Sweet MUMories Oral History Project - Cynda Kash
Title
Sweet MUMories Oral History Project - Cynda Kash
Description
Date
March 17, 2017
Duration
43:38
Transcription
Sweet MUMories Oral History Project
Final Transcript: Cynda Kash, March 17, 2017
Donation record # Kash.C.3172017.1
Transcribed by Erika Nisbet 6/22/2017
Approved by Marsha Robinson 8/20/2020
0.08 MRR My name is Marsha Robinson and we are recording an oral history with Cynda Kash as part of the Sweet MUMories Oral History Project. This project marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Miami University Middletown, Ohio, campus. This interview is taking place on March 17, 2017, at the Gardner-Harvey Library. Ms. Kash, do I have your consent to proceed with this interview?
0.34 CK Yes, you do.
0.35 MRR Thank you. Could you please tell us your connection to the Middletown campus?
0.42 CK I became a student here. My connection to Miami Middletown was becoming a non-traditional student at age forty-six in January of 1993. I came here to finish a Bachelor’s degree.
1.00 MRR What prompted you to come back to school?
1.03 CK Minimum wage jobs. Okay, what prompted me to come back to school were jobs that I was not suited for. I tried so many jobs and they just didn’t fit me. I knew I wanted a better pay. I was a single mom and we struggled financially because of the pay scale of someone out there who is not skilled. So that was my prompt.
1.34 MRR How did you feel about walking onto campus as a single mother and there are all these eighteen-year-olds in your class. How did that feel?
1.43 CK You know, when I came to school here as a non-traditional I thought nothing of the differences. To me, the eighteen-year-olds right out of school and me, as a forty-six-year old single mom, we were all students. We were all here to learn and had a goal of wanting to get somewhere with our degrees so I never felt the difference. I felt the professors always loved the non-traditionals because we weren’t always saying, “How do you score? What kind of tests do you give? And do you score on a curve?” because we really delved into each course that we took. I just didn’t see the difference really, didn’t bother me.
2.33 MRR Were there any professors or assignments that really stand out in your memory that you really enjoyed?
2.40 CK I don’t really think other than statistics, sorry Dr. Amy Fisher, that was the only C I got, otherwise I got all A’s and B’s. I loved them all, Marsha. I loved all my classes. But sociology always stood out because we had Michele Charlton. She was, I think, an adjunct here. Her classes were impactive, really made you think about our world and our society. And when you’ve been cloistered in a fairly small Midwestern town as a single parent, you weren’t that worldly. She really opened my eyes to a lot of social issues.
3.32 MRR What kind of social issues really caught your attention?
3.37 CK I think for me, the social issues that caught my attention, I think I did not realize, and I’m not a feminist, but I didn’t realize that women did appear to be a lesser part of our world or viewed. We weren’t but I think we were viewed as less than. Being in those classes really made me feel very equal to everyone.
4.16 MRR So, what career did you eventually pursue?
4.19 CK The career that I chose, because I was fortunate enough to be able to do the entire career here at Miami Middletown, was social work. Now, Miami has never been an accredited program but Glenn Abraham, who was one of the instructors here, who taught the social work methods classes, knew enough. He was on the Social Work Licensing Board in Ohio and still is. He knew what classes to tell us to take so that when we graduated we could go take the test and become the licensed social worker position if we so chose.
5.04 MRR So what was your degree in then?
5.06 CK It was a Bachelor of Science and actually it was Social Work major. It was a Social Work major and Sociology was my minor but again, it wasn’t viewed as an accredited program. So that’s why Glenn Abraham helped us make sure we got all the right classes so that it would be as if we graduated from an accredited social work program.
5.36 MRR Did you benefit from any of the Liberal Arts courses?
5.40 CK Oh gosh, yes. Anthropology just opened my eyes too. The first time I ever heard the term ethno-eccentric, how us Americans were so ethno-eccentric and it just so registered, it really opened my eyes. We had to read a book called The Forest People and it was about the pygmies in Africa living in the forest, living sustainably on their surroundings and only coming out a few times of the year to earn some of the things they couldn’t get in the forest. You know, it just opens your eyes to what’s out there in the world instead of what’s in Middletown, Ohio. My English class, I loved Dr. John Heyda, he was brilliant. and I worked very hard for my A in there. I still see him, he’s retired, I think he still teaches still, some part-time but I see him around town and every time I see him I say, “You know, you were my favorite.” So I had had two years at Ohio State back in the sixties but of course, not everything transferred so I really only had year transfer. I didn’t have to take as many general classes, I don’t know what they call it now, it was the Miami Plan or something like that. Yes, Geography. I loved Cultural Geography, Social Geography. The Physical Geography was harder because it included a lot of math but, Ron Garrett, is it Ron Garrett? I can’t remember, he’s retired from here. He made that class fascinating. Different cultures of the world. So I started living outside of Middletown, Ohio even though I was living here. The education, the critical thinking skills. Oh my gosh, I never worked so hard as I worked in his class. Well, he was tough. He demanded. When the quarter started there was forty-some students and by midterm it was down to twenty because he was demanding and he expected you to memorize. Don’t ask me what the meaning of geography is. You know, we had to do that on every test. I’ll never forget on my second midterm he came in and wrote on the board that the highest you could get is an eighty-two. He was writing the scores. There was one person that got a seventy-five and I said to my seat mate, “I sure don’t like them” and he turned around and grinned at me. It was me who got the seventy-five. I can remember spending eleven hours one Saturday studying, making a map of the world, putting all the countries in. I mean, he gave us a copy. I learned good study skills here. I learned how to, even though I wasn’t going to be a Geography professor, I put my whole heart into it because that’s what he expected and I think that’s why they always liked non-traditional students here.
9.07 MRR Did those study skills help you after graduation?
9.10 CK The study skills that I developed here, I think, helped me know how to apply what were my strengths in any job that I did. Like I said, math was never my strong suit. Research, now I didn’t have research. I took a research methods class that was required for Social Work but I learned how to dig and when you’re a social worker you need to know how to dig and find those resources. Well, you sure had to find them in the classes here to write those papers or be part of a panel discussion or you know, a group project.
9.53 MRR When students came back to college did they have any kind of placement test they needed to take?
10.00 CK Before I came back, now this would have been the fall of, because I started back in January of ninety-three, so this would’ve been the fall of ninety-two. Mary Lu Flynn was here and I knew her from being active in the community. And there was something called the ERMA- the English, Reading, Math Assessment. That helped with where they knew where to place you. I scored pretty far out of college on the English but I scored remedial on the math which didn't surprise me. When you don’t use it, you lose it. I think I have pretty good practical math application skills, but I didn’t in the student sense. So, yes, and that helped me know what I needed to take and I can’t remember which remedial math I took. Of course, statistics was not my favorite. I struggled.
