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Oh, All right. Um, hello. Today is June 17, 2025. My name is Katie Fry, and I've been working with Bailey and Chris to archive the Pepperdine University's Women and Gender studies program. Today we're interviewing Laurie Goodman. Laurie, could you start by formally introducing yourself, telling us,

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um, the years you're at Pepperdine, and then maybe the years that you were involved in the program. OK. I am Laurie Goodman. I'm a former professor at Pepperdine in English and Social Justice, and I worked at Pepperdine between 1991. And what I guess 2002 is when

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I left. Um, I was involved with the feminist forum in the I think it was the early in the mid-19990s. It was pretty soon after I had arrived at Pepperdine. So, um, and I could not tell you how long I was involved. As long as there

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was a feminist forum, I was involved, but I have no idea the dates. OK, and then I think, OK, so just to clarify, you retired in, I think it was 2022, right? Right. OK, and so you were involved with The Women's and gender studies program from

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the beginning up until you retired. Well, the women's studies program, I wasn't formally involved with. I didn't officially teach in it because I had the duties for the social justice program and I, I didn't have enough room and schedule and all to do both. So, but

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I've always been a, a, a supporter and somebody who was very Enthusiastic and supportive about creating the program and the need for it and um so I was always hovering around the edges, I guess, of the program, talking with the people who were working in it

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and uh trying to be as involved as I could even though I was not officially teaching in the program. OK. And so I guess that answers a question I had. We're trying to put together a chronology of the coordinators. Um, and there's a breakdown in the

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chronology somewhere between Julie Smith and Lee Carroll. Julie doesn't quite remember if she was a coordinator, and no one really remembers when Lee started anyway. So it sounds like you were always adjacent to the program. That's correct, yes, and I know, I mean, your name is

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everywhere in the SAC paper trail. I mean, Kier and I, um, Bailey and Chris provided us with all the graphic articles over the years, and so your name is everywhere. Yeah, with as far as the program goes, like the, the, the official, I guess, paper trail.

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Um, OK, so you were very much involved in the feminist forum, and so we've kind of started that has very much become a part of the conversation with the archive. I don't know if you remember Amy Turk. Sure, of course I do. She was awesome. Well,

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we interviewed her, yep, we interviewed her a few weeks ago, so there have been a couple of students. I just reached out to, um, Laura Walsh. Yes, yep. And so that's another thing that keeps coming up, the feminist forum. So maybe you can speak a little

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bit to that, about what that was, why did that then kind of help facilitate the women's and gender studies program? What was that about? Well, it was, uh, it started somewhere in the early to mid-nineties and at the time, Pepperdine had quite a diverse student population,

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especially in terms of economic class. We had a fairly large contingent of working-class students. And Cindy Novak and I were co-teaching. We linked our first-year composition course with our freshman seminar courses. And so if you signed up for one of our seminars, you also signed up

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for one of our Uh, composition courses, and we met the, uh, the seminar all together, both classes in one room, and then we separated out and had individual classes for composition. And from the beginning, that team teaching that Cynthia, uh, Cynthia and I did was focused

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on social justice issues of equity across race, class, gender, sexual orientation, pretty much everything. We did a, a diversity workshop uh in the early 90s that the administration brought to campus and we got uh a, a little bit of funding to prep new classes and to

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incorporate what we had learned. And Cynthia and I took that together and uh really, it just Pulled together so much of uh what we had been individually talking about and there was faculty from all across the university, and it was really a great experience. And really

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energized the campus, the faculty in many ways around issues of diversity. And so our seminar and our composition courses were focused on these issues. So we sort of got to be known as these people on campus and so students would sign up for this, uh, course,

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this, uh, pairing of courses. who had social justice interests, you know, it got a reputation and so we started getting a lot of those students, and we had quite a few of the working-class students in those courses. And What the students, what those, especially those working-class

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students saw around them at Pepperdine was all of these women who seemed to think that feminism was over, we didn't need it anymore. Everything was fine now. And I think the big difference there between those demographics was one group of students was more working class and

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they had literally left home and gone to a job, right? They would go home after school and take a job. And so they were actually out in the workforce and in the public square, if you will, interacting with people. So, they had experienced. sexism and discrimination

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firsthand in ways that I don't think some of the other students who came from more privileged backgrounds and had never had to work, had ever really had to deal with it. So, these students were just horrified at the lack of conversation on campus around these issues,

