Dublin Core
Title
Interview of Marion Roecker
Description
Marion Roecker shares biology classes were like in Geneseo when she attended with SUNY Geneseo’s organization “Heard @ Geneseo.” She also talks about her husband and how her husband worked in the Bailey Science Building and that he would take students on field trips. The oral interview was taken and transcribed by Debra Ford and Pamela Vesely, and it was later revised by Megan Wong and Jordan Keane.
Creator
Ford, Debra; Vesely, Pamela
Date
2011-10-18
Contributor
Roecker, Marion; Wong, Megan; Keane, Jordan
Format
doc, 28.9 KB
Type
Interview
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
MARION: Well, but since Michael had said that he was interested in people growing up in Geneseo and knowing more about this, as I say I wasn’t here in the early years, so, I really can’t speak to that but I’ll go on with what I had. The Bailey Science Building, I don’t know if you knew, that’s where all the Biology was. Alright, in the Bailey Science Building it took hours to set up lab exams, setting out specimens for identification, you would have a pin or something pointing to the- have either one of you taken Biology?<br />
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PAMELA: Yeah, I’ve done that.<br />
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MARION: Alright. Well, anyway, it took a long time to set up these labs and that, hours. So the students were told the only excuse for missing a lab exam was to bring in a newspaper, published obituary of a grandmother’s death. [. . .] He wanted to impress on them, you know, gotta be something really serious, ya know, if you missed this test, so, that stuck in my mind that he’s telling me that he told the students that. [. . .] Okay, my husband maintained, in the basement of Bailey, a vivarium, that’s a living amphibians and reptile collection used for teaching and demonstration. He had snakes, salamanders, frogs, toads, turtles, and lizards were some of the animals. Many hours were required to feed, water, and clean the animal cages including time spent on Saturdays and Sundays. An injured owl was a resident until it recovered and was returned to the wild. Not only college students but grade-school students benefitted. Another time, my husband left the Thanksgiving table to help a student pick up a road-kill deer for the paragon falcon he was studying and taking care of. My husband spent many evenings past midnight pounding away on his manual Underwood typewriter typing lectures for herpetology, mammalogy, zoology, conservation of natural resources, botany, and ornithology classes. Field trips for the ornithology took place at 4:30 am when the birds were up. Now, there were some students who didn’t bother going to sleep at all, they just stayed up all night and thought that was an easier thing!<br />
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DEBRA: Oh, I was just wondering if you went on many field trips to different places.<br />
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MARION: So, yes, he did, he was a fishery biologist before he went into teaching so he took some of the students on trips where they would identify certain fish and that. And then as I say his big interest was in snakes and there was a place near Honeoye Lake where there was some poison snakes, but it was on private land and he had to get permission to take his students there and they all wore hip-boots and that. So he had a couple trips there and then in Letchworth, the park doesn’t like to, you know, talk about it, but there is an area over there where there were some poisonous snakes so he had some- but it’s not near the camping area or any place where people are gonna be wandering and that.