Veronica Hauad

Alma Urbano: Alright ok so I will start recording now. For the record this is Alma Urbano it is six twelve pm eastern time in Gambiar ohio. Its ju-Its August second 2016 and I'm here with Veronica Hauad. Is that how you say it?

Veronica Hauad: Yep the U sounds like a W Hauad.

Alma Urbano: Hauad. Ok awesome. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me about your experiences at Kenyon college. Uhm.

Veronica Hauad: Go ahead, sorry.

Alma Urbano: Yeah it's fine so first if you could consent just so you know this is being recorded. And will be transcribed and used for the project. As you know the project is called Latinx-the presence of Latinx on the Hill sorry uhm. And 00:01:00it's just trying to capture and document some of the experience that students and any individual has had at Kenyon college in relation to Latinx to there Latinx identity or Hispanic identity or anyone who has knowledge second hand or first hand of such experiences so just to start if you could tell me a little bit about your background. Maybe a little bit about your family before, before your experiences at Kenyon college that would be great.

Veronica Hauad: Of course! I am from a Mexican American family but my parents were born in Mexico but they are not naturalized citizens. I grew up on the north west side of Chicago Illinois in a pretty diverse neighborhood in terms of socio-economic status it was largely like middle, lower middle, and a little bit 00:02:00of low income. And then pretty diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, certainly a sizeable Hispanic and Latino population, a sizeable Asian population specifically Phillipino, lots of other stuff in the mix but those were the large groups. Yeah I don't know I think both in my grade school and my high school they were pretty diverse environments both socio-economic and also racial and ethnic composition. I was pretty determined to go to college outside of the city of Chicago. I wanted something different and Kenyon contacted me about one of the travel grant program for the flying program which is how I first saw Kenyon and is how I decided to apply and yeah.

Alma Urbano: A little bit about your family maybe?

Veronica Hauad: Sure so like I said a Mexican American family. Both of my parents came to the US when they were fairly young. So ah they retained a lot of 00:03:00their Spanish but they also speak full English so they're fully bilingual. My mom has used her Spanish skills in her job a lot both of them have family here in Chicago. They're extended families who speak both English and Spanish so they're pretty a fully bilingual family. My generation and lower they're largely not bilingual so I'm one of the last people who understand and speak some Spanish in my family. Pretty much anyone younger than me if they learned it they learned it in school.

Alma Urbano: Ok and what attracted you to Kenyon college?

Veronica Hauad: So I came out several times on the travel grant programs on the multicultural client programs. The first time I visited I thought it had looked so pretty. I didn't know a school could really look like that. It was just so different then ya know the urban colleges I had seen before. I didn't, I also 00:04:00didn't really know what liberal arts was until I started visiting these colleges. Then I realized I was a really good pick because I liked reading and writing. I liked a lot of different subjects and I liked a lot of the class discussion but all, it all worked out really well. I think the visits plus of learning what liberal arts was and Kenyon as a whole.

Alma Urbano: How would you describe your first year at Kenyon college?

Veronica Hauad: I had a really great time my first year like all of my years at Kenyon. Academically I think it was finally what I wanted. It was really rigorous and interesting study. People really seemed to care about the education, they were really involved in those classes so it was a really nice and refreshing academic environment. I think socially, I don't know if I was just, less people are (inaudible) worked at Kenyon. I had a really good freshman 00:05:00hall. My, Many of my best friends came from that freshman hall. Room mates, friends down the hall, we were just very tight and got along and many of us just stayed together for all four years at Kenyon. So it was definitely really fun too. I wasn't really a student to go out and party a lot, I didn't drink a lot. So that, was a little bit weird at times because everybody else was so eager to try things and I wasn't. But nobody really cared whether or not I wanted to be involved in that so it was a pretty low pressure thing so it didn't create too many conflicts. Yeah overall both academically and socially the first year was really exciting the academic environment was certainly hard but I was excited for the challenge. It was a good thing.

