April Wolford

Jasmine: This is Jasmine Timmester interviewing April Wolford [on October 4th, 2021]. Did I pronounce that, right?

April: Yep, that's right.

Jasmine: Okay, cool. So yeah, then [we can] jump right into it. So I've got five core questions, and before we even get to those I'll just ask you just to tell me a bit about your early life, you know, maybe how you heard about Antioch or why you chose Antioch, that sort of thing.

April: Yeah, it's fun. Because I--now I want to compare my answers across the oral histories. Let's see. So, my name is April Wolford and I was born in Mount 00:00:30Vernon, Ohio in 1966. And I grew up there in Mount Vernon where, which is a small rural town in the middle of the state and, and I was always different than everybody else there. It wasn't till later that I discovered that I was queer or that--but that was only part of why I was different, so [laughs], 00:01:00but it's a small town. My family--I have a single parent, so my mom raised my brother and I, and so we didn't have a lot of resources when I was growing up. She worked quite a bit and so my brother and I were latchkey kids, but we're a very close family, very tight-knit, very supportive of each other, and very loving. I still love my mom and my brother very much so. So, so I feel very lucky about that, because I know there are a lot of people, especially 00:01:30families of queer folks, who don't don't have good relationships with their family, but my mom was always super supportive and she even appeared on panels--gay, lesbian, queer panels for students at Kenyon College, where she was the lunch lady. So she worked in the cafeteria at the college for about 20 years, and Kenyon's only--very close to Mount Vernon. And so every year when the, when the queer students had their, kind of education week, they would 00:02:00invite her to be on the panel as as a parent of a queer person. And so, and so she was great. And she still is! Alright, so that's my early years--oh, so it was there that I'm connected to Antioch, one of my best friend's growing up, her name is Abby Maitland [?], and she lived across the street from me and we played together for many, many years, but she got tired of 00:02:30Antioch--or she got tired of Mount Vernon High School [chuckles], in her junior year or her sophomore year. And then decided that she was leaving high school and she was going to go to Antioch early, and they let her. So without a high school diploma, Antioch allowed her to attend the college. And so, she started here, when she was, I think 17 years old. And she loved the play so much and she tried to talk me into coming to Antioch, but I did not choose that 00:03:00immediately, because it's a very small school in a small town, and I had already grown up in a small town, and I didn't care for the fact that everybody was in your business all the time, everybody knows what's going on. So, I went to the big city, and I went to Akron University in in Akron, Ohio, and I was there for one year, and I had my big city experience. It was very eye-opening. And in many ways it was like a strange land for, you know, someone coming from a 00:03:30very rural place. And then I--but I didn't do very well there and I didn't really like it. So I moved out to California. I hitched a ride with a Kenyon student and moved to California, and I lived there and worked at fast food restaurants, and about a dozen jobs at a time and I still couldn't afford to live in the Bay Area [laughs]. So then I came back to Ohio and I came to Antioch then, so I said, "Okay, okay, if I'm not going to go work a million jobs 00:04:00then I should go back to school and see if I can get a better job. So I came to Antioch and I went to the admissions office and I talked with a man named Ed Amrhein, he still lives in the area and he's also an Alum of Antioch. And we talked for two hours! And I literally left there thinking, that was the most interesting conversation I have ever had--was that one conversation with that guy! And I was so excited about Antioch and the ideas, you know that had 00:04:30sort of come up in there. He asked me, "Do you--are you involved in civil rights or activism?" And at the time I said, "No, but I want to be!" [Laughs] So he knew I was at the right place. And so then they sent me my acceptance letter, which I--I didn't even realize that was my admissions interview, which was funny. So I was accepted and then I came here and it's been a great fit ever since. My mom came and dropped me off, actually, she went to 00:05:00the parents meeting and then she came back and said, "I think you're going to like it here." And she was, she was really right. So that's how I came to the college and how I started my time here. And then as I told you before, I have--I found it such an interesting, fascinating, engaging place that that I've never been bored while I've been at Antioch.

