{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/rb6vx06t2v/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Singer, Dorothy, 2007 April 10"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/013/original/yale-blue.png?1678220072","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Singer, Dorothy, 2007 April 10. Oral Histories Documenting Yale University Women (RU 1051). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.\n\n https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/2559."]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/archival_objects/801843"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library."]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Access to the materials is partially restricted. See Collection Contents for details.\n\nOriginal computer files may not be accessed due to their fragility. Researchers must consult access copies."]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["mssa.ru.1051 (EAD ID)","RU 1051 (Call Number)","ru_1051_2007-a-225_singer_dorothy_audiorecording.mp3 (Digital Object ID)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2007 April 10 (Creation)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["The materials are open for research. (Accessrestrict)","Dorothy G. Singer was born in New York City on February 4, 1927, and grew up in Riverdale, New York. After attending Walton High School in the Bronx, one of the first all-girls high schools in New York, she went to Hunter College, where she developed a passion for the classics. She graduated with an A.B. in Humanities in 1948. Shortly after graduation she met Jerome L. Singer, and they married the following year. She won, but did not take, a fellowship to study archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York City. Instead the young couple moved to Philadelphia where Jerome Singer continued to pursue his Ph.D. in psychology. Dorothy Singer worked for an advertising agency but also took courses at Temple University, including psychology. When the couple moved back to New York, she undertook a part-time Master's degree in psychology at New York University, graduating in 1952, shortly before the birth of her first child. \n\nShe postponed further academic pursuits until her third child was in kindergarten, when she enrolled in the Columbia University's Teachers' College doctoral program. There she was mentored by Morton Deutsch. She graduated in 1966 with a Ph.D. in School Psychology, and worked in a variety of research and counseling positions until 1968 when she joined Manhattanville College to teach psychology. She became department chair in 1972 but then left to take up a joint appointment in psychology at the University of Bridgeport and Yale University, her husband having accepted a professorship at Yale. At Bridgeport she developed many interdisciplinary courses, becoming the William Benton Professor of Psychology and eventually chair of the department. She left Bridgeport in 1990 to devote more time to her work as co-director of the Yale University Family Television Research and Consultation Center, which she and her husband had founded in 1975. The Center's work made a major contribution to the debate on the effect of television on children's learning and behavior. The Singers designed a national television curriculum for teenagers and conducted a major study for the United States Congress on educational programming for children. In addition to her work as co-director of the Center, since 1976 Dorothy Singer has been a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Psychology and the Child Study Center at Yale University, where she is a distinguished teacher as well as researcher.\n\nDorothy Singer has contributed over 130 articles on child psychology, media and communication, and written or co-authored many books, including Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence (Sage Publications, 2006) and Play=Learning (Oxford University Press, 2006). She has been a consultant to dozens of corporations including HBO and Walt Disney. She received the 1997 Distinguished Contribution to the Science of Psychology Award from the Connecticut Psychological Association and in 2006, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Teachers' College, Columbia University. (Bioghist)","Dorothy Singer talks extensively about an academic career which has spanned over forty years, and in particular reflects at length on the challenges she encountered in balancing family life and duties with her professional needs and aspirations, and on the choices she made. She also talks about her love of teaching and research, especially of the interdisciplinary and collaborative kind, and student mentoring. She speaks about tenure issues, salary differentials, nepotism rules, discrimination against women in academic publishing, and how these matters have either impacted her personally or academic women in general. She considers the ways in which life has changed for women in academia in her lifetime, the advances made, and what changes she believes need to be made to achieve gender and racial equality in academic life at Yale and beyond. In addition, she talks at some length about her early life, particularly her mother's influence. She also describes her experience of American suburban culture as a young mother in the 1950s and early 1960s. (Scope and Content Note)","https://preservica.library.yale.edu/explorer/explorer.html#prop:4\u0026amp;3edf00a0-7b10-4565-9538-36bd6c1f8bd6 (Other Finding Aid Note)","This material was originally acquired in 2009 as a direct network transfer from Yale shared network attached storage and artificial logical AD1 forensic images were created. AD1 images were extracted in May 2020 and resulting files processed. Audio files which had been originally recorded in short sequential tracks, were merged together into a single processed master wav file with fre:ac software. (Processinfo)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["The materials are open for research.","Dorothy G. Singer was born in New York City on February 4, 1927, and grew up in Riverdale, New York. After attending Walton High School in the Bronx, one of the first all-girls high schools in New York, she went to Hunter College, where she developed a passion for the classics. She graduated with an A.B. in Humanities in 1948. Shortly after graduation she met Jerome L. Singer, and they married the following year. She won, but did not take, a fellowship to study archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York City. Instead the young couple moved to Philadelphia where Jerome Singer continued to pursue his Ph.D. in psychology. Dorothy Singer worked for an advertising agency but also took courses at Temple University, including psychology. When the couple moved back to New York, she undertook a part-time Master's degree in psychology at New York University, graduating in 1952, shortly before the birth of her first child. \n\nShe postponed further academic pursuits until her third child was in kindergarten, when she enrolled in the Columbia University's Teachers' College doctoral program. There she was mentored by Morton Deutsch. She graduated in 1966 with a Ph.D. in School Psychology, and worked in a variety of research and counseling positions until 1968 when she joined Manhattanville College to teach psychology. She became department chair in 1972 but then left to take up a joint appointment in psychology at the University of Bridgeport and Yale University, her husband having accepted a professorship at Yale. At Bridgeport she developed many interdisciplinary courses, becoming the William Benton Professor of Psychology and eventually chair of the department. She left Bridgeport in 1990 to devote more time to her work as co-director of the Yale University Family Television Research and Consultation Center, which she and her husband had founded in 1975. The Center's work made a major contribution to the debate on the effect of television on children's learning and behavior. The Singers designed a national television curriculum for teenagers and conducted a major study for the United States Congress on educational programming for children. In addition to her work as co-director of the Center, since 1976 Dorothy Singer has been a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Psychology and the Child Study Center at Yale University, where she is a distinguished teacher as well as researcher.\n\nDorothy Singer has contributed over 130 articles on child psychology, media and communication, and written or co-authored many books, including \u003ctitle render=\"italic\"\u003eHandbook of Children, Culture and Violence\u003c/title\u003e (Sage Publications, 2006) and \u003ctitle render=\"italic\"\u003ePlay=Learning\u003c/title\u003e (Oxford University Press, 2006). She has been a consultant to dozens of corporations including HBO and Walt Disney. She received the 1997 Distinguished Contribution to the Science of Psychology Award from the Connecticut Psychological Association and in 2006, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Teachers' College, Columbia University.","Dorothy Singer talks extensively about an academic career which has spanned over forty years, and in particular reflects at length on the challenges she encountered in balancing family life and duties with her professional needs and aspirations, and on the choices she made. She also talks about her love of teaching and research, especially of the interdisciplinary and collaborative kind, and student mentoring. She speaks about tenure issues, salary differentials, nepotism rules, discrimination against women in academic publishing, and how these matters have either impacted her personally or academic women in general. She considers the ways in which life has changed for women in academia in her lifetime, the advances made, and what changes she believes need to be made to achieve gender and racial equality in academic life at Yale and beyond. In addition, she talks at some length about her early life, particularly her mother's influence. She also describes her experience of American suburban culture as a young mother in the 1950s and early 1960s.","https://preservica.library.yale.edu/explorer/explorer.html#prop:4\u00263edf00a0-7b10-4565-9538-36bd6c1f8bd6","This material was originally acquired in 2009 as a direct network transfer from Yale shared network attached storage and artificial logical AD1 forensic images were created. AD1 images were extracted in May 2020 and resulting files processed. Audio files which had been originally recorded in short sequential tracks, were merged together into a single processed master wav file with fre:ac software."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Access to the materials is partially restricted. See Collection Contents for details.\n\nOriginal computer files may not be accessed due to their fragility. Researchers must consult access copies."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/013/original/yale-blue.png?1678220072","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20210827-32762-1j8esek.mpga"]},"duration":4466.44245,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-yalemssa.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/122/273/original/open-uri20210827-32762-1j8esek.mpga?1630069806","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":4466.44245,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["ru_1051_2007-a-225_singer_dorothy_edited_transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"04-10-2007 Interview - Dorothy Singer\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It’s Tuesday, the 10th of April 2007, and I’m here with Dorothy Singer.  We’re doing an interview for the Yale Women Oral History Project.  I think I’d like to get straight to the point, to the very beginning Dorothy.  