Alma Urbano: Were you able to find your home? Or your family away from family at Kenyon college?

Veronica Hauad: Yes I think I was like I said I had a good freshman hall and lots of good friends.

Alma Urbano: Yeah.

Veronica Hauad: I started helping out at different activities in the admissions office pretty much starting in the first year. I found another home in admissions. I had several different jobs on campus. So I found that in administrators in addition to professors who are really friendly so it worked out on multiple levels. So I think it unfolded pretty quickly freshman year.

Alma Urbano: How would you describe your relationship with professors?

Veronica Hauad: My freshman year was a little odd, I had a lot of visiting professors so many of whom weren't at Kenyon in my later years. But as a whole, very positive. So I'm still in touch with my advisor. She is amazing and a really brilliant woman. Lots of great professors over the years. I did a study abroad and had great professors too. I had good professors my first year but so many of them were visiting it was hard to have great relationships with them. But after that it worked out really well. I had a lot of different professors in a lot of different departments and again I think my advisor was pretty key. She 00:07:00was very supportive. Her classes were really engaging. She was really reassuring in terms of having different academic interests then the people I knew growing up. She was very supportive of that and so my advisors played a big role and I met lots of great professors as I got older.

Alma Urbano: Ok and what were your academic interests at Kenyon?

Veronica Hauad: I came in being kind of unsure but eventually found that I really like the social sciences so my advisor was an anthropology professor so I had this class over social sciences and humanities. I liked anthropology, sociology, history, language, which is very different but I knew a lot of people growing up professionally had a pretty professional study. They were thinking about business and finance and thinking or accounting. You know it was very professional stuff. Growing up I had always kind of liked these things that I 00:08:00knew didn't have a name and most of them fell within humanities and social sciences. And my advisor was really great about reassuring me "oh yes people study these things and you can pursue a career studying this particular subject." That was particularly reassuring.

Alma Urbano: Cool Were there any particular classes that changed your way of thinking or their impact to you in a different way?

Veronica Hauad: Again I think a lot of them were probably with my advisor. So I ended up being an international studies major. But my focus at the time, the way international studies was structured, you had to have an academic discipline like a subject focus and my focus was anthropology and then you picked an area of the world and my area of the world was Latin America and specifically Mexico. I had classes about all of that stuff I did study abroad in Mexico, I took Spanish. Some of my most interesting classes were in unrelated subjects so I took three classes with my professor one was just a general intro to cultural 00:09:00anthropology, one was about sex and gender and the other was about, totally random, was about Asian puppetry so totally unrelated to my department. I also took a mythology class in the classics department. I always try to have at least one class every year that was just really random and fun. Just something I was curious about that I thought was interesting. They always panned out really well. My professor, my advisor who taught those anth classes, she I think she made me a better writer. I think she led really good group work. She is just a super intelligent super articulate woman. I remember sitting in class like listening to her and thinking "Oh I wish I could talk like she talked." She just made me choose every word really intentionally and always had a sense of where she was going and what she was saying. It was just, I still think about her 00:10:00sometimes when I give speeches and presentations. I'm like "OK think about what this professor would do and how she would say it." She was a big role model and yeah I did try to have fun classes some of hers were some of my most fun classes and I sampled other classes. I liked her sex and gender class so much I ended up taking Dave Scruggs sex and gender class as well. I went to catholic school so I spent you know twelve years never talking about sex and gender and then it was cool to talk about it from an academic standpoint like a real stand point. I had lots of fun classes. I think they were lots of eye opening moments.

Alma Urbano: Going back to your study abroad and your major on Latin America. What do you think inspired you to study more about Mexico or Latin America?