Jasmine: That's awesome. I'm glad to hear it. Let's see. Then I will go ahead to 00:05:30the first main question and then I might be asking, like some follow-up questions, just to kind of get into details, but it is says "Antioch college has a reputation for having one of the most radically progressive campus cultures in the country. Would you agree with this reputation, and what was it like, arriving as a new student?"

April: That's really cool. I can see the question printed right above there [at 00:06:00the top of the screen in our video call layout]. I wondered what that was for a second. So, um, radically progressive campus cultures in the country, I do agree with that. I mean, Antioch, that I attended in the 1980s and 90s, what--is a different place, and yet it is the same place. To me, that's a really interesting connection, and the reason that I came back, is because all the 00:06:30students here are Antiochians. And so that helped shape the culture, but some of what you don't have--the structures that we had in place for community government, community involvement, shared decision-making--are significantly different and they do impact the radical nature of the campus. But I definitely agree that it is progressive culture in that, we are often at the edge of social and cultural concerns for our--in our society. And so Antioch is 00:07:00often wrestling with those cultural issues before others are wrestling with them. And so that gives us, this is kind of a double thing, right? Like, I mean, it is a part of a positive rep--part of the reputation, I think. But it also can cause, you know, some tension on the campus, but, which I think is healthy. Actually, that kind of, when you're digging at those issues 00:07:30that are that close to, you know, your sense of yourself or the truth or those kinds of things, they're going to touch on nerves that are uncomfortable. And so you can't always be comfortable in a progressive environment. What was it like when I was arriving as a student? Let's see, when 00:08:00I wrote--when I arrived as a student it was in 1987. So at that time, I had a mohawk. And--because it was the thing to do in the 80s if you were progressive and sort of a, you know, [laughs] avant-garde or whatever. And then--but when I came to Antioch, I was out done for real by the others here. So people had pink mohawks, green mohawks, blue mohawks, and so [laughs] so I, you know, you have to step up your game. No, but and punk rock was very popular. So 00:08:30the Dead Kennedys performed here. Just I think the year before I arrived, it was kind of a, you know, it was a hard-partying time. So my generation were--like there was a very famous, almost infamous party that happened every Halloween in North Hall. And it was, I mean, it was huge, like, a lot of people 00:09:00from off campus came and it was like this giant magnet for fun progressive stuff. There were a lot of of bands that went on to become important parts of cultural movements, like the Gits, who are a group that went on to be one of the first kind of grunge bands, out in Seattle, performing along with Nirvana. And but the frontwoman Mia Zapata was amazing, amazing visionary, really, if you talk to the other members of the band, that's the reason they 00:09:30were there was because of her. There was also a very strong presence of queer students here, which is one of the reasons that I felt, you know, like it was really home for me, was--and I learned a lot about myself because there wasn't a lot of information in the, you know, general media or whatnot. I 00:10:00mean, even like books about being gay and lesbian were sort of locked up in libraries, and there was a lot of shame around that. But not at Antioch where people were very active and the Lesbian Gay Center as we called it at the time was very active and politically focused. And so, so that was very empowering and I think a lot of queer students experienced it that way.

Jasmine: Cool. So, you know you mentioned that when you spoke with Ed Amrhein 00:10:30that you know, you were really--you were like excited to get involved in those kind of like civil Justice issues. Did you, were you pretty active then with like the lesbian/gay center like politically--what was that like, kind of getting involved? Maybe for like the first time into politics and everything?

