In fact, I was interviewed on national TV. I was mistakenly seen as the leader of the group and later. My father people in my father's current gation said, you know, your son was on National Television arguing against the Vietnam War and dad said, that's okay.

17:36 What you need to do, which I thought was what was good. But when I started teaching at UOP race relations were not big there were very few black students on campus and those that we're all football players. We had a football program in if you saw an Afro-American student you pretty much knew that he was a football player but then we dropped football and very few Afro-American students on our camp with some but mainly now we're on the the West Coast a lot of Asian students a lot of immigrants from Vietnam. And and we also get a lot of exchange students from China, but I'm from we used to get a lot from the Middle East before I die would teach Muslims in my intro to religion class and that was really tough because they would say all truth is in the

18:36 In the car on and I couldn't get them to to say anything. And even when the FAA paw came out against Salman Rushdie. I took a student the only student who would talk in class at the master class. And I said, what do you think about this follow-up? And he said, oh, yeah, it is our custom if a Muslim speaks against and goes against Islam. It is our custom to kill them. So anyway, but they were there protests on the campus on your campus against the war or civil rights or women's rights or came to give the speech. Your mother was one of the protesters that marched around the tower again said there was a little bit and then one of my calling organized protests again.

19:36 The Vietnam War and every Thursday night. He he and his students would stand out on a Major Street and with posters and so on so forth there was there was a but you know, I during the summer of 68 with a that was a democratic convention. I oh I was in India doing preview work. And so I was kind of out of that and then then I spend a whole year in India. So I was a little bit removed from a but it was a very weird to me to fly from Hong Kong to India and fly at 3000 feet or what are 30,000 feet and Below at the American bombers were bombing Cambodia Vietnam if it was so terrible to think about but I was so challenged by my new life and responsibilities and India that I didn't think of

20:36 That much and I was a little bit of an ivory Tower Professor that the that James Joyce and DH Lawrence and then then studying was was my location. But I also especially during my graduate years. I was a very concerned fact that I was one of the first people to put up posters against Goldwater in 1964 are around Wittenberg University and then they were torn down so politically involved and my daughter Sarah here is really been a wonderfully involved the person in politics and climate change and all those important issues. It's exciting to see how involved she is in. I know you Chris to RR wear while the issue

21:36 Your wife and yeah and my granddaughter Ray know who who goes to Wesleyan where her both your mother and father went to Wesleyan sat now. She said it's really great cheerleader. Yeah. It's interesting because you know so much of of social protest and political activism starts on college campuses and yet during this time. When all the campuses are closed it's not really a sight for that kind and I noticed that particularly during the black lives matter protest this spring know normally a lot of that would be taking place on college campuses, but I care in Ellensburg. It was actually high school students that started the the black lives matter marches here and and there were some college students that became involved but it's it's difficult than in this kind of pandemic 2 to have that kind of protesting maybe more of its taking place, you know in cities and

22:36 Oh, absolutely. That's that's my experience to in the in the 60 late 60s and 70s. The University campus was the center of fermented challenge in protest and now it sits in the inner cities and in the high schools as you say, you know, the newer generation coming on as my daughter. Sarah has noticed the little Hope rehab today is probably with high school student self versity today my University, I wouldn't recognize it. It's up pre-professional. It says there's not much going on about protests or so and so forth.

23:28 Do you sew in watching the news then the the black lives matter protests and the the protests against police killings of blacks. Do you see any similarities in terms of what was going on in the sixties? And the response that that the government has to it? I guess 68 in Chicago. What was very bad about violence. But as I said, I was in India during that time and I didn't understand it. But what's going on today with all of the the federal troops coming in and all that stuff that that that's a very different feel from what we were doing. It's really pretty sad by hundreds. So yeah, so I'm on those topics and thinking about the government and

24:28 Do you have any memories of like Richard Nixon and Watergate and his removal from Office King and Robert Kennedy were both shot and killed that that spring and that was the summer that I went on my own with a colleague to India and it was devastating. It was a sad sad. I really do both Nixon and Johnson just I have so much trouble with in an interesting enough more Johnson than Nixon because Johnson escalating and getting us into I was just I rate them than I did March and protest and also did the pro pro freedom in choice.

25:28 About abortion was another issue that I was out on the streets with with a lot of female qualities. In fact, I was one of the founders of the religion with the women's studies program at my University and when it came to a final vote in the college, I put up my hand and said, you know, I think it should be gender studies and not just female women studies and the dean said the please will put that in a footnote in the notes, but I've worked so hard to get a woman studies program here, please go buy it and then I I did some lecturing in the women's studies program, but it was really discouraging because we'd start out with like 30 students of which about 10 were males and by the second or third week almost all the males Head Drop.

26:28 The core so now I thought that was very very sad about but the of the women's studies program became gender studies and made a real contribution to the university. So I was very pleased the long run about everything.

26:46 Yeah. Are at our University. It's called women's and gender studies. So yeah, maybe a little head of your time there with that.

26:57 So at that time in the 60s with Nixon and Watergate, do you feel like we're what did you think of American democracy and the government at at that time with everything? I was going on my personal opinion, but they are equally bad. You know what I think Nixon was just a little bit more behind the scene and Trump's right out front with what he he thinks up. Yeah. I'm I'm very hopeful my daughter Sarah here is says so so involved and she worked in elections that and and that that's and you think of the young people today and what they're doing. There's a little hope there but boy boy it it's it's it's kind of tough world.

27:57 Out there now in America with the virus in the politics of so I'm so just trying to take one one step at a time here to keep my hopes alive.

