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My name is Dyann Waugh. I came to American U in the fall of 1964, graduated in 1968 with a major in anthropology, a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology.

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So, um, why AU, um, you were a cheerleader? Tell us about that. I was, I was well, I came to AU, I'm from New Jersey. I'm from South Jersey, Haddonfield, New Jersey, which is

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a suburb of Camden, which is a suburb of Philadelphia. And so I'm from Haddonfield, and I wanted to come to DC because I had so many friends in DC, and because my experience in Haddonfield, it was there were five Black kids in my entire high school and no guys

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at all, no, no young men, and only one person in college prep, and that was me. So my experience in high school was, you know, kind of isolating as far as culturally at school.

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But I had many, many friends outside. So, you know, if you're in that area Philadelphia, Camden, Lawnside, all of South Jersey. I have many friends who were

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Black, and I loved to come to DC because I had friends that were here that I used to stay with, spend weekends with, and they would come and stay at my house. So I really wanted to come to DC.

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It was the only place I wanted to come was DC and I wouldn't apply. We visited other colleges, but I only wanted to come to DC and I didn't want to go to Howard because I thought I would have too much fun.

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I had I had friends who were going to Howard, and I did a couple of visits. I went to Morgan and I looked around. I was like, oh, these people are having way too much fun.

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I may not be able to concentrate on studying, so I need to go somewhere where there are enough Black kids for me to have a good time, but not so many that I'm distracted by all the social activities constantly.

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So I came down to DC, visited the schools that were here, and this is the one that had the campus that I liked. And I said, well, then I'm coming

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to American U. And I wouldn't apply anywhere else. I applied early decision got in and that was it. So that's why. That's why I came.

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You asked me about being a cheerleader. I had always wanted to be a cheerleader. I always thought it would be fun. But at the school that I was at in

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New Jersey, there were no Black people. There were hardly any Black people in the school, much less on the cheerleading squad. And the people who were doing

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cheering were a certain group of white people at that. So I never had that opportunity. I was a color guard. I was captain of the color guard, and I enjoyed that while I was in

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high school. But when I came here, I had a chance to try out for cheerleader. I was like, I think I want to do

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that. So I didn't realize, um, I must have realized it then, but I hadn't thought about it since. When I was talking to Sheila, who was just interviewed.

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We were both cheerleaders together, and she said, did you integrate the squad? I was like, uh, actually I did. I forgot about that, but I did. I was the first Black person on

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the on the cheerleading squad, and eventually I became the captain and I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun, especially the basketball games, because, you know, we had our Black guys on the

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basketball team. I had a chance to cheer for them, and even we cheered at some track meets where people like Butch Bell and Norm Early and Peter Chen, you know, were running.

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Got a chance to cheer for them. So it was fun. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that part of AU.

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And how did that intertwine with the anthropology? Well, I came without knowing what I was going to major in, and I actually never thought I would major in anthropology. It never occurred to me.

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It was one of those things where you're at home and you get a list of what courses you're going to be taking as a freshman, and cultural anthropology was on the list. And I said, what is that? I don't think I want to take that.

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And my father, my father said, I think you'll like it. You ought to take it. Okay. My father's a physician.

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He was like, he was like, you ought to take this. I think you'll like it. I came to the class first day of the class, I was totally hooked.

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I absolutely loved it. The very first lecture. And I said, well, I think I'm going to major in anthropology. I really like this, so I did.

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So cultural anthropology, you have to take that. Physical anthro, archaeology, linguistics, you have to take all of those.

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But I loved it. So that was a lot of fun for me. And that's how I ended up in anthropology. And how did that translate into what you did after you graduated?

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Well, when I graduated, I actually got married as soon as I graduated. And the person that I married wanted to go into the Peace Corps, so I okay, good.

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I will go into the Peace Corps, which was perfect for a cultural anthropology major. You know, that that was it really dovetailed so well.

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So I was a Peace Corps Volunteer then in, in Kenya for two years. And, you know, the having studied anthropology, it was just so fascinating to me, you know, just

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so interesting. And I was really able to listen to people to the extent that I could, because I really couldn't speak that language I could speak.

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They taught us Swahili, but where I was stationed, they didn't speak very much Swahili, just some of the men spoke Swahili. It was more of a trading language.

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And people who'd been in the war, they spoke some Swahili, but most of the women didn't generally, unless they were teachers. And because it was a very remote school, there were only two teachers who could speak some English, so or and Swahili.

