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1 40 2 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/6f601da325c53c4807cfa75b5ead75e5.jpg 653268a7c4eca6bc7088db2d16fbaaec https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/d9649161ded7395b963578a5047412ef.m4a 92a3ecfebe2e75423552e3fc8d0175af https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/9a6b78c72f22d934d5346ed9d85b0b23.pdf 26758711ce848bfa6279c6da13abad1d PDF Text Text 1 Hess Interview with Gregory Hess by Harry Sultan, Skidmore College Saratoga Memory Project, Skidmore College, NY June 1st, 2018 Harry Sultan: So we're all set to get started. If I could just have you introduce yourself. Gregory Hess: Sure. My name's Gregory Hess, or Greg, and I'm from the class of '78. HS: And uh what did you major in when you were at Skidmore? GH: I had a double major in biology and in chemistry and then a minor in business. HS: What is it like to come back to this campus that you graduated from all those years ago. GH: It's a little odd in that it reminds you of how old you are. I can't believe I graduated forty years ago from Skidmore and I think most people my age all say the same thing that when we look in the mirror, we imagine someone in their twenties or in their thirties but can't imagine someone in their sixties. That usually strikes me when I come back to campus. And the other part is that it's grown tremendously and it's still very vibrant which is great. HS: Is this your first time back? GH: No, I've been back several times. HS: And is it different every time you come back? GH: I would say so, you know it continues to grow. I mean literally there are new buildings, things are being renovated. I was back just giving a small lecture to one of the classes about a month ago and I'd been back for a number of occasions, so I always see change which is part of Skidmore's motto HS: And walking around on campus, is there any spot that you see that brings you immediately back to when you were a student? GH: Um, you know probably the dining hall. It's much nicer now in terms of when we were here physically. Although I have to say at the time, Skidmore food was still pretty renowned in the northeast as one of the better places to go to college and have a good meal. But it's much more upscale now. HS: What does it feel to see the dining hall as it is now and remember what it was like back then? GH: You know, very positive. Great experiences there, shoot the breeze about what had happened during the day and what was coming up. So it's just a great place to socialize. And the food, again, was pretty good so you can't complain. But now you look around and they have all the food stations and �2 Hess HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: a lot of different options and variety and you realize the school has changed but I think for the better. And outside of chemistry and biology and science classes, what other types of classes did you take at Skidmore. Probably the most odd one in a way was, I took ballet when I was here. That's the type of thing that I of course didn't anticipate when I first came to Skidmore What was it like to take a ballet class? It was very funny at first. You may know the history, but when I was here, Melissa Hayden was a prima ballerina for the New York City Ballet and was very very well known. And it was shortly after she left that position that Skidmore was able to recruit her which was considered quite a coup at the time and I had no familiarity with ballet at all - I'm not even sure if I had ever seen a ballet. So we were starting the Skidmore Hockey Club and after one of our later night practices had ended, we all sort of barged into one of the faculty get togethers that was going on to see if we could scarf down the last appetizers and things that were still there. So uh - they were fine about it - you know it had dwindled down to a small crowd and I started talking to this one woman, you know, more interested in the hors d’oeuvres than chatting, but I was trying just to be social. And so as I started asking her questions, things along the lines of "oh are you a faculty member here, or are you the wives of one of the faculty?". She said "no I teach here" and started telling me more - someone later said, you know thats Melissa Hayden, the prima ballerina of New York City - and part of our conversation when I said I was teaching skiing up the road at West Mountain and Gore and on the hockey team, she was explaining to me how athletic it is to be a ballet dancer and so I was really more just kidding I said, 'yea that'd be great to take ballet, yea.' So next thing you know I got in those days we didn't really have email - I think I got a note in the mail from the registrar saying 'you're failing phys-ed something-or-other' and I'm not sure how it happened, but apparently she signed me up for ballet. So she wouldn't let me out without trying at least a couple of classes, so that's how I got into ballet. And do you think it helped you in skiing and hockey? It really did, I was amazing at how much strength it took to do that. You know, I was a horrible dancer, but it was a great activity for me. And I must say, it helped me get into medical school eventually which is one of my primary professions. She wrote me a great recommendation, and when I was being interviewed in fact, they remarked on it. That they were �3 Hess HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: interested in diversity and were pleased to see that I took something out of just science and biology. And so you took a lot of science, biology, dance; outside of academics what sort of things did you do? I was fortunate that Skidmore gave me a great deal of financial aid to come here but at the same time when I came - so I'll put it in context, I