Looking back on a very long career, which must be well in excess of 50 years?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh, definitely.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That you can’t exactly say it’s been a straightforward career path, and I’m really curious about how much that kind of jinking and jiving, working at Yale, working at other places, is actually a result of you being a woman in a profession.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  I think it goes back to, let me start when I first began thinking of psychology as a career.  I had very young children, and I worked for a while, with a master's degree, at a residential treatment center when my children were very young, and I worked in the mornings.  It was great, because I could be home by lunchtime, pick up my child from nursery school, give him lunch and be home, and write my reports in the afternoon.  I did that for a while, until I began to see that I’m at a dead end, and I just did not want to do psychological testing.  I really wanted to do more, which meant going back and getting a doctorate.  So I got accepted at Teachers College, Columbia University, and my husband was just terrific in that, because he would do a lot of childcare.  Weekends, when I had papers, he would take the kids to the zoo or any event that was going on; parades, the park, and I was able to write.  \r\nAnd then once I finished the degree, let’s see Jeff would have been about five or six when I went back to school, so I finished it in three years because they gave me master's credit, and I did the dissertation and an internship at the same time, which I do not recommend that anybody do.  It was an exhausting, you know, with three little boys and all of that.  But when I was through, I got a research job in New York City.  Again, they were very generous, and they said I could work until 2:00.  So I left at 2:00 and got home in time for the children, who were now older and in elementary school, so they got home around 3:00, 3:30, 4:00.  I was always balancing being a mother who would be home for the children.  That was very important in my life, that I be there when they came home for milk and cookies.  Even if they changed their clothes and ran out to play, I knew, when they came up the path, if they had a good day or a bad day, and I wanted to be there as a buffer.  I think, in terms of my career, I always put the children and the family first, and I think a lot of young women are struggling with that right now.  I know many of my students here will say you know, Do I have my children now or have them later?  And it really is a very personal decision, but I’m glad I had them when I was younger and then went back, because you need the energy.  Sleep, as you know, is something that you really crave.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Can I just stop you there?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Were you unusual in your female peer group?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.  I was really unusual, because we lived in Ardsley, and while all my --\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Where's that?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: That's in Westchester, near Scarsdale, and while I was going to school, my friends were playing tennis or playing golf or going to the local country club, and I remember having this conversation with friends saying, Well how can you, you know, get a babysitter and take a class?  I said, \"Well how can you take a babysitter and play golf?  Why is one different than the other?  This is my priority.\"  They somehow thought the leisure and a babysitter was OK, but going to school and a babysitter was not correct.  So I was one of the first in my group of about 15 women in that area, who went back, and little by little, they all started to go back, and I really served as a mentor for so many of my friends.  I remember sitting in our dining room having coffee, and particularly one woman, with three children too, lived four or five houses away, and said, \"Dorothy, tell me how you do it.  I really want to go back, can I do it?\"  I said, \"Yes, you could do it, and we can even trade off watching each others' children.\"  So little by little, I noticed the women were going back, but I really was the only one in that peer group at the time.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What sort of peer group are we talking about here?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: We all had children in the same class, and so we all knew each other.  We all did volunteer work.  We ran art shows in town.  We helped volunteer in the library.  We were just doing a lot of things in the town, and we all lived near each other, so we knew each other, and it would mean dinner parties at each others' house or going shopping with each one.  That was the sort of thing we did, until I decided I really wanted to go to school and get this doctorate degree.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So now you decided to go back to school.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Would this be in the mid '60s?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.  I went back in '63.  I got the degree in '66 I believe, exactly.  \r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I had had the master's before that and was, as I said, working for a couple of years doing psychological testing in a residential treatment center.  I loved it, it was good, but I knew I wanted to more than just testing, and so that's when I went back in '63.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you come from a background where women, where it was accepted or even expected that women might work.  I mean obviously, working class women always worked.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  My mother was trained to be a teacher, but she never really worked.  She did what I would call professional volunteerism.  She worked for every group in Riverdale.  I mean she was like -- she should have been paid.  She volunteered for everything, and so she was busy all day, but she was always there at 3:00.  I remember that, and I think that's what made me do that.  When I would come home from school, mom was there, and it was wonderful to see her, to open the door and know there was somebody there.  And yet, she did a lot.  I think had she been born a little later, she would have been a professional, no question in my mind.  Both my parents encouraged me to do that, and they thought teaching was what I should do, but when I went to college, I majored in humanities, which was not going to lead to teaching.  I wanted to study Greek and Latin and literature, and I remember my dad saying, \"What are you going to do with that?\"  And he was right, because when I graduated, I went and took some sort of shorthand course so I could earn some money, and then I went back to school to get my master's.  I just didn't want to be a teacher, not in elementary school, but I loved being a teacher in college.  I mean, I just adored that here and at Bridgeport.  It is really fun.  They really were very encouraging.  \r\nI think my mother wanted me to do what she couldn't do, you know, to really just go out and fly.  I always got that message from her.  She was a very strong woman.  I remember vividly, during an election, my father said to her, Now I hope you're going to vote for so and so, and this was dinnertime.  My mother stood up on the kitchen table and she said, \"This is a free country.  I will vote for whomever I want.\"  My brothers and I just looked at her.  I never had seen anything like that.  Then she stepped down and she finished serving dinner, and my father's thinking oh boy.  But that's what she was like, she was very strong and yet very warm and giving.  I think it was through her encouragement and seeing that you know, you could give to society.  As a kid, when I was about 14 or 15, she always said to me, you have to volunteer somewhere, and she made me go to this Baptist home for the aged, which was around the corner, and read to elderly ladies.  She said, \"I just think you should do that twice a week.  It's not going to take much of your time, but if you do that, you're going to feel good about yourself.\"  I was like oh no, what am I doing.  I remember the first time I walked in this place -- it's still there in Riverdale -- and old people sitting around.  I said I'm here and I'm going to volunteer to read, and the woman who ran this said well, \"If you plan this, you've got to promise you'll be here all the time, or you're going to disappoint these people.\"  I said, \"Just assign me to someone.\"  And she did, to this wonderful little old lady, and I came twice a week and just read to her because her eyes were failing.  And my mother was right, it made me feel really good.  So that's a sort of thing, you know, she felt that people have to give to the community.  I really have always felt that, that it's important that you volunteer and give something back.  So she was very important in my life, and my husband of course, was a tremendous support in helping me get the degree by just being there.  I mean, I remember some nights, 2:00 in the morning sitting there.  We didn't have computers then, so all my calculations were done on a hand held calculator.  Can you imagine doing analysis of variants on a little calculator?  Now you can plug it into the computer and you've got it all in two minutes, but you do it.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: He must be very unusual then.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: He is.  I think he was very supportive and I think he knew this would be good for me, and I think he recognized that I needed to do that.  He was really very supportive, I mean really.  So many times at 2:00 in the morning I would say, What am I doing this for?  I can still get a job with a master's.  And he would say, \"Come on, you just have one more semester, just keep going, you'll do it.\"  And then of course, I was very lucky.  I had a marvelous mentor at Columbia, Morton Deutsch, who was really sensational.  I did a very interesting dissertation, and that was important.  The people who were around me were really very helpful.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Were you encouraged at high school as well?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  I had a very good high school teacher, and I did very well in high school, but more so at college.  There was a woman in college, who was my Latin teacher, who really was very encouraging to me, and actually, she told me to apply to the NY Institute of Fine Arts.  I was thinking of archaeology at the time, and I did get in, but married my husband and postponed acceptance for a year, while I was married to him, and we lived -- he was at Penn.  I took some courses at Temple, then I thought, Oh I really like psychology.  \r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=300.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I wrote to NYU and said, never mind, I'm not going to go be an archeologist, I'm going to be a psychologist.  And then we came back from Penn, and he was working up at Montrose, New York, and I went to NYU to get my master's. So it was really the courses I took at Temple that inspired me to switch careers, but it was this college professor, who I loved, and really got to me.  I took four years of Latin in high school and four more in college.  I was really very serious and took Greek and Aramaic and I really love ancient history.  I'm glad I did, because it's something now that I, you know, have inside of me, and wouldn't be doing at this point.  So it was a good background, a very good liberal arts background.  