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and they were most upset that the other women didn't seem to feel any sense of urgency or need around it. And it was really student-led. It was a desire on the part of the students. We want to have a place that's open to other people for

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anybody on campus to come in and let's talk about these issues. Let's talk about what feminism really is and what it's for and what it's working for, and where we are now versus where we were and where we still wanna go. So it was very much

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student-led and student-driven and that's why we called it the forum. We did want it to be an open conversation, an open forum where people would feel comfortable actually having the conversation because especially in Church of Christ circles back at that time, you just Um, feminism was

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not particularly a positive thing, and so there was some fear among a lot of students, so I don't need to be involved in this. This is not Christ-like or it's not compatible with my religion kind of attitude. So, we started having these forums and we would

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hold them up in the hawk. And uh I don't wanna go on too long, so interrupt me whenever you'd like cause I know I've been going on. I, the main, it's first, of course, it started out, we were just in a classroom and uh only women

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would show up and typically women who were already um energized around the issue of feminism and women's rights and a women's movement. But we gradually started getting a little bigger and we got You know, we would get little mentions in the graphic or, you know, people

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would hear our meeting announcements in chapel, and so we would get a few more and a few more. So, the students decided that they wanted to hold a conversation on abortion. Now, again, this is early mid-nineties, so it's a very touchy subject and very raw and

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there's lots of political conversation going on around it. Rush Limbaugh was still on the air that, at that time on Fox News and I had actually had students writing, wanting to write about abortion in my composition classrooms. And what the interesting thing to me is that

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it was typically the men who wanted to write about it and because they wanted to say how horrible it was. And um I would get These papers from these male students quoting Rush Limbaugh, calling feminists feminazis and anybody who had any, wanted to have a conversation

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around uh women's bodily autonomy was a feminazi. So it, the The atmosphere was not friendly. And there was lots of push. So it was a really bold thing, I believe, on the part of the students to want to have this conversation. And it was, it was,

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to me, it was the highlight of that whole era of the feminist forum because we filled the top floor of the Hawk, and it was faculty, administration, students, it was a great mix of people and everybody, you know, there, there was this tension in the room.

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Nobody knew what anybody else thought about this, and it was just not something that was spoken about, and so everybody was being very careful, very dicey, you know. And by the end of the evening. There were knots of people after the meeting broke up, hanging on,

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still talking, still continuing the conversations that we had generated in In the conversation and it was a really exciting time for that, for me anyway, I'll just speak for myself, where uh the space of the possibility for understanding kind of opened up, whereas before that, it

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just was completely verboten. You just didn't talk about it, really. And then these students sort of generated this open space for a little while, a brief window to actually have real heartfelt conversations about it because these are issues that hit nearly every family. Anybody who has

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people in their family, women are going to struggle with reproductive problems and issues and complications all the time. So everybody had a story. I think that was the really fascinating thing that came out of it. Everybody had a story where there was an inflection point where

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they had to make the decision, or they had to advise somebody else, or they had been at this crossroads of choice in their own lives, but they didn't talk about it. They didn't share it with anybody. And that night, people shared their stories, and oh, I'm

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getting chill bumps just remembering it. It was a great night and Um, it, it, we all left, I think, feeling like, oh, this is different. Yeah. This is different. This was a moment. This is gonna allow for more conversation and It was that for me, that

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was the big highlight and the really big moment. It was really powerful and again, student generated student generated all the way. So You did, you, like they achieved, they achieved a forum. The idea that not everyone landed in the same place, but that they were able

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to have a conversation. They were able to find points of connection. And you're right. I mean, as, as English professors, we know it's about stories, right? Stories are what connect people and stories are sometimes what allow you to hear things. I really think so. I mean,

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my other field is rhetoric and rhetorical studies, and this is what it's all about is Find, you don't have to build common ground, you find it. You find common ground. There's almost always something you can create a link to somebody else who disagrees with you about

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a particular issue. You can find a place of common ground, a common value, or a common fear or a common concern, just, there's always something. That you can start with, and I do agree. I, I think that storytelling, I was just thinking about this yesterday. Storytelling

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is enormously powerful and it's how we pass on, it's how we generate for ourselves by telling the stories of who we are and our experiences to our friends. We create in our own minds, our sense of self, and our understanding of our sort of life history.

