Wayne Kvam, Oral History

Recorded: May 5, 2010
Interviewed by Stephen Paschen
Transcribed by Amanda Faehnel

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Interviewer]: This is Stephen Paschen speaking on May 5, 2010 at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives as part of the May 4 Oral History Project. I'll be talking with Wayne Kvam--am I saying that correctly?

[Wayne Kvam]: Yes.

[Interviewer]: Thank you. I'm going to begin with a few biographical questions so we know a little bit about you. So first, could you tell me where you were born?

[Wayne Kvam]: I was born in Webster, South Dakota.

[Interviewer]: Okay. And you went to college where?

[Wayne Kvam]: I went to college at a small private school, Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

[Interviewer]: I've heard of it. I had friends that went there. And where did you go from there?

[Wayne Kvam]: I did my M.A. work at Florida State in Tallahassee and I did my Ph.D. work at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

[Interviewer]: Alright. When did you first come to Kent State and, if you can, describe to me the circumstances that brought you here.

[Wayne Kvam]: I came to Kent for the first time in the fall of 1968. I was a fresh Ph.D. and I had not been in Ohio prior to that. It was my first job. The English department was expanding its graduate program and I was one of, I think, nine new people hired in '68. That's what brought me.

[Interviewer]: Alright. How would you describe the atmosphere on the campus on your arrival?

[Wayne Kvam]: I have to say that in Wisconsin, during the 1960s--and I spent five years there, teaching and doing graduate work--was politically alive and sort of turned my head around. I was accustomed to political rallies, to sit-ins, to teach-ins, to marches, and to class interruptions, to crowd control, and to police appearance with some regularity to town-gown conflicts. So when I was telling friends at Wisconsin I had a job offer at Kent State, I recall clearly this in '69, Well, nothing ever happens at Kent State. So they were telling me to enjoy Madison while I had the opportunity. This was 1969.

[Interviewer]: So what did you encounter when you arrived here? How did it feel to you?

[Wayne Kvam]: There was some political activity, but compared to what I had come from, this was a quiet time. It didn't stay that way, but even when there was activity, it was mild compared to what I'd been accustomed to.

[Interviewer]: What was your sense of where students that went to Kent State--where they came from? Who were the student body at the time?

[Wayne Kvam]: I thought they all must come from Northeast Ohio and I was mistaken. I think it was a little broader than that, but I remember reading an issue of I.F. Stone's periodical after he had come to Kent--I think it was in the fall of '70, post May four--and it was after a grand jury report and he had contended that 85 percent of the students at Kent State had come from Ohio and that they were neither very--well, he wasn't very complimentary--neither very activist-minded nor very aware, meaning a bit parochial and a bit provincial. That's probably harsh, but that was my impression, initially, that if you went west of Toledo, they weren't too sure what was there.

[Interviewer]: Well, let's talk about the period that's of major interest here. Now we can really begin at any point, even in the lead up to events of May 1970, but in particular, we're interested in the events on campus and how you experienced them between April thirtieth and May four. You may begin earlier than that if you can provide context.

[Wayne Kvam]: I was living at the time in a third floor apartment on the corner of Depeyster and Main, so it was one block from Water Street, so all of the movement from campus to downtown and back pretty much went by my front window. Much to my regret, all of the Saturday night activities, prior to that, went by my front window too, and there was a fraternity house next door. Apartments in those days were hard to find and I wasn't familiar with the town when I came so as it worked out, I could walk to campus, that's why I took it. But had I known what was coming, I probably would have looked elsewhere.

But I was in on the Riot Act many evenings, the kind of helicopter patrols and the student movement that weekend. I was not downtown that night when all the destruction took place. I was not on the campus the night that the ROTC building burned. So I'm not a good informant for either one of those occasions. I was on the campus on May fourth.

[Interviewer]: What did you experience? Did you just hear noise from your apartment?

[Wayne Kvam]: Yes. To clear the streets, to move on, and the continual reading of the Riot Act. I'd not--well, in Madison I'd heard it, but--

[Interviewer]: Were you aware of what was going on?

[Wayne Kvam]: I was. I was.

[Interviewer]: Did you know what was driving it?

[Wayne Kvam]: Well, you could not be unaware given the destruction: the windows having been broken and so on, and the newspaper coverage. In those days, there were several gathering places downtown. It's a little different nowadays. So there were kind of networks of information exchanges, let's say, so there wasn't that much going on that you didn't hear about one way or another.

[Interviewer]: Did it start to feel like Madison a little bit, or not?

[Wayne Kvam]: Yes. Yes. The kind of hostility that was building, I didn't sense was there before. The kind of sides that people chose and the kind of community response, I think, town-gown, I guess that was always an undercurrent. I wasn't here long enough to sense that and its acuteness, I guess, but it certainly didn't take long in becoming very public.