Veronica Hauad: Part of it was definitely that the language matched and I 00:11:00already knew some Spanish. Part of it was that my family was from Mexico so it was a kind of nice direct way to study myself and my family. I don't know if it's the same way but at the time the international studies comp paper was also supposed to be something that was comparative in nature so the whole goal was to have this interdisciplinary program and this interdisciplinary prompt paper. You have to compare something. So I had been to the Philippines several times and knew a lot about Phillipino culture so I did a paper on the effects of religion and the history of religion in Mexico and the Philippines so it was a really cool thing to make a connection with. Part of it was that I knew Spanish and ya know it would make sense in terms of understanding me and myself and my families history but it was also neat because I was able to tie it to other things I knew 00:12:00and other places I had been and kind of see Spain had had influence, the catholic church had had influence, what did it mean in different countries so it lended itself to a nice paper in the end.

Alma Urbano: So you mentioned you worked in admissions too right? as a student.

Veronica Hauad: Right I worked in admissions as a student pretty much all four years that I was there. Then Worked as a full time staff member for five years as well.

Alma Urbano: This is a side point but I just got a job as a tour guide. Side tracked. Did you come back to Kright after you graduated to work or?

Veronica Hauad: I had a little gap in between. It was two and a half to three years after I graduated. Yeah I graduated in 2003 and I started working in 2006 00:13:00I didn't start working there straight after. I thought there were positions open that year and I talked about it with my (Inaudible) I just didn't think I was ready to go after four years. It is very difficult as a young professional to distance yourself socially from students on campus because if you graduate and you stay there and you work it's weird because you still have friends right. Friends might want to go to the Cole or a party and you don't really do those things anymore because you're not a student. So I thought a gap would be nice and eventually they had several openings and I came back and it was much easier. At that point I was much older than students and you could create a little bit of that needed distance between them socially.

Alma Urbano: How were your first few years as an employee at Kenyon college?

Veronica Hauad: It worked great. I think for the most part my time as an admissions counselor at the office was just as good as my time as a student. 00:14:00They got to meet a lot of great people that I worked with. Reconnect with professors I had known but also met new professors it was really nice but it was also a critical mass of people roughly around the same age who were all there together. Some people in the admissions office, the res life office, student affairs and activities, athletics, so it gave us a bit of a social circle that you could make friends and hang out with people your own age. Socially it was really great I think professionally it kept me up to really good things. It is what led me to my current job and it was really good.

Alma Urbano: Going back to your experience as a Kenyon student do you ever miss something in particular from home or do you ever feel homesick?

Veronica Hauad: Ah when I was a student at Kenyon?

Alma Urbano: Yeah

Veronica Hauad: I Genuinely didn't miss home as a student. I loved the academic 00:15:00environment and I was making good friends and it was a great place. I didn't miss home. I didn't miss home that much. I missed it a little bit more as a staff member, I think that was on the social side. There are just different things to do in a city as opposed to a small town like in gambier. I didn't have, I knew lots of people that did whether it was outright homesickness or it was conflict maybe because Kenyons environment was so different from their home environment but for me everything was so new and so exciting and so interesting. So yeah I didn't sense or feel so homesick or feel conflictingly there with my time. I think also to be quite honest I was also fascinated by how different Kenyon was but that can intimidate students or make them uneasy or in things like in my case it can make them fall in love with Kenyon more. You know it was 00:16:00fascinating I had never met republicans before and I had met republicans, I had never met people who went to boarding school and I met people who went to boarding school. So I really was more obsessed with the differences and in a good way and not a bad way. So I think that is part of why I didn't feel the main conflict some students feel when entering into a different environment like kenyon that might be different from home. I think of it as this really interesting place for different people and it wasn't a scary place it wasn't a scary concept to have different people there.

Alma Urbano: And did you live around this area in Gambiar or?

Veronica Hauad: Ah did I live there when I was a?

Alma Urbano: A staff member.

Veronica Hauad: Ah yes in Gambiar I lived in three different houses in five years. But they were all in town so we ah let see we went to ah there was a faculty member who went on a sabbatical for a year so we lived in her house for 00:17:00a year. There was a student whose parents bought her a house in Gambiar and the university was like you can't live there you have to live in the dorms, so we lived in that for a year before they would let her move in. Then our last three years was the same house that we had lived in as an alum down by the community center so I lived in Gambiar all five years that I was a staff member, I thought it was important for me to be around and ya know it was easier in staff activities and over all it worked out well.

