UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #645
HOWELL, EVELYN A.

HOWELL, Evelyn A. (1947- )
Graduate student; Professor of Landscape Architecture
At UW: 1970-1975; 1975-

Interviewed: 2003	
Series: Women in Science and Engineering
Interviewer: Erika Milam
Length: 2 hours

Childhood in Milwaukee; Interest in math and science; Undergraduate education at Carleton College; Discovery of ecology and environmentalism; Decision to study botany at UW; Experience as a teaching assistant; Protest years; Appointment to landscape architecture department; Women in the botany department and in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences; Teaching; Research; Service.

First Interview Session (December 1, 2003): Tapes 1-2

Tape 1/Side 1

0:00:21	Evelyn Howell grew up in Milwaukee.  As a child she was a fan of the Milwaukee Braves, the city’s baseball team.  She was a shy child.

0:03:15	EH attended a private high school called Milwaukee University School.  This school, originally known as the German English Academy, was established in the middle of the nineteenth century.  EH explains that a physician had recommended a private school with small classes to help her overcome her shyness.

0:04:02	At high school EH enjoyed all of her classes.  Toward the end of high school, the students at EH’s school were divided up according to gender and sent to two other private schools.  In her opinion, all of the strongest teachers were sent to the boys’ campus and the girls were left with the weakest teachers.  In order to take an advanced math class, EH had to take the bus to the boys’ school.  The physics class on the girls’ campus was not as good as the class on the boys’ campus.

0:07:10	EH explains that after the launch of Sputnik, her school started focusing on math.  She loved the beauty and elegance of math.  At that time she was not yet interested in biology.

0:09:00	Before EH’s high school was split, the school encouraged both boys and girls to study math and science.  After the split, math and science were not emphasized on the girls’ campus.

0:09:42	EH talks about some of her more memorable teachers.

0:12:07	She explains that she chose Carleton College because both of her parents were alumni and because it was a small, well-regarded school.

0:14:06	EH began school during the summer trimester, which meant that she felt comfortable with the school and confident she could succeed by the time the fall trimester began.

0:15:13	Although EH initially planned to study math, she soon learned there were few career options for math majors.  EH took several courses in physics, but found the discipline less intuitive than math.  She was also horrified by the thought of becoming a nuclear engineer, because she and many members of her generation had grown up fearing nuclear warfare.

0:17:11	In EH’s third semester she became a pre-med major.  She explains that an ecology class in her senior year changed her life.  Reading books such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring struck a resonance with her because she remembered having asthma attacks as a child when trucks sprayed Dutch elm trees with DDT while she played nearby.  EH became outraged that she had been exposed to DDT.  She talks about other books she read for this ecology class and how they stimulated her interest in environmentalism.

0:19:40	EH’s ecology professor told her the best place to study ecology was UW.  She applied to the botany department and zoology department at UW and was accepted to both.  She accepted the botany department’s offer because it included a teaching assistantship.  EH remembers that she was still very shy at this time.

0:22:06	EH’s advisor was the plant physiologist Folke Skoog, whom she describes as a curmudgeon.  In her second or third year she became a research assistant for Grant Cottam, after which he became her major professor.

0:23:17	There were several women professors and instructors at Carleton College, but almost all of EH’s professors were men.  At UW there were no women in the botany department.  EH learned there had been one woman in the department much earlier.  According to rumor, faculty had resolved never to have another woman in the department because the first woman had gotten her way by crying.  About thirty percent of the graduate students in botany were women.

0:25:15	EH’s main reason for attending graduate school was her interest in ecology.  At the time she was not thinking about particular careers.  When she came close to earning her PhD and began thinking about what to do next, she started considering a teaching career.  EH explains that she loved being a teaching assistant, in part because it allowed her to overcome some of her shyness.

0:26:38	EH’s first teaching assignment was 151 and 152, a two-sequence course taught jointly by the botany and zoology departments.  The two professors in charge of the course were William Whittingham and John Neess.  TAs for this course designed their own exercises and lab experiments.

