Salzman interview

[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]

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Warren: It was quite a line-up we had this year.
Salzman: And it got incredible national coverage. I had so many people in California
come to me and mention that they had seen it. I think it’s taken seriously around the
country, just given the nature of the politicians who make the decision to come. They
must really think that it’s worthwhile in some of it, because I think most of their
decisions are politically self-motivated and politically driven.
Warren: It’s pretty impressive who shows up here. Now, that party happened at
Zollman's, right?
Salzman: Yes.
Warren: Tell me about Zollman’s.
Salzman: Zollman’s was great, and I think that you can mention Zollman’s to any
W&L alumnus and they’ll just kind of smile and remember being out there. It’s that
simple structure, it’s wood. I wonder if it’s a fire hazard or some other sort of hazard.
It’s falling apart. And it’s just, I think, a wonderful layout for these sort of functions.
Whether it’s daytime functions with the river running through the grassy area or
nighttime where you can put a band up there and everybody can be encompassed in
this great little warm cabin-like atmosphere, it was just always a good time. And the
hardest part is getting all the way out there. But it’s a very nostalgic sort of place, I
think, for W&L’s graduates and faculty alike, and I know they held a lot of alumni
functions out there still, and I just think it represents kind of the simplicity, the easy
way of life that we all appreciate about W&L.

         We would go out there sometimes on Easter. I can remember getting twenty or
thirty people and going out there and just throwing the ball around. Some people
would be laying in the river, enjoying the water coming over their feet, and you'd have
some people throwing the lacrosse ball, and other people going for a walk along the
river and hike, and other people asleep in the grass. It just was kind of the sort of place

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you love to get back to every once in a while to relax and get your wits about you. I
love Zollman’s.
Warren: How about other places in the countryside?
Salzman: One of the beautiful things about W&L were the country homes that we all
lived in. And, of course, it was always men living in these homes before women got
here, and I don’t think women could have lived in those homes. I don’t think the
mothers of the boys were ever allowed to see those homes, because they would have
been appalled. I think most of them had running water, but I’m not sure that they all
did. [Laughter] I know a lot of them didn’t have heat. But it was just the country life.
Everybody had hardwood floors and big rooms and high ceilings and fireplaces. You
would just go out to these homes after your day in school and relax, and a lot of people
had dogs that were running around. A lot of people had land where they were able to
go hunting and fishing on the land. For a college student it was just the good life.

         I can remember a friend inviting me over to have quail with him. He had shot it,
and we cooked it up and ate it. Women began to infiltrate into country homes, but I
think that they were country homes that had been family homes and for some reason
maybe had just been lowered at the threshold and now was ready for college students.

         My senior year, there were four of us in a home and we had a back deck, we
were right on the river. We had a big patio overlooking the river. We had fireplaces in
every bedroom. We had hardwood floors and just beautiful detail all over the house. I
can remember we bargained the landowner down to $175 a month for rent, which just
makes me cringe now to think about it. We entertained out there, and we had a pig
roast for somebody’s birthday one time. It was just the life, and I think definitely adds
to the charm, the nostalgia, the wonderful lifestyle that we experienced.
Warren: How about Goshen? Did you ever go out to Goshen?
Salzman: I did go out to Goshen, although I will say that there was a big flood my
sophomore year and it tore down the bridge that goes out to Goshen, so that became an

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issue. But Goshen, when organized well, was always just so fun and there were so
many other people out there. Whether it was just lying on the rocks and relaxing, or
inner-tubing all the way down, it’s the sort of things now that are just so hard to find
the time to enjoy.
Warren: Did you ever tube all the way into town?
Salzman: No, I never came all the way into town. I just did, I think there was a typical
stint that took about an hour for everybody to do. I’d always get really nervous right
before we did it, because it’s a little scary, you know. And maybe that’s a woman
speaking. I think the men approached it recklessly like they are invincible. It was
scary, but you finished and it was just so fun. Then lying on the rocks and there was
always quality time and spending time with friends. It was just another great
component about how wonderful the lifestyle was here.