[Interviewer]: Were there other faculty members living in this apartment house?

[Wayne Kvam]: No. I think the landlady rented out the third floor and the second floor. I didn't know the tenant on the second floor. She was a widow living with I think an older child on the first floor.

[Interviewer]: Did you have the sense that people were afraid?

[Wayne Kvam]: Yes. I think I knew more about it in the several reconciliation meetings I attended after May fourth with several downtown people--the extent of that fear. I wasn't aware of it at the time.

[Interviewer]: I'd like to return to that after we talk a little bit more about May four in particular. Would you describe May four and what you experienced?

[Wayne Kvam]: I don't have a narrative and I have not talked publically or I've not really talked at length. I witnessed no bodies. I was, as I say, on the campus. I met a colleague--also from Wisconsin, also new--at our department site, which is Satterfield Hall. And at that time there was a faculty dining room in Oscar Ritchie, which was the student center. So we were going to go over there for lunch and then see what was happening with the gathering on the Commons.

We went to the dining area and had lunch and came out and then stood--that's really about as far as we got--we stood in front of the ROTC building which had been burned, and it was cordoned off, and these National Guardsmen were standing at intervals with this kind of military stance with their guns down and a crowd of spectators around. We were speculating--that's probably my keenest recollection on whether or not those guns could be loaded. That anyone could be stupid enough to give those guys--who looked totally out of their depth--live ammunition. We decided no one could possibly do that.

It was at that location that we heard the shots and it was pretty much that location that we heard the ambulance sirens. So my vision--our vision--over to Blanket Hill was blocked. We moved around in the direction of where the business building is now, on the edge of the Commons, and that's where I witnessed the aftermath, the gradual dispersal of the students, and the eventual break up, I guess, of people left.

[Interviewer]: So you were not part of that but you were observing that?

[Wayne Kvam]: I was observing.

[Interviewer]: Could you tell anything about the dynamics of what was happening at that moment?

[Wayne Kvam]: The keenest confrontation I saw, and I always thought, If they've got all the marbles, and you don't have any--meaning guns--you'd best exercise caution. And this student who had been on Blanket Hill and was so traumatized or enraged by what he'd seen, was in the face of this Guardsman with a gun and was saying, "You motherfucking coward." And that was just the beginning of it. With absolutely no fear, just rage and hysteria. And I thought somebody better get him away or get them apart, and somebody eventually did. This was after the ambulances had left but I don't know how you, once this has occurred and these feelings are running so high that you suddenly say, Go home, and that happened eventually, but it takes a while. This was one instance where that kid had no fear, just rage. And I could understand perfectly why.

[Interviewer]: How did you feel in those moments?

[Wayne Kvam]: Hostile. I felt we were invaded. And I grew up disliking uniforms anyway. I hunted when I grew up; I've not touched a gun since. But really suspicious of organized violence. And I felt we had been invaded and this was the coarsest way of kind of playing on a public's prejudice in one's own self-interest, and that's right to [Governor James] Rhodes and I felt in the aftermath, it was a cover-up. And absolute ignorance of crowd control. Absolute. And I've seen instance after instance since in larger cities, institutions where I've been a guest teacher, where it's been potentially violent, sometimes violent, but the crowd control has been sophisticated enough--whether it be water cannon or pepper, or whatever--to avoid at least killing. But this was, I think, madness.

[Interviewer]: Were you aware at that time of Governor Rhodes' remarks made at the fire station the day before?

[Wayne Kvam]: Yes. I was also aware of [Vice President Spiro] Agnew's notorious comments, and [President Richard] Nixon--they weren't new; they were in the air before that. So I was carrying a good deal of hostility around before the outburst anyway.

[Interviewer]: Was there hostility between faculty members at the time about this?

[Wayne Kvam]: I didn't know any. I didn't know anyone among my colleagues who was for the war. If they were, they didn't express it.

[Interviewer]: On that day, once these things had taken place and the crowd was dispersing and they did go away, did you have any anticipation of what would come next?

[Wayne Kvam]: No--

[Interviewer]: What did come next?

[Wayne Kvam]: It was wide open. And that feeling, sort of, of groundlessness, and there's a kind of exhilaration in that that's terrifying at the same time. But all bets are off, sort of. What came next was evacuation and then the painful part, if you were teaching classes with huge enrollments, of doing something about them, which as you know by now, we did, through correspondence.

[Interviewer]: I would like to hear more about how you did deal with that particular problem.

