 I'm Darling Southworth. This is my laboratory, probably my last laboratory at SOU. It's a microscope lab and they generously let me use it because I'm an emeritus professor from here and I'm probably the only emeritus professor from here, still here. How did I get to be here? Oh my, it's a long story. I have a bachelor's and master's from the University of Michigan. I came to California in 1965 and went to UC Berkeley. I have a PhD in botany from UC Berkeley. I drifted around from about 1970 to 79 temporary jobs postdocs teaching here and there and I came here on a temporary basis the winter of 79 and then the job went permanent and I applied for it and I started here on a tenure track position in the fall of 79. So that's how I got here. They were looking for a developmental biologist who could teach cell biology labs and since I had a thesis called development of something or other and had taught cell biology at UC Berkeley, I was appropriate for the position. I was well suited for the position and at that time in the School of Science there were no women faculty except for the nurses who were entirely women faculty. So it was quite a remarkable thing but I think I didn't think about it. I didn't think how weird is this. I just was looking for a job and I got one. I think that the biology department, I think that Frank Lang, who was chair at the time, knew about the women's movement. I think he knew that he had a lot of women students and that it was time to get, it was timely, but I also was well suited for the position. So I think with a lot of hindsight he went out on a limb to encourage the department in the hiring of me, which of course is done by the dean, and at the same, so I'm very grateful to him for that. I think he's grateful that I turned out okay. I kept his faith, you know, and he's gone now. So that was the start of it. And as the only woman in the School of Science except for the nursing faculty, I was highly visible. Oh, you're the new hire. Oh, you're the new woman in biology. And so I got sort of instant name and face recognition across campus. So I was on every search committee for anybody for decades until I think I was trying to remember when Carol Ferguson was hired. She was the second woman. I came here in 79 and for 15 years I was the only woman in the School of Science. That's pretty amazing. And once in a while I would think, so how did this happen? How did I do this? How did this come to be? You know, why is this what I ended up in? And then I would go on to work and get about the job and stop thinking about that. It wasn't something that preyed on me. And to be very fair to the department, you know, with one or two exceptions, people were very welcoming. They were very helpful. No one ever hit on me. They couldn't have been kinder, more collegial. They were just great. And they remained many of my close friends and departed colleagues. So in the biology department, and I would extend that to the School of Science in general, the men were very welcoming. They were very collegial. And I could go and ask anybody any question. I could talk to people. It was really not difficult. And I was used to working with men. My old spouse was a man. My children were boys. My cat was a male. My remaining parent was my father. I mean, I did guys. It was okay. I was accustomed to working with men, I guess. One would be at that point, you know? Yes. So where did I go from there? Well, in then about 85, 84, 85, there was an opening and we hired Carol Ferguson, who was an entomologist. So that was the second woman in biology. And over that next maybe half dozen years, we hired several more women. And I remember one fall going up to what was probably Natsikaro's house. I don't miss him at all. Walking up, you know, going from the science building up to an opening faculty thing up at the president's house. And just looking around for who was here. And there were four women from biology walked up the hill together. I thought, this is cool, you know? This is okay. We're going to be all right. I actually thought when I was reflecting on my 15 years of being the only one that I might have to do that for my entire life. That I might devote my entire life to sort of the cause of women in science. And then I got some reprieve. I got some help. And it was easy. Because up to that point, if some woman student wanted to complain about harassment of various kinds, I was the one she came to. And I taught women in science whenever I taught it, I got angry for an entire quarter. And then I got over that and kind of moved on. When I realized the depth of the lack of women in science, it would get to me. And then when I finished that, I just kind of go back to work. And there would be my friends and my students. Yeah. So eventually, I decided to retire. This is how I get to this room. I decided to retire. I was planning on retiring in 2000. And in 1999, I fell in with a bad crowd and went underground and started doing research. I completely changed my research topic from pollen that I was working on before to fungi and macarazzo fungi on oaks, hence the upcoming talk at OSU Extension. And we got a lot of grant money. And I spent the next decade working basically as a volunteer. I went ahead with my retirement. I stopped teaching and just worked with all these students, a few graduate students, undergraduates, technicians, citizen