         And I think now in California I have opportunities to do these things and it is
one of the reasons why I continue to enjoy California so much, because we have so
much at our fingertips and we did here, too. Sometimes I think you didn’t have the
energy, the organization to really tap into as much as you should have.
Warren: Speaking of organizations, did you get involved in extracurricular stuff?
Salzman: I was involved. I was pretty involved. I was a member of the first women’s
soccer team. Being in a class of 100 women made it easy. Being in a class of 400
freshmen made it easy and in 1,600 students made it easy. It seemed everybody I knew
was involved in multiple different things. I think it was the culture and I think it’s the
way, maybe, we all were within our families and our communities outside of W&L, too,
and it just all kind of continued to flow.

         But I was on the soccer team. I'd never played lacrosse before, and we had a
women’s lacrosse team start up and we were a club for a couple of years and I played
on that. Because it wasn’t very competitive, I was able to do that. I’m not sure now I’d
be able to play on that team. But I got involved in the Kathekon group, which is the

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liaison between the students and the alumni, and I think just involved in affairs beyond
what the average college student would see or think about.

         I was, as I mentioned, involved in the Mock Convention. I mean, it just seems
like if you didn’t have something that you were working on beyond your school work
and your social life, then there was a little lull until something else came up. And
everybody that I knew was involved like that. As I told you, my good friend ran Fancy
Dress and another friend started up some sort of art organization. I don't know, there
was always a lot going on and a lot of opportunity to start new things all the time,
which was maybe the nice part about a school that had just admitted women that might
have some new ideas about some new organizations that benefit the school.
Warren: Do you think the administration was a little more open-minded then?
Salzman: Than the students?
Warren: Tell me about the administration while you were here.
Salzman: I was surprised. We had a poll, it was kind of an independent poll that was
done at school right before Mock Convention, about who you would vote for as
president or which party you would support, and I was really shocked to see that the
professors were, overall, a very liberal, democratic-thinking group, and it was a mirror
image in terms of votes. The professors, eighty to eight-five percent were Democrats
and the students were eighty to eighty-five percent Republicans. I just never knew that.
Of course, and never had any political discussion with the professors. So they were
more liberal than the student body, and I think they were really enthusiastic about
seeing students expand their horizons. Clubs and organizations and special-interest
groups helped to do that.

         Especially with the women, as soon as we spoke up about something, there were
millions of people around to support it and help us out, and money, administration
available to consult with us. They were incredibly receptive. I’d love to see a list of all
the new organizations and things that have popped up in the last five to ten years. I

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always wondered if we’re becoming, all of a sudden, more intellectual, more diverse
and more progressive, or if it’s always been at the same rate but it’s just been at
different times and so obviously different levels of progression during those times.
Warren: It’s better.
Salzman: I would think so.
Warren: It’s better.
Salzman: Yeah.
Warren: How about minorities on campus?
Salzman: It’s tough. I don’t know if I would want to be a minority on campus,
although I was as a woman, but certainly not at the level that other minorities face
today. And I interview for the alumni admissions group in San Francisco, and I have to
be perfectly honest with the people that I interview that are really interested, and that is
to say it's an incredible place, but it’s a conservative-thinking place and it’s a
homogenous group of people.

         Being in the first class of women, I was able to help educate a lot of the student
body, I think, about women and what we can contribute and how we’re different and
what our issues are, but it wasn’t always just a coast, you know, a coasting sort of
experience. There were uphill battles along the way, and I think all minorities face that.
And if you’re the sort of person that wants to go out there to an experience that's
already comes set in stone and you know exactly what you’re going to get, then maybe
W&L won’t be the place for you. If you think you want to take on the challenge of
trying to promote a certain minority issue or working to assimilate or educate other
people, then this is a better opportunity.