11.02 MRR Speaking of the word struggle, some students who are coming back to college find it a struggle to put together the finances to be here. Do you have any recollections of how you put your package together to get here?
11.17 CK I had no idea when I came back to college how I was going to pay for it. I didn’t know what college cost. I mean, was it five hundred dollars? Was it a thousand dollars? Was it ten thousand? I mean, it was just a complete blank. I started calling around, having worked in the community for nine years, I started calling around saying “what kind of organizations give scholarships”? That’s that researcher part of me. I dig, and again, good social work skills when you’re finding resources for clients. So through the Chamber of Commerce she told me of the American Business Women’s Association that gave scholarships, so I called. They were kind of shocked, they had never had a non-traditional student apply but I filled out the paperwork. My father had been a much beloved teacher and coach here in Middletown, Harold Mason. A lot of those people on the board, a lot of those ladies had my dad as a teacher. So they got all imbued with the idea first of, oh a non-traditional student, we’ve never done that and Harold Mason’s daughter. One of the students who had been awarded a scholarship in the spring didn’t go to school so they had fifteen hundred dollars in their pot and that’s what they gave me, well, they gave to the university. Then you started learning how to work the financial aid and I just lived at that financial aid window because it wouldn’t have been online at that time, it was all paperwork, you know, application. I was always at that financial aid window asking, “Any scholarship applications?” In my three years of attending here year-round, I had over eight thousand dollars in scholarships. From the American Business Women’s Association, they supported my scholarship three years in a row so it was fifteen hundred dollars for three years, each year. I got a Casper, the Miami scholarships, there was a Casper one and they were usually around nine hundred. Then I learned about the loan process because my senior year here I had to borrow a little bit more. I worked up to four part-time jobs being a full-time student and a single mother of two teenagers going through those teenage angst and woes and challenges. I worked, of one which was a work study, did some work study here for Dr. Robert Seufert. He has the applied research here at Miami, still does. At eighty he’s still doing it. Saw him the other day. That was one of my jobs. I was a nanny. I did interior house painting for people that knew me. I had an old beater car and my mechanic was keeping it together for me and I would do some of his computer work in exchange. That’s why I said I had four part-time jobs. I just am not a quitter. I’m a fighter so the financial end didn’t intimidate me. I just knew I had to figure it out.
14.58 MRR Some of our students who have children try to figure out how to manage the hours in a day. Can you talk about the system you came up with for yourself? How did you manage student life and parent time?
15.14 CK So, to come back to school and be a single parent of two teenagers had its challenges. They pretty much could take care of themselves. If I had an evening class, I’d fix the meal before I came. They had learned to cook on their own and they’re going through their teenage angst years. I wasn’t involved in activities here because between four part-time jobs and being a single mom. But the best part of this journey was, I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and a divorce when they were four and six didn’t allow for that. But when you’re a student here and have two kids that were latch key for a long time, most of my classes were in the morning so I might be home by noon or one o clock. I would be there when they got home from school. So it was kind of like being a stay at home mom. If I had an evening class, like I said, I would fix the meal or you know, have time with them. I did not study a lot in the evening. I got up at five in the morning before classes. My son would tell his friends, as he was thirteen, but he was kind of young for his age but still, he would say “My mom gets up at five o’clock in the morning and studies!” Well, I’m a morning person and that way I was more available for them when they came home in the afternoon and just them being around is a disruption in a schedule, you know. They’re in and out or they want to ask you a question so it’s kind of hard to have the continuity of time to study. I’m not saying I didn’t study depending on what I was doing. I might be able to write a paper or type it up. I didn’t have a computer. I had a word processor. I wasn’t really involved in activities here. I made a lot of friends. We would get together in, I guess you would call it, the commons. Where you’d get together and eat and we would commiserate or celebrate depending on what subject we were taking or how we were doing. I had one fellow student and we were both non-traditional and single moms and I know she graduated with a 4.0. She was a good study partner, we studied well together and we did do that. She reminded me when I saw her the last couple of weeks ago that her mom had been in a very bad car accident and how I came to the hospital and we studied mythology there together in her mom’s room while she was with her mom. Gosh, that almost makes me want to tear up. Yeah, she reminded me of that, I had forgotten that.
0.38 MRR Thank you for sharing that. Many of our students have similar stories.
0.44 CK Life doesn’t stop when you become a student. You have this wonderful camaraderie of being with the other students and the non-traditionals found each other rather quickly and it’s obvious. Then once you get into your major classes you’re with a lot of the same students. And especially in social work and sociology because the friend I was just mentioning was Sociology and Criminology I think was her field. We always had a lot of the same classes but you really support each other and that’s what I loved about this campus. It wasn’t very big, I think at the time I was attending there were about twenty-four hundred students and I think twenty-five percent were non-traditional so there were plenty of us. I can remember being in classes and there were only fifteen students. It was perfect. Now, your intro classes to psychology and anthropology were the big hundred-student but when you had Adolf Greenburg, who taught anthropology, you didn’t feel like you were in a class of a hundred. He made it alive and real and interesting. It might be because I love studying people and cultures, you know, so maybe the others wouldn’t have felt that way if they were some kind of math major but he was superb. He was a good professor.
2.22 MRR This may seem like a major leap but I’d like to talk about a couple things you mentioned. One of those is a word processor. We’ve been talking about the evolution of technology and some may not know that you’re not talking about an application or an app.
2.40 CK Oh, good point.
2.41 MRR So could you talk to us about computer technology that you had available?
2.45 CK Okay. When I became a student here in January of ninety-three I don’t even remember, I might of had a typewriter that I could have typed papers on. But somewhere along the way I bought an actual machine and it was big and clunky. It was this size, it was this tall and it was a word processor. That was the extent of what I used my three years here at Miami Middletown. You would get those discs to save things on. I didn’t even know how to go turn on a computer. Now, one of my classmates was more savvy and I think she would come here to the library because I can assure you that as a single mom you didn’t have the money to go out and buy some of this technology so you really used what was here at the library. Well, I liked being at home more as I stayed with two kids. She had more family in town, I didn’t. She had family that could come help with her kids. I bought the word processor and it was two hundred and some dollars and for a single mom who was putting herself back through college, that was a lot. But I wanted to be able to do the work because if I got inspired I didn’t want to have to hurry and get in the car and come here to campus and work at the library. I think there was a computer room downstairs with a lot of computers, yeah.
