Donna Bauerly

TH: Is Dubuque your hometown?
DB: I was born here at Mercy Hospital. But my parents lived in Potosi, Wis., for that first year-and-a-half until my dad died.

TH: What line of work were your parents in?

Donna M. Bauerly Age: 70. Occupation: Professor of English, Loras College. Faculty member since 1971 and former chair of the Loras Faculty and Faculty Senate. Family: Daughter of the late Marianne and Theodore Bauerly. Godmother of four. Hometown: Born in Potosi, Wis.; raised in Dubuque. Education: Ph.D., Marquette University, Milwaukee, 1973. Master of Arts degree, Marquette, 1969. Bachelor of Arts, Briar Cliff College, Sioux City, Iowa, 1963. Immaculate Conception Academy, Dubuque, 1952. Professional Societies: Midwest Modern Language Association, National Council of Teachers of English, Delta Epsilon Sigma (National Catholic Honor Society), International Alliance of Teacher-Scholars. Community leadership: Dubuque Community School Board member since September 1996; past president. President, Carnegie-Stout Public Library Foundation Board; Chair of the Stonehill Franciscan Services Annual Appeal for three years, NAACP, Dubuque County Historical Society, Dubuque Museum of Art, Dubuque Mental Health Society Hobbies: reading, writing, gardening and bird watching.

DB: My dad was an accountant for the Potosi Brewery Co., then he was an accountant for Brooks & O'Connor here in Dubuque. What's unusual about that was he only had an eight-grade education. You didn't have to have a certain level of education to sit for the CPA exam. He took it twice in Iowa and failed both times. Then he would have gone over to another state, but he decided one more time in Iowa because that was a very strict standard, and he passed. So he had just gotten his CPA - died of pneumonia in the President's Hotel in Waterloo. He was traveling for Brooks & O'Connor. It was very hard on my mom when he died. They were just poised for a better lifestyle, and then everything took a really drastic turn. She had to move back home with mom - my grandmother - to Dubuque and brought her to full-time employment at Roshek's Department Store where she worked for 33 years at basically minimum wage. She had two years of high school.

TH: As a young woman you entered the convent.
DB: Yes. Age 17. Sometimes, I say I entered the convent at age 17 and left 15 years later at age 19. That's not exactly true, but it does tell you that probably being in an institution, no matter where that institution might be or how progressive it is, I think that they have the capacity to retard creative individual growth. Because it is a big group of people and it moves more slowly. When I went to the convent, there was no such thing as a Peace Corps or Vista workers or whatever. So I learned service, I think, from my mother. I wanted to be a good person, which is a strange ambition, I think, but it was mine. I lived, fortunately, across from the Dubuque Franciscans, who taught in a laboratory school at Holy Trinity. They were the best teachers, or among the best, in the community. So, therefore, I could always teach as I was taught because they had such good methods. Some of them were very hard on me, but generally speaking, they were very good women.

TH: What were the circumstances of your leaving?
DB: People ask me why I left the convent. I said, "Supposing you're on a freeway and you have a high powered car and you're behind a semi. What do you do?" Well, their eyes kind of lit up and they said, "Well, you pass." I said, "That's what I did. It was moving, but it wasn't moving at my speed." And then sometimes people would say to me, "You should have stayed; things have changed." I just look at them in disbelief and I say, "You think I haven't changed in all those years?" So, see, there's a movement, there's a time in our lives when we know that we have to make certain drastic moves and if we don't, we may regret that all our life - and I've never had any regrets in my life.

TH: What did you do next?
DB: When I left, I went to Oklahoma City and worked in a ghetto school for a while. That was the year Martin Luther King was killed, in the spring of 1968. I learned a lot. That was my first stint in a public school. My first real experience where children were basically out of control. It was up to you to learn how to set any kind of order in your classroom. An order that they were not used to. At the end of that year, a group of kids put a note on - I was showing a film strip, and they stuck this little note on the cart. It was a note of appreciation. One thing they said, "We tried to break you, just like we tried to break all the other teachers here, but you wouldn't break." So then they settled down. When I left Oklahoma City, I knew I wanted to continue my education and that was the year that Lyndon Johnson was offering fellowships to humanity scholars. That took me to Marquette to allow me to finish my master's and doctorate, and I didn't owe one penny when I came out of that program. I lived poor for three years. But that was a marvelous opportunity. And the only obligation from that is to teach in college. Now, that's a wonderful obligation.