         But socially I think it was hard. I had heard stories about minority groups not
getting bids in fraternities because they were minority. I think that’s changing
somewhat, but not across the board. I think there were minority groups, and I’m sure
that the administration and the school was as supportive as they could be, but they can

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only control the social acceptance so much. Just as it is in the South in general, there’s
some battles to fight and some prejudices to overcome.
Warren: Did you see any situations in particular?
Salzman: No, I didn’t see any hostility. There were people that used language that I
think was inappropriate, most people would think is inappropriate. There were people
that expressed opinions and views that I think was inappropriate, and it’s because their
families were that way. I think it’s just going to be a long time coming for some of those
people before they reeducate themselves or maybe several generations before there’s
more exposure to overcome sort of those prejudices. So it was there. I don’t think I was
as sensitive to it because I wasn’t a minority in terms of racial minority or ethnic
minority, that sort of thing, but I would imagine that there were a lot of minority
students who really were not very happy.
Warren: I suspect so.
Salzman: I can also say I was a Jewish person. I’m not really a pious Jewish person, but
I do remember being uncomfortable at times because I was Jewish and because there
was sentiment that was anti-Semitic.
Warren: How did you respond to that?
Salzman: I think I get frustrated with the people that are going to live their life with
blinders on, and I think that there were a lot of people who knew me before they knew I
was Jewish and then came to realize that maybe I wasn’t a different person because I
was Jewish. I had some friends who said, a good friend from Thomasville, and he said
"I’ve just never known a Jewish person before." It’s just a matter of exposure. It’s not
because he, for instance, was malicious or a hateful person, he just didn’t know, and he
had only heard things and maybe read things and needed the exposure. I was happy to
be a Jewish person that didn’t have to be perceived as Jewish and different, therefore
maybe promoted some sort of assimilation there that might not have been otherwise.
But if I were a practicing Jewish and avidly so, it might have been harder.

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Warren: Were there still Jewish fraternities at that point?
Salzman: No.
Warren: There had been a couple that were primarily Jewish.
Salzman: ZBT, I think had been.
Warren: Had they closed down by then?
Salzman: It was still a fraternity that was active, but it wasn’t a Jewish fraternity. It
had just kind of changed. I seem to remember hearing that the percentage of Jewish
people on campus is incredibly low, 2 percent. So they economically probably couldn’t
have survived.

         But even the Christian people, religion just wasn’t a big facet of your life in
college, so religion is probably a little bit easier to get by than would be some of the
other minorities or being a black person or being an Asian person or that sort of thing.
Warren: Not quite as big a badge to wear.
Salzman: No, it’s not.
Warren: How about you? What would you like to talk about? I’ve been working
down my list.
Salzman: What would I like to talk about? It’s just fun to sit here and talk about the
experiences and what a great place it is. I would say as I get older, I appreciate W&L
more and more every day, every time I come back. I come back now for the alumni
board and friends always say, "Oh, are your friends going to be there? Are you going
to have a good time?" And my friends aren’t coming back for these reunion weekends
with this group of W&L alumni that are older, for the most part.

         I enjoy it as much just from a different perspective, it’s like I said, spending time
with people that all love the same things about W&L. And you will hear W&L alumni
around the country saying it is just the greatest place, there is no place like it. I think
that there’s a big majority of people that really feel that way. I don’t know if everybody
from every college feels that way, I doubt they do. But we’re lucky to have had the

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experience, and we realize it more and more. It’s a nice little isolated community that I
think is hard to replicate outside of this community, and the honor code being a huge
part of that, which was, I think, in full force and really effective while I was here.
Warren: Tell me about the honor system. What did it mean to you?
Salzman: It didn’t seem a lot to me before I came. You read about it and they told you
how much it worked and how important it was. You didn’t really understand it until
you saw it in effect. Sometimes it was a little bit too effective because you got nervous
sometimes about things you didn’t need to be nervous about. Like you’re taking a test
and you look out the window, and all of a sudden you’re worried that somebody is
going to accuse you of cheating. It kind of instilled some fear.

         But it was just really a treat to be able to not worry about simple petty crime
elements that I think were eliminated because the honor system was strong. It was just
not acceptable for anybody to steal or lie or cheat. The penalty for allowing that to
occur, having witnessed it and allowing it to occur, was almost as bad as doing it
yourself. So it was just a very positive sort of peer pressure that infiltrated the campus,
and I don’t know how they managed to maintain it, because you do have so many
people that come in with their kind of set of values and things that are acceptable and
not acceptable. But if you see an honor trial, it's a really severe experience. Have you
seen one here?
Warren: No. Tell me about it.
Salzman: It’s a very severe experience and it’s not a game. It’s not taken lightly. I
think the Executive Committee takes the job very seriously. I think getting complaints
or somebody must have to file some sort of complaint, and then they will do a closed
hearing and determine if it looks like it is a legitimate complaint, a breach of the honor
code. And then if they do that and find the person not guilty, then it’s said and done
with.