was a bit overwhelmed by the ratio of men to women so I think as part of that and also though still having a lot of financial need, I ended up getting a job bartending downtown, that was when the drinking age was still eighteen in New York - and I was actually seventeen when I first came here but they didn't think to ask for an ID, my birthday is late October. So I ended up bartending at a number of places in town and waiting tables and that gave me another dimension. A lot of the Skidmore students would come there but a lot of friends who were quote townies as we referred to them at the time, but you know, great people. And then I had a lot of friends that I developed, again, from teaching skiing, so that was a great experience to have sort of a foot in the Skidmore Saratoga Springs environment and also at the ski centers. So what was it like, maybe not having two separate lives, but two separate social scenes, one on campus with Skidmore students and one downtown with the locals. It really was the best of both worlds. Because I bartended downtown and Skidmore was about 2,000 students at the time - fairly similar to today you get to at least know by recognition, if not name, most of the students. And the bars I was a bartender in were extremely popular at the time, so you know a ton of students would come up and I'd know them, and we'd chit-chat briefly. So it was a great way to see the students and at the same time I did a number of things with the folks from town. In fact there was one group of guys that were recent grads from other colleges who had just migrated here to have jobs and they were in their early 20s and were quite a cast of characters. So they actually got written up in the New York Times as an example called the TI's which stood for 'terminally immature'. And you know, they had their pros and cons but they were largely hysterical guys in many aspects, and it was great had a great group of guy friends that gave me, again, another dimension. But had a lot of great guy friends on campus too. So you said you were part of the hockey club? I was. I was one of the founding members, yep. And is that the same hockey club that's around today. �Hess 4 GH: It is. I think it's morphed into, if I understand right, into division three hockey here. So yea, at the time ya know, it was a great experience. I grew up in the time when we were still influenced by John Kennedy in the sixties and even in the Vietnam days in the seventies when people said, 'ya know, we can make things happen'. So I think at Skidmore at the time, part of the reason they made it clear that they were - if you would - sort of recruiting me, and they were great in the admissions process, made it clear that they would value me coming here, and made it possible for me to come here was they were looking for men to help really create the co-educational environment and that included things like starting sports. Cause when I came here there was soccer and that was the only sport. So they encouraged us to start clubs so we did with the hockey team. You know, we went to the phys-ed head and said, 'ya know, we wanna do this' and one of the Kennedy sayings I liked at the time was, 'if not us, then who. And if not now, then when?". So we started a lot of things like that. We also started the baseball team and it was just a bunch of guys that got together and it was great. And we actually had women on our hockey team by the way, that time we had so few guys we had two women who had come from some of the New England prep schools and we were actually quite good which I think surprised some of the clubs that showed up to play us from Union and Hamilton and other groups. HS: Did you play hockey and baseball in high school or did you start just for the sake of starting a team. GH: Almost really for the sake of starting the team. Mostly I played a lot of hockey, pond hockey as we would call it, so it was pretty familiar to me that way. I didn't play baseball in school, I did play soccer and tennis and periodically I played one year on the tennis team here, and played on the soccer team three or maybe four years here. HS: Are there any special memories from starting the club, I mean what was it like being the founder of something that is now something so big in Skidmore culture? GH: You know it was just a ton of fun. I was just, to be clear, I was one of a number of guys that got together and founded it but I would say one of the things I think about is because ice time is cheapest late at night or early in the morning, we were last on the peg. We played on a rink down on East Avenue or just off it if I remember, and really it was an outdoor rink that they just had enclosed it in wood. It was pretty rustic. So we would get really hot and sweaty playing through the periods and when we were sitting on the benches because it wasn't a fancy arena and pretty cold it was very common that many times after sitting out for the period you'd get up and �5 Hess HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: you'd realize there were icicles hanging off your hair literally. And we'd be breaking them off. And there was no locker room, we'd change up here and go down. And it was just a lot of fun, a lot of great contact. I ended up playing goalie, was one of the funnier things that happened at one point because our goalie, if I remember right, got his wrist broken or sprained in a slap-shot and no one else wanted to be goalie and it was something like I stepped out for a second and came back and they said, 'great, we just elected you our new goalie'. And I was horrible. And no surprise I think my nickname was a sieve which was very appropriate. And so did this all happen during your freshman year that you started the club? Ya know, I really don't remember. I