I am originally from South Boston (Southie) brought up in the poor part of town, the lower end. During the 60’s, while attending South Boston High School I had a truancy problem and was not getting along at home with my mother and step farther. Eventually my mother sent me to live with my father and step mother in Dedham which meant I’d have to attend a different school but it did get me out of my mother’s house. Upon my arrival at Dedham High School (DHS) the principal called me in his office and announced that they had no truancy problems in Dedham and welcomed me to my new school.
I was relived to be out of my mother’s house and for some reason I heard the principle’s message about truancy. I graduated from DHS in 1968 with second honors. My attendance was excellent and my grades were all A’s and B’s except for a C+ in conduct which won me second honors rather than first honors.
In those days high schools tracked students in either the college or business track. I was in the business track and upon graduation from high school was accepted at Bryant and Stratton, a business school. I was going to make my major computers and my dad had even taken a loan out to pay my tuition. However my heart wasn’t really in it.
In the summer of 1968 I was working in Bradlees, a retail store, and made friends with a young woman named Anne who was attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She had a good friend named Donna who was attending the University of Massachusetts Boston and she shared my lack of enthusiasm for business school with Donna. Donna told her to tell me about a program UMass Boston had called university expansion. Donna also put a good word in for me with the Dean in charge. This was a way into traditional university for those of us who weren’t college bound in high school. Basically the university would let you enter as a “special student” and allow you to take up to two courses. If you got a C or better you could apply to become a matriculated student. I was pleased with this new option and told my dad and step mom immediately. They gave the check back to the bank and gave me their blessing. I think they were relieved not to incur the debt. In those days a college course at UMass Boston was about $60 which I could afford without help from my parents since I was still living at home.
UMass Boston was said to be the Harvard for poor people. I was thrilled and intimidated all at the same time. I entered UMass Boston as a special student in September of 1968 and began my studies. Donna and Anne both graduated from UMass and we are all friends to this day.
I recall my first English course and how surprised I was that I was able to handle the work and was even told by the instructor that I had better writing skills that most of the class. So I took more courses and eventually matriculated.
During the late sixties and early seventies there were many cultural and political issues to get involved with and I jumped in with both feet?
I became a member of the Social Relations Coalition, a student organization, and eventually the first woman president. I moved out of my dad’s house to live in Cambridge in a women’s commune with other female students. We all concerned ourselves with the many issues of the time.
There was the job of preserving and continuing the progress made by the Civil Rights Movement. The Women’s Movement, an outgrowth of the Civil Rights, got my attention and I gladly joined my peers in their efforts to raise the consciousness of both men and women about women’s rights, equal pay, health care, and male chauvinism.
The Vietnam War and all the meetings and protests that involved contributed greatly to my understanding of war and politics. War became up close and personal. It wasn’t just WWII stories my dad, uncles and step father use to tell. The Vietnam War was on television all the time and it was horrifying.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated in 1968. Their assassinations dealt a blow to the civil rights, antiwar and women’s movements. I don’t think it would have taken us ten years to convince the nation that we were wrong to be in Vietnam if Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had lived.
Then there was the time when hundreds of universities across the country went on strike to protest the war. The red fist and peace sign could be seen everywhere and so could the picture of Kent State students who had been shot. Among our (students and faculty activists across the country) demands that universities divest their holdings in companies that contribute to the “war machine” we insisted that universities change their curriculum and add courses that more accurately reflect life in the present and to tell the true story about slavery and women’s history. We began to see new courses being offered and today there are college majors like Black Studies, Women’s Studies and the study of war. Yes, we did it. We brought about change for the better, “talk in bout my generation”.
Due to financial circumstance I left my student status behind in early 1974 and became a full time employee of the university. In my first year of employment I became a union activist and remained one for 25 of my 37 plus years of employment. I brought the leadership skills I learned as a student activist to my union responsibilities and was soon filing grievances, holding meetings and apprising my colleagues of their rights under the union contract and federal and state law.
After many years of not taking courses, I finished my degree and graduated in 1999 with a BA in Labor Studies and a major in Workplace Advocacy.
My years at UMass Boston as a student, student activist, employee and union leader have taught me much about the importance of resolving conflicts, fairness, goodwill, compromise, patience, acceptance, loyalty, love and kindness.
I’m a proud and grateful alum and retiree. UMass Boston is a very special place and has given me much.
With appreciation and gratitude, Susan F. Brown