Oral history interview with Willa Neal Cline, 2015 [text/print transcript]

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THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO
INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Willa Neal Cline
INTERVIEWER: Lisa Withers
DATE: June 16, 2015
[Begin CD 1]
LW: My name is Lisa Withers and today is Tuesday, June 16, 2015. I am in the home of Ms. Willa Neal Cline, Class of 1973, to conduct an oral history interview for the UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina] Institutional Memory Collection's African American Institutional Memory Project. Thank you, Ms. Cline, for participating in this project and for sharing with me your experiences.
WC: You're welcome.
LW: Thank you. I'd like to start the interview by asking about your childhood. Would you please tell me where and when you were born?
WC: I was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina.
LW: Southeast?
WC: Yes.
LW: Okay. Laurinburg.
WC: Laurinburg, South Carolina. North Carolina, excuse me, not South Carolina. North Carolina. But I was raised in Southern Pines, North Carolina. I was adopted at the age of two and a half and that's how I ended up in Southern Pines.
LW: Okay. What was it like for you growing up in the 1960s?
WC: Painful [chuckles]. It was—I spent my first seven years in all-black schools and was on that first wave or the cusped of students integrating schools in Southern Pines. So that's why I said it was painful. It was a time of transition and my mom—my teachers at the all-black school, when they knew that they had—when we knew we had to integrate the schools decided to—that I was one of the students that should go to the white school, predominately white school or the all-white school at that time, that I should be one of the ones to go. I went my eighth grade year and 2
I don't think I will ever forget my first day there. No one would sit beside me in homeroom. So I was sitting there and I had all these blank chairs, empty chairs sitting around me. I also had to catch the bus. That worked well for a while until my freshman year in high school and I had to be really ugly with the bus driver because he wouldn't stop one morning to pick me up. But it was—it was different. It was very, very, different and very difficult I think to—and painful at times to go through that. And some of it, I got ostracized at times from the black community because I was now going to a white school and the whites were ostracizing me because I was black so that kind of left me in no man's land a lot of the time and I escaped through reading, usually is what I did.
LW: So was it that the black community was not in favor of integrating the schools?
WC: I don't know whether or not it was in favor of. I think it was more of—I'm not sure what it was. I don't know whether—I'm not sure what it was. I never quite figured that out. But yes.
LW: Okay, so where did you go—which high school did you go to?
WC: I started off at East Southern Pines High and due to the integration laws, end up graduating from Pinecrest High, only spent one year at Pinecrest.
LW: Okay. So what were your favorite subjects while you were going through K-12? Or did you have favorites?
WC: I was a nerd. I would have been considered a nerd back then [chuckles] so I would have to say reading. Reading was the way that I traveled the world. I never will forget probably fourth grade I was in the library and the librarian—I picked up this book that I wanted to go check out and the librarian at the school said, "Oh you can do better than that." She said, "These are too easy for you," and she challenged me. There was a corner of books and, I don't remember what the series was called, but I remember there being all blue spine books and she said, "I challenge you to read all the books that are on— in that series." And that's what I started doing. So that—it taught me, I learned about explorers and settling of the country, early settling of the country. So, I think that was—that was my outlet more than anything else was the reading part.
LW: Okay.
WC: And I still read a lot now.
LW: Hey, life-long reading. That's what I did as a kid and I still love reading today. So, why did you choose to attend UNCG?
WC: [Laughter] The honest answer to that was I had applied to Shaw University.
LW: Okay, in Raleigh [North Carolina].
WC: In Raleigh. And I didn't like to the questions that they asked me. I didn't think that they needed to know about my periods and when I had the last one and the first one. And then you 3
must remember, this was back when the sixties, late sixties and so I didn't understand why they were asking me those personal questions. My UNCG application didn't ask me all of those personal questions so I basically ended up at UNCG because they were the first ones to say, “You were accepted,” [chuckles]. That's how I ended up there and it was in-state so—.
LW: In-state? I know— I only applied to in-state schools as well.
WC: Yes.