But clearly, I mean what I could have done then I guess, is come back from a dig somewhere and probably get a job in an anthropology or archaeology department, but psychology was much more fascinating to me.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: But I think also, certainly in the '60s and the early '70s, the women in psychology -- in academy psychology this is, were few and far between.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh yes.  When I left -- I met a young man, and I think somewhere at a party, and he said to me, \"Dorothy, I'm teaching at Manhattanville College, and you know we have an opening.\"  He said, \"Why don't you apply?\"  I said well, \"I've never taught, I'm doing this research job and it's great.  I get off at 2:00.\"  He said, \"Just apply.\"  And I did, and I had a very odd experience.  The man who was head of the program then, when he interviewed me, said to me, \"Well I see that you have a husband who is teaching.\"  At that point, my husband was at City University, director of the clinical program there.  And he said, \"So I don't think you need as big a salary.\"  Can you imagine someone saying that?  So there is this opening and you have children I see.  Do you think you can do this?  I said, \"Yes, I certainly can do this.\"  OK, he said, \"I'll recommend you for the job.\"  Can you imagine talking to someone like that at that point?  You have children, you don't need a big salary, you're married.  I got that job and came in as assistant professor, and then I became Chair of the department.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Was it a tenure job?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah, I got tenure there and then became Chair of the department.  At that point, I think the figures were 2% of all chairs of psychology departments were women.  That was in '72 that I got doing that.  Can you imagine that?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: So I stayed there until Jerry got this offer at Yale.  I was at Manhattanville, I guess, four years, and the offer came.  He had been offered it once before when -- and as I said, turned it down.  He spoke to me about it and he said, Let's just see whether I can stay up at Yale, you can stay here -- because I loved the job -- and maybe we can live in between, in Westport.  So we began looking around, and then I remember saying to him, \"This is not going to work.\"  If you're at a place like Yale, you've got to be able to have your students over the way I did at Manhattanville.  You want them at the house, you want to be on campus.  I'm willing to look for something else, because I think you should take Yale, you'll love it.  Luck had it, an opening was at Bridgeport, which was closer, so we decided we could move up here, and I wouldn't have that big commute down to Manhattanville.  Those were the glory days of Bridgeport.  It was expanding, it was a very good university, and had very good students.  I became head of the school psychology program there, but I missed the research.  It was really a teaching environment, four courses a semester, and then I directed the school psych program, it was a heavy load.  At that point, we got interested in -- we had been doing some play research together, and then got interested in doing television research.  We got an enormous grant from the National Science Foundation, and so I spoke to my Chair at Bridgeport and said you know, I have an opportunity to do research at Yale.  I can cover for a professor to take one of my courses, and I'd like to get up to Yale and do it.  He said, \"That's fine with me.\"  So that's how I got here.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well, that explains it because I couldn't quite see what the relationship between the two establishments was.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: That's what happened.  So for a couple of years, I was working on the grant here, and giving [Bridgeport] some money to replace my one teaching course.  And then the university began to change.  It really -- we had a president who spent a lot of money, we had someone there who was quite corrupt.  Eventually they went bankrupt and the Moonies bought the University of Bridgeport, and that was about 1990 or late '80s.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So you taught there actually a long time.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: A long time, 18 years yeah, and I was tenured there and they gave me a Chair.  I was a William Benton Professor of Psychology.  They had a strike, and I joined the strike.  They were striking for a lot of things.  I mean, there were a lot of inequities.  Women were being paid much less than men.  We matched all the salaries.  For example, I was a full professor, tenured, and my salary was about two thirds less than another male in my department.   ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=600.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So we were on strike for salaries, course load, a lot of things, and then the Moonies bought us, and at that point, I said to Jerry, \"I think I'm going to leave Bridgeport\"  because [at Yale] I was doing the research.  They called me a Visiting Research Scientist, and then they changed that, dropped the visiting, and made me Senior Research Scientist when I came.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: When Jerry was in negotiation for the position at Yale, was there ever any discussion between you or indeed between him and Yale about finding a position for you --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: No.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: -- back in '72?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: No, no, never brought it up, because we knew what the atmosphere was like.  There were several people who had come with spouses, who weren't getting the job, of course spouses couldn't, and I knew if he brought it up, even though the people wanted him, and it was Dr.[Donald] Taylor  at the time who brought him here, we just knew it wouldn't work.  And I really felt that this would have been very important for him to come, and I was perfectly happy doing what I was doing.  Especially when that grant came, we had a lot of opportunity to pursue this new field of television.  We were like pioneers in the research in that.  So I said, you just don't even ask about me.  Now I may have been wrong.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Were you aware -- I mean, I've heard people say that there were nepotism rules, and certainly in the state colleges across the country, I'm come across very definite \r\n-- that kind of evidence that they existed, and that they had to be rescinded when affirmative action took hold.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Were you aware, because you were coming here in '72, of nepotism rules actually operating?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I think they were but they were very quiet.  We knew of no couples here, we checked that out, and I think as far as I remember, you know, we may have missed one, but we looked around and we looked at the handbook and at the faculty thing.  You know, you can see -- you know, in the address book, you see a professor, and if you look to see if he had a wife and where the wife was teaching, she was never in the same department.  So I knew.  It was sort of an unspoken thing that you couldn't have a husband and wife in the same department, and that's why as I say, that like a couple of years I came here, we had Phoebe\r\n     [Ellsworth], who was on a tenure track, and Judy [Rodin] was on a tenure track, but husbands were not welcome in the same department.  Do you remember Hanna Gray?  She was the Acting Provost here, and then was Acting President for a while.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: She had a husband who was a tenured professor at the University of Chicago.  They couldn't give him a job here in the History Department, so that kind of gives you -- and she had a very high position.  If anyone could have negotiated for a spouse.  So he came and he did some lecturing, but he never got a full professorship here, which is one of the reasons she left again.  So knowing that, and there were a few other higher placed people who were here, who had spouses who could not get placed.  It's changed a lot now.  You can negotiate.  So at that point, I really thought if I was unhappy, really unhappy, I think he would have taken his chances.  But I was not unhappy, and I was able to do the research, which was important to me, and I had the professorship there, so.  And I knew this would have been really a nice life for him, and for me, which it was.  So that's why we did that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: You're incredibly flexible.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well, why not?  I mean, I think that things were in balance, my children, my husband.  The happiness of our marriage was much more important than being called a tenured professor.  I had that experience so I know what it was like.  Maybe if I didn't have it, I would have wanted to taste it, and I had an endowed chair, so I know it doesn't change relationships, and it didn't really you know, do anything in my life.  I began to see that I could publish and write, and was invited everywhere, and people didn't care whether I was tenured or not.  It was what I was turning out, and I think Yale offered me that flexibility of having good students to work with.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So obviously your being a research scientist is a somewhat anomalous position in the faculty?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: It's comparable to a faculty position.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Is it?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Right.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh yes, it's comparable.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So what -- I mean, what were the obligations and responsibilities of that post?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well I could teach if I wanted to, and I did teach.  Do the research.  I mean the only thing I couldn't go to were tenured faculty meetings, because I was not tenured on that slot.  So I had no voice in department decisions, but other than that, everything else was open to me.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you do service jobs within the university?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh yes, yes.  I was on a lot of committees.  An ombudsman committee, a women's committee once, when there were some grievances.  Then in the college that I'm attached to, Morse, I was on the committee to select the Dean, the committee to select the new Master.  \r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=900.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I've been able to do all of those things, and certainly would advise students and all of that.  The only thing I could not do, I would not have a voice in the department.  Only the tenured faculty makes decisions about that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did that ever frustrate you?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Not really, because the department runs pretty well.  I think Jerry's voice was pretty strong.  He was able to become Director of the Clinical Program, Director of Graduate Studies, and I think we would have voted pretty much the same.  So it didn't really frustrate me.  I mean, I think one of the things that I did see, that may have been, to be honest, that would have been frustrating, I saw some of the people who were being appointed in the clinical program that I knew were not as good as I was.  