April: Yeah, I became--I got a work-study job at--as one of the coordinators for 00:11:00the Lesbian Gay Center early. And I mean, when I got here, I was--I turned 21 in my first month of being here. So I was a little bit older student, which was good for me because when I first got out of--when I first turned 18, I don't think I would have done well at Antioch [laughs], but um, so I became the coordinator and and that, you know, kind of put me in a position to learn a lot about the politics of the group. I mean, some of that, I mean, I remember at the time and it seems to me, what is the word...? Unnecessary. But that--we had 00:11:30a lot of language concerns at that time. Like we did, we had a [chuckles] sort of an ongoing fight with people who identified as bisexual, in part because there was a sense of privilege involved in that, as in you could be perceived by society, as you know, within the normal boundaries of that. And 00:12:00there wasn't really a political perspective and our Center was very politically oriented. And so--but now it feels, you know, because with the concept of queer, now, which to me is, you know, that's how I identify. So it's a broader, right? It's it's a different set--but also the political issues are different now than they were then. So I got--yeah, we got involved in protests; 00:12:30other things that the Queer center did at that time were, we had sort of a traveling group. So colleges in the area would call us, like a lot of Human Sexuality courses or other programs like that would have a panel discussion and Antioch queer students would go [laughs] and talk about being queer. And, you know, and at the time, you know, we would get very int--questions like, "Who's the man in the relationship?" and just uninformed 00:13:00[questions], right? People were not very informed. In fact, one place, we went to a women's class, was all people identified [as] women for that because it was Alternative Lifestyles for Women at Urbana College. And we finish talking and one student raised her hand and she said, "What does 'heterosexual' mean?" And so I mean at that, I mean that--so that really felt like a community 00:13:30service, right? Like this person had a very limited worldview, and there--we were, you know, kind of way out on the edge of what society would even consider, you know, acceptable. So those events were really neat and I remember another moment where my friend John Wiskind was--we were at a class 00:14:00at Central State University and a woman asked, "I just don't--" she said, "I just don't understand how a man could be attracted to another man." And John said, "Well, you know what attracts you to men." And she said, "Yeah." And he said, you know, "What does?" And she named some few things and she--he said, "Well, those are the things that attract me to men too." And you can see 00:14:30the light bulb go off for her. That, you know, she's like, oh, attraction is attraction. So, you know again I felt like we did really important community service in the Miami Valley as a, you know, a part of the political stuff that we did for the Center. We had a, also had a big party, which was the most popular party of the whole year, which we called Quasi-Prom. And that was a 00:15:00drag show and party, that was a lot of fun [laughs], although it was kind of wild also. And then after a while, we started to consider it because sometimes we had a lot of straight men in particular, who would dress up, and it 00:15:30it didn't seem authentic, right? Like it was almost like creating an opportunity to be mocked. Not that that was their intention, by any means. But there was something that was disingenuous about, you know, what we were trying to do which was have a cultural event that was uniquely queer, and they were there to dress up and have fun. And so we as a group, we sort of talked about 00:16:00that and then I--Quasi-Prom sort of wasn't the same after that. But even now I--you--I think the Queer Center's still known for having good parties.

Jasmine: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah [unclear], I think--do you think that that--the Quasi-Prom, is that like possibly connected to Gender Fuck? [Gender Fuck is the current annual party at Antioch at which students experiment with their gender expression]

April: Yes.

Jasmine: Okay.

April: Yes. It morphed into Gender Fuck.

Jasmine: Okay, that makes sense. And you mentioned the Ur--that you went to Urbana College for the panel. Do you remember if that was called the Urbana Dana Dykes? Or was that something else?

April: Where did you get that term?

Jasmine: That was from another interviewee. She mentioned that she would--she and other queer women from Antioch would go to Urbana and they--it was called 00:17:00the Urbana Dana Dykes.

April: That's what it was called!

Jasmine: Awesome, just wanted to see if it was the same thing.

April: Yes! That is in fact--I had forgotten. But because the teacher, the woman who taught the class, Alternative Lifestyles for Women, at Urbana, she always came to Antioch when that part of the, alternative sexualities came up in the course. So I think that's why it ended up having its 00:17:30own name [laughs]. But yes, Urbana Dana Dykes.

Jasmine: [Laughs] Gotcha, gotcha. Cool.

April: Thanks for that memory. Bringing that one back was good.

Jasmine: [Chuckles] I mean I couldn't forget such a name like that, so...

April: [Laughs] Yeah it does stick with you.