[Wayne Kvam]: We were asked--and I think my case was probably typical, and I had some large enrollments--to handle it by correspondence. So we got the addresses of each of the students. Now, as I grew older and got smaller classes, and English became a less popular choice, I often thought, Well, now had I had ten students instead of eighty-five, this would have all been easier. You wrote them and said, These are the conditions we're faced with and this is how we'll handle it. These are the assignments. We'll continue with this textbook, for example, and this is the kind of material you'll be expected to read and that you'll be tested on. It will be take-home and there are these other deadlines.

[Interviewer]: Did you collaborate with other faculty on just how to do this?

[Wayne Kvam]: I don't remember it very clearly. I'm sure I talked it over with other people up against the same--but this was before the technology we have now and it was cumbersome, but it's surprising when you're all kind of pulling in the same direction, and all feeling put upon a little bit, what gets done. It got taken care of.

[Interviewer]: What was that summer like?

[Wayne Kvam]: I actually went back to Madison that summer. I wanted to get out of Kent. Of course then, I went into some bad stuff too because that place was still very much alive and there wasn't a cork that had popped as was the case here. I didn't want to become either one of those persons who really decided to hold on to May fourth for the rest of their life for all they're worth and maybe that's the realization I came to, only a bit later, but it's something that has occurred to me. Just because you grew up near the Little Big Horn, it doesn't mean you want to let it be your life.

[Interviewer]: Let me understand you, did you come back to Kent ever after that?

[Wayne Kvam]: I've always been here.

[Interviewer]: Okay.

[Wayne Kvam]: I'm sorry, I should have said. I spent thirty-five years here. I retired in 2004.

[Interviewer]: Tell me about the fall, the next fall. What was that like?

[Wayne Kvam]: You know, I did something afterwards and I looked for it last night, I didn't find it. I kept in touch with this little town I grew up in and then after the Grand Jury report--and that came out in the face of the Scranton Report, which was based on an FBI report, which was more sympathetic to the students, to the demonstrators--and this Ohio-based Grand Jury report seemed to come down on the side of the National Guard, and then everybody felt vindicated because here was law and order again. And this paper that I subscribed to had an editor who, two thousand miles away, was voicing very strong opinion about law and order: anybody who engages in mob activity gets what he or she deserves and so on.

And I came to class with this--these were fall 1970 students--and by that time, some of the steam had maybe wore off some, but I thought those kids coming to Kent State, they ought to know where they are and I brought that--this was an honors colloquium--that editorial into class and I said, "Our assignment for the next week or so was this editorial. Write a response to it. We'll send it in. You can take--you can be satirical, you can agree with him if you like, but take him on."

And they did, and these are honors students for a reason, so they were quite articulate. I was proud of them, and I didn't do anything with this but proofread it. I brought in my thirteen, fourteen envelopes and stamp and we sent them all out to South Dakota, this was. And this guy, you know, surprised me; he printed every one of them. Took up his whole page for these Kent State students. I'm sure he'd never ventured east of the Mississippi himself but at least these were kids who'd not been here, they were eighteen, nineteen years old. But what he'd done is what so many people did; he had no notion of the chronology of that weekend. Didn't distinguish between mob activity and, as we know now, these kids who were killed had no part of the weekend activities prior to that day. But it didn't make any difference to him. If you're among a group, you're out looking for trouble, you're contributing to that trouble is the logic.

And I thought these kids, you know, alright, this is just step one, and you've got four years at Kent State, but at least this is one encounter you've taken up. And I don't know that I was ever haranguing in class, I stuck pretty much to literature and literary context and political background when I thought it was relevant, but I don't know that I was ever a firebrand in the cause of Kent State injustice, but I always felt it was high time something happened here to mark the injustice and so these recent developments, to my mind, have been all the good.

[Interviewer]: In the years since then, have your views about what happened on those days, that period, have they changed at all, and if so, how have they changed?

[Wayne Kvam]: No. I think it was murder. And I'm not saying it was the fault of the people who pulled the trigger, but it's a lot easier when you've got a mask on and a uniform and you're acting in concert with others under duress, and who put you there and under what circumstances, but it's nevertheless in my mind murder. And what happened so often is--and when we look back on it--it's out of the context. This man arguing about mob activity and violence, or even Rhodes talking about these people going around campuses inciting violence, it's not our guys, but it's these guys out there, it's the same argument people were using--I'm going beyond the subject. It's eliminating the war. There was a context and it's not a very big picture but it's the bigger picture and you can't take the activities of May fourth out of that context, I don't think. So a politician running for office on a law and order ticket can, but it's not doing justice to that day or those people.