TH: That's when you went to Loras?
DB: I was a Ph.D. candidate by the time I came to Loras and I had a wonderful chairperson, Dr. Frank Lehner, whom I will always bless. He was my chairperson and he was gruff. I didn't call him "Frank" for at least a year-and-a-half. But, typical thing about him was, he gave me his raise in salary one year but never told me. That's the kind of man he was. And he also was the kind of person who kept hounding me to finish my doctorate. He made the road smooth for you, whatever vehicle you were driving. That has been an inspiration for me all my life. If I can get obstacles out of the way for people, that's what I will do.

TH: Speaking of obstacles, you were the first woman to be a professor at Loras.
DB: That's true.

TH: Did that pose obstacles?
DB: Well, yes and no. First of all, I came with the women students there in 1971. I never really felt at all abused by the "old guard" (of lay teachers) at Loras College. They really took us in. They enjoyed our advancements. They helped us out. The role modeled for us. All those good things. So I look back on those years as a lot of fun years. Women certainly have made strides at Loras College, big strides in both middle and upper management. But someday, I would like to see a woman president, another woman faculty chair, more divisional chairs.

TH: From your perspective, has the No Child Left Behind legislation been worthwhile? Is that a good thing or not?
DB: It's an insane law. That's not to say that it can't have good effects. Being responsible for what you are teaching, assessment, that's a much overused word. There are two factors with assessment that are often not in the picture. One is time to do it, because we are running our teachers ragged many times with asking them to keep all these assessment files. And the money doesn't follow it. They give you the mandate; they don't give you the money. So then what must you do in your local school district in order to comply with No Child Left Behind or any one of the other mandates that you have - special education, disability, all of those things, kids at risk - you have to rob Peter to pay Paul. So you've got to cut programs, or you have to cut - the biggest thing you would cut would be personnel. I would say if we can get our children to achieve better, fine and good. But the worst part of No Child Left Behind is this: There's a trajectory that goes up that says 100 percent of the kids are going to achi eve this by a certain date.

TH: To what extent do you feel that the voters appreciate the financial situation of Dubuque Community School District?
DB: I bless the voters of this district every day. For one thing, maybe not everybody feels so generous, but every time I pay sales tax, I am so grateful that the voters passed our 1-cent sales tax. I don't know where we'd be if we didn't have that 1-cent sales tax. We have that in a separate account and account for every single penny of that 1 cent sales tax, so anybody who wants to know where is that going, we can show you right down to the last dime where that is going. The other thing that I worry about is our PPEL Fund. That's our Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, which pays every year for about $1.5 million of projects that keep our schools in good repair. We will be lost without that PPEL and that comes up for another vote in 2007. We could have people saying, "Well, you got the 1 cent sales tax. Why do you need this more money?" It's because that PPEL fund goes for building projects. We couldn't get along without it.

TH: When the sales tax went through, it certainly created a much larger fund. We're looking at middle school and Prescott and some others.
DB: Yes, and a west-side elementary, which could have gone up last year and already have been overcrowded. That's really important to know because we have Kennedy School, where we added classrooms. Kennedy is so crowded. They still don't have a teacher's lounge. Art on a Cart. Music on a Cart. Closets still being used for counseling places. We think that those days are gone past since the 1cent sales tax; that's not true.

TH: Do you foresee another bond referendum? Another tax increase?
DB: No. Well, I hope the PPEL fund will be renewed. That's really important. I believe that is in the 67-cent area. We could go to $1 if the voters would approve it. I'm not exactly sure how the voters would look at that.

TH: What's your comfort level with how the money's being spent? Is the community getting good value?
DB: Oh, Lord, we're getting good value. But of course, you know the price of steel went crazy. I think our architectural firms and our construction people are really trying to stay within budgets, and everything comes back to the school board.