4.28 MRR You mentioned family. Could you tell us about your family story and moving into Middletown?
4.36 CK Okay. I grew up, I was born in Middletown, 1946 at the old Middletown Hospital. Mabel Gardner was a lifelong physician that delivered me, delivered my brother who was born in thirty-four. My father and mother came here in 1931. He had just graduated from Ohio University and he was a History/Social Studies/Health teacher. He started, he was on the first staff at Roosevelt Junior High School. He was their gym teacher, their basketball coach, their track coach, their baseball coach. He loved sports so he did it all. Yes, my family goes back to that time. They were both from Columbus, Ohio, but this was his first assignment where he got the job and it was a new school and he loved it. He loved being a teacher. So many coaches, they love their coaching first and then their classroom second. No, he loved his classrooms. When my father died I was only twelve. It was 1959. And for two days, because they used to have longer funeral times, people came through the receiving line for my mother and myself and said “Mrs. Mason, I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for coach” or “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Mr. Mason.” I grew up in this town, I graduated in 1964 and I went to Ohio State for two years. I didn’t know financial aid or loans or so-forth. So my mother’s a widow and only had enough money for two years. So then I got married, I got my M-R-S Degree [married]and supported us while he finished. We stayed in Columbus but I was always back and forth between Middletown and Columbus. Middletown was always home to me and you know, I wasn’t here when they were doing the groundbreaking for Miami Middletown, But I gather that Barry Levey, who of course, was a driving force in Miami Middletown, his widow told me several years ago that when they were doing the groundbreaking or maybe the dedication when it was built, that he mentioned my dad's name at that time, Harold Mason. Maybe I can research and find out what some of those ceremonies were about to see. I always knew when I lived in Columbus and then lived in Florida, but after my divorce I wanted my children to have family. My ex-in laws and all of them were here because my mother and father were both deceased and a brother in Seattle, Washington, so I came back to town. I had those jobs that I always felt I had some incredible talents but let’s go back to Middletown, Ohio in the 1950s. Let’s go anywhere in this country in the 1950s. You, as a female, were taught or thought, it was just part of the culture, you would either be a teacher, a nurse, a bookkeeper, a secretary or a teller. Well, I didn’t have the skillset for any of those. I was really kind of a lost soul, not knowing. My first round at Ohio State I thought I’d go into teaching because I always loved children. But I did not, to me, I didn’t fit anywhere. I had jobs that parts were good for me but I felt I wasn’t using all my talents but I didn’t know what those talents were because I wasn’t a teacher, a nurse, a bookkeeper, a teller, or a secretary. Those didn’t suit me. What I didn’t know until I came back to school is that communication and problem solving are my strong suits and those are absolute skills you need to have as a social worker. You can’t be a social worker without being able to express what you’re seeing to help someone or be able to communicate within the community to get services. So, when I came back here the only thing I thought, well I’ll do social work. I really wasn’t that savvy of what was available. I knew sociology because I always had interest in human stories, our fellow mankind, I always was interested in their stories. I came back kind of blindly but it didn’t take me long to put two and two together. I mean I was forty-six so I had some life skills behind me. It became apparent that I could get my social work degree, get the classes that would lead to a social work license all here at Miami Middletown. I never thought I was that smart because I had all these brilliant friends. I struggled with certain elements. There’s something called multiple intelligences and you, as a professor would know that. But learning styles, I think I learned later in life that a lot of the way in the fifties and the sixties, classes were taught did not suit my learning style so I struggled on some levels. I never thought of myself as that good of a student even though I got good grades but I really struggled. Coming back here, my goal was to graduate cum laude and I did. I learned I was smarter than the average bear. [Refers to a famous quote by sport legend Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra] My smarts, I think, and I would say this to anyone that wanted to come back to school, I don’t think I was necessarily book smart but I was smart enough to figure out what needed to be done to get the job done. Well, you can’t have a much better life skill than that. But, I had three years here that I got to practice that and gain confidence. Now see, I’m going to get choked up again because your instructors, your professors, your adjuncts, whoever was leading the class, they weren’t the enemy. They were here to support you in whatever way they could and encourage you and hopefully do your best. You knew that about them. Again, at forty-six I think I might of been a little more astute just with life skills. Being born in 1946, I’m the first of the baby boomers so we had a lot to overcome in the mores and those being products of the fifties. To come back to school, you know, as a single parent, I had to make an awful lot of decisions for my children but it was never too late to make decisions about my life too because I was always a person of tremendous hope. Coming here and getting my Bachelor’s degree changed my life. Changed it tremendously.
13.04 MRR I’d like to talk more about community.
13.07 CK Ok.
13.08 MRR Because the whole vision for this campus was a community vision. It was not just Armco Park or Armco. There were other companies. There were individuals who participated in this. One of the community groups you mentioned is The American Business Women. Do you know any of those women by name that you would like to mention?
13.36 CK You know, all the people that were involved Marsha, they were much older when this was going on so that they’ve either passed on or aren’t involved. I think the chapter has kind of diminished. So..
13.50 MRR Do you recall Evelyn Day by any chance? Have you met her?
13.55 CK No. Mary Aleen Cordray who was my g- to person with The American Business Women’s Association.
14.07 MRR We like to get women’s names into the story...
14.09 CK Ok.
14.09 MRR So thank you.
14.10 CK Ok.
14.13 MRR Now, also, you mentioned community. Another vision of the planning community or planning committees was that this campus would provide opportunities for culture to the city at large. Did you participate in any of the public events, say the Artist and Lecture Series? Or attend any of the events at Finkelman Auditorium?
14.42 CK I don’t remember doing that much Marsha.
14.45 MRR That makes for someone who is working four jobs…
14.46 CK Yeah, four jobs and two teenagers…
14.49 MRR Yes.
14.49 CK And wanted to graduate cum laude.
14.51 MRR I’d say that’s okay.
14.53 CK Yeah.
14.53 MRR Don’t feel badly about that. After you graduated, how did you see…
14.59 CK Now wait a minute. One thing that I do want to say, approaching a social work major, or in the way we worked it out here at Miami Middletown, I did have to go out into the community and do some internships. And so I did a couple at United Way and that really opened my eyes to services in the community that I didn’t know. And as a single mom, you know, it helped me. Now I need to go back. We have a homeless shelter here in Middletown called the Hope House and I was very active when that building was given rent free to Nancy Caldwell to turn it into a homeless shelter. My ten- and twelve-year-old and I were down there three or four nights a week, painting, scraping, the tile floor that’s in that Hope House now is tile that I laid most of. And so, but I started learning there was a wonderful, Cecilia Brandenburg, she was a social worker that worked for Family Services. She eventually worked at the Hope House. But I can tell you as a single mother there were times I was getting shut off notices for my electric and I would call Cecilia, Ceal as we called her, and I would go to her and she would write a voucher and I took it to Salvation Army and they paid the shut-off notice of $252. The apartment I was renting was a duplex, with leaky windows and not good insulation. So I don’t care how cool you kept it, the bills got up there. So, the community here helped me survive in ways. And there was a Christmas she called me and said “Hey,” Ceal Brandenburg, “I’ve got something for you. Can you come into the office?” She had a check for me for $500 and someone had called her and said “Is there anyone in the community that you think could use that lift up? You know, that’s really doing something that they’re trying to help themselves?” And, so she channeled it in my direction. And she did that two years in a row. And the second year I was able to buy tires that were my bald tires from my old car. So, the community, and I had forgotten about that, how the community in its own way supported me being here at Miami. Everyone in this town, because I had worked in an industry that I had attended a lot of events and so forth. So, everyone knew about my journey so they were cheerleaders for me. So this was a wonderful community to put Miami Middletown in. To have the regional campus, we were fortunate.