But I knew that eventually, they were not going to get tenure either.  But a lot of the appointees that were coming up and moving into positions had hardly any of the experience that I had.  So that was a little bit annoying, but basically it hasn't bothered me.  I think the department has been very kind.  The Chair has always been very generous.  I mean, I -- we're surprised that we have this little cozy office, because we gave up this big suite downstairs and I thought, OK that's it.  Jerry had this, and Marsha [Johnson], who is the Chair, was just wonderful.  She came up here and looked at it and she said, you know, you need file cabinets, you need some shelves, and Dorothy, you need a new computer.  And I thought, Wow, I wouldn't have asked for that.  And they just refurbished it and did it, and that was really very nice.  So the Chair had been very respectful and very nice.  They have been really wonderful towards me.  I have no complaint about that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Did you ever feel that you were -- how can I put it?  That you were somewhat diminished as a professional because of the position that you were in rather than being part of the full faculty?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: No, it never really affected me.  I mean, everyone who invites me or asks me to do books or edit books has never seen it that way.  I think the senior research scientist is a respected term in universities in the United States.  It means you're a faculty person, so it's the same thing, so I get the same invitations.  As a matter of fact, these past few years, I probably get even more than Jerry has, because they want women now.  Usually, when there's a panel discussion -- and your work is you know, very outstanding, but I know why they'll call me; they want a woman to be represented.  So for example, the invitation to Durham was to me.  They know of Jerry's work.  A lot of this happens, and I know, and Jerry and I laugh at that and say OK, they want a woman definitely, so.  Just a few weeks ago, I had to go to New York and give a talk on imaginary playmates.  Well Jerry and I had done the research on it, but they called me, and when I saw the panel I saw why they wanted another woman.  So that happens many times, where because I am a woman, I'll get invited, even though Jerry and I had been doing the same piece of work.  But he has also carved out his own career.  He does a lot of work on repression and imagination, and there are many, many things that he goes to that I don't get involved in.  The TV work we do together and the play work we do together.  Otherwise, he does all this other work that is really very separate.  His personality research and his editing the journal, all of that is -- I don't do that with him.  I think that people outside of Yale, first of all Yale is well respected all over the world, and then when they see research scientist, they know that that position is equivalent to a full-time faculty position.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I'm not sure that that was always the case.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I don't know.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: One of the books that I kind of use as a vade mecum is Margaret Rossiter's two volume book on academic women scientists in the U.S.  It covers maybe the last 100 years, and certainly the impression I get from reading that, that in days gone by, it certainly did seem to be like a second-class citizen.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: It would be like a lecturer or --\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Something like that, yes.  It was a little kind of cubby to put all these women in, and if they had aspirations to faculty appointments.  But maybe --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: It's changed, yes.  I think the term here that did that used to be like research associate or research assistant.  Senior research scientist is a different name.  Yes, I think years ago, a lot of women I knew had those jobs as research assistants, research  associates, and that I felt was really...  There is a woman here who still has that position, who's been here a long time.  \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=1200.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I don't know whether she's now a research scientist or not, but I think that term yeah, means you're really not at an upper level.  I've had no problem with that.  It has never stopped my publishing or speaking or anything.  The only thing within the department, I do not go to the tenured faculty meetings, so I have no voice.  Sometimes we'll all get a notice, the whole psych department will get a notice about nominating a student for good works or for something - that goes to everyone.  But if it's a tenure decision on another faculty member, I have no say in that, no.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Let's talk a minute about your teaching, because also, you're an enthusiastic and passionate teacher, I would imagine.  I saw that in 1992, that you had actually been nominated for one of the teaching awards here at Yale.  One of your students --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Gee really?  I didn't even know that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.  His name is Robert Miller.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh Bob Miller.  Yeah, I remember him.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I came across that in the research.  One of the things that comes up time and again in the literature about women at the academy, is how difficult it is for women to assert themselves in the classroom, to get the respect, to have the authority, especially if you're teaching in an establishment which has a very kind of male oriented culture, which I think when you first came --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: -- here, it must have been.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: It was, yes.  In '72, I think the first women's class just graduated.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I just wondered, do you recall any instance where you were teaching young men, that your gender was ever --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Never, never.  The students are fantastic here.  That's one of the joys, they are really very respectful, very funny and very nice.  Never had that in the classroom.  No, I never experienced that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you think there were times when being a woman maybe was an advantage?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I don't think so necessarily.  Maybe if I were teaching a course in sexuality in the psychology department, it might be an advantage.  But no, because the courses that I was teaching really, being a woman didn't -- that might be with some of the students who had come to see me later, especially a lot of the female students really were looking for role models and we didn't have many women in the department then.  We have more now.  It was very important for them to talk about the family issues, children issues, get married and get the PhD then get married, or get married now and then [get the PH.D.].  I mean that's always a dilemma, it still is.  A lot of the students really don't know whether to put off child bearing, and then when they do get married and their on a tenure track, that's very hard because you want to have a child and you have to publish or you're not going to get a promotion here.  This is as you know a major teaching research [institution].  Research is so important here.  So that worries a lot of the students.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.  I think once women do get tenure track positions, that I suppose comes with the optimum child bearing years.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes, exactly, exactly.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It seems like almost an impossible situation.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I'm thinking of Judy [Rodin], for example.  She didn't have her first baby until she was 40, and she had a terrible time with it.  She had to go back to the hospital, she had infections, and she put it off because she wanted to go through her career.  And I know we've talked about it, that if you put it off to your 40s, you run more of a risk of having problems in child bearing.  And that's what students will talk about, and yet they know that if they don't publish -- although Yale, I think, is now being better about it.  You have a longer time before the tenure decision, so that's a very good advance.  I know when I got tenure, you had to -- there was no question, if I weren't publishing at Manhattanville, I wouldn't have gotten tenure, or at Bridgeport, you had to.  But I had had my children, so it was easier for me coming back and you know, I know I didn't have to take time off and bear a baby and worry about publishing.  I already had a number of publications.  But that's a real issue.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes, and for me it was about sending your papers from around 1970/71 and women's groups on campus, the top of the agenda always was what do we do about childcare?  When was the right time to have a baby?  You've bored it and you're 40 years down the line.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Women's forum, it's again top of the -- it remains top of the agenda.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It never went away.  It really remains there and sometimes, one wonders how much has actually changed.  I'm not talking specifically about you.\r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=1500.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DOROTHY SINGER: Yes, you're right.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I'm just talking about women in professional life generally, that there are the same choices that women have to make.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.  They had a luncheon here, it was about three years ago, through a women's forum, and I went to that, and at my table were a lot of you know, Yalies, who now were working a career and still dealing with this.  Many of them didn't have children yet, and they were at a school three, four, five years, and the same issues.  I was telling them at the table, I said I can't believe we're talking about this in 2004.  I thought things had changed.  No, no, no.  I remember I took a course here at the law school, because I was going to teach a course in psych and law.  I remember a young woman got up and she said, Well I know for sure that if I get into a law firm when I leave Yale, and I will probably get into a good law firm, -- she's right -- there's no way I'm going to have a baby until I make partnership.  But if I get pregnant, or if I want a baby, I might think about surrogate parenting.  And I remember the whole class going, haaaah.  In other words, she would donate her egg and have someone carry this baby, so that she could continue with her job and not be pregnant.  And the class just looked at her and I thought wow, she's really thinking this through.  So, and that wasn't that long ago.  So we women are struggling with that.  I mean, you're going to work 48 hours a day if you're in a law firm today.  How can you have a baby, you know.  It's very hard.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes, I think it is and the structures haven't shifted enough to make it --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: The pay is still unequal, no question.  Yale is a private institution, so we don't know what everybody earns, but I'm willing to bet, if we could see, we'd see a difference in the women and salary.  