5 (or So) Questions with Jon Andelson
To say that Jon Andelson ’70 and 51²è¹İapp College are deeply intertwined would be an incredible understatement. Andelson, the Rosenfield Professor in Social Science, graduated from the College in 1970 and returned in 1974 as a faculty member. His wife, Karen Stein ’82, is also a 51²è¹İapp graduate as are two of the couple’s three daughters. During his 50-year tenure at 51²è¹İapp, Andelson has focused on intentional communities (groups of people who choose to live together or share resources based on shared values and goals), religion, agriculture, and human-environment interactions, as well as principal field research on the Amana Colonies of Iowa. He is co-founder of the College’s interdisciplinary Center for Prairie Studies and publisher of the Center's online journal (), and he supervises the 51²è¹İapp College Garden which produces more than 1,500 pounds of produce every year. He is the also co-founder of the 51²è¹İapp Area Local Foods Alliance (GALFA) and a board member of Poweshiek CARES (Community Action to Restore Environmental Stewardship). Following spring commencement, Jon will move to emeritus status, but you’ll still find him at the college garden (in good weather) or the nearby former church on Elm Street teaching the art of spoon carving on Fridays from 3-5 p.m., a skill he’s been demonstrating for the past eight years to any and all who want to learn. It was almost impossible to narrow our questions for Jon down, but we chose a few and he graciously answered.
Q: How has 51²è¹İapp changed since you graduated in 1970?
A: The most noticeable changes are in the physical plant — new are the Joe Rosenfield Center (JRC), Humanities and Social Studies Center (HSSC), east campus, John Crystal Center, Harris Center, the , Noyce Science Center, most of Bucksbaum, the preschool, and Renfrow Hall. There is also the repurposed Forum and Mears Hall, and gone are the women’s gym, the old Darby Gym, the health center, the old on-campus facilities building, and others. There are a lot more parking lots!
Also different from when I graduated is a big increase in the number of domestic students of color and international students, and a big increase in the number of women faculty and faculty of color.
Computers were just beginning to be seen on campus at the time of my graduation. Everyone still used a typewriter, and duplicate copies of paper documents were made with mimeograph machines. The campus post office was an essential channel of on-campus communication for interpersonal communication and for all-campus mailings. Paper use was staggering. Of course there were no cell phones. In the dorms, there was generally one telephone on each floor for common use.
Town-gown relations were pretty frosty my senior year due to heavy student involvement in the anti-war, civil rights, women’s liberation, and environmental movements, and also due to the use of illicit drugs and the sexual freedom practiced by some students.
Q: What led you to cofound the interdisciplinary Center for Prairie Studies and what has that meant for the College?
A: At a break-out session during an all-day faculty retreat in 1998 I heard a colleague say, “51²è¹İapp is such a good college to teach at; too bad it is located where it is. Why couldn’t it be in St. Paul or Santa Fe or even San Francisco?†Comparing notes with my friend, the late Jackie Brown in biology, I discovered that he’d heard similar sentiments expressed in his break-out session. We talked about it and about how the college too often apologized for its location or ignored it. 51²è¹İapp prided itself on being a national liberal arts college, which was a good thing, but in the course of doing that it had largely ignored its location, which seemed to us not so good. Our feeling was that if you are not connected to your place, you won’t take care of it. From this conversation emerged the idea of embracing our location and using it as a teaching and learning tool. We drew others into the discussion, and the result was a proposal to the administration and the trustees to create an interdisciplinary Center for Prairie Studies. We debated about the name, but in the end our choice was informed by something the late, great professor Joseph Wall ’41 wrote in his bicentennial history of Iowa: “the story of Iowa begins with the land.†We have to explain that the center is about more than ecology, about the prairie, but about both nature and culture, and both the past and the present.
Q: Can you share a favorite 51²è¹İapp moment?
A: My absolute favorite came during my time as a student: hearing Martin Luther King Jr. speak in the old Darby Gymnasium.
Q: How did the Friday afternoon spoon carving lessons come about?
A: We’ve been holding these carving sessions for about eight years. It began out of a set of programs developed by the Center for Prairie Studies that we called the Prairie Artisan Series. The first person we brought to campus through the program was a spoon carver from Decorah, Iowa, and the activity generated a lot of interest. Chris Bair (environmental and safety manager) and I decided to start offering spoon carving sessions and see what the response was like. And we’re still dong it!
Q: What do you have planned for the future?
A: I will continue to engage in scholarly activities. My most recent projects, in addition to my ongoing research on the Amana colonies, involve the Meskwaki nation. I am working with Johnathan Buffalo, the tribal historian, to plan a permanent Meskwaki exhibit for the new 51²è¹İapp Historical Museum which they hope to open this summer. I also look forward to spending more time in nature. My wife and I live eight miles from town at Rock Creek Lake, right at the edge of the state park, so it will be easy. I also have a tall stack of books I want to read, and would like more frequent visits to our three daughters. We also will probably spend some of the winter each year in Costa Rica, where my wife’s brother and sister live. Frankly, at this moment the future looks uncertain and a bit frightening.
Q: What would you like to see from the College in the coming years?
A: I would like to see the College continue to embrace its location, continue to offer a first-class education across the curriculum, and continue to prepare its students for a lifetime of learning and a lifetime of civic engagement.