0.22 MRR In the short time that I have known you, I think you started paying that forward. Are there other instances where you can say that Miami graduates are also paying things forward to the community? Do you see our footprints anywhere in Middletown?
0.45 CK On the periphery, because the field I just retired from was in another town working for a retirement community, so for thirteen years I was not very involved in Middletown. Well, I was involved in starting a community garden, the Reynolds Street Community Gardens. And I’ve been involved in preservation work and I spearheaded an event that we unearthed the 100 year time capsule from the Carnegie Library. So I’ve been involved on those levels, but that was me, so I wasn’t as aware. But as I’ve gotten more involved on the revitalization of Downtown Middletown, I have met different people who are from Miami that are quite involved in the town. And is CBI, is it Community Based Institute, is that a Miami…
1.40 MRR It’s not.
1.41 CK Based…
1.43 MRR I know we have Miami people involved in it but I don’t know if it’s an official…
1.47 CK Ok.
1.48 MRR Arm of the college.
1.49 CK Well I certainly know a lot of Miami people that are involved in it. I mean, I’m meeting people so I think that’s why I thought it was a Miami-based activity.
1.59 MRR We have interviewed the person who helped start that.
2.01 CK Ok. So see, yeah.
2.07 MRR Is there anything else that you would like to add to the story about the importance of MUM to you or to your community?
2.14 CK Ok, let me regain my composure. Well, the opportunity that I had to come to Miami Middletown, green, green, green, green, green. I had no idea what I was going to be doing or where this was going to lead to. It built confidence in me like I had never had. I learned that I was smart, you know. I learned that my professors would say, “That is such an excellent question Cynda.” And I had one professor tell me “I was so grateful you were in my class because you would keep it going a lot of time.” Because I’m very inquisitive and I want to know. I may not have been a Botany major but when I was in that class I was a hundred percent engaged and involved. So this opportunity, I can’t say enough. I really wish a lot of students, my own daughter went away to college, I think more students coming out of schools around here could come for a year here, have the comfort of still being at home, having a familiar environment and adjusting to what college is all about. I just think regional campuses. My own daughter, out in Seattle, is going that route, just is getting her associates degree this month. There aren’t enough words to say what this three years did for me. There aren’t enough words. I’m a wordsmith and I’ve never been at a loss for words but I think this is a first for me because it was mammoth in my life to be able to come here and I was forty-six years old. I had a lot of crappy jobs, jobs that didn’t pay well. If you’re at the lower echelon of a place you’re not always highly thought of or well-treated and this gave me dignity. Getting my degree gave me dignity, gave me a purpose, it gave me a skillset and it gave me pride in myself of the things that I didn’t know I could do and I mean, I had the life skills of being a surviving parent of a divorce and raising two small children on my own but that’s survival so you’re digging down in and just trying to survive. This was about building me. And with my children being thirteen and fifteen, I could focus more on me and they were real proud of me. My first semester here I got a four point and my daughter, who was top of her class at Middletown, went all over that school telling everyone that her mother got a four point. Yeah, she was real proud of mommy.
5.28 MRR Is there a piece of advice you’d like to give to future students looking at this video?
5.37 CK What words of wisdom? Just give it a try and search out those that can help you whether it’s your fellow student, your faculty. One thing I’ve found being in college, it’s an incredibly nurturing environment. Incredibly nurturing. So, if you feel the world hasn’t treated you very well or that it’s kind of a bad place to be in, go to college because you’ll see a whole different side. You’ll see a whole different side. You’ll see people that are your cheerleaders. When you’re out in the workforce you don’t always have the best bosses or coworkers. But when you’re in a college environment, you have cheerleaders. They want to see you succeed and it’s infectious. It’s infectious. So, give it a try. Look in every window of opportunity on this campus. When I was here I never met other than someone behind whether it was the financial aid window or student government window, activities window, that didn’t want to help you and went the extra mile to help you. I really can’t believe that it’s any different twenty some years later.
6.01 MRR Do I have your permission to discontinue the interview?
6.04 CK Yes.
6.05 MRR Thank you.
Abraham, Glenn J., Prof.
American Business Women’s Association
Anthropology
Armco
Armco Park
Bank teller
Barry Levey
Bookkeeper
Brandenburg, Cecilia
Caldwell, Nancy
Caregiving, elder care
Carnegie Library
Carnegie Library
Cars
Casper scholarship
Chamber of Commerce
Charlton, Michele M., Prof.
Children
Columbus, Ohio
Community Building Institute (CBI)
Computer lab
Computers
Computers, word processor
Cooking
Cordray, Mary Aleen
Criminology
Cum laude
Divorce
Downtown Middletown
English
ERMA- (English, Reading, Math Assessment)
Financial aid
Fisher, Amy, Prof.
Florida
Flynn, Mary Lu
Funeral
Gardner, Mabel, MD
Garrett, Ron, Prof.
Geography
Geography, Cultural
Geography, Physical
Geography, Social
Greenburg, Adolf
Heyda, John, Prof.
Hope House
Latch key kid
Levey, Barry
Liberal Arts
Library
Library, Carnegie
Marriage, M-R-S degree
Mason, Harold
Math
Mechanics
Middletown Hospital
Minimum Wage
Non-traditional student
Nurse
Ohio State University
Ohio University
Opportunity
Parent
Physician
Placement test, ERMA
Reynolds Street Community Gardens
Roosevelt Junior High School
Scholarships
Seattle, Washington
Secretary
Seufert, Robert Prof.