0:28:58	As she worked on completing her dissertation, EH began to think about being a faculty member in a liberal arts college.  While working on her dissertation she had become involved with a project funded by the government to identify crucial natural resources in the state.  Through this project she became acquainted with Bernard Niemann, a faculty member in the landscape architecture department.  He encouraged her to apply for a one-year position in the department teaching ecology.

0:30:38	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

0:31:00	When the position was offered to EH, it was a tenure-track position.  She found the idea of teaching ecology to non-scientists appealing.  In the end the landscape architecture department proved to be a good fit because she could freely explore her interests in conservation and she could design interdisciplinary courses.

0:32:40	EH describes her recollections of the protest years.  For most of her years at Carleton College, students were not concerned about the Vietnam war.  In 1970, when she arrived at UW, the anti-Vietnam protests were heating up.  She was fervently anti-war.

0:34:52	The anti-war movement became folded in with 1970 TAA strike.  EH was unsure whether she should strike in solidarity with other graduate students, whose claims she felt were legitimate, or fulfill her responsibilities to her students.  She did hold classes in the end.  Most graduate students in the botany department did the same.

0:36:19	EH remembers looking out a third-floor window of Birge Hall and seeing troops line up on Bascom Hill.  She recalls that she was angered by the violence used by the police.  EH comments that protesters mixed up so many causes that it became impossible to be anti-war without supporting or opposing these other causes.  The protest movement became an “untamed mob riot” rather than a reasoned response against the war, in EH’s view.

0:37:55	EH recalls feeling the ground shake when Sterling Hall was bombed.  She felt torn in different directions at this time because she opposed the war but abhorred the protesters’ use of violence.  She lists some of the many anxieties she had during these years.

0:40:03	EH believes she was offered a tenure-track position rather than a one-year position because the landscape architecture department and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) wanted to hire more women.  In the mid 1970s there were no women in landscape architecture and very few in CALS.  She surmises that the department had planned on creating a one-year lecturer position only, because bringing an ecologist with no background in landscape architecture into the department was a radical experiment.

0:42:26	Her first experience in the landscape architecture department was advising undergraduates about the curriculum, about which she knew nothing.  She shared an office with another new faculty member.

0:44:31	EH talks about what happened to the other women in her graduate class in botany.  A few of them went on to professional careers, but more dropped out of academia when they got married.  Most of the men continued on to academic careers.

0:45:35	EH never felt singled out or discriminated against because she was a woman.  Some botany faculty members had difficulty knowing how to interact with female students, and did not believe women could compete at the same level as men.  But even as they remained reluctant to hire a female faculty member in the department, they encouraged their own female graduate students to go out and find jobs.

0:48:01	EH remembers that one professor used to show pictures of women in bathing suits during his lectures to keep students alert.  She and another female graduate student “liberated” one of his slides to show their displeasure, which ended that practice.  This was the only situation that made EH feel uncomfortable as a woman.

0:49:32	EH became more aware of discrimination against women when she became a faculty member.  When she started her salary and funding research did not match that of other new faculty members, but she does not know whether that came as a result of her gender or of her naivety and unwillingness to ask questions about financial arrangements.  Starting a research program with no funding was a challenge.  Subsequently she asked for and received a twelve-month appointment instead of a nine-month appointment.

0:51:32	Because EH was one of the few women in CALS, which was making an attempt to diversity its committees, she was asked to serve on innumerable committees.  In retrospect EH says that serving on so many committees was a blessing in disguise because it allowed her to meet so many people.  But at the time it meant that she could not spend as much time on her research as she would have liked.

0:52:35	EH found the lack of mentoring difficult.  She turned to faculty in the botany department for advice.

0:54:07	Most faculty members had a wife at home who took care of a lot of incidental functions.  EH remembers one departmental meeting at which each faculty member listed the foods his wife would contribute to a party.  She felt uncomfortable telling her colleagues that she had no time to prepare food.

