Caitlin Baird: So you grew up in Africa. When did you come to the United States?
Lola Broomberg: ’87…I was 22 [when I came here] to study. I went to school in South Africa, and I grew up in Zimbabwe and then came here for graduate school in Eugene.
CB: You teach a class at the University of Oregon called “Be the Change,” which pertains heavily to altruism. How did your experience growing up in Africa and then coming to the United States influence you in teaching your class?
LB: I grew up in a family that was invested in social action. My father was always involved in socially active activities…He directed a crisis center and worked with the disabled, and he was on the board of a mental hospital. So he was involved in many, many things, and also my grandfather was in politics. We were very privileged…and so I think growing up with that amount of wealth and access, I felt a certain amount of responsibility to give back. It was something I was really driven to do.
CB: You are also a therapist. How would you say that connects to the work you do as a teacher?
LB: I am very recently a counselor, only in the last five years. Before that, I had a history for about sixteen years as a drama teacher, and all of these things feed in together. In that and in therapy and in social action, it’s all about giving voice to yourself in the most expansive way you can with as much accuracy as you can. It’s the combination of authenticity and boldness; they are a thread in all of the work that I do. In all of my interactions, that is what I am trying to do. The more consistency between how you act and what you do as a career, the more fluid you feel, and then work just becomes endeavors that are extensions of yourself.
CB: You teach about “loving oneself” in your class. Do you think that influences world change?
LB: If you don’t do self-care, your capacity to do good work is limited by what you can or cannot do. So, if you got drunk the night before, haven’t had enough sleep, haven’t eaten properly, you’re going to feel distracted, depleted, and that energy source is your work. So how seriously you take yourself and what you want to do in the world can be illustrated through how you treat yourself. If you want to do great things, you have to treat yourself really well.
CB: How do you think physical and mental health relate, and do you think that plays into world health?
LB: Yes. The healthier you are in your body, the saner your decision-making is. I think a lot of [current] bad policies are made by people who are not engaged in their bodies and are ungrounded, and that fuels a different kind of perspective. The more you inhabit your body, the more you accept that life shifts and things change. You can see the interconnectedness between yourself and others.
CB: What do you want to impart on your students, and what does their attitude need to be to get the most out of the class?
LB: Many people I meet don’t have faith in themselves and their capacity. All they can see is what is broken, and they reflect that within themselves. There is an addiction to approval, trying to be loved, trying to be tended to instead of “what is it that I need to do.” I’m trying to encourage people to find what they care about and amplify it, and I think if we do what feeds us and feeds the world, it’s a win-win all around. People also need to recognize personal accountability. People don’t hold themselves accountable, which I think is a product of our society.
CB: What does your class have to offer for students who don’t plan on following a path of social action?
LB: Living a life of tending to yourself and ones you love is [also] a path of social action, so I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to live a life of social action. It’s a course designed for really attending to people and how they do relationships and how to treat themselves.
CB: You have guest speakers that attend each class. How do you choose those speakers?
LB: I try to get a range of environmental, socially oriented, political, non-profit…[from different fields]. I try to attend to all, and I keep on thinking of the span of what I haven’t represented.
CB: Any last advice you would like to impart to collegiettes™?
LB: Teach people how to treat you with every choice you make.