Title Information
Title Information: Alternative (displayLabel="Pembroke title")
Name: Personal
Name: Personal
Type of Resource: mixed material
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Abstract: In this interview, at 80 years old, Carol Canner reflects on her undergraduate experience at Pembroke College in the 1950s.She begins by sharing some family background, including her father’s Harvard University education, and her mother’s Boston University Medical School education that was quickly ended by the Great Depression. Canner recalls that while growing up and when entering Pembroke, her goal was to get married and that post-graduation career assistance was nonexistent. Canner discusses her experience as a Jewish student on campus, and becoming life-long friends with Peggy Brooks, one of two black students. She explains that roommate assignments were made with the intent of segregating races and religions but that she and Brooks quickly became roommates and lived in Angell House. She also remembers general social activities and regularly attending “Friday Club,” parties held in Brown University graduate student housing, while she was courting her husband, Atle Gjelsvik. She recognizes that strict rules existed, such as curfews and those that barred men from visiting women’s dormitories, yet she also shares a story of having spent a night at Gjelsvik’s dorm and having to come up with a story the next day after not appearing outside Angell House during a fire drill. Academically speaking, Canner explains that her best grades came from math and economics classes and recognizes Charlie Watts and Barry Pfaffmann as her favorite professors. Canner also highlights her life after graduation. She talks about attending Harvard School of Education and a failed attempt at a teaching career. She also recalls inquiring at the Yale Department of Psychology and being told that women could not apply, and ruling out a psychology program at Connecticut College because of the commute. She fondly remembers her graduate work in social work at the University of Connecticut that led to a job in community organizing where she protested urban renewal alongside the Black Panthers in New Haven, Connecticut. She continues to add that after living in Norway for three years she worked at Head Start in Rockland County, New York, where she eventually became the Assistant Director. She concludes the interview by discussing her volunteer work advocating for bees, and commending Brown’s 18th president, Ruth J. Simmons, for her work in bringing Brown’s connection to slavery to the forefront.
Note: biographical/historical (displayLabel="Class year"): 1959
Note: biographical/historical (displayLabel="Biographical note"): Carol Canner was born in Boston, MA on May 11, 1937. She grew up in Newton, Massachusetts where she graduated from Newton High School in 1955. She attended Pembroke College and graduated in 1959 with an A.B. in English literature. Canner went on to obtain an M.A.T. from Harvard University in 1960, and an M.S.W. from the University of Connecticut in 1967. She married her husband, Atle Gjelsvik, in 1960 and together they had two children, Erik and Annie. Canner retired as the Assistant Director of Head Start of Rockland County, New York, and moved to North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
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Genre (aat) (authorityURI="http://vocab.getty.edy/aat/", valueURI="http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202595"): oral histories (literary works)