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So it was that was a little difficult, you know, not being able to communicate with women the way I would have liked to because I couldn't really speak that language. But nevertheless, you know, having had the anthropology background, I

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think it made me a better Volunteer. Um, and it also gave me two years to figure out what I was going to do when I came back, because I had planned to get a PhD in anthropology, I had been accepted at Catholic U. And that's what I

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was going to do. But while I was away, I had a chance to really stop and think about what I wanted to do because when I was in high school, I wanted to go to medical school.

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But then I took physics in high school and I hated it so much. I was like, okay, that idea is out. I'm not going to do that. And so while I was in Kenya, I

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thought about it and decided that I was really interested in nutrition, which is still a science scientific. So when I came back, I went to University of Maryland to get a master's degree in nutrition, and I was like halfway through.

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It was a two year program. I was halfway through, and I had to take all the prerequisites because I didn't take any of that stuff, you know, when I was in undergrad.

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So I had to take general chemistry, I had to take organic, I had to take biochemistry, I had to take all of those. And the only thing standing between me and medicine was physics.

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And at that point I was older, I was more mature, and I just said, if that's the only thing between me and medical school, that I'm just going to do it. So in one summer, I took a year's worth of physics at Howard, and

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that was that. and I went on to medical school. So I went to Howard. I really wanted to.

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I got my master's at at Maryland and then went on to Howard to medical school. And what was your specialty? Well, my specialty is occupational medicine.

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Interestingly enough, I did go to Hopkins and get a master's in public health and did my occupational environmental medicine residency there. And I actually had spent three,

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three years in radiology before I got to that and just found that I really did not like it. It was not people oriented enough. And occupational medicine is really a preventive specialty.

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It's a public health specialty, and you get a chance to work with people, try to keep people healthy, and you get to use the nutrition that I had studied and some of the anthropology that I had studied.

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You kind of put it all together because you're trying to reach people and trying to keep them healthy at work, you know, so that if they start their job, whatever state they may be in, you want them to be able to maintain their

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health or maybe even make it better. I worked for the Postal Service, actually. I was Associate Medical Director for the Postal Service, and I spent 31 years at the Postal Service.

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Nobody even knows there were doctors there, but we did. And so it's an opportunity because so many people come there. They're very young when they come into the Postal Service, and they may stay their entire working careers.

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So you have an opportunity to to interact with people at various stages in their lives and try to keep them healthy. And, you know, you get to know what their jobs are. That's part of occupational medicine to really become familiar

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with each job, what the hazards are, how to help keep people healthy, keep people healthy to work with safety, to work with human resources, labor relations, injury compensation. It's an interdisciplinary field.

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So I'm kind of an interdisciplinary person. So it fit me very well to be able to do that.

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So now I've retired, but I'm still working part time for Federal Occupational Health, doing some work for them. So do you think that your

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experience here at AU helped shape your interdisciplinary future moving forward? I think I think it probably did. I mean, I had varied experiences when I, you know, when I was here. Um, one of the things that happened, I just have to I was

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just reflecting on this when I was waiting to, to come and speak to you. I was thinking about what it was like when I moved into the dorm.

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You know, I moved into the dormitory, and there was only one other black person in the whole dorm. Okay.

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So I moved into the dorm, and I had these two roommates from Long Island, and one of them was so miserable, she didn't go to class. She missed her boyfriend all the time, so she just stayed in the room all the time.

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And at the end of the first semester, she left. And it turned out that there was one other black person who was living off campus at McLean

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gardens, and they didn't realize she was black. And once they realized she was black, they were like, okay, we have to get her out of McLean gardens. And so they moved her into my room.

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And of course, where else would she go? So they moved her into my room. And then we had a third roommate who was white, a wonderful, wonderful girl.

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She was just. And we all got along so well, the three of us. And I actually had known my new

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roommate, Jackie. I had actually met her before. Her father was a physician. She was from Wilmington.

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So, you know, we all got along well. But that was such an experience, you know. And we used to laugh about that, and we'd laugh and say, yeah, once they found out you were black, they had to get you out of there

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because they didn't want any black people at in McLean gardens. So that was interesting. But, um, you know, I had been in a high school.