think it was probably more my sophomore year or junior maybe. And do you remember your first night at Skidmore? I don't remember my first night, I do remember my first day. Vividly. Could you talk about that? Sure. The first class I walked into was an english seminar class in Case Center at the time, so those were relatively small rooms. And it was an oval, or oblong table, sat maybe twelve-to-fourteen people. And when I walked in I realized, and we sat down, we were waiting for the teacher who was a bit late, and we're all sitting there in silence, no one really knew each other and everybody was feeling a little awkward. I realized there were two guys and there were twelve women. And I was like, 'oh my god, what have I got myself into'. I don't think I'd even had thought to ask really what's the ratio before I came here, so at first that was really overwhelming. The other thing I remember though is my roommate who was very very quiet. We had nothing to do, we were just sitting in our room so I said 'come on, let's just go out and take a walk around'. So we were walking around, and most people as well I think were feeling pretty awkward so you know, you'd walk towards someone, and they'd look up and we just started saying hello, and most people would say hello back, and that was great, we were getting the reaction you'd anticipate and hope for. And then we came upon one person and, it was a woman, and I remember we both said, ya know, 'hi, how are you' and we got no response and we were a little puzzled and put off and they walked another ten feet past us and we both looked at each other and he turned around and said 'what's your problem?' So we got still no response, but I still remember that cause my roommate just cracked me up. Did you ever find out who she was? I didn't. I didn't. Mystery, yea that's right. �Hess 6 HS: And what was the adjustment like being that there was so few men at the time going into this recently co-ed school. GH: You know, at first for me it really was overwhelming. I was I think relatively shy at that time and hadn't had a serious girlfriend in high school et cetera, so I'm not sure but I think all that combined and the lack of sports, there wasn't even a locker room for men there wasn't a male dorm on campus, there was a floor on the 7th story of the tall dorm here. And in fact we used to call it heaven on the seventh floor. Ya know it was overwhelming. So I actually transferred, or actually applied to transfer out but by the time I was accepted and then gotten the acceptance in the spring, I had made enough good friends and kind of adjusted to the amount of women that were here, and a lot became good friends of mine. You know I love the place and decided to stay. HS: Was there one thing in particular that made you flip that switch to loving Skidmore? GH: I don't think there was one thing. I think there was that combination. I mean among other things, I guess a specific example I was accepted at Cornell for transfer, and they had two electron microscopes. And in Skidmore we still have - I think it might even be the same one, it's probably a newer one than when I was here. But that was pretty amazing that a school of 2,000 people had an electron microscope worth at that time hundreds of thousands if not more than that dollars. And yet I could go in and use it almost virtually any time so that was great and it really was a great learning experience. But I went to Cornell and they had two and I thought 'oh that's great' and I mention it to one of the people almost as a question of how to get access to it. And they said, 'well undergrads really don't get access to that, you know once you're a grad student you might get access to it but you have to be on a waiting list and there's only so much time'. So I started to realize things like the professors here were primarily dedicated to teaching and not so much research and Cornell as I started to really look at it, you were taught more often by grad students who were really teachers assistants and the professors were really more interested in publishing, in research, in grants, in really not teaching. So things like that really made a difference for me. Here, the students, the night life downtown was just hysterical, it was great. HS: Were there any teachers that stick out in your mind as really helping you move on throughout college and what you ended up doing afterward? GH: Ya know, there were a lot. I still remember Bob Mahoney was head of I think biology, and head of the department. And then Roy Myers at the time was here. And they were great, fully accessible. At the time I was not your �7 Hess HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: typical student by any stretch and they put up with me and were encouraging and they were great. Why weren't you the typical student? Well I think probably one of the examples was I worked two-to-three jobs when I was here because I had to make ends meet. As part of that, when I graduated from Skidmore I had a pretty high GPA fortunately and had a pretty rigorous schedule with the double major and a minor and so on. So the logical thing to do was to apply to medical school. And at the time it was pretty competitive at the time to get in, I think it was roughly twelve applicants for every one acceptance so they had said, 'ya know where are you applying' and I said 'I'm not applying, I've always wanted to see how good a skier I could be, so I'm going to go out in Colorado and teach skiing and race full time and see what I can do'. And ya know so I think most of the people would shake their head and in fact one of the faculty members said 'you'll never get into medical school'. And ya know Roy and Bob Mahoney said, 'look, totally get it and ya know it's a bit of a risk, but you need to do what you