Leslie Morris ‘75

Transcript

Interviewer: Toben Traver (TT)

Narrator: Leslie Morris (LM)

LM: We all had, as freshmen, we all had Big Sisters that we were assigned to. So my big sister— when I came in as a freshman, Brenda [Jeter-Hill] was a junior and she was also from New Jersey, she was from Jersey City, New Jersey. She, she's deceased now, but she was my big sister, and I was very happy to have someone from New Jersey. And I think for me Brenda was from a very similar background, she was from Jersey City. I knew about Jersey City and we were from very similar backgrounds, and so she was not only my big sister but she was a friend. She became my friend. And yeah, she sort of mentored me my freshman year. I really came to know her class— they were all juniors— through Brenda, because I hung out with them through Brenda. So, you know I—I developed friendships with a lot of the sisters in that class; [Pamela] “Pam” Hayling, Jewell Oates, and Karla McSpadden, Barbara Semedo, because they were all Brenda's friends, and so I forged relationships with them as a result of my relationship with Brenda. And I, you know, as a freshman I looked up to those women, they were really smart, you know, and I always admired just the level of awareness and intelligence among the among the sisters at Simmons. They were just a group of really smart Black women there that I had not had that level of exposure to when I was growing up. So I looked up to them. And, and yes, they were examples for me, they were role models for me, they mentored me. 

But yeah. Yeah, the upperclassmen were definitely mentors to me, and certainly women that—they were role models for me, I wanted to be like them, you know, and I guess we were, as upperclassmen, we were role models for you know some of the girls coming in as well. I thought the big sister concept was great. That was a great concept, because it really paired us, you know— it made us feel like, because I remember coming in and I’m like, you know, “How am I going to navigate the system?” And Brenda, as my big sister, she had been there for two years, she was— she really helped me to select my classes, and you know, “Well, you don't want to take this class freshman year, you want to wait and take this class sophomore year,” you know, that sort of thing. I remember my freshman year, I had never heard of a syllabus. In high school we just called it an outline you know, and I remember going to orientation, and they were talking about— in orientation, this was like before classes started, before we registered for classes, it was just the orientation session. And they were talking about the syllabus. “Now when you get the syllabus, make sure that you read it, and you do everything that’s on it.” And I didn't know what the syllabus was and I dare not ask. Because I didn't want to appear to be dumb, but I didn't know what it was. 

And I remember at the orientation, I went to Brenda, and I said, “Brenda, what in God's heavenly name is a syllabus.” And she said, “Oh. That's just the class outline,” and I said “Oh,” and then she showed me hers, you know from I guess the previous year or whatever. And it was a lot of pages and I’m like this is more than a damn outline [laughs]. And I just remember reading these pages and pages of books you had to read, and articles, and papers that were due, and exams, and all of that stuff—but that was my first introduction to a syllabus. And thank God that we had these big sisters that were able to answer those kind of questions. You know, and again and just sitting down with Brenda, and looking at the courses, and her sort of guiding me in what to take freshman year, and what to wait to take, and what professors to avoid and what professors to not avoid, you know. That sort of guidance was really important for someone like me that didn't have people at home that were able to guide me in that endeavor. So yeah, I thought the big sisters were really great.