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The Other Press

 

 

Page 8 November 12, 1985

by Robert Beynon
reprinted from the Ubyssey
Canadian University Press

Anne Tayler is inexplicably buoyant
after giving another lecture to her
English 100 class. She jumps from
foot to foot, her curly brown hair
bouncing to the rhythm of her feet.

“1 love it. I’m always like this after
class,’’ says Tayler, 34. ‘‘l’ve got
such a great English 100 section this
Weare) asa

Tayler’s happiness is contagious as
she flits from person to person in the
Buchanan tower English office. It is
also remarkable.

Tayler should graduate this spring
with a PhD in English. With her
doctorate comes a debt of $25,000 -
money she owes the provincial and
federal governments in student loans.
She must pay back more than $400 a
month for 10 years to pay back the
debt and its accumulated interest.

Tayler thinks she will not have the
money to pay the debt in that period
but plans to do it eventually.

“I’m a survivor,’’ she explains. The
debt grew as Tayler, a single mother,
supported her children while going to
school.

‘The standard joke is ‘What will
you do? Declare bankruptcy?’ | hope |
won't get forced to do that,’’ she
says.

“But at some point there is a
limit.’ She says she is not the only

 

 

student in such a situation. She asks:
“What will the government do_ if
numerous people start declaring
bankruptcy?’

Tayler lives with her daughters,
Cindy, 12 and Wendy, 14, in a house
on Bowen Island with one and a half
bathrooms and a large garden, be-
cause housing is less expensive than
in Vancouver. They do not eat meat,
and Tayler only goes out ‘’on oc-
casions’’. She heats her house with a
wood-fueled air-tight stove - ‘‘wood’s
free,’’ she says.

 

A student loan should be
an investment by the

government.

 

When she moved to Vancouver
from Whitehorse, Yukon Territories in
1978, Tayler did not qualify for the
B.C. student grants than available
because she was from out of province.
The grants were eliminated in 1983 by
the Social Credit government.
Tayler’s debt began in her first year
at UBC.

In the seven years since, Tayler has
gone to school all year, continuing
through each summer and working
whenever she can. :

“I’ve cleaned houses, I’ve been a
tutor, a free-lance editor, judged a
limerick contest, tried being a filing
clerk, gardened, typed, taught gram-
mar courses.’’

 

 

raduating from sche

“‘Once | needed grocery money,’’
Tayler continues. ‘‘A wonderful older
lady needed her porch scrubbed so |
went out with an old-fashioned scrub
brush and scrubbed it for $5.’’

The work has never been enough
and she has always needed loans.
Tayler is applying for a work study
this year although she is already
instructing an English 100 course,
writing her dissertation and caring for
her children.

‘‘There just isn’t enough money,”
she says.

Tayler begins her day at 6 a:m. and
often ends her days at midnight.

Tayler studies for her own work,
prepares for the English 100 class and
is on campus by 2:30 p.m. Then there
are office hours, and Tayler returns
home, makes supper and does home-
work and works until midnight.

That is her Monday, Wednesday,
Friday schedule when she _ teaches
English 100 section 07C in Buchanan.
Other days she does not drive her
1974 turquoise Datsun into school but
stays home and works.

She parks her Datsun in Horseshoe
Bay to save money commuting to and
from Bowen Island on the small
coastal ferry.

 

“What will the government
do if numerous people start
declaring bankruptcy?”

 

Tayler says her English section
takes up a lot of her time.

“We're not teaching assistants at
all, we’re instructors,’’ she says. ‘’We
are responsible for an entire class.
I’m supposed to work 12 hours a week
but if | did just that I’d be letting
my class down.’’

The classroom she teaches in is
small and cramped with dingy cur-
tains, located on the third floor of the
Buchanan building’s B wing. She is
lively in class, not your typical
professor. The students are relaxed
and laugh at her jokes.

“You didn’t expect a
class,’’ she tells them, smiling.

Tuesday and Thursday Tayler
works on her dissertation, The Rhet-
oric of Quotation in the Cantos of Ezra
Pound. She says she hopes she will
finish by the end of this year but
worries it may take years to finish,
while her debt increases.

normal

 

“After you take out
groceries and rent
there is not much left.”

 

Tayler also spends one day a week
working part-time teaching spelling.
She spends another day a week filling
out job applications and sending out

 
      

resumes, hoping she'll find a full time
job before she graduates.

‘I'll send two to 10 letters a week
all of which get politely rejected.’’

 

 
   
  

“There just is not
enough money”

 

 
   
   
  
  
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
     
  
   
   
    
   
   
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
  
 
 
   

She says she applies mainly tq
universities in Western Canada and
along the U.S. West Coast and td
institutions around the Pacific Rim

 

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