think's best and ya know, go for it' Were your friends at Skidmore also naysaying? Oh no I think they were all, they said 'great, go for it' and were they all also in the same, bio-chem sphere or from sports, or ballet? Ya know, it was such a small campus of 2,000-or-so and only I think about 200-or-so guy, actually when I left it was maybe like 300. I think I had friends across the different environments. There were only I think twelve biology/chemistry majors at the time on campus and I think almost all of them were women, probably statistically. So I had friends who were taking english studies and all sorts of other things, so it was a pretty diverse group. For example, my roommate who only stayed a semester was in fine arts and became a fine arts painter, ya know still makes his living today in Connecticut and has had a lot of very high priced paintings that he's done that've been accepted, but he decided after six months he really just wanted to paint, but still we've stayed in touch and he's a great guy. So what was your average week like between classes and skiing and hockey and two jobs? One of the things I learned was I actually do better on almost all measure for me, including happiness and certainly academics, when I was scheduled. So I'd say during the busiest parts of the year which was winter for me, I would typically have a pretty full day of class because science classes start early in the morning with labs and things and when I finished up with them, a typical, I'd play a sport so say, we'll say late in the season �8 Hess HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: maybe before winter, we'd still have soccer that'd be four to five-thirty. By the time we got up to the dining room it was about ready to close, we'd all pile in and eat dinner quickly and then I'd go to the library from six to ten I think was my routine and just really study and then, again the drinking age was eighteen, to reward ourselves, we'd hop in the car and zip downtown for a beer at Tin and Lint or Harold J which was a big bar then. Barclays was pretty big later on. So we'd have a beer, back in bed by 11, go to sleep around 11:30 or so, wake up and do it all over again. And what was your typical nightlife on the weekend? The weekends for me was pretty much when I bartended and waited tables so for me the busiest weekend would be - and some weekends I just played, but mostly I was working - when I was working at the restaurant after class, I'd be there at 4 to set up. I'd wait tables from 4 to 10 and then I'd get out of there and I'd go to one of the bars and then I'd bartend at Harold J's from about 10:30, 11, till about 4 A.M. when they closed and then I'd get back, maybe take a quick nap, shower then I'd go up to West Mountain, teach skiing Saturday and then I'd come back, usually wasn't waiting tables and I'd go back and bar tend again from 11 till 4AM. And then Sunday I'd sleep in. That's a schedule. It was, it was, but when you're young you know, you can do it. Did you do that all four years? Pretty much, you know it changed a little here and there over the years but I pretty much had two or sometimes three jobs, part time, just piecing them together. And do you feel like you were able to learn in your jobs to help academically or things academically to help your jobs at all? Ya know I think so in a bit because it taught you the basics like show up on time, ya know, be responsible, fundamentally do the right thing. So I think so, ya know Skidmore really I thought was a highly ethical place, for a better term, people were trying to do the right thing. Did you study abroad? I didn't. What made you choose to stay on campus? I don't think they had many abroad programs at the time. And my academic schedule was so packed that I don't think, if I remember right, it would have really worked for me to go abroad to get the biology/chemistry requirements and the business requirements that I had I didn't have many electives open. And did you have one go-to best friend? �Hess 9 GH: Ya know, it probably changed, well it did change a bit over time. The first was my head resident a guy named Allan Braunstein, so one of the earliest guys. And he was a great guy and he was classic open door policy so his apartment, the head resident apartment of course was pretty big and it was like Grand Central Station, so he was a great guy and later his brother actually transferred in from BU or BC, I can't recall, and he became a good friend too, Ron Braunstein. HS: What made you so close to these guys? GH: Ron and I played hockey together, just in general they were involved and organizers. Allan Braunstein being a head resident organized everything; we had a water festival at the time, I'm not sure if it still goes on. He was a big skier. We actually had a ski rope tow when I came in fact. So we would take a few quick runs down there, it was pretty small but we would ski over there. And we were just involved in all the antics like going downtown was again a big part of campus life here. Thursday night was one of the more interesting nights, you would go down to a bar that, if I understand right was the one portrayed in Animal House where they showed the guys in the road trip and go into this bar with a couple of girls from a college. Well the guys are coming supposedly from Dartmouth in real life and it's Skidmore girls that they meet up with and the bar that they go into used to be called the Golden Grill and it was a predominately blacks or African Americans during the week if you would. And Thursday night for some reason at midnight - I think the cover became free or they had some beer special that at midnight it would all change, so all the Skidmore people would pour in, which at that time was predominately pretty homogenous