TH: There was a tempest , for lack of a better word, late last summer over the amount of money spent on the Dalzell Field concession stand improvements. You're comfortable that that project, which was paid for through that sales tax, was...
DB: That was lack of perspective, and this is where the perspective would have helped a lot. First of all, Dalzell Field is used by Wahlert High School, it's used by Senior, it's used by Hempstead, it's used by the Colts. We have one major field. One. OK? You go to a city like Cedar Rapids or Davenport. They may have two or three facilities like that. I think we are the only district (in the Urban Education Network) that has one major facility. OK, now when you look at that facility from the outside, people can say, "Oh, how expensive this is." All right, we did a lot of upgrades of bathrooms. There were all kinds of other things that went into that total figure. That should have all been broken out. What looks like limestone; we did a big fancy limestone? That's a limestone veneer. OK, correct, so it's done. So I think that all-in-all, we got excellent return for that Dalzell Field update. That was long in coming.

TH: Looking back, nine years on the school board, what do you consider your most significant votes or projects?
DB: We keep ahead of the ballgame. You're hearing a lot and reading a lot about high school reform. We began that a number of years ago. There, probably, I would take some credit for that. I do all the placement of first year freshmen at Loras College, into their writing level. So I get to see the transcripts from all the different schools that feed into Loras College from Chicago, from Minnesota, from St. Louis, from Iowa, from Dubuque. I could have picked out the transcripts from Dubuque, and it was not on a positive level. OK? Because Dubuque could have students who would take a first and second year of English and in that second year of English, there would be a semester of speech. Then the student might take film, which is legitimate, might take yearbook for a year, might take journalism - might never have a literature class beyond the first year-and-a-half. And they could count that as four years of English. Now, I just put my foot down. There's a legitimate discipline out there, but it's called Fi ne Arts; it's not English. So it's great for film, it's great for yearbook, but some of these things are extra-curricular activities and we need a bona fide four years of English. So that's what we did. We added some credits to our high school curriculum, and everybody's still wondering how is this going to play out. It will play out well because we can say we started this before anybody ever called attention to it.

TH: A few years ago, the school board passed a personnel policy regarding sexual orientation. It was approved, and contrasted with what's gone on in city government, it was relatively quiet. It wasn't a big, contentious debate at the school board level.
DB: It was totally quiet. There wasn't a ripple

TH: At the time, you, you said that harassment based on sexual orientation occurs because it's "the last socially acceptable phobia."
DB: Sure.

TH: What are your thoughts as you observed the contentious nature of the debate recently at the city level?
DB: I do not understand why the city council vote has been that way for the third time. There has to be something driving that and I'm not exactly sure what it is. It may be a business climate or something of that nature. But ask yourself this. Seventy percent of the people in Iowa approve the hike in cigarette tax and yet the legislators don't want to go near it. What is that? So there's something driving this in this city. The majority of people, I think, are good-hearted and really want to stay out of other people's sexual orientation, all right? Maybe you don't want it in your face. But then I don't want heterosexual sex in my face, either. I think we worry too much about extremes and that's the part, I don't know, I don't totally understand that, but I'd like to get behind it. I'd like to know what is it that drives that vote. Because we (on the school board) had no debate over it. I always remember, I had a friend who is the most macho of men. And then his son is gay. I watched him agonize through that, because his son very obviously came out when he was probably a sophomore in high school. I watched that father agonize over that. And talked to me about it because we were good friends. Eventually, he came over totally to his son's side. His son was so talented. The son moved to New York. It's far easier living a gay lifestyle there. You have much more freedom. It always comes down to a personal level and once it hits you in the heart, in your home level, and you can't avoid it, then what? Now we know that some people in our national level who have had children who are gay have probably still not been able to make that jump to a larger society. What would happen if the people on our city council, what if their children came out as gay? Would that make them change their mind or would they still? I don't know. It baffles me.

TH: One opinion you recently expressed, in a letter to the editor, was you said it was unfortunate that Dubuque didn't have another newspaper. In all fairness, I wanted to give you a chance to elaborate on that.
DB: Oh, Brian. I just took a little stab at you there, didn't I? But you weathered that. That's part of what you do.

TH: Yes, I'm still here.
DB: No, because I felt that was such an egregious lack of judgment (publication of a news photo Feb. 1 showing a young woman being rescued from a pedestrian overpass). You don't do that very often. You don't. And hopefully some good will come out of that. It took me not even a nanosecond. I learned that from an old woman scientist - nanosecond - to regret that that was there. I don't know how that happened. That sort of boggles my mind, too. When you make a statement sometimes, you go to an extreme. That was an extreme. I like our Telegraph Herald. I read it all the time.