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And as we tell other people the stories, we're creating new ideas and new experiences in other people, and I really believe it's one of the most powerful tools we have for having those difficult conversations across different, the conversations where You know, that everybody's avoiding right now

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where we are, you know, with everybody in the, in the US so divided. It's, I've really been struggling with this since I retired, this, um, the breakdown of, uh, public conversation and have been very, very distraught about it. I, I actually gave a lecture in my

00:16:36.479 - 00:16:57.500

mind the other night sitting on my back porch. You know, it's like, oh, that would have been the lecture I should have given in that class. Hard to turn it off, isn't it? Your lesson planning, prepping lectures, it's impossible, and I'm always like, I'll be sitting

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there thinking about something. I don't know, I've read an article or whatever and And an idea, something I knew forever ago that I learned in graduate school, perhaps, and I, I knew it and I understood it. But all of a sudden at this point in my

00:17:14.349 - 00:17:36.609

life, I go, oh. Yeah, that's what that's all about. Because as you accrue experience, of course, you learn things in new ways. So I'm always coming to those moments of, oh, here's what I should have said at that moment. Here's how I could have taught that

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so much better because now I have experiences that support that. It's impossible to turn off. I think that's one of the gifts that God weaves into aging is the, the things that we get to learn and discern along the way. Uh, I like that a lot,

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yeah, it is. I'm, you know, I struggle with getting older, um, a little bit, but I'm mostly, I just, it's, it's such a gift, it's such a, a luxury, I think, to be able to treat each day as a gift, literally, and that I've never in

00:18:21.910 - 00:18:48.109

my life had so much power to determine the course of my own day. That sounds lovely. It, it is. I highly recommend retirement. And I cannot recommend it enough. It's been glorious in Kentucky, yeah, yeah, it's, it's just beautiful. I get to be in nature all

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the time. Awesome. Well, I would love for you to, I know this was before we started recording, but, you know, just thinking about your life after Pepperdine and your life after teaching and social action and justice and being involved. With the issues around women's and gender

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studies, you know, you, I think you were saying, maybe, maybe you wanna say it for the recording, like what you are doing now, where you live, and kind of what you're involved in, what you care about. Mm, OK. Um, we live in South Central Kentucky, just

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about an hour north of Nashville, Tennessee. And uh we have 7 acres of what used to be farmland and uh it was partially cleared when the people subdivided their farm, you know, they marked it off and the people who built our house trashed the forest at

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the back to generate the astonishing view that we now enjoy and was the reason we bought the house. So now we're restoring. What was destroyed by the clear cutting that they did because all, it's all invasives and uh just terrible stuff that comes up and it

00:20:08.849 - 00:20:32.300

spreads everywhere. So, we work to restore this land to health for the resident animals and we've now got a huge population of songbirds and hawks and owls and you name it, we have fox and skunk and raccoon and deer and coyote and armadillos. I mean, you

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name it, it lives in our back. Wild turkey are everywhere. Wow. So, um, I What I've come to realize is that, for me, social justice was not something I simply taught or talked about as a professor. I've done a lot of thinking about, about how I

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got started talking about it and teaching about it. And I realized that it's, it's all from my parents, of course, but mostly I can credit that to my father who grew up on a dairy farm in Tennessee and He always wanted to get back to a

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farm. But he, he started his own business selling mobile homes in this part of the country because he said, no matter how poor you are, you deserve a decent place to live. And so he created this beautiful mobile home park, and he sold lots out in

00:21:36.050 - 00:21:56.390

the country that were set up for mobile homes, and he tried to provide places and means for The poor people of this area to afford a nice home, to have a decent home, and that's always been in my mind. So because of that, I've always been

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involved in homelessness and trying to, trying to argue that everybody deserves a decent place to live. And um I've, as I've thought more and more about my own progression through issues of social justice, I've just realized that it's It's almost in my DNA from my parents,

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you know, that they really instilled that in me and that Everything I do, whether it's work on the land or grow food or go to the latest indivisible meeting, whatever it is, it's in some way for me. The intention is around justice and fair play and

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creating a world that works for everyone, which is always my ultimate goal is creating a world that works for everyone. Nobody left out. Yeah, and I think that goes to another question that I had for you, and you, you kind of touched on it earlier, just

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thinking about your work as a professor. Maybe you could speak to, you know, the Christian mission of Pepperdine and how that intersects with, right, these goals, these principles, social justice, women's and gender studies, how, how this gets reflected in and shaped by these programs. Mm, yeah.

