Doris Yokum (interview); Creator: Yokum, Doris ; Interviewer(s): Michael Christopher and Michael Franzese; Interview location: unknown; Running time: 55 min., Apr 28, 1998

Coverage: 1970s-1990s
Topics discussed : (side A): Family History; Pennsylvania Dutch; farmers from Birkscounty; Mother's history; was an orphan and never made it past eight grade; born in 1899; her history gave Doris influence to pursue education; Discrimination; wasn't aware of it until later; she always wanted to teach and most teachers were women; WestConn experience; originally turned down job opportunity; applied to a school in Maine, but was turned down; Cornell; only took 12 grad students in philosophy per year; a senior member of department told her she was an experiment; Time at WestConn; began in 1970; retired in 1992; taught philosophy classes; began in the Humanistic Studies and Philosophy department; Classes taught; Moral Philosophy; Death and Dying; ethics courses like American Ethics; Business Ethics w/ the expansion of the business school was in need; Health Ethics at request of Nursing department; Educational philosophy; David Dumm and John Dewey; interested in ethics and moral philosophy; Confrontations w/ students; Vietnam War; was in full; bloom while she taught at Stonybrook; lots of protests and demonstrations at Stonybrook; after Kent State, they closed Stonybrook; never saw anything at WestConn; Oriental Philosophy; has no experience in it; is interested in it though; Retirement; has been doing a lot of reading; doesn't teach; has interest in health care; Writing a book; never wrote a book nor has desire to do so; Taking active role in one's education; Class structure; depended on the level of course; smaller classes were usually seminar; larger classes were usually discussion; Papers and tests; usually would have at least one exam; smaller classes usually had take; home exams; her "Death and Dying" class had a term paper w/ rigid guidelines (side B): Exam/term paper policy; determined on class size and course level; Restrictions; in her department, they were up to the individual; there was a reading list fixed by the Humanistic Studies; "Nature of Man" requirement when she first came; Time as chair of the department; Other background information; completely Pennsylvania Dutch; her family didn't start inter; marriage until after WW II; religion was usually either Lutheran and Dutch Reform; Work ethics of family; hard working; "women's work" and "men's work"; women usually worked in home, men outside home; President Franklin Roosevelt; First experience in college; went from high school to Beaver College (an all; girls college); she thought she would learn, but found other girls didn't have same goal; Leaving college; got a job as editorial assistant; told her father it was a summer job initially even though it wasn't; left school because she didn't like the college; Going back to college; after she had become successful, she realized she wanted different; later went into philosophy program; never took an education course; sees herself as a philosopher not an educator