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         If that person is found guilty, at that point they can withdraw on their own or
they can choose to go through an open trial, where it is open to the student body. And
it takes weeks and months sometimes. There are witnesses up there speaking for and
against the person. There are character witnesses. There are people from outside the
university that come in. You are defended by a law student if you are on the defense,
and a prosecutor is prosecuting, as would attorneys. It’s not a Mock Convention and
it’s not a mock trial. It’s humiliating. I couldn’t imagine going through it. And even if
you’re found not guilty, I think there's a big scar that you live with after that. And then
to be found guilty and leave, I don’t know how you’d ever recover from that, in terms
of applying for jobs and applying to another school. But I think it’s just such a big price
to pay, that people really don’t fool around with it, and that’s in addition to the peer
pressure that’s the positive one or not.
Warren: You wouldn’t know that, though, as a freshman coming in.
Salzman: No, you wouldn’t, but we do hear about it a lot. Like the White Book is
sacred. Like I said, it didn’t mean much to me. I read it. UVA’s got an honor code, and
I don’t think that UVA students appreciate it anywhere near the same terms that we do.
But you hear about it and it’s promoted again and again, and then you start seeing
some of the benefits that come out of it, such as not having strict supervision when you
take your exams and that sort of thing. And sometimes in high school, I think cheating
rings happen and can be acceptable. As a young person, you sometimes don’t realize
the nature of what you’re doing or the breach of integrity of what’s going on. But when
you get here and there’s just a very severe approach, it’s a very serious issue, and
somehow that’s infiltrated from the administration to the upper classmen straight
through the student body.

         And it just becomes something—you would never know—as I said, if you knew
somebody cheating, you would really have to go through some long deliberations to

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not turn them in. It became natural. It was strange. I don’t know how they do it, and
most alumni would say the same thing. It’s just another unique aspect of W&L.
Warren: So obviously you attended some hearing?
Salzman: I did.
Warren: And that was real hard?
Salzman: One of my roommates went through a trial, and she was found not guilty.
Unfortunately, there are some situations, too, where people can breach the honor code
when they don’t mean to, and certain things that had thought to be acceptable like
paraphrasing other people’s work when you were told—a professor had told them to
refer to other reports that had been done, and for that professor we typically
paraphrased quotes from books and chapters that he assigned to us, so he would know
that we read the chapter for the most part. She did some paraphrasing from another
person’s work, brought into her report, they reported it and it became an honor
violation for plagiarism.
Warren: The faculty reported it?
Salzman: Another student reported it. And so we went through that process. The
roommates didn’t know about it during the closed trial. Obviously it was very personal
and it was also something that you didn’t want the student body to know about and for
reasons that were—just that it was—I’m losing my thought here. It was just a sensitive
issue and during the investigation it couldn’t leak out. I can remember her family
calling in the middle of the night. They had midnight hearings. It was really unusual.
Then she told us that she was found guilty, went to an open trial, and it was
humiliating. I don’t know how you’re supposed to go about your studies when you go
through something like that, having the stress, the time that it took to deal with it. She
would leave campus for weeks at a time to kind of be with her family and get away
from things.

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         Even at the non-guilty verdict, the entire chapel roared with applause. She was a
popular person, and I think felt that her intent was not to lie, cheat, or steal. I think it
was a scar that she still struggles with. She never fully felt comfortable again. She felt
like a lot of people out there thought she was a cheater. She sometimes felt that she was
being targeted because she was a woman. She was the first woman to go through a
trial. So it was really an emotional experience for her, and as I said, something I think
she continues to struggle with and probably makes her remember W&L in not as strong
a light as a result. And that’s the downside of an honor code, just like there is a
downside of a legal system.
Warren: So this event took place in Lee Chapel?
Salzman: Oh, yes.
Warren: That loads it all the more.
Salzman: Yes. I mean, just bringing it almost to a sacrilegious sort of level. I assume
they still do them there. So you are up there on the stage next to the great general's
body. It’s very severe. You’re right, freshmen don’t know about it. But when you see a
trial, it all of a sudden becomes very clear. I think there are many trials a year, six to
eight or so.
Warren: Did many people attend?
Salzman: Yes. This was visible because she was a woman, the first woman, and she
was also very popular. People came throughout. It’s interesting. It’s just like people
line up to see an O. J. Simpson trial. It’s just interesting to see how it works and to
understand the issues, and people like to make the decision themselves. The jury is a
random group of students, so you are judged by your peers. That’s hard. By the final
verdict, it was packed, it was standing-room only. It erupted in applause when she was
found not guilty. There are so few open trials a year that I think the fascination level is
intensified and people really come out to see the whole thing happen.