00:23:36.459 - 00:23:58.959

I During my time at Pepperdine, I was always a little bemused by people's attitude and, and the administration, Christian perspective on some of these issues. Like there was, when we tried to institute the social justice program, there was a lot of pushback that this was not

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Appropriate for a Christian school, and I'm like, If this is not appropriate for a Christian school, where is it appropriate? Because my understanding of Jesus, my understanding of the gospels is always and everywhere about Loving your neighbor, just bottom line, loving your neighbor, taking care of

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the poor, the widow, the orphan, um, welcoming the stranger, hospitality has always been a huge value of mine. Um, I mean, if you really look at. I don't, I don't wanna I'm, I'm choosing my words here for a minute. It seems to me that when I

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look at the gospels especially, but All of Jesus and um most of God's teaching throughout the Bible. It's Always about taking care of one another. Treating one another. The way you wanna be treated, treating people fairly and decently and with compassion and ethics. And I think

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if Jesus came back right now and acted like he did before, he'd be labeled a radical leftist. And that would often get me in trouble, but I would say things like that. People didn't appreciate that very much, but I guess I have a more um Socially

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minded perspective on. Um, spirituality and religion and Christianity, that that is what it's all about, is bringing everybody together and generating good ethos with all of your neighbors. And I've always believed that that's the best way to encourage other people to want to have what you

00:26:16.890 - 00:26:37.800

have is living well. Living in a way that other people Appreciate and um find. ennobling for themselves that they're treated in a way that I treat everybody in a way that respects and honors who they are. Of course, you know, we all screw up on that

00:26:37.800 - 00:27:00.160

and have my bad days, but that's the intention. And to me that It's like that with Jesus and Christianity. There's just no, it, to me, it, it is all the same thing. And so it always really confused me how much pushback there was against talk about

00:27:00.160 - 00:27:23.430

diversity and social justice because I, I wasn't able to separate the two in my mind. Yeah, we're supposed to show up for our neighbors. Absolutely, absolutely, and I mean that to me those are the most direct statements Jesus gives is feed the hungry. Yeah. Take care

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of the sick, visit, visit those in prison, welcome the stranger. That's, so those kinds of things have been the guiding principle of, of my life from growing up in my home with my family. So then what, what happened to the feminist forum? It, I mean, this

00:27:50.439 - 00:28:09.939

sounds like this was this very, this was this particular moment, and it lasted for a few years, I think you said maybe 2002, and then, of course, women's and gender studies came into existence. We're about to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Congratulations. Very exciting for the program.

00:28:10.359 - 00:28:31.209

Um, but My sense, and this is where I want you to correct me, is it, there was a something became formalized as a program and a minor, and so it just kind of shifted into a different space. Is that accurate or? Well, actually, the, the feminist

00:28:31.209 - 00:29:02.790

forum in it's that original form didn't last very long. It was, as I said, student-driven and I think was born of a particular moment of demographics at Pepperdine, and I think as students graduated and moved on, there weren't. Always new students to pick up the leadership

00:29:02.790 - 00:29:28.829

and continue it. So, my memory of that is kind of a slow fade. Um, That was also happening at a very personally difficult time for me. So, I have a very hazy memory of that time in terms of that sort of extracurricular stuff because I just

00:29:28.829 - 00:29:45.800

didn't have the, the bandwidth to deal with it at all. And that makes sense as far as like that's the rhythm, right? That's the rhythm of campus life, that's the rhythm of professorial life is you have a a group of students and sometimes things just cycle

00:29:45.800 - 00:30:05.869

out, not because people don't care, but new students come in and there are different priorities and yeah, right, they have different agendas and then, and Cynthia Novak and I transitioned into teaching the social we created. The social justice program is sort of was born out of

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that paired class we did. And in with, along with Jeff Banks and Lee Carroll sort of envisioned this program that now has been in place for such a long time. And everybody's focus was on creating that, getting it off the ground, and then teaching in it

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and continuing to develop it, and I think for myself anyway, That took up most of my uh attention and so I don't really think I did what I could have done to propel. It seems to me like there were moments where people said, let's start a,

00:30:50.689 - 00:31:03.589

let's start a feminist group, and we would say, great, go for it. Here's how you do that, go set it up. And sometimes it would happen and they would meet for a few times, and I don't, it just seemed to have a hard time really getting