white, Caucasian class. And it got to be the point that the bartenders that the Golden Grill - we used to call it the Golden Griddle - would call it white night. And looking back it was probably politically incorrect but it was literally as much as you saw in Animal House. You saw lots of town people who were not Skidmore people dancing with Skidmore girls there were African American guys with white upper middle class Skidmore girls, and it was hysterical, everyone was relaxed and had a lot of fun. HS: And this was an every Thursday night thing? GH: Pretty much. I might have the night wrong at this point but I think so. Tuesday night was Tin and Lint, ten cent or nickel beers; hard to look back on that. Wednesday night, I can't remember what that was. But Thursday night I'm pretty sure was Golden Grill white night and it would just go on from there. HS: And so as you went through the years was there anything you wished you did differently? �Hess 10 GH: I wish I'd spent more time getting to know other people better. You know we were all busy and as I mentioned my schedule kept me pretty busy but I remember feeling a little uneasy about coming back to reunion and thinking 'what was it going to be like' and 'how many old friends will show up'. And some friends show up and that's great, but what I've found out at one of the early reunions was that I actually met people from my class that I barely knew. And I might have known their face but almost didn't know their name or might have known their name, and when I had a chance to finally sit down and talk with them, no surprise they're great people; really smart, really kind, great people. And I thought, 'man I wish I got to know them when I was in college'. HS: And as you were approaching graduation, did you and your friends feel optimistic about post graduation, post college world? GH: I think there was probably both, but I think in a way, for me, I was pretty optimistic. I think we were so dumb we didn't know what we don't know. So I think we felt pretty much like, 'look, we got a great education behind us, we're healthy, we've got the ability and the tools to go out and really do something'. I wasn't quite sure what it was going to be, I didn't know at the time that I would apply to medical school, I didn't do that until years after I came back and worked in admissions so I really didn't know how things were going to turn out but I think I felt optimistic overall. HS: What was it like being on the other side of Skidmore, going from a student to an employee? GH: It was great, it really was great. It was like working at a country club in a way I realized one day, in that I was just a few years older, I came back after I had ski'd for a few years and had one other job. It was still the same dean who had accepted me and she said, 'look, you really know Skidmore, you'll be a great asset et cetera' and I remember the time, because I was so naive that I probably shouldn’t have said this but at the time there were rumors that Skidmore was lowering its standards for men because they wanted to get co-educational more quickly. So I think it was probably inappropriate in the interview me saying, 'I want to be clear though, I'm not gonna accept students if I read their folders, or recommend acceptance, for students who are sub par'. And I was so refreshed, she said, 'no, we are holding men to the exact same standard as women, and we're in this for the long haul and we want to build a thriving long term campus'. So being on the other side of the coin was refreshing in kind of the same sort of ethical environment from professors in doing the right thing and students as well and the same thing I saw in the administration. And you know they weren't �11 Hess HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: perfect, none of us are perfect, but they really had their hearts in the right place. So what is it like now seeing that there are 2500 kids up from 2000, it's a 60/40 split, how does that feel looking back from where you're coming from? It does feel great in many ways. I mean we had some special experiences that can't be repeated because it was the time, someone, sometimes it was the ratio that made certain things, I don't think would happen anymore in a positive way. But I think looking now, change is right the only constant in life, and Skidmore has changed for the better. It's academically stronger than when I was here - even though it was a strong school. It's got many many more sports, it's hopefully better endowed, its got tremendous facilities, I think it's got a great vision. SO I'm proud, it's a great college, and I'm very glad I came here and it gave me the tools to be a constant student so thats probably the best tools that it gave me, to be a constant student. That's what I see when I come here, is that students are learning how to learn and be a lifelong student. And if you meet someone today that is thinking about going to Skidmore, what would you tell them? Yea I would certainly recommend it. In fact I've got a daughter in high school, I don't know where she'll go, it'll be her decision, but yea I used to be an interviewer, an alumni interviewer. I think for the right person it's a great school. I think the question a number of people get is, 'what can you do with a liberal arts education?', and my view is the reciprocal, almost what can't you do with a liberal arts education? When you think about, I think it's not so important what you come out of Skidmore with in terms of your degree, but I think if it teaches you to be that constant constructive, inquisitive person to realize that learning doesn't end when you leave your undergrad or even your grad degree, goes on forever. I'm not sure if that was a hyperbole for that example, but I think Skidmore really instilled