Interview with Violet Meek
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Interview with Violet Meek July 9, 2020 SPEAKERS Dr. Violet Meek, Hannah Stoll Hannah Stoll 00:02 The following interview was conducted with Dr. Violet Meek on behalf of The Ohio State University for the Knowledge Bank and the Voices of Women Oral History project. It took place on Thursday, July 9th, 2020, via Zoom Video Communications. The interviewer is Hannah Stoll. Hannah Stoll 00:18 Hello, Dr. Meek. How are you? Dr. Violet Meek 00:20 I'm just fine. I'm waiting for the first question. Hannah Stoll 00:25 Tell me about why you decided to enter higher education and then later teach and work in the same environment? Dr. Violet Meek 00:36 Well, it's an interesting question. I hadn't thought about it in a long time. I think it was something I just always thought I'd do. I was a chemistry major as an undergraduate and then went on and got graduate degrees. And I was really impressed with the faculty. I had in particular, my advisor, who I suppose in modern terms, whatever, was a polymath. He knew a great deal about a lot of things, worked on the Manhattan Project, did all kinds of stuff, and had a firm grounding in philosophy, the philosophy of science, and I thought, oh, well, if that's, if that's what that is, I'd like to be one of those, please. And I don't think I ever really wanted to do anything else. I went on, got a PhD, always knew that I wanted to teach in a liberal arts college, or at least in a college like that. And that's what I did. I started out at Mount Holyoke, got married. My husband was on the faculty at Ohio State in the chemistry department. So I got a job at Ohio Wesleyan. And then I discovered something. I love teaching. I still do. But after you have been around a while, you start and you're responsible for the students in your class and your advisees. And then I was department chair and I was responsible for a larger group. And then I was a dean and I thought, well, this isn't bad, and being responsible for something bigger was important to me, because you could make a difference. I went off to Washington, worked for the Council of Independent Colleges on programming. My husband and I intended to go to Washington – he'd been talking with the National Science Foundation. His health took a turn for the worse, I came back, worked at The Ohio State Research Foundation. He - 1 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai died in 1988. And there I was at the Research Foundation and that was fun too. And I discovered it was different. But it was something I enjoyed doing. And one of the things that happened was, I was responsible for research support on the regional campuses. So I got to know the folks at Lima. And as I suspect you have figured out, that was a time when there was a certain amount of upset at Lima. And if you look in the development officer book, it says the best place for a development officer to be in circumstances like this is somewhere else. So I worked with the campus but it was clear that things were upsetting. And then one day I got a phone call from the provost, who said "How'd you like to go to Lima?" And I thought, ah gee, really? You know, I'd have to stay there. And what was it? 13 years, 12 years, something like that, later I finally left. So that's the short version, as you might suspect, there's a lot to be told about those early years and I probably will grab the baton and tell you at some point, but that's how it happened. But I've always enjoyed my job. I always enjoyed teaching, but I've always enjoyed teaching all of a student, not just little pieces, and that's what administration meant to me. It still does. And I went and did things that are sort of like that afterward, but that's, we don't need to go there right now. That enough? Okay, now it's your turn. Hannah Stoll 05:02 What were your first impressions of your college experience? How did being a woman affect your experience? Dr. Violet Meek 05:13 I was blessed, I think, at my undergraduate institution, because it was remarkably open. Now that may just have been the chemistry department, but I'm not the only one from that era who thought so. It was assumed I was interested in this. My parents were, well, my dissertation is dedicated to my parents and the dissertation goes to my parents, who didn't think it was so unusual. I was the oldest of three, and I'm not sure my father knew I was a girl until his first grandson was born. You know, we just did things. And so it didn't – I suppose it did in ways that I might not have recognized at the time – but I never really felt that there were things I couldn't do. Now graduate school was different. I suppose I should have noticed because St. Olaf College, which was my undergraduate school, had the chemistry department had pictures of all the people who'd gone on to PhDs, and it's one of the undergraduate institutions that is usually first or second in PhDs in chemistry over time, so, and I'm proud of it. Now, I probably should have noticed that there were only two women on that list before me, but there are great many after and I, as I said, I didn't recognize that. When I got out, I remember at an institution, let's just leave it at that, we were discussing awards for students for graduation and someone said, well, can a girl get that [unclear], and I allowed as how, yes, and she was going to. But now I'd be outrageously naïve if I didn't say that, of course, there were problems. But when I was getting my feet down, I didn't see them. And so I was in a much better position to deal with it when it finally happened. There were research groups in my graduate school that did not accept women. Well, too bad for them. Which is kind of how I felt about it. So anyhow, okay. Hannah Stoll 07:48 What would you have changed about your early college experiences? Dr. Violet Meek 07:55 - 2 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai Hmm, not much, actually. I mean, now, you'll have to admit that if we had gone back for our reunion this year, it would have been my 60th. So there is a possibility that I've blocked a lot of things, but I've always been grateful for it, and I have used some of what I learned about administration, what I learned about students, through my whole career. I mean, there have been times when I've been very grateful that I had that background. Truthfully, when I got to Lima, I was particularly grateful because I had worked for the Council of Independent Colleges, those are the small liberal arts colleges. I had worked at two liberal arts educational institutions, and of course, I had my own experience, and so I had a sense of what you needed to make things work, and I will say that when I first got to Lima, I reached out for a structure or something that, of course, wasn’t there, and fill the hole because it wasn't. And then it would be on my list of things we have to fix. Because the size of the institution clearly has an impact on how students respond. Some students are happy as clams at a huge institution, and we're lucky that that's true. Some students do better in another kind of place, and I wanted to be sure that we were one of those places where students did better. Hannah Stoll 09:39 Describe what you love most about chemistry? What was your experience with teaching students about this science? Dr. Violet Meek 09:52 It's fun. Now that sounds like, you know – I like solving puzzles. I like finding things out. Way back when, and I mean, like, when I was maybe 12 or 13, I thought the colors were kind of neat! And I'm a transition metal chemist, and that's one of the places where you find some really lovely colors. There is a particular color that you can get from copper ions and ammonia that is this simply gorgeous Lapis blue. And I thought, oh, isn't that neat, you know, and then I got into it and I was just fascinated by the theory more than other things. And one day in graduate school I thought, I should have really pursued that, and then a light went off and said you ninny, you know now why that – but I liked the people, I found they’re, I enjoyed – chemists tend to work in groups. And I didn't understand introvert/extrovert in those years, but it turns out that I do better in groups. And so the fact that group interactions were important was important to me, too. So it's been so long since I've been actively involved in chemistry that I'm not sure I think of myself that way anymore.