Four CSB+SJU alums discuss their experiences on campus in the 70’s

Four College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University alums, Nancy Frost Bellmont ‘74, Patricia Radloff Welter ‘70, David Van Landschoot ‘72 and Chester McCoy ‘72 visited campus on Monday, Oct. 3 in collaboration with the Tegeder-Berg Society. The four alums discussed local student movements during their time on campus in the 70’s.

The Tegeder-Berg Society, named in honor of former history professors Fr. Vincent Tegeder and Sr. Carol Berg, was created in hopes of bringing the history faculty, alums, currents students and prospective students together. The history department puts an event on once every semester and chooses professors based off their subject areas and what they teach.

“I teach a class about protests and rebellion in U.S. History, so this was a good fit. I was very excited to be able to talk to all of [the panelists] about their experiences and get current students involved in learning about what they did in the past,” said Shannon Smith, a history professor who is currently teaching HIST152A: Protest, Riots and Rebellion in US History.

Some of the various subjects covered during the roundtable discussion were the Vietnam War, sexual and racial inequality, LGBTQ+ rights and the right to an education.

“We arrived at campus knowing that we were 18. We could go to war and die, but we couldn’t vote…We could go to war and die, but we could not drink. The drinking age was 21, but this campus would not allow any student to drink,” said Van Landschoot, who served as student government president his sophomore year and was the first and only first-year to be student government vice president.

Another topic brought up in the discussion was the racial and gender inequality on both campuses. Bellmont, who played on St. Ben’s first intercollegiate basketball team, went on to become Stearns County’s first female probation officer. However, it did come with some adversities, and Bellmont talked about some of the issues women faced during that time.

“Women were not exercising. Women were not competing. There were all kinds of ideas thrown at us about why we shouldn’t, mainly because we were going to ‘ruin our reproductive organs,’” Bellmont said.

McCoy, who arrived as an incoming first-year in ’68, talked about the racial adversities he faced during his time on campus.

“At that time, I was the only Black student from the city of St. Louis attending St. John’s. A year later, a couple of my other friends came up to St. John’s, and I think by the time I graduated, there must have been 15 to 20 people here from St. Louis. As more black students came on campus, which is true wherever you have places not used to integrating or hasn’t prepared for integration, there is this fear and misunderstanding. One person? Cool. A couple? All right, they’re trying to take over,” McCoy said.

When asked what kind of advice the panelists had for the students to become better leaders in their community, a big theme among the four was building community. Hunter Fischer, a SJU senior who attended the event, said that community was a key takeaway from the roundtable discussion. Landschoot talked about how the Benedictine Values and their unconscious impact on his life.

“He said that it was a profound moment when he read through them and realized how his life had been shaped around these values without making a conscious effort to live them out. It may sound cliché to us right now, but it was clear how impactful the CSB+SJU community and the Benedictine Values were to these individuals, and I hope we can all connect with the values in our own ways and live life in the present with one another,” Fischer said via email.

Along with stressing the importance of community, the panelists talked about building coalition, prioritizing what is important and utilizing each other’s strengths. This really hit home for CSB senior Betsy Ruckman.

“David made a point of saying ‘prioritize.’ Chester made a point of saying ‘making coalitions.’ These are all things that we hear all of the time, but hearing the way that they worked in these older generations of activists really drove home the point that it can really work, and it can work here,” Ruckman said.