0:55:31	EH is not sure how much discrimination she faced.  But she recalls been assigned traditionally female roles, such as counseling students or planning social functions, rather than sitting on the research committee.

0:56:39	If EH faced discrimination, it was subtle rather than overt.  She comments on how nice it is to have female colleagues, and explains the ways in which she thinks women and men approach problems differently.

0:57:29	EH talks about the impact of the federal legislation passed in 1972 that addressed discrimination in academia.  She viewed the legislation very positively because she does not believe the department would have hired her otherwise.

0:58:50	EH was not involved with organizations for women on campus.  She does not remember women who played leadership roles relating to women’s issues.  She and a colleague Virginia Kline, who worked at the Arboretum, used to get together regularly.  Linda Graham of the botany department sometimes joined them.

1:00:55	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

1:01:22	EH explains that she has more often been frustrated by the marginal status of both her department and her subject area than by discriminatory treatment based on her gender.

1:03:55	She talks about ways in which the campus climate has changed.  The faculty have become far more diverse, and there is greater understanding of the importance of faculty’s family lives.  EH expresses how pleased she is that women no longer have to choose between career and family.

1:06:13	Despite the advances that women have made in CALS, there are still few women chairs.  EH was the second woman to serve as a departmental chair within the college.

1:07:36	EH explains why she is so committed to teaching.  She views education as one way she can positively influence the world by instilling an understanding of ecological processes in her students.

1:10:39	Fieldwork plays a major role in EH’s teaching in the landscape architecture department.  When she first worked as a TA, she saw that students learned material more easily when they interacted with nature than when they performed laboratory experiments.  She explains the role that fieldwork played in her graduate education.

1:16:11	EH gives examples of some memorable experiences relating to teaching.  About fifteen years ago, a proposal to create a savannah in the Arboretum was carried out, and students were able to see their ideas put into practice.

1:18:18	EH’s students have also done research on the Class of 1918 Marsh.  She is frustrated that the Campus Planning Committee has not acted on this research.

1:20:16	EH explains that she was given tenure on the basis of her teaching, because her appointment is 80% teaching and 20% research.  Her research has dealt with restorative ecology, and in particular restoring woodlands and prairies.

1:24:21	EH’s early research was funded by the federal government, the graduate school, and the Fish and Wildlife Service.  Her work is currently funded by the National Park Service.

1:26:38	EH gives an example of how landscape architecture assignments have changed during her career.  When she began, a typical project might involve planning how to place 350 housing units on a particular site.  Now, students are taught to begin by asking if the site can support housing.  Knowledge of ecology is considered far more important to landscape architecture than it once was.

1:29:39	End of side.

Tape 2/Side 2

Side is blank.

Second Interview Session (December 5, 2003): Tape 3

Tape 3/Side 1

0:00:26	EH talks about some university committees on which she has served, including the University Committee, the Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate (PROFS), and the Arboretum Committee.

0:04:59	EH lists several committees within CALS and within the landscape architecture department on which she has served.

0:05:20	Outside of the university, she has served on the Natural Areas Preservation Council and the Madison Parks Commission.

0:07:09	EH talks about several affirmative action committees on which she has served.  One of the issues examined by these committees was pay equity.  EH explains that female faculty are often paid less than male faculty because they seek outside offers more infrequently and because they are less likely to negotiate for raises.

0:10:01	Another committee on which EH served examined the issue of freedom of speech and hate speech.

0:11:40	EH talks about several other ecological organizations with which she has been involved.

0:12:30	Almost all of EH’s classes involve a service component. For example, students in her Biological Core class take part in restoring a prairie.

0:15:54	EH discusses some of the professional organizations with which she is involved.

017:53		One of EH’s goals as chair of the landscape architecture department is to raise the profile of the department.  She also hopes to work on several restoration ecology textbooks.

0:19:28	EH explains that she greatly values teaching and mentoring graduate students.  UW is unique in offering a research-based Masters degree only.  She talks about some of the types of research projects her graduate students have undertaken.

0:25:31	End of side.  End of tape.

END