Alma Urbano: Do you think your perspective of Gambiar changed more when you, between ah being a student and being in admissions? Did your prospective change?

Veronica Hauad: It did in some ways but not to many. I think it felt like the same place academically and socially and it was a place that felt comfortable quote unquote selling prospective students and families that I was really confident in what I was selling and telling them. There was one moment one very 00:18:00specific moment that I had that kind of shook my confidence a little bit in the way that I thought staff and administrators could support students of color. So once a quarter the staff and administrators would get together a couple of dollars and the college would do a catered luncheon in what was one of the extra dining halls or the lower level of pierce and it was a nice event and in the fall quarter the lunch was often tied to Halloween. So one year because it was Halloween there was a college employee who came dressed in a sombrero, a poncho and brown faced makeup. I was just shocked I couldn't believe I was seeing that 00:19:00happen from an adult who worked at the college. I talked to people afterward and I was really angry and a lot of people who knew him told me "oh you don't know him! He is a really nice person. He would never attempt to hurt anyone." I was like that's cool. I don't know him and I'm sure he is a nice person. But the fact that he wasn't aware that he shouldn't be dressed as someone. As a racial ethnic or cultural group as a costume? Like that's not cool. I was also disappointed that this luncheon was filled with Kenyon staff and administrators and they also didn't seem to understand why it was wrong. So no one seemed to really feel uncool about it the way I was uncool about it. I think that was the first moment that I thought about "oh this is why sometimes Kenyons feel unsupported and not understood because it's true." If some of their staff and administrators don't understand them then what? Then what happens? So it was a 00:20:00really odd moment. There was never any closure on it. Nothing really happened. I don't know if any talked to him. Or if people talked in their offices about it. I was told "oh if you want to talk to the equal opportunity officer you can talk to her." I talked to her. Big deal nothing really happened. There was probably the weirdest moment I had as my time there as an employee and it made me realize I didn't struggle as a student, and just because I didn't struggle doesn't mean that other people don't struggle. And now I can kind of understand why they feel like they're struggling. Like they don't always feel that they have role models, mentors, support from staff and administrators. It was a very eye opening moment. I don't think it changed my view of Kenyon like I felt love for Kenyon as an institution. I feel so confidently in all of the great things it's offered to all of the students. But I think it finally, that moment opened my eyes to what other people had said they had felt in the past.

Alma Urbano: Since you were an admissions counselor do you interact with a lot 00:21:00of people of color or minority students or people who were trying to come to kenyon from those backgrounds?

Veronica Hauad: Say again?

Alma Urbano: Do you interact with a lot of people who were coming to Kenyon as a minority or a person of color?

Veronica Hauad: Yeah I helped the person who ran then, all of our fly in programs, so all of our cultural connections, all of our multicultural programs. So I helped them with those programs and I think he was a black African American male and I was a Latino female and I think it was nice along with another person who was the first trans student from Ohio who was a staff member. So I think the fact that so many of us represented some kind of underrepresentedness helped us 00:22:00in the recruitment of student support because we were like so many of the students we were helping them with. We were on aid, we were persons of color, we were first gen. It provided a nice [inaudible]ship for the students and the families and it made them feel a little bit more secure in what we were calling them and telling them. It also made us feel like we did have a responsibility for the students while they were on campus as well. It was a nice long term thing. Maybe you would meet a student while they were an applicant in your program. Then they were admitted and the decided to come, they might've become your tour guide or you saw them on campus or they support your program so it's that kind of long term relationship building opportunity and that's kind of the work they still do in admissions and I liked it so much I brought it my new office.

Alma Urbano: So do you think you still had the same interests as a student as you had as an administrator on campus?

Veronica Hauad: My interest in Kenyon or my interests in?

Alma Urbano: In general. Your social life or your academics or just general side interests or yeah.