Jasmine: [Laughs] Let's see. So the second question is, "How do you think this culture affected you during your time attending the college, and your life beyond? Did it affect your understanding of your own gender and sexuality?" Oh, 00:18:00that's a typo [in the written question], and please include your co-op experiences when thinking about this.

April: Hmm. Hoah, that's a thick question.

Jasmine: Yeah [laughs].

April: [Laughs] No, I appreciate that. How the culture affected... [pauses to think] Alright, so, I think the culture affected me in a bunch of 00:18:30different ways, but one of them is confidence. There's something about being in a place where it--you're not just supported, but you have a right to be here. So, it's different at, I think other schools where you could say, "Oh, okay, so this is a okay culture. It's okay for me to be here." But in--at Antioch, it was clear that we had a right to equality, right? Like, 00:19:00to the same things that others have, and that means access to--and being able to be--represent ourselves and be our whole self by telling everyone, that--who we were and that we were queer, and that definitely was an issue on co-op. Whenever I'd go co-op, I had to decide: Will I come out? Will I not come out? And I 00:19:30think, you know, at a different school, I probably would not have had the confidence to say, I'm coming out, right? Like the first couple of co-ops where I had to decide that was so uncomfortable, deciding and then deciding not 00:20:00to say anything that I, that I came to the conclusion that they're just going to have to deal with it. Right? So as a joke--actually, this is funny--I used to tell, I told my mom once I was like, "I wish I could just take out an announcement in every newspaper in the country, and it would just say, 'April Wolford is a lesbian,' and then everyone would know, and then I can just proceed as though everyone already knew that I was a dyke." And so she thought that was hilarious and she still tells that story to people. But it's 00:20:30true, right? Like that's what I wanted, I didn't want to have to make the decision in every moment whether or not I was going to be true to myself, but once I had decided that was what I was going to do, it's liberating, right? To just say, okay, whatever the consequences are, and sometimes it was uncomfortable. Like when I wanted to go on an international experience, I wanted to go to Kenya on the Antioch Education Abroad Program, and 00:21:00the the faculty member who let that program was from another college, I can't remember, but in the GLCA, one of the GLCA schools, and when I talked to him on the phone, he was so discouraging. He told me, well, you'll have to adopt traditional women's dress if you decide to go, and you'll have to where you'll have to wear a head covering. I mean, he was immovable about that. And I, you know, it was such an interesting dilemma, like I thought, well I want to 00:21:30have this experience, but I have to be authentic to myself. And so the unfortunate part is I didn't take that trip because it was too much to consider, right, how--who I could be, or who I would be in that situation. So that was an unpleasant experience, but I mean, it wasn't an Antioch-related experience, it was because of the approach of that faculty member. And so, did that, and so the way that shaped me is of course, I carried that on I decided 00:22:00after I graduated, I was, I'm out. So I'm telling people that that's the case. And some folks at the time, one of the common political themes was: That's my personal business, right? And a lot of queer folk took this approach. Like, that's my personal life, and so I'm not comfortable sharing my personal life with other people, but that--there's a conflict with that, because in our 00:22:30worlds, they overlap. Your work is not just your work. You also--to be a full person, you want your, your kind of lives to overlap a little bit. And so, if you're, if you're not true, your partner can't be a part of that, or you're clouding what you do on the weekends, or that sort of thing, it's an uncomfortable situation to be in. So, from the--but having had this experience 00:23:00and this kind of expectation, again, that I get to be who I am, then I just took that with me onto the workforce. And it was a good feeling, I feel like Antiochians, a lot of us from that era helped shape that and really push the envelope around that.

Jasmine: Great. Yeah, were there--I see you looking at the question--were there 00:23:30other aspects maybe that you wanted to touch on, too, before we move on?