I'm sure of that, but that's something that women really still have to fight for.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: But I think that's (inaudible), it's a national and international --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: It's a national --\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: -- issue isn't it?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: -- and an international issue, absolutely.  I mean, I think Europe has more difficulty than we have here, in the universities.  We have a lot of friends who teach in England and in France, and when they tell us about those problems, we seem way ahead.  So we -- it's still a universal problem.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Let's just stop for a moment.  You've talked a lot about the fact that you and your husband have been collaborators in so many different areas of your work, and that indeed you set up the center together.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Mm hmm.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And I just wonder what your feelings are, that there is a system, less so now, but certainly 20, 30 years ago, was very much a part of this -- there was a system in which Jerry was, he was head of department, he outranked you and yet, in every respect in terms of your work, you were absolutely equals.  And I just wondered what your reflections are on that.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well I think we sort of covered that.  I don't think it bothered me that much, because I was comfortable and I was getting recognition, you know, along.  I think if I hadn't, I might have felt very badly about it, because it would have been obvious we're doing a lot together and he's getting, you know, a professorship and I'm not.  But I think the title that I said that I had seemed to be effective and didn't affect me.  We were able to get a lot of grants and invitations and publish.  We had good publishers and ah, tremendous respect.  I mean last year, I was awarded an award by Columbia University as a Distinguished Alumni Award.  That was nice.  So I think you know,  the  Media Psychology  Division of the American Psychological Association gave me an award two years before that, as the outstanding scientist.  I get these things, so I guess it hasn't bothered me.  I think the important thing was that we've made a life here in this community, and that has really been very good, and I don't think we would have had that life if he didn't take the job.  I think I get internal rewards by seeing the books come out and the people, and bumping into students at conventions who will come up to me and say, Oh do you remember me?  I had you then and you changed my life.  I mean, those things are really nice to hear.  So it, it really has not been a problem.  I'm not a person who really needs to have that, you know, if I don't get that tenure in that professorship, you know, something's wrong with me.  I've had so much going on in my life that that's, in perspective, it's just been OK.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: When you arrived at Yale for -- when Jerry arrived here in 1972 and you were associated with Yale, the women's movement was in full swing.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Mm hmm.\r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=1800.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: And I think there were young psychologists like Bernice Sandler, who was very, very active in the women's movement and the kind of battle for affirmative action, and Alice Rossi had been writing since the '60s.  She's a sociologist.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  Oh sure, I know who she is.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, about gender imbalances in university life.  Do you ever -- do you recall a moment when you realized that gender actually was, possibly was a factor in how you organized your life?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.  No but really there's a very pivotal moment.  I was nominated to be a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and the division that nominated me was a School Psychology division.  I passed that with no problem.  Then it goes up to the higher, the board and the council, and I get a letter from them saying, Would you please separate your publications from your husband's, because we don't know whether your husband did these and you just -- and you signed it.  Can you imagine a letter like that?  So what I had to do was to take every publication that I did individually, or where I was first author, and document that.  That made me furious.  Now, a man named --\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: When was that?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: That would have been...  When did I become a fellow?  It would have been probably on my resume somewhere.  It must have been in the late '70s, but a man named Kenneth Pope, was head of the ethics committee, and he heard about this and he called me, and he said, \"Dorothy, you've got to document this, this is disgraceful.\"  They are questioning -- he said, you know, if you ever open up a science magazine, there are 12 authors on a journal, and they all wouldn't be there, and here are two authors and they're asking.  He said, \"Do it, and I'm going to fight for you.\"  I said yeah, I have no problem with that.  So I had to list everything where I was first author and I had to take every paper where I was second author, and demonstrate how much I contributed to it.  I was pretty mad then.  That really got me mad.  I thought that was over.  I understand now, that someone else just recently had the same situation, where she had been working with her husband and was asked to document that.  But this was my own organization, APA.  So they eventually gave me the fellowship, but that was an indignity, to question whether he just put my name on it because I'm his wife.  That was really something.  And Kenneth Pope, who was head of the ethics committee, really did a -- he wrote about it.  Not using my name but just about this difficulty separating spouses if they both collaborate, and he documented all of the spouses who've collaborated over the years, like the Gibsons [Eleanor and James] and the Blocks [Jeanne and Jack] and so on, who have done their own, you know, part and just worked together.  But that was one time I really got furious, you know as if -- as if Jerry would just say OK Dorothy, I'll put your name on this because you're my wife.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: It's interesting too that that was actually after the women's movement started to make changes in academic life.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: It was in the late '70s, yes.  Because we came here and it was after I was here that I then became a fellow.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That's amazing.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah, it is amazing.  My own organization, who was supposed to be sensitive about women's rights, asking husband and wife to separate their publications.  But I did it and I thought, I'm going to really just do this because I really, you know, deserve this fellowship, and they've got to know that I also contribute to the research.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And yet you never felt that gender was an issue in your earlier career, when you were working either in Manhattanville or Bridgeport.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well I told you about the chair at that time who hired me and no, because Manhattanville was, first of all, it was a woman's college and then became opened up to men in the ah, when did they become co-ed?  Maybe '60 – no, I got there '63. Maybe in the late '50s.  It's a Catholic woman's college, and they opened up to men.  So when I got there, we still had let's say, 60 to 40.  It was still more women than men.  Now I understand it's pretty equal there, but it opened up at the time that some of the other woman's colleges began bringing, when Vassar did, all these good elite woman's colleges.  So -- no, because when I got there, a nun was the President of it.  So there was no problem with women, it's just that male Chair.  But no, many of the teachers were women, former nuns, and then it began opening up.  And as a matter of fact, I think the last few presidents have been Jewish, of Manhattanville.  So no, I never felt it there, and I didn't feel it too much at Bridgeport until the salary issue came up, and then we began to see there were differences.  As we looked around Bridgeport, we were all struck -- there were many more women being paid less than men in similar jobs, and there were more men who were chair.  \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=2100.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So that was one of the reasons from striking there, and everyone wanted more pay.  I've never found it at Manhattanville except for the initial interview with the Chair, who was an utter ass, I mean, to even say things like that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And you never felt it was an issue at Yale?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I didn't in this department, no, no.  I really didn't.  I didn't feel it.  I mean, if I wanted to be on the committees I could and certainly Rick Levin appointed me to the committee to find a master for Morse.  So no, I don't find that here.  I never felt discrimination here.  I have found this a very comfortable, wonderful place to work.  I think the only person who really gave me trouble was Kazdin at -- about the child study center.  Now, the new president says if you want to come back, come back, but I don't really need to do that.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So what's that story?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: He [Kazdin] was eliminating the people at the child study center.  They have an enormous list of all the people who are adjuncts there, and were just eliminating them.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Is this recent history?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  This was -- he just stepped down.  So he stepped down last year, and when he first came on, which would have been six years ago, I got a letter from him saying, We are going through the list and we no longer will have you as part of the child study center.  They kept Jerry, and he doesn't come to many meetings either.  I mean, he and I both haven't been to -- it's just, not that we didn't want to, but there's so much going on here that it just conflicted, and we just felt that we really needed to be here more.  But they didn't drop him, they dropped me.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: So you can't say it was ageism?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I don't know.  I think it was sex discrimination there, yeah.  And one day I'm going to confront Alan on that.  He stepped down.  Now I didn't want to do it while he was head of it.  Now that he's no longer involved with it as head, I can talk to him quite frankly.  I just felt I didn't want to cause him any problem there, but I know him well enough where I can sit down and say you know, you dropped me but you didn't drop Jerry, and that I think was sexism there yeah.  So that's the only time I found, with him, and I think he was cleaning house and felt OK, get rid of some of these women.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I've been struck, and I've said it several times already in this conversation, that you know, how much of your work is collaborative, not just with your husband, but in terms of other work that you've done, books that you've published over the years.