Veronica Hauad: Oh like my personal interests. Do you mean like my personal interests?

Alma Urbano: Yeah.

Veronica Hauad: Yeah I probably largely have some of the same interests and hobbies. Again it's a little bit harder as a staff member and an adult to find your social group. I think as a whole I like a lot of the same things, and did a lot of the same things. When I was a staff member I also was going to Ohio state to get my masters so a lot of my spare time I was back in school, I wasn't on Kenyon's environment but I was back in school and that took up a lot of my time in the last two and a half years that I was there.

Alma Urbano: How do you transition out of working in admissions at Kenyon 00:24:00college to something else?

Veronica Hauad: I, so I finished my masters and started looking just kind of casually around at other schools where I could do more admissions work. I think after five years at Kenyon's office it was a small office and small operation. So there was a limitation to what else I could learn and do in just that office. So I had my masters and just kind of peeking around a little bit at whatever opportunities there were and it just so happened there was another university back home in my home of Chicago that had an opening in admissions. So I got my masters and applied to the job and all of the sudden got it and within a couple of months I was moving out of gambier. It happened really quickly. I definitely didn't leave because I felt I had to leave. I loved the place and it was good work so I just think it was time to try the new environment and felt new things 00:25:00and yeah.

Alma Urbano: Looking back as your experience, as a Kenyon student, was there anything you would change as a student?

Veronica Hauad: I think by and large socially I wouldn't change anything. I had great friends. I had all of the kinds of fun I wanted to and still felt like I belonged in the community. I think academically there were some things I would change. But I couldn't really do it. I just didn't have a sense of what college would be like until I got there. Like I almost finished my academic requirements by the end of freshman year. Because I was still in highschool mode. I was just thinking "Oh first you get your English requirements and then you get your science class" I just wasn't really thinking about "oh I'm in college I can take whatever I want. That took a little time. I think long term I also would have 00:26:00been more proactive at the end of my Kenyon career and thinking long term about career opportunities. So that was a bit of a weakness on behalf of the college both and on behalf of the student. Like I didn't take initiative, When I graduated I didn't have a good job lined up and it took a couple of months for me to get settled. I think that is one of the bigger things I would have changed. Like I would have thought more critically about my future and about my career paths it turned out ok but its not like I was thinking about in my senior year or even before that what happened after college.

Alma Urbano: What would you tell a young Latina student at Kenyon college who just got here?

Veronica Hauad: Well I would say number one congrats enjoy that's great. I think as a whole too having worked now with a lot of different types of underrepresented students at Kenyon and having been a student a lot of students 00:27:00can be put off by the difference in community they find at college and sometimes that leads to the sense of not feeling like the belong or they aren't being heard or not feeling supported and I don't want to discount those feelings if you feel them they're real they're legitimate. I've also worked with a lot of students just not willing to bridge the gap. Like I said I was so obsessed with the differences I saw as a student and an administrator, I met people who were so different from me. Different can mean different for a lot of different things. It's not always great for ethnicity here or cultural background even though Kenyon was a majority white Caucasian middle upper class to me it was still diverse because I had never met people like that. I think a lot of students. they have legitimate concerns but at the same time they're very not willing to bridge some of the gaps that I think you have to bridge when you're in a diverse environment like college. It's difficult, it's hard work no matter 00:28:00where you go but especially at the highly flexive level that Kenyon's at. They're just very, these students that come from communities that look like Kenyon and feel like Kenyon. It can be intimidating but a student no matter where they are has to know that if they were admitted they belong. That is the college telling them yes. They did the work they did and they belong and this is their home. I think for some students it doesn't feel that way. It's true and if they're willing to embrace that environment they can do a lot of stuff and meet a lot of people and push forward no matter where they're from.

Alma Urbano: How have you seen the changes at Kenyon? Have you seen a lot of changes as a student, as an alum and an administrator? Have you seen a lot of changes in the way Kenyon deals with underrepresented students?