in me, I have three degrees, two masters and a doctorate and that's partly how I'm hardwired but Skidmore really encouraged me to keep learning. I think I did three or four, four fellowships after that and ya know I think I'll continue to go on learning until they put me in the ground. What are those degrees in? I'm a physician so I have an M.D., and then I have a masters in Health Care Services Research which is kind of a combination of how health care systems work; epidemiology, statistics. And then I have an MBA from Wharton in Health Economics. �Hess 12 HS: And when you were a freshmen did you ever imagine yourself where you are now? GH: Not at all. In fact I really thought seriously about being a full time bartender forever. It seemed liked a great lifestyle and in fact one of the guys from town I worked with who was ancient at the time - he was in his thirties basically said, 'do this for life, it's great. When I go home, I go home' There were a lot of plusses, so I had no idea where I was going to head. HS: Do you have any anecdotes about a time that the liberal arts mentality directly affected how you thought about something that came up while you were getting your masters degree or in your career that had you not had the liberal arts education you would not have been able to approach the same way? GH: Ya know I'm not sure if this is directly on point with kind of your question but ya know maybe. And maybe it's a bit in the way I'm hardwired, but I think Skidmore encouraged or allowed that. So maybe a good example is when I left Skidmore, although I wasn't happy 100% of the time with everything that happened here I really thought my money was well spent, their money was well spent, they gave me a great education, faculty were dedicated to us and teaching was the primary role of the instructors and professors. And when I went to medical school years later which was a lot more expensive and presumably a lot more competitive I really had high expectations that this is going to be the best experience I've ever had. And I would say that I was almost aghast at how poorly I thought the educational system was in medical school. So I guess my point is, it lead me to do two things that were pretty unusual even for my medical school classmates at the time. One was I got a grant from the American Medical Association that allowed me to do almost any constructive project over the summer between my first and second year and I wrote a literature-based review on teaching principles and teaching techniques and I even talked to some of the teachers here, but I wrote a pretty constructive but scathing review of how the medical school educational system was set up and why it was so dysfunctional and why it was a poor set up for teaching our future physicians and the school did not like it to say the least. They literally stuck it in a drawer.When I went to the office to see, and I asked the dean if he had read it and he said, 'yes i did', he pulled out a drawer, showed me the paper and said, 'and this is where it's going to stay'. So I think in part it in encouraged me to constructively question things and not just to complain but to propose constructive solutions and in fact thats what I did, I think, in that review. I think the other thing it did to do was to be a little non conventional, so in medical school I felt the school was so poor in terms of �13 Hess HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: HS: GH: its instruction it was mostly just memorization that I actually got a job full time again, but I got a job as a financial planner and I would pretty much not attend class at medical school for the first two years because it was just memorization and I would go off and do my job, go home at night and memorize the text and come back and take my tests and progress on. Really until your third year when you're seeing patients, yea you could be taking it anywhere. So I think if it wasn't for Skidmore, I'm not sure where I would have really had the confidence to do that. And if you could go back and tell yourself as a freshmen one word of advice, what would it be? Enjoy And did you have any regrets? Other than not meeting more people? Other than that, really not, I think I was one of those really fortunate kids in college that at the time there were some college colleagues who really weren't happy they were just marking their time ya know handing in their homework, their parents sent them here, they felt like they needed to get a degree and ya know they really were just marking time. But now I think I was one of those fortunate, probably the majority who said, 'you kidding? this is incredibly great, I've got a place to sleep every night, I've got great food, I've got a job, I've got lots of friends, I mean what could be better.' It was a great environment I would say 95% of the time. It felt like we were living the dream. And looking back is there anything you're happy has remained the same at Skidmore from then all the way until now? Since I'm not here day-to-day it's a little hard to say yes, for sure, but I get the same spirit of the college is really dedicated to the students and I think that's the primary way it should be. I'm a senior fellow at Penn, I'm the faculty there, I'm a faculty at Drexel College of Medicine and I've been to many institutions for the degrees as I've mentioned, so I've seen other colleges first hand and they don't all operate that way. So I'm really impressed that Skidmore, again, I think is really focused on the students and I think that it's primary mission and how it should be. What about the opposite, is there anything that you wish was not still around? No I don't think there's much I could add? So maybe to wrap up if there's just any last stories that you want to share about