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With. You know, almost everybody white. And the kids that I got along the best with were probably the Jewish kids, actually, because we were

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all kind of outcast together because it was kind of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant town, and we were all outcasts together. So we played intramural basketball and, you know, had a lot of fun. But then on the weekends we we had our separate lives.

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They had their lives. I had my life. And then we'd come back together, you know, during, during the week and enjoy each other's company and whatever we were doing and, you

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know, be friendly and all of that. So I think I always liked doing a lot of different activities. You know, I like to ice skate and

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I like to sing. I was always in choirs. And so when I was at AU, I sang in the choir and toured with the choir.

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And so, you know, I was busy and I really enjoyed my time here. But what I liked best about AU, I think, was the opportunity to socialize day to day with other

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black people. I mean, really, because that was what I had not had. That was what I had not done in

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high school. And so that was very enjoyable for me, you know, sitting in the cafeteria and talking to my friends or Mary Graydon Center, talking to my friends, I went to

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the library five nights a week to study because I was the person who could not study in the dorm. Too many distractions. I had to go to the library, and because I was always used to doing

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well in school, I really had to maintain that. I couldn't imagine, you know, getting bad grades. So I had to study. But I really enjoyed the

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socialization of being around other people of color. And I was here when we founded OSATAU. So that was very important to me. I mean, you know, the time that I

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was growing up, when I was in high school, I had older, slightly older friends who were going south on doing voter registration. You know guys that I knew. And so, you know, I came here very

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conscious of being black. I mean, if you grow up in a town like I did where people discriminated against, you didn't want us to come our family to go to their churches.

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I mean, you know, they were just all kinds of things that were said and done, um, eggs thrown at the house, shrubbery pulled up when we first, you know, pulled up out of the ground when we first moved in. So, you know, I always I always knew what it was like to be black.

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So some people would say, oh, you came from this white town. You probably think you're white. No, I didn't think that I, I knew exactly who I was.

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And so it was very, um, it was just wonderful to be here, even though there weren't that many of us. We were close, you know, we were

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close. We we were friends. We looked out for each other. We were determined.

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We had a certain amount of, I guess, militancy, you know, you would say we were the night that Doctor King was killed. We were Roberta, my roommate. Jackie and I were at Howard

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because they were having all people, black students from various schools, coming together to talk about what we were going to do. You know, as Doctor King, as

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Malcolm X, you know, what are we what are we going to do? What are our next moves going to be? How can we get together? And we're sitting there in this meeting and somebody walks in and says, Doctor King was shot and

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killed. And we were just we were. None of us will ever. We all the three of us, always

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talk about it. What that moment was like, it was just devastating. Shocking.

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I mean, we didn't know what to say and we had to drive back. Back over here from Howard and my roommate Jackie. I told my roommate, Jackie's very light skinned. It was her car.

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Now, I don't remember this, but they said that I drove. I don't even remember this. We were so afraid that someone would see her and think that she

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was white and hurt her. That one of us had to drive. They told me I was the one I drove. She ducked down like this so that they would.

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No one would see her in case there was some violence that would be done to her, because we were all there together. So we drove back. We got back here.

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And of course, you know, this was the time. This is 1968. And the riots, which of course, we called the rebellion, not the riots.

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And people in the dorm were just, oh, you know, these girls were so. Oh, they were just horrified. So I walked into the, into the lounge and people were sitting there looking at the television.

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This is like that day the next day. And they said, they're coming up Connecticut Avenue. You know what I did? I said, who's coming up Connecticut Avenue? And silence, utter silence.

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You know. Crickets. Nobody said anything. They just looked at me.

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Eyes got all big. Everybody kind of looked around. Nobody said anything. I was like, okay.

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So, you know, that was a time. That was a time, 1968. And then, of course, I was away in the Peace Corps the next two years.

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But I will tell you that, you know, my experience in life and my experience here. And then when I went to the University of Maryland, by then I had cut my hair.

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I had a I had a Angela Davis afro. I just cut my hair and it was huge. And I went up to University of Maryland and they were like, we don't know if we can let you into this nutrition program because you

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haven't had the prerequisites, you haven't taken organic chemistry and you haven't taken, um, you know, biochemistry. Do you need all of these things to study nutrition? I told them, you need more black people in this program.

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I look around, I don't see black people in this program. You need to let me in. I'm going to do fine. I'm going to get this degree.

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It won't be a problem. I will take all of those courses and I will be fine. And you need to give me a graduate assistantship. And they did.