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Warren: I saw some time ago there was a very small notice in the Ring-tum Phi that a
student had—
Salzman: Withdrawn.
Warren: —had withdrawn, and that was just very quiet, as far as I know. Does that
happen very often?
Salzman: Probably a bit more often than we realize, because it is not publicized. I’m
surprised it was in the Ring-tum Phi, because I don’t remember them publicizing that in
the past.
Warren: I think it was there, or maybe did I see it on the bulletin board? Somewhere
there was a notice and it was just a single sentence, and, whew, it was loaded. It was
very loaded.
Salzman: That person is given the opportunity to withdraw on their own accord and
not have this be a mark on their transcript, certainly and theoretically their character. If
somebody withdrew and they were somebody that you knew, you'd hear about it. First
of all, they were gone. Second of all, friends, it would leak and stuff. I don’t think it
was an unusually large number of people, but maybe a little bit larger number of people
than actually went to trial. But I would guess eight a year of those, maybe four or six
trials a year. I don’t know what I would do if I were in that situation. Even if I knew I
was not guilty, I don’t know what I would do.
Warren: That’s an intense thing to lay on young people.
Salzman: It’s strange to have students being the prosecutors. I don’t know where they
get the wherewithal to know how to prosecute a trial. It’s interesting.
Warren: It’s not all law students?
Salzman: No. The prosecutors, the student body tends to be undergraduates, for the
most part, just because you have more undergraduates voting. It’s kind of interesting.
Warren: Did you get involve in student government at all?

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Salzman: I didn’t. That just kind of wasn’t my forte. No. But there were some women
that did and the first woman, people voted against her because she was a woman.
[Laughter]
Warren: I was real surprised at the elections how many women were running and were
elected. Impressive numbers.
Salzman: Now I think it’s a different story. At the time, no, there were a couple of
women and they were voted against because they were women. But obviously people
got used to seeing women as candidates and listened to what they were saying. It
started to sink in and it made sense.
Warren: Politics seems to be a real serious thing around here, just in general.
Salzman: It’s funny. Everybody’s got an opinion, don’t they? [Laughter]
Warren: All kinds of politics, especially local politics. You know, the other thing that
strikes me on this campus is the speaking tradition. Was that fully enforced? Because
what I understand, it’s been revived more lately. Was it in full force when you were
here?
Salzman: As a freshman, I don’t remember hearing as much about it, the speaking
tradition, and being educated about it. Maybe it happened naturally. It happened a
little bit naturally. But as an alumna, I hear about it more, and I think it has been
revived. Probably the speaking tradition was a natural sort of function for people and
then it became called a speaking tradition because everybody spoke. You don’t want to
have to get to a point where you have to promote a speaking tradition, but obviously
people had forgotten about it, and we were having to promote it again. I think I got
caught in that little lull where it wasn’t promoted and people forgot about it and didn’t
necessarily practice it. So it wasn’t there. But I do remember being friendly and all the
hellos and the nods on campus, but I just don’t remember feeling that you had to say it
to everybody that you passed. And now I guess that’s probably where we are again.
Warren: Pretty much.

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Salzman: Yeah. And it’s a wonderful thing. I love it. I’ve noticed since I’ve been back,
there’s plenty of nodding and smiling and speaking going on.
Warren: It’s very charming.

         I know you have to get on to your meeting.
Salzman: What time is it?
Warren: It’s a little after one.
Salzman: I do.
Warren: Thank you.
Salzman: Thank you for interviewing me and everyone else.
Warren: It’s an honor to talk to you.
Salzman: Thank you.
[End of interview]

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