28:11 So is is your hope that democracy allows for new voices and that there's going to be new new people coming in that will take over from the kind of older generation or what's your hope? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh you saw her this past week take on that fellow Congressman. That was just so thrilling to the young people and I tell you I I get about 10 messages every day from various people running for office in the Democratic party and Main in the Kentucky or Georgia all over and from Obama from biting and stuff. And so that they're they're stirring out there and then there's some hope but

29:11 100 days would pass

29:18 What about you Sarah? Do you have hope for a American democracy in the government? Actually, Liam and Rayna my niece and nephew your your kids that age group I find to be so I'm so excited by there when I see them a tremendous amount of passion and involvement and pear and concern and a time. I'm 41 as I said and sometimes I feel like there's so few people. I know in my age group at least just on a personal level I of course it's happening all over the world. There are people my age being active but I still like what I'm seeing in the news is these these younger Generations are just you know, especially in my my main one of my main concern.

30:18 Hiring in there

30:20 In their dedication to trying to save this planet and and to try to to further Democratic norms and values than around the world.

30:36 Has doing for example, you know, that was one of the very excitements about Callison even imagine sending all the sophomores to India for a full year. That was a radical idea. And the the dean said, you know, the sophomore means Wise Fool and her freshman or just getting adjusted and then sophomore year is a kind of down here and send them to India and then come back and then let them think about their experience in and my favorite student the first year. I taught there always said he was a citizen of the world and he was from Orinda California here and a wonderful student spent his entire life in international.

31:36 Help well with nonprofit organizations around the entire world at many of our students went on to be really Global Citizens. And and I I I fear that a lot of that is being lost today. I used to tell my students, you know, you can go to any place in the world for your one year at the University of the Pacific for the same amount of money that it cost to stay here and a number two of my students it would they were sorority girls and they went to Ghana and they spent their urine Ghana and they came back and I said, how was it and she said my dream is to be the ambassador from the United States to Ghana one day and we had such a great time and I would really and then one time I gave a lecture to the freshman class and I came in and I said did you realize that a new laws just been passive the universe?

32:36 That you were you have to spend a year abroad in order to get your ba degree in my God, the students just started looking up and and I said, well, you know, I'm putting you in a little bit here, but I really think the International Studies is there. It's just such an important part and that's another thing that's really changed now with a pandemic. I'm in Arena was on study abroad in Argentina during the when a bow break happened and she had to come home around had to come home even all the the Peace Corps. I don't think they've ever had to come home, but they've come home.

33:15 So I think and I also you know the America first right now. There's so much nationalism and

33:25 Working against at those kinds of international relations episode.

33:31 You know when I went to India we had just landed on the moon that I went for the full year to India in 1969 and we're just landed on the moon and when I would walk around Bangalore India in the evening and go to the market I once one young man said come and have tea with my family and you know, you're go into their house in the cows are sleeping on the floor and what whatever but what was on the wall a picture of John Kennedy and Gandhi those two people Americans were were so respected and revered around the world. And now if I was born in Canada, so I'd do you know, everybody tells me what we're up Canadian flag now when you go abroad because it's such a different image of what America is today from what it was in my early career.

34:29 And in terms of the the places that you traveled throughout your life and in your career, what where is the place that most interested you?

34:45 Most interested you in terms of the places that you travel to.

34:53 You know early on when when you and your mother and I came back from India. We went through Africa and I thought I was I was accepted in the Peace Corps. I was accepted in the Peace Corps. And when I was at Wittenberg University, it was a toss-up whether I would stay at Wittenberg or get married to your mother and go to University of Chicago go in the Peace Corps, and I decided that if I went in the Peace Corps, I probably would not have the energy to get my PhD and get into college teaching which is what I wanted to do, but the piece of work what country is. Well, you know, I'm just an enjoyable part of the Greek Islands. I've been many times and I just

35:53 Call stats, but the challenging countries. I had a student from Paraguay. In fact, he was mayor of Asuncion the capital and I went down too far and wide to visit with him and his family and traveled in Argentina and Brazil and so on so forth. I traveled all over I to I don't know where I would go now. I try I travel in both North Africa and South Africa, but I love Spain. My daughter Sarah are spent a semester of her high school years in in Spain and those were wonderful, but the world is so change from when I was young and challenging that today. I'm happy in a retirement community.

36:53 Piada asked where Sarah would go if she had a challenge today. Where would you go?

37:00 Well, you know you spoken. So what your trip to Vietnam was. So yes my trip to Vietnam o i I just I was so anguished in throughout the day if Vietnam War I was so and then I would have went and and view the body of Ho Chi Minh and spend time in Hanoi and went down into the the tunnels and the DMV demilitarized zone and and I love Vietnam. I just love the people the kindness the food the culture. So that was one they have thank you for for bringing that up. Yeah, that was very very important. I was in Nicaragua for a while and he is there any place that you didn't get to go that you wish you had surgeons?

38:03 I don't know that that said that's interesting. What would you think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was born in Canada. Sarah's always threatening to flee to Canada where if we're didn't I travel at man I traveled all through Asia and Africa and Europe. Arena was supposed to go to Antarctica when she was down in Argentina, but that's the one continent that I've never been to. So maybe Antarctica would be

38:55 Yes, you have done something wonderful traveling with your family. So yeah Bravo to you. You have done such a wonderful job. Yeah, I think the love of travel is another thing that you definitely passed down to your your children and grandchildren as well. So I guess we should wrap up we're at the end of our time, but I just want to say thank you both for her talking and during this time. It's really hard when we can't see each other, but I'm glad that we could have this discussion together.

39:41 Yeah, thank you for sending it all up. It's really it's been a pleasure to let me both with you. I really enjoy it. Thank you very much.

39:53 Play a great idea.

39:55 Yeah, thank you.

39:58 Okay, good. Love everyone to thank you. Thank you very much.