Elizabeth "Betsy" C. Umstead (1928-2001) graduated in 1949 with a degree in physical education from Woman's College of the University of North Carolina, now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). She received a master of arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1952, a master of education from Harvard University in 1965, and a PhD from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1968. Umstead was on the faculty of Goucher College, Limestone College, Boston University-Sargent College, and Randolph College. She spent the last twenty-five years of her teaching career at UNCG. In 1957, Umstead received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach at Queen Aliyah College in Baghdad, Iraq. Umstead talks about her impression of Woman's College as a student, including the dress code; dorm life; dining hall food; and traditions such as Chapel, commencement, Daisy Chain, and The Corner on Tate Street. She discusses administrators Harriet Elliott and Mereb Mossman, professor Katherine Taylor, and the controversy surrounding the administration of Chancellor Edward Kidder Graham, Jr., and how it divided the campus. Umstead explains the function of the Student Government Association, the Judicial Board, and the honor system on campus during the late 1940s. She describes the changes that college experienced when it integrated in 1956, obtained university status, and transitioned to a coeducational university in 1963. Umstead notes that how the Physical Education Department successfully prepared for men students in 1964. She also discusses the growth of the university under Chancellor William E. Moran's administration from 1979 to 1994.