Single mother
Single parent
Social Work
Social Work Licensing Board
Statistics
Study schedule
Teacher
Technology
Teenagers
Teller, bank
The Forest People
Transfer credits
Widow
Final Transcript: Cynda Kash, March 17, 2017
Donation record # Kash.C.3172017.1
Transcribed by Erika Nisbet 6/22/2017
Approved by Marsha Robinson 8/20/2020
0.08 MRR My name is Marsha Robinson and we are recording an oral history with Cynda Kash as part of the Sweet MUMories Oral History Project. This project marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Miami University Middletown, Ohio, campus. This interview is taking place on March 17, 2017, at the Gardner-Harvey Library. Ms. Kash, do I have your consent to proceed with this interview?
0.34 CK Yes, you do.
0.35 MRR Thank you. Could you please tell us your connection to the Middletown campus?
0.42 CK I became a student here. My connection to Miami Middletown was becoming a non-traditional student at age forty-six in January of 1993. I came here to finish a Bachelor’s degree.
1.00 MRR What prompted you to come back to school?
1.03 CK Minimum wage jobs. Okay, what prompted me to come back to school were jobs that I was not suited for. I tried so many jobs and they just didn’t fit me. I knew I wanted a better pay. I was a single mom and we struggled financially because of the pay scale of someone out there who is not skilled. So that was my prompt.
1.34 MRR How did you feel about walking onto campus as a single mother and there are all these eighteen-year-olds in your class. How did that feel?
1.43 CK You know, when I came to school here as a non-traditional I thought nothing of the differences. To me, the eighteen-year-olds right out of school and me, as a forty-six-year old single mom, we were all students. We were all here to learn and had a goal of wanting to get somewhere with our degrees so I never felt the difference. I felt the professors always loved the non-traditionals because we weren’t always saying, “How do you score? What kind of tests do you give? And do you score on a curve?” because we really delved into each course that we took. I just didn’t see the difference really, didn’t bother me.
2.33 MRR Were there any professors or assignments that really stand out in your memory that you really enjoyed?
2.40 CK I don’t really think other than statistics, sorry Dr. Amy Fisher, that was the only C I got, otherwise I got all A’s and B’s. I loved them all, Marsha. I loved all my classes. But sociology always stood out because we had Michele Charlton. She was, I think, an adjunct here. Her classes were impactive, really made you think about our world and our society. And when you’ve been cloistered in a fairly small Midwestern town as a single parent, you weren’t that worldly. She really opened my eyes to a lot of social issues.
3.32 MRR What kind of social issues really caught your attention?
3.37 CK I think for me, the social issues that caught my attention, I think I did not realize, and I’m not a feminist, but I didn’t realize that women did appear to be a lesser part of our world or viewed. We weren’t but I think we were viewed as less than. Being in those classes really made me feel very equal to everyone.
4.16 MRR So, what career did you eventually pursue?
4.19 CK The career that I chose, because I was fortunate enough to be able to do the entire career here at Miami Middletown, was social work. Now, Miami has never been an accredited program but Glenn Abraham, who was one of the instructors here, who taught the social work methods classes, knew enough. He was on the Social Work Licensing Board in Ohio and still is. He knew what classes to tell us to take so that when we graduated we could go take the test and become the licensed social worker position if we so chose.
5.04 MRR So what was your degree in then?
5.06 CK It was a Bachelor of Science and actually it was Social Work major. It was a Social Work major and Sociology was my minor but again, it wasn’t viewed as an accredited program. So that’s why Glenn Abraham helped us make sure we got all the right classes so that it would be as if we graduated from an accredited social work program.
5.36 MRR Did you benefit from any of the Liberal Arts courses?
5.40 CK Oh gosh, yes. Anthropology just opened my eyes too. The first time I ever heard the term ethno-eccentric, how us Americans were so ethno-eccentric and it just so registered, it really opened my eyes. We had to read a book called The Forest People and it was about the pygmies in Africa living in the forest, living sustainably on their surroundings and only coming out a few times of the year to earn some of the things they couldn’t get in the forest. You know, it just opens your eyes to what’s out there in the world instead of what’s in Middletown, Ohio. My English class, I loved Dr. John Heyda, he was brilliant. and I worked very hard for my A in there. I still see him, he’s retired, I think he still teaches still, some part-time but I see him around town and every time I see him I say, “You know, you were my favorite.” So I had had two years at Ohio State back in the sixties but of course, not everything transferred so I really only had year transfer. I didn’t have to take as many general classes, I don’t know what they call it now, it was the Miami Plan or something like that. Yes, Geography. I loved Cultural Geography, Social Geography. The Physical Geography was harder because it included a lot of math but, Ron Garrett, is it Ron Garrett? I can’t remember, he’s retired from here. He made that class fascinating. Different cultures of the world. So I started living outside of Middletown, Ohio even though I was living here. The education, the critical thinking skills. Oh my gosh, I never worked so hard as I worked in his class. Well, he was tough. He demanded. When the quarter started there was forty-some students and by midterm it was down to twenty because he was demanding and he expected you to memorize. Don’t ask me what the meaning of geography is. You know, we had to do that on every test. I’ll never forget on my second midterm he came in and wrote on the board that the highest you could get is an eighty-two. He was writing the scores. There was one person that got a seventy-five and I said to my seat mate, “I sure don’t like them” and he turned around and grinned at me. It was me who got the seventy-five. I can remember spending eleven hours one Saturday studying, making a map of the world, putting all the countries in. I mean, he gave us a copy. I learned good study skills here. I learned how to, even though I wasn’t going to be a Geography professor, I put my whole heart into it because that’s what he expected and I think that’s why they always liked non-traditional students here.
9.07 MRR Did those study skills help you after graduation?
9.10 CK The study skills that I developed here, I think, helped me know how to apply what were my strengths in any job that I did. Like I said, math was never my strong suit. Research, now I didn’t have research. I took a research methods class that was required for Social Work but I learned how to dig and when you’re a social worker you need to know how to dig and find those resources. Well, you sure had to find them in the classes here to write those papers or be part of a panel discussion or you know, a group project.
9.53 MRR When students came back to college did they have any kind of placement test they needed to take?
10.00 CK Before I came back, now this would have been the fall of, because I started back in January of ninety-three, so this would’ve been the fall of ninety-two. Mary Lu Flynn was here and I knew her from being active in the community. And there was something called the ERMA- the English, Reading, Math Assessment. That helped with where they knew where to place you. I scored pretty far out of college on the English but I scored remedial on the math which didn't surprise me. When you don’t use it, you lose it. I think I have pretty good practical math application skills, but I didn’t in the student sense. So, yes, and that helped me know what I needed to take and I can’t remember which remedial math I took. Of course, statistics was not my favorite. I struggled.
11.02 MRR Speaking of the word struggle, some students who are coming back to college find it a struggle to put together the finances to be here. Do you have any recollections of how you put your package together to get here?