Now, on the other hand, I have a hard time with the rhetoric that goes on on commemoration occasions when we talk about martyrs. Now somebody who is going to class, walking the other way, shot in the back, can be made a martyr or called one, but to call her a martyr to the cause is tough, I find. But the fact that finally something is happening here to mark the site. I don't know if a way, there are countless ways, but at least a way seems to be happening, at least I find it to.

[Interviewer]: Well let me ask you this: there may be some things that you wanted to talk about that we haven't talked about.

[Wayne Kvam]: Well, I found a couple things I didn't mention; there was a trip to Washington D.C. for Kent people I was involved in. There were some meetings at Oberlin [College] that opened up its campus for Kent people--we weren't allowed to meet her--that I was involved in. There were several churches--one was in Stow--that I took part in.

There was also an interesting thing, and this is indirectly related, but there was so much misinformation. So I went back to my boarding house and the first thing my landlady says to me is, "Well, you know, there were a couple of Guardsmen killed." An example. Or, "There was a sniper." They looked for three years for this sniper, it's like weapons of mass destruction. Or something like, "Life-threatening students were threatening the lives of Guardsmen." All those were variations of cover-ups to my mind.

This is a bit unrelated. I wish there had been--and I played in the faculty golf league, this was into the '70s, afterwards. One of my partners one spring was Robert White, who was the president [of Kent State University] at the time. Very affable gentleman. I liked him, we got along fine. I looked forward to Monday afternoons. But I think he was over his head when May fourth occurred. Had there been someone like a Glenn Frank who distinguished himself on the field that day by the directives that he gave and his being really outspoken afterwards, I think Kent State would have been better served.

When I went to a faculty meeting in the old university gym afterwards, shortly after May four, and Robert White came on stage, the faculty stood up and applauded, and I couldn't figure out, I probably still don't too. I was baffled, couldn't understand why. He didn't do anything wrong, he just looked a bit bedraggled and a little downtrodden, with good reason, and what president would be ready for what hit him? But I think he was just overwhelmed and I don't know that he was really up to what ended up hitting this school. It was probably unfortunate. It could have been worse, but the strength at the top was not there, and it was a bit unfortunate.

I did play golf also with a ROTC officer afterwards--we got along fine. Certain things, I had long hair, it didn't bother him. Certain things we didn't talk about, but we did--it wasn't a problem. One thing I really resented, I think he was the Portage County prosecuting attorney, his name was Ron Kane--he did, after they cleared out the dormitories, and I thought this was really just pouring oil on fire--displayed a table like this of things--weapons, he called them--from students' private closets for the public to gawk at. This was over where Carol Cartwright Hall is now. And journalists were there taking pictures, making I guess what we'd call today terrorists out of all of them, and I thought that was cheap. It wasn't something to be overlooked or just scoffed at either, but it was reflective of the atmosphere at the time, I think, but he certainly wasn't helping.

That probably covers it.

[Interviewer]: Do you want to comment on the university's--since you were here for such a long time--the university's institutional response to this over the years?

[Wayne Kvam]: Well, there was a time when there was resistance, I think, and I think the people who were most active and, We want something in the parking lot, we don't want the annex built, it's going to get in the way, that they were looked upon as a permanent annoyance. Now what? Now what? Now what? And maybe they were, but I guess that's the people who get things done and had they not been, maybe we wouldn't have what we do have. I'm afraid the university for a time was doing the same thing the state was doing: refusing to say this was bungled from the beginning. If you sat down and added up the mistakes that were compounded that day to result in what--it's preposterous and I don't think they were up to confronting it. Maybe it takes that time.

[Interviewer]: When did you first think that there was progress being made on these lines?

[Wayne Kvam]: Somewhere along maybe the Michael Schwartz and Carol Cartwright period, I think. You know, there was one other comment that came up recently and then I'll stop. When I walked from--as I told you I was standing in front of Oscar Ritchie--walked over to the edge of what now is the business building, that lot down there, it's a parking lot now in front of Carol Cartwright Hall, was jam-packed with squad cars, highway patrol cars. And I heard a comment the other day, "Well, had they done what they did in Akron--May fourth--had the highway patrol in, it would have been a different thing." Well, there were plenty of squad cars here. I don't know where they were, but they certainly filled that lot, in addition to what, eight hundred plus Guardsmen. I guess they weren't given free reign but there were plenty on campus.

That was one of my impressions from the day. But I saw no bodies and I saw no blood. I still don't like fourth of July celebrations and every time I come near a gun target practice area or the other day, riding on a bicycle trail by a target practice, it's still May fourth. I guess you don't lose those things.

[Interviewer]: Well, shall we conclude?

[Wayne Kvam]: We shall.

[Interviewer]: Alright. Well, thank you very much and we'll conclude the interview.

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