TH: Well, I didn't want to appear to be ducking anything.
DB: No. We make statements and we mean them, but they rise to, let's say, the burst of the moment or whatever it is. You've made many other very, very powerful decisions.

TH: Thanks. So, are you going to run again (for school board) in 2006?
DB: Yes. I have made my mind up about that already because I want to see through a number of initiatives that we have going. I want to see the downtown school become a reality. I would love still to see more development in that area that the city works with us. I still have not given up the idea of a downtown pool area. We actually need that and we can use... there can be more room for community recreation down there. I am so excited about the City of Dubuque. Every time I pick up the paper and I see Dubuque is being this destination or it's got this award or whatever. I love Jerry Enzler. I wish we had a dozen Jerry Enzlers or more in this city. People - and this is a goal of mine, a personal goal - get your ego out of the way as much as possible so that you can do the good that needs to be done in our society. Egos really get in the way. That's a blessing on our school board, really. It's not that many of us don't have big egos, we do; but you can take that ego and you can stick it in your pocket while you are dealing with the issues that are before you.

TH: Do you see yourself to some extent in that role, as a catalyst?
DB: Mm, hmm, but I try not to make it personal. If I'm going to go on the attack about something, I don't want it to be a personal attack. I do not. I don't like anybody who hits below the belt. If they do, I'll let them know. So I try to listen to people when they talk. I want to listen and I want my body language to show that I listen. I don't like that about the city council. I think those crazy notebooks they have open in front of their eyes. They don't look at each other. I mind that. This is a bunch of human beings getting together. Why don't you look at each other when each other is talking? Why doesn't your body language show that you're responding? You're not a bunch of wooden pegs up there. I'll probably get knocked on the nose for that one.

TH: Well, you and me both, because I've talked with some of our editorial board about that - about human interaction at the city council table.
DB: As opposed to what our interaction is, if you watch us.

TH: Right. The council members are talking to their laptop screen.
DB: If somebody is saying something moving, there's no reaction from anybody else. It's sad. It's a message to the public.

TH: As we wrap up, you're on the record for 2006.
DB: Mm, hmm. I hope I will be approved.

TH: And I'm hearing some exit strategy at Loras?
DB: At Loras. I'm thinking that direction. I don't like to give my hand away too much, but I do know that I will them a full year's notice so they can do a national search, which is what we really do. That's the professional thing to do. Just like Sister Catherine Dunn. She's a class act. She's letting them know she's in for another year and she will be very active, but she's giving them a chance to do a good search. That's the way I will be. And I will stay actively involved in who knows what else. I need to work on my book. I'm doing a biography for Raymond Roseliep, who was a priest teacher at Loras College and a good friend of mine, who died in 1983. I've written a lot about him and that is a big ambition of mine to get that biography. That's going to be a project that will take me a couple of years. Plus I'll be active in the community. I love community service.

TH: So, what's the thesis sentence of this interview with Donna Bauerly?
DB: I think what I really want is important for people to know about me is I really think my life has been of one piece, almost from the time when I was child and started to be inspired by those Franciscan nuns. At age 3, I was already toddling across to talk to the cook nun over in her kitchen. I want people to know that I think I am very lucky to have lived a life of service from very young up until now and it's lead me along a path that I consider a deeply spiritual one. And some of that I attribute to the fact that I am a teacher of English, of literature, of all the important things that are love and beauty and kindness and all the inspirational things. I'm so absorbed in that. Most of my day is spent with large issues. Where else would you get to do that? This is what I say to the students. Be sure your career is something that everyday when you get up, it's a new day. It's something different. It's inspiring. It's energizing. You know they say happiness is being paid to do what you normally would pay somebody else to let you do. Did that come across? That's happiness. That's the way I feel my life is. People pay me to what I would normally, if I had the money, I would pay them to let me do, because it's so wonderful.

TH: Well, we'll not tell (Loras President) Jim Collins that.
DB: He knows that. Jim's a good buddy. I'm very glad he's heading Loras College. He can lead us to higher ground. Just as I'm so grateful for John Burgart. I'm grateful for our city council, even when I have some complaints, because generally speaking, they've helped lead us along the right path. We're at a good time here in Dubuque. It's energizing and exciting.