Welcome to “Looking Back,” a series of reflective conversations about high school, life, and perspectives—comparing“then” and “now.” Joining us this issue is Julia Harvey.

Student Years at South

While many in the South community now know Harvey best as our resident AP Biology and AP Environmental Science teacher, she was once a student here herself—graduating in 1986.

Lily Yao: Could you tell me about your time in high school here?

Julia Harvey: I was a transfer to South from the North Eugene area. It was also the year that ended junior highs. When we got to South, two classes came together—the ninth graders and 10th graders arrived the same year. So half the school was new, and there were a lot of different opportunities.

I was surprised to hear about this transition from the traditional “junior high” structure—high school was restructured to include ninth grade. Curious readers can explore more about the “Middle School Movement” that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s.

We had an eight-period day. Classes were about 50 minutes long. Either fourth, fifth, or sixth period was your lunch, so we didn’t have a common lunch.

I was able to design my own graduation plan, which let me take more science classes. There were so many offerings that I was able to take about nine years of science while I was here. There were diverse classes like forensics, oceanography, marine biology, wildlife management, astronomy, as well as biology, chemistry, physics, AP Biology, and AP Chemistry.

For foreign languages, we had Japanese, Chinese, German, Russian, French, and Spanish. We had Presidential Politics, and we had three teachers and each teacher played a different candidate. They would never tell us who was who.

Then as soon as Measure Five hit, things started getting cut. By the time I came back as a teacher, everything was kind of bare bones. They had biology, chemistry, physics, physical science and some AP, but the electives were pretty much all gone.

LY: This was the direct effect of Measure Five, and there was a follow-up measure, correct?

JH: Yes, and both related to capping the property tax. The 4J community was always very supportive of the schools, so it was a well-funded district. That’s why we were able to offer all those options.

Ballot Measure 5, an initiative passed by Oregon voters in 1990, changed the state’s property tax system and how public schools are funded. It was followed by Measure 47 in 1996 and Measure 50 in 1997. Together, these measures restricted local school district revenues and shifted the primary responsibility for public school funding from local school boards to the state legislature, making schools more dependent on state general revenues.

LY: If you were to describe yourself as a high school student to your students, how would you describe yourself? What kinds of activities were you interested in?

JH: I was really a science nerd. That’s one reason I transferred here. I had an illegal schedule—an eight-period day, and I had eight classes. Three of them would be science classes, plus German and other basic classes.

The Path to Teaching

Just 12 years after graduating from South, Harvey returned in 1998 to teach biology and science. She was hired the same year as Sarah Hocken and Brad Jungert, and the three teachers now rank as the school’s most senior staff members.

LY: How did you make your way back to South as a teacher?

JH: I graduated from Occidental College and then went into the Peace Corps. I was not going to be a teacher. I had no desire to be a teacher. Working with the Tongan students made me realize I really enjoyed teaching and I really enjoyed science.

Trying to get back to Eugene because I missed the trees and the rain, I had to go to Kansas to get my master’s degree. As soon as I defended my master’s degree, I left the next day—my car was already packed up. 

When I got back and got my teaching license (my Kansas license wasn’t reciprocal to Oregon), I went to apply to be a sub. By the time I got home, I already had a sub job for the next day, and it was at South. As soon as a job opened up here, they grabbed me.

Despite being diagnosed with leukemia in 2021, Harvey has made a strong recovery and continued teaching. She warmly recalls the support she received from the South community during that difficult time.

When I was diagnosed with leukemia, some of my colleagues were incredibly supportive. What surprised me even further were the notes on my GoFundMe page and little donations that I know were from students. I kept them all—I have a special box of all the things students sent me when I was sick.

That’s the main reason I’m still teaching—because of the students.

We then transitioned to discussing Harvey’s future aspirations—one of her goals is to travel.

JH: One of the first things I thought about when I woke up, and I was still a little delusional, was that I wanted to drive my van all over the world. My son was like, “You can’t get to Greenland with a van.” But I wanted to explore, and I’ve been doing that. As soon as I got all my vaccines, I’ve been traveling like twice a year to places I wanted to go.

I have to find the perfect age to retire so I can continue exploring the world, but not too early that I’m going to miss the kids so much.

LY: Which places have you been since you started traveling more?

JH: Since my transplant, I went to Iceland, the Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica. This summer, I’m going to Mongolia.

Generational Parallels

We’re living in a chaotic time. Maybe it feels especially intense because, as a 17-year-old on the edge of adulthood, I’m about to step into a society that seems increasingly unstable. Harvey and I talked about how these kinds of existential fears aren’t new—they just evolve with each generation.

JH: Every generation has to deal with challenges. You guys are having to worry about climate change. My generation had the nuclear fear. I took a class here called Nuclear War.

I know all about intercontinental ballistic missiles, or at least I did at one point. Then in the 90s, you had the Gulf War. Then we had the second Gulf War and the Afghanistan invasion. It seems like there’s always something, but right now, it just seems scarier than ever.

Still, Harvey is optimistic about her students’ abilities to use science to do good for the future.

LY: Do you have any hopes for the future, for your students?

JH: I hope that students continue to use biology and pass it on, whether to their kids or to classmates in college, or using science instead of shoving it aside. A lot of my students go into biological fields or science fields. In AP Environmental, I get kids who didn’t know they were going to continue studying that, and they end up getting a minor in it or a PhD in climate science. They use their knowledge to do something to help people in the future, whether as a doctor, researcher, or climate scientist.

LY: Any other general thoughts you’d like to share?

JH: They had really good bagels in the cafeteria when I was a student, and cookies. They probably don’t do cookies anymore, do they?

LY: Yeah, I think there’s a sugar limit or something. Was there an Axespresso?

JH: Oh gosh, no. I don’t think kids drank coffee back then, I feel. There wouldn’t have been all these little coffee shops as much as there are now, no drive-through coffee shops.

JH: The building is exactly the same except for the science wing and the cafeteria. The bathrooms look exactly the same, except now they have liquid soap—we used to have powder soap.

LY: I’ve never seen that.

JH: It was really gross. You’d hit this thing and powder comes out, and then you had to stand on a lever to make the water come out like a shower thing.

Interview conducted by Lily Yao, article by Lily Yao. Edited for length and clarity.