00:31:04.060 - 00:31:29.270

started. Um, and I, I, it seems to me that that might have been part of the impetus behind generating a, a formal program that it would Give students a place to have those conversations and, uh, give them, of course, credit for it and so that there

00:31:29.270 - 00:31:54.459

was a level of seriousness around the study and, uh, a richness in what they were learning. And, um, I think That sort of, for a while anyway, supplemented or took the place of an outside sort of club, and it became the club, you know, the people

00:31:54.459 - 00:32:16.020

who were in the women's studies group were this group, you know, kind of tight-knit and, um, Almost like they didn't need a club because they had this program, but still, what to me, what is always missing is that link outward to the larger campus, to the

00:32:16.020 - 00:32:36.069

larger group of students. Hm. Well, what would you say, and, and this is my last question, but just what would you say to students now in the program? I mean, as I noted, The program, it's coming up on 25 years since it was formalized through SAC.

00:32:37.109 - 00:32:57.420

And so we just graduated our largest class, like 5 students, graduate Excellent, excellent. The program keeps trucking along, um, so I don't know, what would you say if you were, if you could sit down with these students, what would you say to them? We have never

00:32:57.420 - 00:33:24.760

needed. Strong women with an understanding of the history of the struggles of women in this country and in the world. We've never needed women like that more than we need them at this moment in time in our country. They are desperately needed. Um, no matter what

00:33:24.760 - 00:33:53.310

they actually do professionally, we need women who are articulate and well educated. To Have the conversations to not let it. Die down to keep the conversation going. I remember talking about, uh, women's issues in the social justice class, sort of even up into the, the 20

00:33:53.310 - 00:34:10.219

teens and, and the beginning of the 20s, then that, there was still a very pervasive attitude when I would talk about this stuff. It was like, uh, we're done, we're fine, you know, we have this right and that right, we're good. Nothing's gonna happen to it.

00:34:10.610 - 00:34:35.929

And In the past, that has been the case. Once somebody in the in the US is granted a constitutional right, it doesn't go away. But here we are, and um. If you look at things like Project 2025, they're very frightening if you're a woman. If you

00:34:35.929 - 00:34:58.030

read that from a woman's perspective and think about where you fit in this plan for our future, there's some very frightening things in there and um, We need women who are informed about that, informed about what the plans are that the people in power have for

00:34:58.030 - 00:35:21.399

you and your future. And we need you. We need those 5 women desperately. We need them to talk to other people. We need them to Never forget. And, you know, be a lawyer, be, be a politician. I, I don't know, be a writer, be whatever, but

00:35:21.399 - 00:35:46.149

never stop talking, never stop talking about it. Never stop arguing for the value of women's contributions to this culture. The need for women's contributions. Never stopped talking about it. So they're crucial in my opinion. They're crucial for our future, those women who learn and study and

00:35:46.149 - 00:36:09.979

think and talk. Yeah. Well, this has been such a pleasure. It's been really nice to see you and to talk with you. I've missed you. Yeah, same, I miss your laugh. I do, and somebody, somebody said something the other day about, remember your Oxford comma sign

00:36:09.979 - 00:36:30.179

that was on your phone. He said something about it and they attributed it to the the wrong colleague, and I was like, that was Laurie's door. That was me. That was Laurie's door. Yeah, Julie Smith and I had a running argument over the Oxford. Which side

00:36:30.179 - 00:36:47.459

were you on? Oh, I insist on the Oxford comma. Why Julie doesn't. That seems out of character for her. I thought so too. I thought so too. I don't know. I don't know why. Talk about it, but I insist on it. Some of the English majors

00:36:47.459 - 00:37:04.790

would be like, Wait a minute, Doctor Smith says don't put it in. You say do put it in. I'm like, know, your audience. Know your audience. Know your audience. That's a, that's a life tip. It is a life tip. I don't care what you're doing, know

00:37:04.790 - 00:37:23.780

your audience, yeah. Well, thank you for taking the time out of your day, and I'm just thrilled to hear about what you're doing and the, the important work that you're doing, how satisfying it is. It is very satisfying, yeah, yeah, and lots of people, when I

00:37:23.780 - 00:37:40.340

mentioned that we were gonna connect, um, you know, lots of people said hello. Lisa, Stella, yeah, everyone was like, please tell Laurie hello. Very sweet. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, I'll give the mic back to Bailey.