Veronica Hauad: Actually I don't think they've been to many big changes. Since I 00:29:00was a student the population at Kenyon has grown a bit more diverse in racial and ethnic makeup. It's actually made improvements over the last ten to fifteen years. It's not exactly a place that it wants to be. I'm sure it wants to be a more diverse place but that's hard to do for a variety of reasons. I don't think by and large even if the population has changed a little bit I don't think the place has changed very much. You do very similar things academically, you do very similar things socially. I've heard from some current students that maybe the physical set up of campus is now a challenge which I had not thought of before. For example having one dining hall and requiring a meal plan or having differences in costs in residential life and different types of places on campus. Being in one of those really nice doubles or those apartments on the north side of campus. So I hadn't thought about some of those things. Sometimes 00:30:00it's not people and policy sometimes it's the physical space that creates the barrier. So I guess I'm curious more about that from current students. It makes sense but it's not something I dealt with while I was there. But it is something that's new and different.

Alma Urbano: Ok so going off of that is there anything at Kenyon you would change?

Veronica Hauad: I for one am an alumnus that is very pro changing middle path. On a superficial level it is just a complete disaster most of the year right, its wet or icy or gross or ruins your shoes or whatever but on a real level it is a real impediment to all types even if you're able bodied because you could fall in the middle of the winter on middle path. So I'm very pro that particular change. I think it's very good for campus and for students of all kinds. Middle 00:31:00path is not special because it's made out of gravel; it's special because it's connected to campus and what it represents. Number two I think is part of the complaints when I was a student at Kenyon and when I worked with students on campus. Students complain a lot about the different costs of res life given what kind of rooms or apartments are given. Many students on financial aid say "Ya know it's not fair, I don't have access to singles, to nicer apartments I just don't have those choices" and at a place like Kenyon where there is division housing it's even harder. There are just fewer spots for kids on aid. And that concerns me but I definitely want students to have access to most facilities on campus and I want to strike the balance. Reality is life is where we live is dictated by how much money we have. In Chicago I don't get to live anywhere I 00:32:00want. I have to be able to afford my apartment. It's kind of the same thing in college right? You have to be able to afford to live. But I think having that stark of a difference? It really holds financial aid students back from being able to live the same life other students on campus are living. I was talking to a retired administrator on campus and she said that the people on campus called the new apartments on the north part of campus the suburbs. And I was like "What? Why?" and she was like "Yeah it's like the suburbs with all of the rich white flight." all of these kids who live in these apartments represent a certain kind of kid who can afford to live there and they call it the suburbs and I was like "Wow that's a scary thought." I don't think you could make everything the same class but I think you could make it more realistic so that kids of all kinds live in all different kinds of places and get an equal 00:33:00experience at Kenyon. Yeah I think that was a couple of things.

Alma Urbano: Is there anything else you would like to share? Oh what would you tell current students about your experiences away from Kenyon as an alum? Is there anything you wish you had known before leaving Gambier?

Veronica Hauad: I think it's funny that sometimes at Kenyon or a college period there are hard times whether it's in or out of the class room at the end of your four years everybody is kind of done like they're ready to go. I had a friend at Kenyon who yes by our senior year he was so over it he was upset with Kenyon he was swamped and he was ready to go, he was not a happy person. But if you talk to him now, he just is like "oh it was such a fantastic place, I miss it so much, what a wonderful time." So the perspective is hard to have until you leave 00:34:00but most alumni when you talk to them it's such a special place. Special people, you're reminded of all of these good times, you're kind of reinvigorated when you look at how all of these current students are doing things on campus. That's just hard to have without perspective without time away without being at a different place at a different time. You need to enjoy it as much as you can it's actually a really great place to live and learn. I've seen a lot of different environments now that I've been in a different place and have a different type of career so I think I know first hand that Kenyon students are actually very lucky. That was the kind of perspective that most students actually look back and say that was a great experience. So you have to enjoy it while you can and get everything you can for those four years.

Alma Urbano: Is there anything else?

Veronica Hauad: I think. If that works for you it works for me.