April: Yeah, actually, the sexual offense policy is related to that as well. I mean there's a lot of understanding about sexuality and gender that came out in the process of creating that policy and, so a piece of that was, you 00:24:00know, how is violence--sexual violence in particular--is it gendered? What does it mean? I mean, your--our bias and implicit biases are so strong in that area, you know, is it-- assuming only women are assaulted, only men are the, you know, the people who do the assaulting. So, and power dynamics also, around that. And the concept of consent. There's something about that that is 00:24:30related to your sexuality, in my view, and, you know, the idea of affirmative consent is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to its impact on sexuality, right? It's just, it's also about where you can explore, what kinds of intimate relationships you can have open up when you're talking about it more freely. And so the Antioch campus became more open and 00:25:00experimental when it came to sexuality because there was the, you know, a certain kind of culture that emerged where that expression was accepted, and you feel safe because you know everybody is following, or, you know, where everybody is--the expectation is everybody's following the rules and honoring your consent and your autonomy, so, so that was another kind of, you 00:25:30know, tangential thing that happened but definitely impacted, I think, especially the culture around sexuality on campus.

Jasmine: That's great. Alright. Yeah, we can move on to the next question, then. Let's see. So, since graduation, have you built a family and/or career? And if so, do you relate these aspects of your life to your time at 00:26:00Antioch in any ways?

April: So in terms of family, I guess what I would say about that is, I have built chosen family. I don't have any children or a spouse, but I have--or and I have lots of chosen family. And Antioch did help me see family in 00:26:30a different way. Growing up in a small town in Ohio, there's a lot of emphasis on your, you know, your biological family, or your blood family. And while I value those people, for sure, I don't have a choice around them. And, in many ways, right? And so, and in some ways, they're my responsibility, right? To the work that I need to do to contribute to the world, they're a part of that. 00:27:00But my chosen family are people who I know are--I have an affinity with, they're people who I have, you know, share my values, and are a big support. And those people are all over the country, in part because I went--my co-op experience at Antioch taught me to, you know, invest in community, and find 00:27:30friends, and quickly make a circle. One of the things [chuckles] I used to say about co-op was that after Antioch, you could wrap--you could wrap me in a paper bag and drop me anywhere, and within a week I'd have a small circle of friends, I'd know the public transportation system and have a job. And I mean, I think that was a common Antioch experience and because I was able to uproot and root, and uproot and root, I learned how to build family around the rooting 00:28:00process. And so as a result, like, I have, I literally have family members in, all over the place in California--er, in the in the country. And even the world, really. I have friends in Puerto Rico and other spots where, I know if I go to visit there, you know, they would, they would bring me into their homes. And so that's a neat, neat experience. And they're also very eclectic. 00:28:30So, in fact after I didn't really have kind of a, an experience of being, kind of, immersed in queer community, until after I left Antioch, because this was a small community, but it was so--it was very diverse. So I had friends of all kinds. But then finally on the Bay Area I was still with a bunch of my Antioch friends, I'm like, "I'm sorry, I have to go find the queers because I'll never find a date here hanging out with you guys." [Laughs] And 00:29:00they were like, "Okay." [Laughs] So that's how I see it, you know, family and Antioch's impact on that.

Jasmine: Okay! And do you--so there's kind of the obvious connection between like Antioch and your career beyond graduation [as April was 00:29:30the Acting VP for Advancement & Director of Alumni Relations at Antioch College at the time of recording]. Do you feel like the experiences of Antioch, like the culture, the--maybe the values, were like an integral part or, you know, maybe they weren't an important part to your career beyond--I mean, obviously you're back here at Antioch as part of your career so, I'm assuming there probably is some kind of connection.