scientists, hangers on of various kinds. It was great. It was a wonderful way to sort of top off a career. And now I'm just in the finishing things of getting specimens sent out. And I think I may have written my last paper, I hope. So I went with science faculty to the crummy old dorm for the renovation of this building. And then we came back here and they said, yeah, you can have space. So I have space. With regard to participation in schools or with students from high schools or middle schools, I did very little of that. I am not a trained teacher. I did not interact much with teachers even. I think we influenced a lot of teachers. We had a lot of students who majored in biology who became biology teachers. And I certainly knew about them and had some good laughs afterwards. Occasionally, somebody would ask me to take a summer high school student. And I took two over the years, two girls who were probably 16 to 18, on the seriously brilliant side of life. And one of them went to Harvard, one of them went to Berkeley. These were not shabby. The program was run on a very high-schoolish basis. And they wanted me to have a police check whether I had ever abused anybody. And I said, no, this is a college. That's not what we do here. And besides, they're going to be working with my technician. They're going to be working with other undergraduate students. So it's a sham. You're setting this up. And after that, I stopped. So that was sort of my work with high school students. High school students, even the brilliant ones, take an inordinate amount of effort. I probably gave some talks in schools over the years, but I don't think they were very important, whether they were important to the life of students, I don't know. It's not something I was particularly well good at doing. As far as the 80s, mid-80s, and life on campus, yes, I remember when the ERA failed and I wasn't sure what that was going to mean. And I don't think we know the answer to that today. I would say that the best thing about the 80s was when we started hiring women at SOU in science. So in math and in chemistry and in biology. And I remember saying to a chemist when they hired Lynn Kerms, who was their first woman chemist, I was making a joke. I said, wow, you guys are really brave. And he said, yeah, really were. And I thought, oops, better shut up about that one. So I let it go. But I think Lynn did fine and they have hired other women. But it was that turning point there. I think that some of the men faculty actually had daughters who were coming out of college and becoming professional. And so the older generation, whose wife stayed at home and had lots of babies, some of those babies grew up in that period of time, from the 60s, say, from the 50s. They would be professional. And what's funny is that the dean who hired me was Ernie Edlick and Sherry Edlick is now the dean of this STEM. That's pretty funny, actually. Ernie was great. And to what extent he was influenced by seeing his daughter become a mathematician, I couldn't say. But I mean, he was a very fine person. And that was a good relationship, working relationship with him. Many of the administrators were good to work with. I think the one case that I did was one evening I was reading the paper. This is probably 80s. Yes, definitely like 85 or so. And there was an ad for SOU hiring. And I caught my eye. And there was an ad for a half-time assistant football coach. And the other half-time was the development director. And I went absolutely ballistic, I said. I screamed. And I said, a development director is a good half-time position for a woman. There isn't an assistant football coach female in the known universe at that time. I think there is one now. But it's been many years later. And so I wrote him a letter. And I typed it up. And I made an appointment to see him. And I said goodbye to everybody here, how much I had enjoyed being on the faculty. I walked over to Churchill and presented this letter and told him my story that he functionally kept out all women applicants for the development position by attaching the football coach position to it. And he basically just spattered me away like I was a flea. He didn't fire me at all. I said he was really supportive of women. I had to let it go. I mean, it wasn't my lawsuit to have. It was just, I had to say something to somebody. Yeah, that was pretty funny. Looking back over my long years here, it's pushing 40 years here, like 22 years on the faculty and approximately 20 years retired, as that's a joke. I think it was a wonderful fit. You know, I hesitate to use the word a perfect fit of what SOU wanted me to do and what I liked doing, wanted to do and was good at. So it was really a wonderful experience to be here. And I have absolutely no regrets. I seek no vengeance. And I think the work with the students and seeing what happens to them has been enormously positive. And once in a while, I see another one, you know, when somebody shows up and I'm forced to recall who they are. Or I I have had small grants with people and continue working with a few of them. Ironically, many of them have also retired already, which is a little embarrassing, but they were midlife people who came to return to get a degree in biology and to go to work for the Forest Service of various agencies. And it was a wonderful privilege to work with them. It was really great.