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: You always seemed to have worked with others.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I love working with others.  At Manhattanville, I taught a lot of interdisciplinary courses and at Bridgeport.  I just love that.  I mean, I've taught English -- well a psychology course with an English professor, and then one time with a philosophy professor.  I just think that one really has to cross disciplines.  I think that's why I'm loving -- I'm taking a course here right now in British history with Jay Winter, and I love him because for example today, what he did was talk about the novelists, the English novelists who really reflected what was going on in terms of the British Government.  I thought, This is wonderful.  He really knows.  He started out with Dickens and went all the way you know, up to John Le Carré, and I thought this is wonderful.  He spent a lot of time talking about Orwell and about Shaw, and I thought you know, he's so knowledgeable, and I think this is what students really need, that we just don't teach in isolation, and when you're teaching psychology, you can have an English professor in the class as I did with [Cynthia] Wolf, and we could talk about Erikson and then we can use some novels that illustrated Erikson's theory, or talk about Freud and use some poetry or short stories.  It makes it so rich for students.  So I've always felt that that's important, and I love to collaborate.  I think it brings the best out of me and forces me to think in different ways and to question, you know, things.  Yes, you can do things alone, I've done a lot of stuff alone, but I think it's good when you have someone that you know, you just fend off questions and it expands you, there's no question.  So I've always like to do that, and I like to get along with people.  Meshing personalities is kind of interesting, just to see if I can do it and how we can work together.  So yes, I really like collaboration.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you think that's a facet of being a woman?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you think women are more inclined to do that?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.  I think women have affiliation needs, and they really like to work with each other, definitely.  And I don't think women have this kind of ego.  Well, at least the women I know don't have this ego trip, where it's got to be my work.  \r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=2400.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We're willing to share.  In the books that I've been doing with women, like this book that just came out, a book I've done with two law professors.  We just alphabetically put the names down.  We just felt that's fair because everyone was doing that much work.  So I think that women are more willing to do this, to share with others, and I think that is that affiliation need that we have.  We work well with each other.  I think we're willing to deal with compromises and -- at least I see the women I work with are willing to bend, and give and take, and that's really pleasurable, and it's just fun.  I just enjoy it.  I think it just expands you, that's why I do it.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you think that in the sciences, there is a kind of divide now?  As more and more women are becoming scientists, that there's a -- there's still a sense that there's real hard science that men do but there's the kind of more touchy feely stuff that women do.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well that's been -- you know, that's what Summers said at Harvard, which got him fired.  You know, I think that's a myth, and I think there are many fantastic women scientists and mathematicians, and there will be more.  I think there were fewer because women were steered away from it, and I don't think we've had such good teachers in math and science, but I think I...  For example, I have a granddaughter who is a whiz in math, and she loves it and I'm so happy and you know, nothing stops her.  She's just zooming way ahead, and I hope that when she gets into -- she's in junior high now.  Well actually, she got -- is a freshman in high school, and I hope that as she goes on, that she doesn't feel that this is taking away her femininity.  I you know, I just don't want to see her pull back from something that is such a lovely gift of hers.  So we're all being very encouraging to her, and she just enjoys it.  On the other hand she loves English, and she's in sports and she plays instruments.  She's very well rounded, but she's got this great mathematical gift, and it just comes easy to her.  So I'm hoping that no one will put her down, or the girls are going to say oh, don't do that or you know.  We're just hoping that won't change, because I think women do have this capability, but they've been discouraged by it.  Actually, if you look at the sciences, the science magazines, they all collaborate, the men.  I mean, there is never a science article that you ever see one scientist, one name.  They really need collaboration, because it's difficult to do that research without having partners.  I can't tell by the names many times, if they're male or female, but they certainly do collaborate.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: There certainly seems to be some evidence that I read.  I think a Scandinavian researcher looked at publishing under her name so it wasn't clearly identified as a woman, and publishing with her initials.  There was a better hit rating and acceptance.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah, yeah.  But luckily, in the psychology journals, they're blind, you know, they don't know who you are.  I mean, I get things to review all the time and I can't tell if it's a male or a female, unless I know the person, and then I have to reject it.  I can't review something I know.  Yeah, I usually have peer review that is blind, so that you can't tell, because a long time ago that was true.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, I was going to ask you that.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I mean remember George Eliot in England, you know, many of the women writers had to change their names or use initials, but that's changing.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Do you think in your own field in the -- when you were first starting out, that women were held to a higher standard maybe?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: To have these --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Definitely.  Women really -- and to get tenure women in my department for example at Manhattanville, the women were more industrious and published more than the men, and that was true at Bridgeport, that they really felt to get the tenure, we had to work hard, and we did publish more and we did work harder.  Absolutely that was true in those days, yeah, in the '60s and early '70s.  You really had to be outstanding because it was harder.  I think that's kind of quieted down now.  I don't know.  It would be interesting to ask some of the younger women here who are now coming up for tenure, whether they felt they had to publish more.  But in the beginning, it was even true here.  I remember talking to some of the young women in the department, and they felt they really had to work harder and publish more and teach more and be a good citizen, and they really drove themselves much more, and I think that's still true.  I see many of the women in the department doing many, many things, and always on committees and always involved with the students, because they know they're coming up for tenure.  I think that's still true.  I think that's still here.  Quiet but still here.  You have to shine much more.\r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=2700.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: Certainly there's a feeling, you know, when I've talked to younger members of faculty, that there's a sense that they have to, they have to be better.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes, yes.  They have to be better in the classroom.  I know that I prepared my courses very carefully.  I never had anybody say anything, but I always felt I really had to be a good, good teacher.  I think it was just a given here, that you were really felt in a man's school, which is what this primarily was, you really better be good because they're going to compare you to the men teachers.  I never had any problem in the classroom.  The students always came, were always very receptive, but maybe because I did work so hard and try to make my classes so interesting.  I would have done it anyway, because I think that that's why you teach, you know.  You really want to convey some of your excitement about your discipline to your students.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: But not all researchers have that enthusiasm for teaching.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah well, I think when you're doing research in the media, you really need to communicate it, because it's part of everybody's life.  That's what makes it fun, you know.  It's no good to just do this and you'll write it in the terms if you really want to get it out there and in the classroom and in talks.  You really need to convey this information.  We're having such a hard time now, getting the research out on video games, and all my colleagues who really research that just can't understand why the public still buys these violent games, when the data are so clear that they lead to aggression.  So getting it out there is hard.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Talking about a huge global industry that's very set against you.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Absolutely, absolutely.  They do fight it.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What do you think, looking back on your career, are the most significant changes in the academic world, vis a vis women in the profession?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Definitely that more women are getting tenure and the couples are getting tenured.  I don't know that at other universities but I definitely see it here, and I think that's been a real change, a marvelous change, really good, where two people who are good in their careers and are equally contributing can work together.  It really makes stability in the family, and it also serves as a role model for the students who are coming up.  They see it can be done, and I wish there were more here.  I really think that we started, and I think we need to do much more than we're doing.  It's still a small number of couples here, and there are probably many, many more out there who would like to come to other departments and they're not coming in.  So I think that's something the administration really has to be aware of.  If they have a young man and he comes, and he has a wife, or if they are choosing a wife, find something for that spouse.  And that's always been a problem.  I remember so many times, we'd get a call from the chairman, whoever it would be, and say do you know of anything, you know, in your research where we could, you know, bring the spouse in?  Do you have an opening?  Can you use a good researcher?  Always looking for something for the spouse, and ah, I mean that's been inevitable.  Ever since we've been here, they were always calling, do we have something.  We've had a lot of spouses who have worked for us.  As a matter of fact, we had a very prominent psychologist here, Bill Kessen [d.1999], developmental, and his wife Marion worked for us at a lowly research job, just so she could find something.  He was already here but he wanted his wife to have something.  