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They did. They gave me the graduate assistantship, and I was like, yes. And of course I did fine.

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You know, I got the master's degree and I didn't even go to graduation because I was off to medical school by the time I finished my thesis. So. So you became a change maker

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in so many ways. I guess I did. I didn't really think of myself as such, but maybe. Maybe I did.

00:17:21.300 - 00:17:35.100

Maybe so. But I do have a message for for young people because I think, you know, I told you that at one time I thought I couldn't be a physician because I hated physics.

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Okay. And later on, when I was ready to settle down and really work hard and, and I had set a goal and I wasn't going to be deterred from it, then you couldn't stop me Then.

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Okay. And so I tell young people all the time, don't be discouraged. Don't be don't put roadblocks that

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don't need to be there in front of you. And if there are roadblocks, all you have to do is figure out how to get past them. If you're going to go over it, if

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you're going to go around it, if you're going to dig a hole and go under it, just figure out how to get past it, because all they are are roadblocks. Once, once I took physics to get

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into medical school. Do you think I had to take physics again? I did not, whether I liked it or not, I did not.

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And you don't have to. You know, there are just roadblocks that are put in your way. There are hurdles and you can get

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past them and go on and do something else and don't. Also, don't think that you can't change your mind. You know, sometimes people feel like they're locked into something and they cannot change their course.

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And I encourage people not to feel like that. And also I encourage them not to turn down a field because they think it's just like this. People who go into medicine, for

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example, think, oh, the only way I can practice medicine is like this. You know, my father had a private practice, solo private practice.

00:19:03.570 - 00:19:13.170

I knew I didn't want to do that. I knew that that was not for me. But there were so many options in the field of medicine, so many different ways you could practice.

00:19:13.170 - 00:19:20.880

You could do some of this and some of that, or you could do some of this now and later on. Move on to something else. There's so many options.

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So I also tell young people, you know, if you're looking at a field, whether it's medicine, law, nursing, teaching, you know, whatever, you know, whatever field you're looking at, understand that you can find a way to stay in that

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field, but still do something that you want to do in the way that you want to do it, even if it's starting your own business, you know, you get the basics and you can do anything. You can go anywhere.

00:19:49.340 - 00:19:53.690

So don't be discouraged. That's what I tell them. I tell them, don't. Do not be discouraged.

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Don't let anyone turn you around. And like my mother used to tell me, if you're having trouble with someone with something, find someone who can help you. And if that person doesn't help you, you move on to somebody else.

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And you keep doing that until you find the person or persons who can help you realize your goal. They can help you get through this course.

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They can help you do whatever. They can do this, and you just have to find the right person. Do not be discouraged, never be discouraged, and never give up a dream and know that your dreams can change.

00:20:29.960 - 00:20:34.910

Final question. Um, using your. I'm so sorry to interrupt. We might need to.

00:20:35.330 - 00:20:40.610

We need to wrap up, I think. Yeah. Um, yes. If you want to just make a couple.

00:20:40.640 - 00:20:44.150

Minutes on the last question. Oh, yeah. Just just one more. Okay.

00:20:44.790 - 00:20:58.360

Thinking back to your experiences at AU, how it shaped your experiences afterwards. Is there a one word that you can describe how you feel about you or what you took from AU?

00:21:00.870 - 00:21:17.010

Hmm. One word or phrase? Um. That's hard. There was a time at AU when I. I

00:21:17.010 - 00:21:27.720

was really angry. I remember standing by a tree one time and just being really resentful and thinking, everybody wants me to get married and have children.

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And, you know, that's all they want me to do. And this is not me. This is not what I want. I want to do something more.

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I want to do something more. And I ended up getting married, but I didn't have children until I was in my 30s, okay, 30s and 40s. I waited a long time before I.

00:21:42.870 - 00:21:56.810

Before I had children. Um, so. I'm not sure, I think. I want to say.

00:21:59.840 - 00:22:14.600

Determination or maybe flexibility. I think flexibility, being open to new experiences. I mean, to be open to something like anthropology when I. That was never anything that I wanted to do.

00:22:14.600 - 00:22:37.790

So I think learning to be open to new experiences, new, uh, new opportunities, new areas of study, I think I think that's that's what I would take out of, out of my experience here. That and I don't know, just the love of being with with other

00:22:37.790 - 00:22:43.520

people of color. That was real special for me. Thanks. Great.