11.17 CK I had no idea when I came back to college how I was going to pay for it. I didn’t know what college cost. I mean, was it five hundred dollars? Was it a thousand dollars? Was it ten thousand? I mean, it was just a complete blank. I started calling around, having worked in the community for nine years, I started calling around saying “what kind of organizations give scholarships”? That’s that researcher part of me. I dig, and again, good social work skills when you’re finding resources for clients. So through the Chamber of Commerce she told me of the American Business Women’s Association that gave scholarships, so I called. They were kind of shocked, they had never had a non-traditional student apply but I filled out the paperwork. My father had been a much beloved teacher and coach here in Middletown, Harold Mason. A lot of those people on the board, a lot of those ladies had my dad as a teacher. So they got all imbued with the idea first of, oh a non-traditional student, we’ve never done that and Harold Mason’s daughter. One of the students who had been awarded a scholarship in the spring didn’t go to school so they had fifteen hundred dollars in their pot and that’s what they gave me, well, they gave to the university. Then you started learning how to work the financial aid and I just lived at that financial aid window because it wouldn’t have been online at that time, it was all paperwork, you know, application. I was always at that financial aid window asking, “Any scholarship applications?” In my three years of attending here year-round, I had over eight thousand dollars in scholarships. From the American Business Women’s Association, they supported my scholarship three years in a row so it was fifteen hundred dollars for three years, each year. I got a Casper, the Miami scholarships, there was a Casper one and they were usually around nine hundred. Then I learned about the loan process because my senior year here I had to borrow a little bit more. I worked up to four part-time jobs being a full-time student and a single mother of two teenagers going through those teenage angst and woes and challenges. I worked, of one which was a work study, did some work study here for Dr. Robert Seufert. He has the applied research here at Miami, still does. At eighty he’s still doing it. Saw him the other day. That was one of my jobs. I was a nanny. I did interior house painting for people that knew me. I had an old beater car and my mechanic was keeping it together for me and I would do some of his computer work in exchange. That’s why I said I had four part-time jobs. I just am not a quitter. I’m a fighter so the financial end didn’t intimidate me. I just knew I had to figure it out.
14.58 MRR Some of our students who have children try to figure out how to manage the hours in a day. Can you talk about the system you came up with for yourself? How did you manage student life and parent time?
15.14 CK So, to come back to school and be a single parent of two teenagers had its challenges. They pretty much could take care of themselves. If I had an evening class, I’d fix the meal before I came. They had learned to cook on their own and they’re going through their teenage angst years. I wasn’t involved in activities here because between four part-time jobs and being a single mom. But the best part of this journey was, I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and a divorce when they were four and six didn’t allow for that. But when you’re a student here and have two kids that were latch key for a long time, most of my classes were in the morning so I might be home by noon or one o clock. I would be there when they got home from school. So it was kind of like being a stay at home mom. If I had an evening class, like I said, I would fix the meal or you know, have time with them. I did not study a lot in the evening. I got up at five in the morning before classes. My son would tell his friends, as he was thirteen, but he was kind of young for his age but still, he would say “My mom gets up at five o’clock in the morning and studies!” Well, I’m a morning person and that way I was more available for them when they came home in the afternoon and just them being around is a disruption in a schedule, you know. They’re in and out or they want to ask you a question so it’s kind of hard to have the continuity of time to study. I’m not saying I didn’t study depending on what I was doing. I might be able to write a paper or type it up. I didn’t have a computer. I had a word processor. I wasn’t really involved in activities here. I made a lot of friends. We would get together in, I guess you would call it, the commons. Where you’d get together and eat and we would commiserate or celebrate depending on what subject we were taking or how we were doing. I had one fellow student and we were both non-traditional and single moms and I know she graduated with a 4.0. She was a good study partner, we studied well together and we did do that. She reminded me when I saw her the last couple of weeks ago that her mom had been in a very bad car accident and how I came to the hospital and we studied mythology there together in her mom’s room while she was with her mom. Gosh, that almost makes me want to tear up. Yeah, she reminded me of that, I had forgotten that.
0.38 MRR Thank you for sharing that. Many of our students have similar stories.
0.44 CK Life doesn’t stop when you become a student. You have this wonderful camaraderie of being with the other students and the non-traditionals found each other rather quickly and it’s obvious. Then once you get into your major classes you’re with a lot of the same students. And especially in social work and sociology because the friend I was just mentioning was Sociology and Criminology I think was her field. We always had a lot of the same classes but you really support each other and that’s what I loved about this campus. It wasn’t very big, I think at the time I was attending there were about twenty-four hundred students and I think twenty-five percent were non-traditional so there were plenty of us. I can remember being in classes and there were only fifteen students. It was perfect. Now, your intro classes to psychology and anthropology were the big hundred-student but when you had Adolf Greenburg, who taught anthropology, you didn’t feel like you were in a class of a hundred. He made it alive and real and interesting. It might be because I love studying people and cultures, you know, so maybe the others wouldn’t have felt that way if they were some kind of math major but he was superb. He was a good professor.
2.22 MRR This may seem like a major leap but I’d like to talk about a couple things you mentioned. One of those is a word processor. We’ve been talking about the evolution of technology and some may not know that you’re not talking about an application or an app.
2.40 CK Oh, good point.
2.41 MRR So could you talk to us about computer technology that you had available?
2.45 CK Okay. When I became a student here in January of ninety-three I don’t even remember, I might of had a typewriter that I could have typed papers on. But somewhere along the way I bought an actual machine and it was big and clunky. It was this size, it was this tall and it was a word processor. That was the extent of what I used my three years here at Miami Middletown. You would get those discs to save things on. I didn’t even know how to go turn on a computer. Now, one of my classmates was more savvy and I think she would come here to the library because I can assure you that as a single mom you didn’t have the money to go out and buy some of this technology so you really used what was here at the library. Well, I liked being at home more as I stayed with two kids. She had more family in town, I didn’t. She had family that could come help with her kids. I bought the word processor and it was two hundred and some dollars and for a single mom who was putting herself back through college, that was a lot. But I wanted to be able to do the work because if I got inspired I didn’t want to have to hurry and get in the car and come here to campus and work at the library. I think there was a computer room downstairs with a lot of computers, yeah.