Now that, that's happening.  We get calls to place, and I'm sure it's happening through the university and not just in psychology, but you know, do you have an opening.  And as I say, the most glaring one was Hanna Gray, whose husband couldn't get a tenured position here, and that's ridiculous.  You hire a prominent person and he was a good tenured professor at Chicago, and there was nothing at Yale for him?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That is extraordinary.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes it really is extraordinary.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And she's one that's made it to the top of the pole.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  I mean, she couldn't go any higher than Acting President of Yale.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah things have changed a lot and in many ways, of course they've changed for the better, but I wonder what the increased female presence in this university and other universities -- I mean, I think the figures were something like just under a third of all faculty now are women, which is a complete transformation.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Here at Yale?\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes, that was the last figures that I found.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Under a third, wow.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Just under a third, of which 21% are actually tenured.\r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=3000.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DOROTHY SINGER: That's small, that's still pretty small.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, but when you think of what it was when we first started in '72, they were -- I think that women were less than 5% --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah, that's probably true.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: -- of faculty appointments and that includes all the kind of oddities, like lecturers and instructors and everything else.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well then that's a gain, but it would be nice if it could almost be 50/50 one day.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yeah, well we will like that.  But I -- you know, sometimes I do wonder if anything has fundamentally changed, because we still -- we're still hooked into what I would call by and large, a male career model, and there are certain hoops you have to go through to get an academic appointment, and not just in Yale.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: In psychology it's changing a lot.  More of the applications for PhDs are women now.  When we first came, maybe there would be one or two women in the class.  I think this last class was all women in clinical.  More and more, we're seeing women coming into psychology, and the men are going into, I think business, because they're certainly not going into law or medicine; women have gone into those.  And they're not coming into engineering the way they used to, but I think the men are going into business more, into the financial field.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That's certainly true.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah, yeah.  The men who would have been coming here and who wanted to come into you know, political science or history, and then go on for a degree, they don't go on for that degree if they were a political science major.  You think they'd go on for a law degree, you know, they go into MBAs.  But we do see more women.  I mean, it's unbelievable.  You see this at the American Psychological Association meetings.  I look around now at the audience, and it's about 50/50 women, and when I first used to go to the meetings with Jerry, there were very few women in the room.  It was amazing.  It was like a male world when I went to APA meetings, and now you see women, you know, all around.  And I think that's happening at the top schools around the country.  Women are coming into psychology more and more.  Economics, very hard to get women.  We have good friends in the economics department and they're always begging for women.  They just can't get women who won't be scared of the math, because this is a very math oriented economics department.  I think that's too bad because I think they would be wonderful in economics.  That's why, you know, when you look at Forbes 500, the CEOs, very few are women, and when the women do get in, they get in a lot of trouble, like Hewlett Packard.  I mean, the last two presidents who've just had misery, so and you wonder how much of that is sexist or what's going on there.  So women are still struggling in this country to get up there to be CEOs and to make partners.  For example, I have a lot of young friends who are struggling in these law companies and working their tails off, and it will be a miracle if they make partnership.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And yet, 50% of all law school students are women.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Are women, yeah.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Just as there are in the medical schools.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Right.  But the partnerships is the other thing.  You can go on and you can -- and a lot of the women open up their own little practices, because they want to raise kids, and a lot of young women I know who have graduated, I've kept in touch with a number, because they were taking the pre- law course, (inaudible) then some of them went on to law school, and then have been back in touch with me, have just gone into their own practices so they can regulate their hours.  They can't work 48 hours a day and raise a family.  There's no way they can come home at 10:00 at night.  So a lot of them don't make the partnership.  You know that mommy track, that's really true.  The women chose to, at a certain point, drop out and don't pursue the top jobs, and they're not sure they're going to get them.  So you wonder, why am I knocking myself out?  I'm not going to get there.  So it's hard for women.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What do you think needs to be done, to make a substantive change?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well, we need a woman President.  That will be a miracle if that ever happens.  I think what has to happen really, is that the deans and the people who make the decision have to really work a little harder to bring women in.  I mean, I think it has to be from the administration.  It's not going to come from the faculty members.  It has to be from the top down, where they sit down and say, we're going to make a concerted effort.  We're going to have a meeting of all these deans and say, we really are going woo women, they're out there, and we're going to make it easier for them so that we can give them the flexible hours.  We're going to change some things about the publication.  I think that's where it has to come from, from the administration, really top down.  This can't come from -- I mean, what we can we do?  We're all going to quit?  No.  We're not going to stop applying for the jobs, so it really has to be an administration that's willing to change and be more flexible.  \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=3300.0,3600.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And if they have a woman, maybe give her time off, after a year, to just do some writing, give that kind of opportunity.  Raise the salaries for women.  These are real administrative  decisions, and certainly Yale has enough money, where the salaries could be absolutely equal across the board.  I mean, they have are one of the highest endowed places.  We know the money is there, so I think they have to really woo women harder, make it easier.  I mean, we have a star search here.  For example, to become into the Yale department for a tenured position, they do a national, and even an international search.  You just don't apply.  Your name gets in because five people who are famous have thrown your name in the hopper.  You know, sometimes someone is overlooked who may be doing some extraordinary work, that these five people don't know about.  So I think the search net has to be broader than it’s been, and I think that would be a very important thing to do.  I really feel that the deans and the provost and the president have to meet and say look, we have to change this policy.  One third of the women, you know, faculty are women, let's see if we can get that up to 40%, eventually 50%.  Let's have a goal.  And how do we do this?  We'll recruit in a broader way.  What do we do with the women who are here?  We give them more flexibility.  I think if they said that, it could be done.  We're a small enough university where you could do it.  Harvard's bigger, but Yale is very small.  It could really set a shining light.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Be a model.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Absolutely, but I don't think they're doing it.  You need someone who's got imagination.  I think Levin is a fantastic president, but I don't think he's seeing this quite the way we're talking about it now, and I think he has to begin to see it.  Maybe he just needs a little nudge.  Maybe you need to talk to him after you finish all of this, and just make an appointment and sit down and say, here are the things that I think you can do.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Well certainly I've getting a lot of views from the women that I'm talking to, and I think particularly interesting hearing the views of women who've been around a long time, and have -- and yeah, have had to come up, you know, through 50 years or more of just trying to make it in the academic world.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  For example, it would have been interesting.  You know, you kept asking me OK, how do you feel not having a tenure position.  Now certainly, the administration knows about me, and they know what I've done.  We get enough publicity.  It would have been nice if one of them said you know, maybe we should consider tenure for you, things have changed here.  But that has never come.  So that's the sort of thing I'm talking about, and there are probably women like me in other departments, where the administration could come to them and say you've been here a long time, you have this fantastic record, you're giving Yale a lot of publicity.  We're going to put you on a tenure track.  We can choose the star from inside.  I think that's what they could do, and there are women who are going to come up after me, where it would be nice if they could do that for them.  \r\n\nINTERVIEWER: There are certainly people in medicine, for example, --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes, yes.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: -- who would occupy that kind of position.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes.  I think there are people around, and I think, that's why I think it has to come from the top down, from the administration, to say hey, we have some inequities here.  Let's look at who's here, and see maybe if they can fill some of those gaps.  OK, psych department, how many tenure people we have, and then there's Dorothy.  She's published enough to make three tenured positions, why don't we approach her.  That's what they could do, but that's flexibility on their part.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: But institutions are not always known for their flexibility.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: No, no.  They keep us down as well.