something that happened at Skidmore or something that happened downtown? Well you know, there were a lot of fun times that we put it in context because most of the students here were studying hard and doing �Hess 14 academically well but there's no question that we had a social life, um so I guess one of the funnier times I do remember was that when spring vacation would roll around, it was a big deal everybody wanted to take off and either go to Florida or go someplace else to get some sun, it's a pretty cold winter up here, lots of snow. So given that whole feverish environment you'd see on probably a barely 50 degree day with the sun out there would be girls in their bathing suits and guys in their bathing suits behind the dorm, I can't remember the name of the dorm, but trying to lay down on the ground so the wind wouldn't freeze them to death trying to get some base tan before they went to Florida. And then it was usually right before the spring break but it was also for the kids who couldn't afford to go on spring break or just couldn't logistically, we would have these unbelievable beach parties downtown. So the one I remember probably the best was at a bar that's not there anymore called Barclays, it was an old bank that's not a store downtown. And myself and some of the other employees there went out to the dump - the illustrious dump - and we got a bathtub and we found a plug at the hardware store, put it in the bathtub. And a lot of the places had a cover charge at the time and that night cover charge was you brought in liquor and we put in sour mix and some liquor but everybody who came into the door would poor their liquor into the bathtub and of course the concoction got more and more odd and more and more potent as the night wore on. So - and you had to come in beach attire - at the end of the night, it had a very high bar because it was the teller spots, and on top of that bar just spontaneously people put on of the bar stools and people eventually began climbing on top of the bar stool, standing on top of that so you were a good 15 to 20 feet and fortunately with the right crowd, and the right music, the DJ, the people were doing Acapulco bar diving where they would dive off the bar stool into the crowd - people knew you were coming - and people would hopefully catch you before you hit the ground. So it was just a hysterical, between the bathtub concoction and the Acapulco bar diving, it was just one of those parties you just shook your head at and said, you know this will just never be recreated. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sultan, Harry Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Hess, Greg, '78 Location The location of the interview Lucy Scribner Library, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jordana Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 6/27/18 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data audio recording Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Greg Hess, '78 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1-Jun-18 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sultan, Harry, 17 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Audio, Photo Language A language of the resource English (eng,) Description An account of the resource Hess, a double major in chemistry and biology, and minor in business, describes how he came to take ballet classes and starting the Skidmore Hockey Club. He also worked as a ski instructor at West Mountain and Gore. Hess recalls that the letter of recommendation from his ballet instructor, former New York City Ballet prima ballerina Melissa Hayden, helped him get into medical school. Working in downtown Saratoga Springs as a bartender gave him a different perspective on his education. As one of the college's early male students, he understood his role was to help "create the co-educational environment and that included starting things like sports." For Hess, this was part of growing up in the 60s and 70s, with the influence of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War and 'making a difference.' Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio recording alumni ballet hockey team Melissa Hayden oral history sciences Skidmore College https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/e20f32f9d25f8c56cb58d59bc0151c01.jpg 0f156de29d7b56e4389b5034a104be36 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Janet Copeland Eschenlauer, 56 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 4, 2016 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dorothea Trufelman, '16 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/9a382b1c56813ac827798d09bd4f2f08.mp3 0bbd541cb344d3f97a30cfa52c21c447 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/7b39ab9034693fbaf8a406e19726aae4.docx 7fdfd2f2d1cb829bdb8a7bad1df71064 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Rebecca Zosia Stern '16 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Janet Copeland Eschenlauer '56 Location The location of the interview Skidmore College Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Rebecca Stern, '16 Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 04/06/2016 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Janet Copeland Eschenlauer '56 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 3, 2016 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Audio, Photo Language A language of the resource English (eng.) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stern, Rebecca Zosia, '16 alumna alumni arts ballet bibs for first year students biology chapel coed dance dormitory downtown campus East House mathematics Melissa Hayden modern dance New Jersey physical education reunion weekend Skidmore College student clubs welcoming community