4.28 MRR You mentioned family. Could you tell us about your family story and moving into Middletown?
4.36 CK Okay. I grew up, I was born in Middletown, 1946 at the old Middletown Hospital. Mabel Gardner was a lifelong physician that delivered me, delivered my brother who was born in thirty-four. My father and mother came here in 1931. He had just graduated from Ohio University and he was a History/Social Studies/Health teacher. He started, he was on the first staff at Roosevelt Junior High School. He was their gym teacher, their basketball coach, their track coach, their baseball coach. He loved sports so he did it all. Yes, my family goes back to that time. They were both from Columbus, Ohio, but this was his first assignment where he got the job and it was a new school and he loved it. He loved being a teacher. So many coaches, they love their coaching first and then their classroom second. No, he loved his classrooms. When my father died I was only twelve. It was 1959. And for two days, because they used to have longer funeral times, people came through the receiving line for my mother and myself and said “Mrs. Mason, I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for coach” or “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Mr. Mason.” I grew up in this town, I graduated in 1964 and I went to Ohio State for two years. I didn’t know financial aid or loans or so-forth. So my mother’s a widow and only had enough money for two years. So then I got married, I got my M-R-S Degree [married]and supported us while he finished. We stayed in Columbus but I was always back and forth between Middletown and Columbus. Middletown was always home to me and you know, I wasn’t here when they were doing the groundbreaking for Miami Middletown, But I gather that Barry Levey, who of course, was a driving force in Miami Middletown, his widow told me several years ago that when they were doing the groundbreaking or maybe the dedication when it was built, that he mentioned my dad's name at that time, Harold Mason. Maybe I can research and find out what some of those ceremonies were about to see. I always knew when I lived in Columbus and then lived in Florida, but after my divorce I wanted my children to have family. My ex-in laws and all of them were here because my mother and father were both deceased and a brother in Seattle, Washington, so I came back to town. I had those jobs that I always felt I had some incredible talents but let’s go back to Middletown, Ohio in the 1950s. Let’s go anywhere in this country in the 1950s. You, as a female, were taught or thought, it was just part of the culture, you would either be a teacher, a nurse, a bookkeeper, a secretary or a teller. Well, I didn’t have the skillset for any of those. I was really kind of a lost soul, not knowing. My first round at Ohio State I thought I’d go into teaching because I always loved children. But I did not, to me, I didn’t fit anywhere. I had jobs that parts were good for me but I felt I wasn’t using all my talents but I didn’t know what those talents were because I wasn’t a teacher, a nurse, a bookkeeper, a teller, or a secretary. Those didn’t suit me. What I didn’t know until I came back to school is that communication and problem solving are my strong suits and those are absolute skills you need to have as a social worker. You can’t be a social worker without being able to express what you’re seeing to help someone or be able to communicate within the community to get services. So, when I came back here the only thing I thought, well I’ll do social work. I really wasn’t that savvy of what was available. I knew sociology because I always had interest in human stories, our fellow mankind, I always was interested in their stories. I came back kind of blindly but it didn’t take me long to put two and two together. I mean I was forty-six so I had some life skills behind me. It became apparent that I could get my social work degree, get the classes that would lead to a social work license all here at Miami Middletown. I never thought I was that smart because I had all these brilliant friends. I struggled with certain elements. There’s something called multiple intelligences and you, as a professor would know that. But learning styles, I think I learned later in life that a lot of the way in the fifties and the sixties, classes were taught did not suit my learning style so I struggled on some levels. I never thought of myself as that good of a student even though I got good grades but I really struggled. Coming back here, my goal was to graduate cum laude and I did. I learned I was smarter than the average bear. [Refers to a famous quote by sport legend Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra] My smarts, I think, and I would say this to anyone that wanted to come back to school, I don’t think I was necessarily book smart but I was smart enough to figure out what needed to be done to get the job done. Well, you can’t have a much better life skill than that. But, I had three years here that I got to practice that and gain confidence. Now see, I’m going to get choked up again because your instructors, your professors, your adjuncts, whoever was leading the class, they weren’t the enemy. They were here to support you in whatever way they could and encourage you and hopefully do your best. You knew that about them. Again, at forty-six I think I might of been a little more astute just with life skills. Being born in 1946, I’m the first of the baby boomers so we had a lot to overcome in the mores and those being products of the fifties. To come back to school, you know, as a single parent, I had to make an awful lot of decisions for my children but it was never too late to make decisions about my life too because I was always a person of tremendous hope. Coming here and getting my Bachelor’s degree changed my life. Changed it tremendously.
13.04 MRR I’d like to talk more about community.
13.07 CK Ok.
13.08 MRR Because the whole vision for this campus was a community vision. It was not just Armco Park or Armco. There were other companies. There were individuals who participated in this. One of the community groups you mentioned is The American Business Women. Do you know any of those women by name that you would like to mention?
13.36 CK You know, all the people that were involved Marsha, they were much older when this was going on so that they’ve either passed on or aren’t involved. I think the chapter has kind of diminished. So..
13.50 MRR Do you recall Evelyn Day by any chance? Have you met her?
13.55 CK No. Mary Aleen Cordray who was my g- to person with The American Business Women’s Association.
14.07 MRR We like to get women’s names into the story...
14.09 CK Ok.
14.09 MRR So thank you.
14.10 CK Ok.
14.13 MRR Now, also, you mentioned community. Another vision of the planning community or planning committees was that this campus would provide opportunities for culture to the city at large. Did you participate in any of the public events, say the Artist and Lecture Series? Or attend any of the events at Finkelman Auditorium?
14.42 CK I don’t remember doing that much Marsha.
14.45 MRR That makes for someone who is working four jobs…
14.46 CK Yeah, four jobs and two teenagers…
14.49 MRR Yes.
14.49 CK And wanted to graduate cum laude.
14.51 MRR I’d say that’s okay.
14.53 CK Yeah.
14.53 MRR Don’t feel badly about that. After you graduated, how did you see…
14.59 CK Now wait a minute. One thing that I do want to say, approaching a social work major, or in the way we worked it out here at Miami Middletown, I did have to go out into the community and do some internships. And so I did a couple at United Way and that really opened my eyes to services in the community that I didn’t know. And as a single mom, you know, it helped me. Now I need to go back. We have a homeless shelter here in Middletown called the Hope House and I was very active when that building was given rent free to Nancy Caldwell to turn it into a homeless shelter. My ten- and twelve-year-old and I were down there three or four nights a week, painting, scraping, the tile floor that’s in that Hope House now is tile that I laid most of. And so, but I started learning there was a wonderful, Cecilia Brandenburg, she was a social worker that worked for Family Services. She eventually worked at the Hope House. But I can tell you as a single mother there were times I was getting shut off notices for my electric and I would call Cecilia, Ceal as we called her, and I would go to her and she would write a voucher and I took it to Salvation Army and they paid the shut-off notice of $252. The apartment I was renting was a duplex, with leaky windows and not good insulation. So I don’t care how cool you kept it, the bills got up there. So, the community here helped me survive in ways. And there was a Christmas she called me and said “Hey,” Ceal Brandenburg, “I’ve got something for you. Can you come into the office?” She had a check for me for $500 and someone had called her and said “Is there anyone in the community that you think could use that lift up? You know, that’s really doing something that they’re trying to help themselves?” And, so she channeled it in my direction. And she did that two years in a row. And the second year I was able to buy tires that were my bald tires from my old car. So, the community, and I had forgotten about that, how the community in its own way supported me being here at Miami. Everyone in this town, because I had worked in an industry that I had attended a lot of events and so forth. So, everyone knew about my journey so they were cheerleaders for me. So this was a wonderful community to put Miami Middletown in. To have the regional campus, we were fortunate.