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: There's a kind of inertia --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: But I have a feeling, had that had come, that my department probably would have agreed, because you have to be known internationally.  You have to have a record of publications.  I must have what, about 130 of them, I've got 20 books.  I mean, I have enough to qualify for all the things they are looking for, and we now know there are husbands and wives in the department.  And this is true in other departments.  So they need to come and change some of the laws, instead of saying throw out the net and ask for five people around the country to write about a star.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And looking for the insiders.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah, look for the insiders.  See who's in here who could give strength, and if they want letters then.  Suppose Levin said OK let's think about Dorothy, but we need five people who will really say that.  I'm sure they could find five people, and I'm sure in the history department or in the political science department, they can find five people who recognize someone there who is maybe on the same level on that.  So I think it has to take a different view, a different way of approaching the new people you bring in, and they could have done that you know, 15 years ago.\r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=3600.0,3900.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"INTERVIEWER: I was at something that Kim Bottomly spoke at a couple of weeks ago, and she was saying that Yale is actually doing pretty well compared to the other Ivys, in getting women to come here.  The big issue is retaining them.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yeah.  Yes, that's --\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And I think that does kind of tie in with what you're saying, is that to keep somebody, you have to offer more.  \r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: You have to offer more.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And she says that that is --\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: That's the big problem.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: -- the big issue now.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: That's why I think the administration needs to meet on this.  And one other thing that upsets us so, we really only have one Black person in the psychology department, and I think that's shameful because there are a lot of Black students on campus and they really have no one to look up to.  We don't have enough Blacks.  We have more Asian students I bet, than Black students at Yale, and we had more when I first came.  We had more Black students here.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Really?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes, in the psych department, definitely.  I don't know.  It doesn't have the reputation as a place to go to where you'll be comfortable, where you're accepted, and where you're going to find a lot of Blacks, or maybe you'll see a lot of Black faculty members for role models.  Now, the administration has to really deal with that, and I don't think they are.  There's a certain status quo, I guess, to just let everyone do what they've been doing for years since I've been here in the 40 what years.  You send a you know, a notice out and you wait for the letters to come in.  Well there could be a good Black faculty member somewhere that these five famous people do not know about.  So that's why they need to certainly iron that out.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That's really interesting.  What do you think was the biggest challenge in your own career?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: I guess balancing family, and that's always a challenge, to make sure your kids are you know, are getting everything they need from you, and to be able to be prepared to come to class the next day.  And also, if one of them gets sick, generally I was the one who came home, and I think that's still true.  My husband would have come, but generally I would.  It was easier for me probably, than for him, because he was directing the clinical program at City University, and I hadn't yet gotten tenure.  So I would say OK, I can take the day off, and I think that's still true, I find, among the women I know.  They were the ones who came home.  My son and his wife, who live in West Hartford, are trying to balance that much better, but now, they've moved into a new house.  They lived in New London, because he teaches at Connecticut College and she was working well, at the University of Connecticut Medical School, which is in Farmington.  So for years, she had the big commute from where they live, which was near New London, to Farmington.  A few years ago he said look, let's move there.  You will be ten minutes away and I'll do the commute.  So that's what they're doing now.  So she's closer to home, so if one of them has to be ill, she will tend to stay.  So I think it's a matter of who is nearby, which always is what happened and Manhattanville was 15 minutes away from my home and my husband was down on 42nd Street to City University.  So of course I could get home.  So a lot of it has to do with where you're working and who can be there.  Because I think if I had said look, I have this important class you've got to go, he would have done it.  He's been more of a support, so he would have done that, but in many cases it's not true.  The wife is -- the husband will say oh look, I've got this important meeting, you just go, you know.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I think too, that in a way, academic life in a way is much more flexible than maybe other professions.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes, definitely, definitely.  I think we both chose careers that give us this flexibility, absolutely.  Had we been in business or in a big law firm, we wouldn't have this flexibility.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: I certainly found it in my own life, because I was on the road a lot filming and if the kids were ill, it was Alistair who tended to be at home because, if all else failed, he brought the students to the house.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Right, right.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And I wouldn't have been able to do my job.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: No, your job wouldn't have allowed that, yeah.  The nature of the job really does dictate whether you have that flexibility, absolutely.  Right.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: What would you like to be remembered for most?\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: What would I like to be remembered for?  Well other than my family and being a good mom, in terms of my career, I think mentoring the students.  I really feel that was important.  When I meet a student and they say oh, I remember you and I'm doing this now, or I get a letter from a student that says you know, I'm just...  I just got one two weeks ago.  She's being -- going to be promoted for distinguished professor.\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=3900.0,4200.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"She has her professorship and she can get a raise, and so three people from her department wrote to me asking if I'd write a letter, and then I got the letter from her, saying that she's waiting now to hear, and she remembered so well and she loves her career.  That really is good, to know that you can pass this on to someone.  That makes me feel good.  So other than, you know, my personal life, which I really want my kids to remember me as a mom, I really want students to remember me as someone who was able to get them excited about something they'll do with their lives.  Because I certainly love this field, and there's nothing more satisfacting.  I don't find that coming to work was ever a chore.  I mean, I always say what a privilege, you know.  I'm going to come to Yale and teach or I'm going to come to Yale and do research.  This is fun.  I never saw it as a hook.  It was always pleasure.  And if students can get that.  You only go through once, you should be doing something you love.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And I think sometimes it's all that kids need, is one good teacher.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh definitely.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: And that will carry you through.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Oh yeah.  I think in graduate school, it was Morton Deutsch who really was my good teacher, and I see that he's giving a talk at NYU, at a big personality social meeting on April 21st.  I'm going to try and go, because I didn't even know he was still alive, and he was just marvelous.  I mean, when I formulated the idea for my thesis, I was inspired by his work, and then I went to see him.  I had a couple of courses with him and I thought he was just great, and I remember walking through the door saying, I wonder if you would be my mentor.  He said, \"Well let me see your proposal.\"  And he looked at it and he said OK, this is interesting, but you might want to think of this, and he was blue penciling, and this and this and this, and I thought oh God, this is an awful mess.  And he said, come back in a couple of days and rewrite your -- you know, what you've been thinking of doing.  I came home and I though wow, he's tough, but I'm going to sit down.  He's right, this should be better.  I went back to see him again and then he said, \"I'll take you on.\"  And he was such a marvelous critic.  I mean he really knew how to get to the heart of things, but did it in such a constructive way that really made you just grow.  I could see how important it is to have someone like that, you know, who guides you through and is really staunchly behind you, but really trying to yank more from you.  So he's someone I remember so well, and you know, to ever be like that to a student would be a great.  If someone ever can sit down and say I remember Dorothy doing this for me, I would feel good, because he really was wonderful.  So I said to Jerry you know, we've got to go, because I'd love to just see him and hear him again, and just tell him what a difference he made in my life.  So that's the kind of person that you know, really does change your life.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Yes, and I think for women of that particular time, in the '60s, to have a man who is prepared to back you.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Yes, yes he was really great, because the head of the school psychology department was Mary Alice White, who was a real awful person.  She loved the boys in the program.  It was really tough on we women, and that's why Morton Deutsch was just a breath of fresh air.  I mean, to have someone there who was really routing for you all the way.  So I remember him very well.  So that would be what I would like, to have students somewhere loving what they do because they were turned on to psychology, you know, in one of the courses that I taught.  That really would be great.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: That's a great point to end.  Thank you very much.\r\n\nDOROTHY SINGER: Well, you're welcome.\r\n\nINTERVIEWER: Oh, it was lovely, thank you.\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=4200.0,4433.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273/transcript/31921/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"[End of 04-10-2007 Interview - Dorothy Singer]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/970/collection_resources/48968/file/122273#t=4433.0,4466.44245"}]}]}]}