Attending Brigham Young University during the activism-driven 1960s
Cole describes what it was like to go to Brigham Young University, a Mormon institution of higher education, during the activism-driven 1960s. Although Cole recalls being aware of the social tumult that defined that era, she remembers that Brigham Young was a "safe environment" with "morally high standards." Her college experience offers an interesting counterpoint to other narratives of college education in the 1960s that emphasize widespread involvement of various social justice movements and counterculture activities.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Louise Cole, March 16, 1995. Interview G-0157. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
Activisim was becoming something people were doing
in the sixties, but, um, on issues that probably were not issues that
showed up on the campus at Brigham Young too often. Were you -
how did you feel about things in the sixties? Were you feeling that it
was something that was happening elsewhere, were you thinking about it
at all?
- LOUISE COLE:
-
Yes, I thought it was happening elsewhere. When I grew up in my little
town of Midland, Maryland, where I went to high school, there were no
drugs, and yet two years later when my brother graduated, they did start
having problems there. So I was in college, and I was at Brigham Young
University, of course, you had to wear your skirts below your knees and
you couldn't drink Coke on campus then, and -.. you know,
Mormons do not smoke or drink, and they do not drink coffee or tea, so,
I mean that's just one aspect of the religion, but it's, it's a pretty,
I guess you'd call it strict religion, morally high standards, and there
were no mixed dormitories, no co-ed dormitories, and there was a, an
honor code on campus that you did not stay overnight in anybody's,
anyone else's dormitory or apartment off-campus, that was of the
opposite sex. And so it was a pretty, you know, I guess, kind of a safe
environment. I enjoyed it there, very much so.