0.22 MRR In the short time that I have known you, I think you started paying that forward. Are there other instances where you can say that Miami graduates are also paying things forward to the community? Do you see our footprints anywhere in Middletown?
0.45 CK On the periphery, because the field I just retired from was in another town working for a retirement community, so for thirteen years I was not very involved in Middletown. Well, I was involved in starting a community garden, the Reynolds Street Community Gardens. And I’ve been involved in preservation work and I spearheaded an event that we unearthed the 100 year time capsule from the Carnegie Library. So I’ve been involved on those levels, but that was me, so I wasn’t as aware. But as I’ve gotten more involved on the revitalization of Downtown Middletown, I have met different people who are from Miami that are quite involved in the town. And is CBI, is it Community Based Institute, is that a Miami…
1.40 MRR It’s not.
1.41 CK Based…
1.43 MRR I know we have Miami people involved in it but I don’t know if it’s an official…
1.47 CK Ok.
1.48 MRR Arm of the college.
1.49 CK Well I certainly know a lot of Miami people that are involved in it. I mean, I’m meeting people so I think that’s why I thought it was a Miami-based activity.
1.59 MRR We have interviewed the person who helped start that.
2.01 CK Ok. So see, yeah.
2.07 MRR Is there anything else that you would like to add to the story about the importance of MUM to you or to your community?
2.14 CK Ok, let me regain my composure. Well, the opportunity that I had to come to Miami Middletown, green, green, green, green, green. I had no idea what I was going to be doing or where this was going to lead to. It built confidence in me like I had never had. I learned that I was smart, you know. I learned that my professors would say, “That is such an excellent question Cynda.” And I had one professor tell me “I was so grateful you were in my class because you would keep it going a lot of time.” Because I’m very inquisitive and I want to know. I may not have been a Botany major but when I was in that class I was a hundred percent engaged and involved. So this opportunity, I can’t say enough. I really wish a lot of students, my own daughter went away to college, I think more students coming out of schools around here could come for a year here, have the comfort of still being at home, having a familiar environment and adjusting to what college is all about. I just think regional campuses. My own daughter, out in Seattle, is going that route, just is getting her associates degree this month. There aren’t enough words to say what this three years did for me. There aren’t enough words. I’m a wordsmith and I’ve never been at a loss for words but I think this is a first for me because it was mammoth in my life to be able to come here and I was forty-six years old. I had a lot of crappy jobs, jobs that didn’t pay well. If you’re at the lower echelon of a place you’re not always highly thought of or well-treated and this gave me dignity. Getting my degree gave me dignity, gave me a purpose, it gave me a skillset and it gave me pride in myself of the things that I didn’t know I could do and I mean, I had the life skills of being a surviving parent of a divorce and raising two small children on my own but that’s survival so you’re digging down in and just trying to survive. This was about building me. And with my children being thirteen and fifteen, I could focus more on me and they were real proud of me. My first semester here I got a four point and my daughter, who was top of her class at Middletown, went all over that school telling everyone that her mother got a four point. Yeah, she was real proud of mommy.
5.28 MRR Is there a piece of advice you’d like to give to future students looking at this video?
5.37 CK What words of wisdom? Just give it a try and search out those that can help you whether it’s your fellow student, your faculty. One thing I’ve found being in college, it’s an incredibly nurturing environment. Incredibly nurturing. So, if you feel the world hasn’t treated you very well or that it’s kind of a bad place to be in, go to college because you’ll see a whole different side. You’ll see a whole different side. You’ll see people that are your cheerleaders. When you’re out in the workforce you don’t always have the best bosses or coworkers. But when you’re in a college environment, you have cheerleaders. They want to see you succeed and it’s infectious. It’s infectious. So, give it a try. Look in every window of opportunity on this campus. When I was here I never met other than someone behind whether it was the financial aid window or student government window, activities window, that didn’t want to help you and went the extra mile to help you. I really can’t believe that it’s any different twenty some years later.
6.01 MRR Do I have your permission to discontinue the interview?
6.04 CK Yes.
6.05 MRR Thank you.
Abraham, Glenn J., Prof.
American Business Women’s Association
Anthropology
Armco
Armco Park
Bank teller
Barry Levey
Bookkeeper
Brandenburg, Cecilia
Caldwell, Nancy
Caregiving, elder care
Carnegie Library
Carnegie Library
Cars
Casper scholarship
Chamber of Commerce
Charlton, Michele M., Prof.
Children
Columbus, Ohio
Community Building Institute (CBI)
Computer lab
Computers
Computers, word processor
Cooking
Cordray, Mary Aleen
Criminology
Cum laude
Divorce
Downtown Middletown
English
ERMA- (English, Reading, Math Assessment)
Financial aid
Fisher, Amy, Prof.
Florida
Flynn, Mary Lu
Funeral
Gardner, Mabel, MD
Garrett, Ron, Prof.
Geography
Geography, Cultural
Geography, Physical
Geography, Social
Greenburg, Adolf
Heyda, John, Prof.
Hope House
Latch key kid
Levey, Barry
Liberal Arts
Library
Library, Carnegie
Marriage, M-R-S degree
Mason, Harold
Math
Mechanics
Middletown Hospital
Minimum Wage
Non-traditional student
Nurse
Ohio State University
Ohio University
Opportunity
Parent
Physician
Placement test, ERMA
Reynolds Street Community Gardens
Roosevelt Junior High School
Scholarships
Seattle, Washington
Secretary
Seufert, Robert Prof.
Single mother
Single parent
Social Work
Social Work Licensing Board
Statistics
Study schedule
Teacher
Technology
Teenagers
Teller, bank
The Forest People
Transfer credits
Widow
Interviewer
Marsha Robinson
Interviewee
Cynda Kash
Location
Gardner-Harvey Library, Miami University Middletown
Collection
Citation
“Sweet MUMories Oral History Project - Cynda Kash,” First to 50 - Miami University Middletown Digital Archive, accessed May 3, 2024, https://mum50.omeka.net/items/show/1076.