April: [Laughs] Yeah. Yes. Yeah, you don't come back to places usually that you didn't have a good experience at. How could I even imagined life before Antioch? 00:30:00Well, one way that I kind of think about that as a crossroads is, when I first applied to college, I applied for an ROTC scholarship. And in part, you know, there was no one else in my family who had gone to college. The only one of my grandmother's children, only one of them went to college, and so there 00:30:30wasn't a lot of knowledge about how you go about going to college, including financial aid. And so I didn't even know at the time that there was such a thing as financial aid, and the military Is always, in small, rural places, always talking to people about joining the military. And so I knew that ROTC had scholarships and that, you know, in exchange for service that I could get a college degree. And so I applied for that and I didn't get it. And I'm so 00:31:00grateful for that. Right? Like I mean, my life--if I had that scholarship and continued at the University of Akron, or in that program, my life would have been vastly different. And I think not as good. Like I--my life is 00:31:30better, for certain, having had my experience at Antioch. So that's kind of a stark way in, you know, thinking about what is the--what those paths could have led, you know, led to very different kinds of options, but I think even a more typical or traditional liberal arts college would have been, would have been similar. And I imagine I wouldn't have been happy, because I'm also--I 00:32:00have attention deficit disorder, and not the hyperactive, my brother got all the hyperactive [laughs], but I have just distractibility, and so studying like nine months in a row, to me, was excruciating. And so when I found out that at Antioch, you could break that up, and you would like study for three to six months at a time, but then go places and try different kinds of jobs, to me that was--I was sold. And that's, you know, I mean there's no other place you can have that experience but Antioch. Internships--it's not the same.

April: Well, that ties in actually really well with the next question, so we--there might not even be much else to say, then about this question. So feel free to just kind of pass over it, but maybe there's other points you'd like to make. But the question is, "Are there any ways in which you think your life would be different had you gone to a more typical liberal arts college?"

April: Oh, sorry. That was the question I was looking at before. You're right, I 00:33:00did say that, so.

SPEAKER_1: Oh, I assumed that we're always looking at the same one, that's interesting.

April: Oh wait! So the question I see, one before it was, "Have you built family?"

April: Right. Mmm hmm!

April: And then the next one is, "ways your life would be different had you gone to a different school." And then I see, "if there's a message for give--or future students."

Jasmine: Right, so that's [question] number five there. And then the, "Are there any ways in which you think your life would be different..." that one's number four, which is what we're on to now, but if--so you were looking at this one before?

April: Yeah! That was the question I was answering, actually was, how would it have been different, was you know, what--was the ROTC versus Antioch, right?

Jasmine: Right. Okay, then, alright, then we can go on to the final main 00:34:00question here. Is there any message that you would give to the current and future students of Antioch if you could? Any message for the current and future LGBTQ+ youth in general?

April: Yeah, keep pushing the envelope, you know, I mean--and movement builds on movement. So knowing history, knowing our history, your history, is empowering. 00:34:30And that you stand on the shoulders of people who fought hard. [Chuckles] Interesting, I got emotional about that. And I mean, it's true though, and yeah, you know, now there's language, I think terminology, around, you know, gender and identity that is a direct result of having, you know, 00:35:00having created space for that, of past generations. And actually with this, with the sexual offense policy oral history, I also mentioned to [June Wonn] that, you know, we--that work we did around the policy was built on the work that other activists had done around Take Back the Night marches [April is referring to Isabelle June Wonn's oral history project on the Sexual Offense Prevention Policy]. And so that didn't exist in a vacuum. We built on what had 00:35:30been done, this concept of, we're not going to be afraid of the night. We're going to have the skills, we're going to know how to take care of ourselves, and we're also going to set the expectation that you don't get to prey on people at night. And we took that--the, you know, I was telling her, there was this, one of the things that originally in the sexual offense policy was the requirement that the college offer a self-defense course, as a PE course, every quarter. So people have the option of taking a self-defense class if they wanted 00:36:00to do that. And that was a direct result of those Take Back the Night marches too, which was a, you know, kind of a create--included a push for being able to defend yourself and that knowing what to do, not become a black-belt in karate, but be able to take care of yourself with your strengths. And so, you 00:36:30know, those are--we built on those kinds of things and then your generation now is taking it to the next level, right? Like, we're--a lot of that is around biology and you know, kind of destroying those biases and--but also very limiting way of seeing a complex, you know a complex set of circumstances even, right? And conditions and all that, so that, I feel, is 00:37:00where is a lot of the battleground now in our movement. So I guess that would be the message to youth is, you know, keep the fight alive, and know your history, appreciate your elders, and build something for the future.