UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #359
POLLAK, SARA

POLLAK, Sara (1909- )
Graduate Student
At UW: 1960-1961; 1984-1987

Interviewed: 1989	
Interviewer: Barry Teicher
Length: 1 hour, 29 minutes

Childhood and family life; Education and influences; Early career; Graduate work at UW; Thoughts on adult education; New career.

First Interview Session (March 15, 1989): 
Tape 1/Side 1
Time	Keywords

00:00:00	Interviewer’s introduction. 

00:00:40	Sara Pollak’s (SP's) childhood and family life.  Grandfather as influence in learning.  Death of grandfather.

00:02:25	Boys went to college; SP did not.  Went back two years later anyway, during Depression.  Brothers helpful.  Proud of SP's accomplishments.  

00:04:44	SP read a book a day.  Discusses formative book.  

00:07:01	Went to college at University of Chicago.  Hutchins president.  Not unusual for Jewish girl in her neighborhood to go to college.  Ninety-two percent of high school classmates went to college. 

00:09:54	Leo Rosten, a friend of hers and teacher.  Had wonderful exposure to different subjects.  Most girls went on to become social workers.  She wanted to study chemistry.  Brothers wanted her to become a social worker, or teacher.  Discusses University of Chicago teachers: Burgess; Redfield.  Took German so she could read Heinrich Heine.  Did not graduate.  Got married.  In 1938, husband died.  SP left with four-month-old child.  

00:14:33	Worked as accountant for brothers.  Hated business world.  Went back to school at age thirty-nine.  Went to Northwestern.  Three-hour commute each day.

00:17:37	Wanted to be speech therapist.  Had had speech problem early in life.  Wanted to help others like her, like her speech therapist had helped her.

00:18:43	Met husband Felix Pollak.  Loved school.  Graduated in speech and hearing.  After graduation took two TAs for her Masters.  After completing Masters, offered her a grant for her Ph.D.  Turned it down to work.  Discusses MA schooling.

00:25:22	Early work experience. Graduation in 1953. Continued studies every summer.  Tried to use her work experience to continue her learning.  Find out need and create a program; her philosophy as teacher.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:29:42	Worked for Chicago public schools for four years.  Husband Felix got job as a rare book curator at UW.  SP asked to do doctorate at UW.  Took one year.  Department not that great; also Ph.D. might be restrictive.  Went back to school and became supervisor, then coordinator in Madison public schools.  Returned to teaching eventually.  

00:33:24	Madison’s program. David Yoder said SP's classes better than any he had seen in the country.  Worked with Yoder and Dee Vetter on developing programs.  During this time, in the late 1960s, Lee Gruenewald was doing graduate work at UW.  He eventually took SP's job as coordinator in schools.

00:38:30	SP had just started teaching.  Asked by teacher to help in educable mentally retarded classroom.  Said okay.  Momentous moment in her life, and she didn't know it.  Put programs she developed on tape.  Developed teacher training program.  

00:42:12	Began work with Lee Gruenewald.  Ended up writing a book with Gruenewald on it. 

00:42:38	Talks about creativity and curiosity.  Field of communicative disorders really took off.  Her career took off at age forty.  Retired at sixty-six.  

00:45:40	Discusses association with UW.  Many close friends.  Whole social life within UW, unlike Northwestern.

00:48:15	Begins Ph.D. work after retirement.  Talks about her life as being absorbed into her husband’s life.  One day at lunch with a friend she just decided to pursue her doctorate.  

00:50:33	Says you don't study to use information for vocational purposes.  It's the learning that's important.  Credits from twenty years earlier were all transferable.  Had a very interesting prelim.  Wrote everyday from 4:30 am to noon on her dissertation.  Discusses dissertation topic.  Crosses over into new discipline for Ph.D. work.

00:55:41	Likes to "stretch"--expand her areas of interest and knowledge.  

00:56:55	Tells about time she walked into major professor's office and threw all her material in the wastebasket.  Got a lot of help and support from major professor, Dee Vetter, and others.

00:58:50	Had no sense of age making any difference in terms of her reception by other graduate students.  Got lots of support. 
 
00:59:50	End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

00:59:55	Interviewer’s introduction. 

01:00:00	Discusses prelims.  Kept throwing questions back at professors, and putting them on the defensive.  

01:05:42	Discusses generalists vs. specialists, and how we're swinging too far toward the specialist. 

01:09:02	Lists some of the advantages of going to school when you're older.  Says you must have a reason for returning to school.  Have to understand your interests.  

01:11:10	Discusses intuition.  The moment we start rationalizing, then we're not doing what we should be doing.  

01:15:31	Discusses work with Lee Gruenewald on book.  Never really liked to write.  Likes to write now.  

01:20:19	Got out of earlier areas because they weren't a challenge any more.  Needs to be challenged.  Discusses new career, which is working with adult education.  Is currently doing library research on literature in new field.  Is doing what she has always done.  Is creating a new job. 

01:27:26	Has just been asked to join committee on Year of the Book.

01:28:39	End of interview.

END