LW: And so you applied to Shaw. Did you anywhere else or just those two?
WC: Just those two.
LW: Okay, okay. So what was the reaction of your family and friends at your decision to attend UNCG?
WC: There was no reaction and part of that was because I was blessed to have been raised in a family that put a high premium on education so from the time all of us were little it was not if you were going to go to college it's where you're going to go and the emphasis was on going not so much on if—it was just an expectation that you—unless something was truly documented mentally wrong with you, there was—the expectation that you were going to go to college. So there was no reaction to that at all.
LW: So, do you recall your first days on campus?
WC: Oh yes.
LW: What was it like?
WC: It was like, “What have I gotten myself into?”
LW: [Chuckles]
WC: It was overwhelming. Remember I'm from small town, rural town. UNCG was—the buildings were close together. It was strange. I knew no one at all. It was confusing and frightening for an eighteen year old, I think. I made friends fast, had to, otherwise you'd be out there forever by yourself. But made friends fast and I think what helped that was because I was in Mary Foust [Residence Hall]. I was in that first group of the Residential College. And so it was easier, I think, to get to know some of the people that were there. There were four black freshmen, females, in the dorm and we became fast buddies and we're still fast buddies. Yes.
LW: Now, as I understand, the Residential College it's kind of like the honors college.
WC: At that time, it wasn't. It might be now.
LW: Okay. 4
WC: But at that time, it really wasn't. It was an experimental program. It started off with trying to find out whether or not freshmen would do better if they were in smaller classes and if they were able to handle having upperclassmen in the dorm with them as well to help give them advice and to guide them and that kind of thing and so Residential College was a mix of classes. We had upperclassmen there as well as freshmen and then we had small classes, which some of our classes were, that were required, were in the smaller—that we actually did right there in the dorm.
LW: That's what I was going to ask were they all held—?
WC: In the dorm, yes, which was a good transition for a small town girl.
LW: Yes, that was going to be my next question. How did you feel about the—or what was the transition like for you going from high school to college, particularly academics?
WC: Academically it was difficult, a little difficult, particularly that first year because I felt, you know, you went from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big pond and it was difficult I think emotionally to accept I was no longer the brightest person around or the smartest person around and I really began to wonder whether or not if I was going to be able to make it or not academically because all of the folks I encountered I thought were so much smarter than me. So, that was a huge transition. That was a huge, huge transition. And I think most students from smaller towns may encounter that whenever they go.
LW: So do you remember anything about, you know, the courses you took or is there any professor or class that really stands out in your mind?
WC: I remember freshman year, and I don't remember—I think her name was Marie [E.] Darr, And there was—and she was a maybe been a teacher's assistant. And why can't I remember—Brown was the last name. That was the—can't remember her name. We wanted—we the blacks on campus, wanted, and in Mary Foust, wanted to study black literature and black history and we were able to put together a course that we then ended up taking with their help, with the instructor's help that we actually got credit for, which we read a lot of the classics. I think it was a literature course that we actually—but it was an African American literature I think was what it ended up actually being but they didn't have that before. I think that was significant, that was really significant.
LW: So was it—so—I'm just making sure I'm following—so the students essentially said, “We want this course.” So did you like draft your own syllabus for it?
WC: With the help of the—why can't I think of her name? I read her book and now I can't think of her name. Her last name was Brown at the time. With the help of the professor and the teaching assistant, they actually drafted the syllabus. We said, “This is what we want and we want to be able to read classics,” and they actually did all of the all of the work.
LW: Okay. 5
WC: And then we actually said, “Okay this looks good,” and then we actually attended the—.
LW: Okay, so ya'll started it. Do you know if it carried on after you—was it being offered?
WC: Don’t know.
LW: Okay.
WC: And it may have. I think they did start offering African American literature in the general university but I don't know, didn't follow that.
LW: And so of course what did you end up having as your major?
WC: I changed majors. I was going to be a physical therapist until I saw I had to take chemistry and something else and something else all in the same semester. And the Nursing Department and the Science Department had this horrible, awful reputation of flunking people out so I changed my major to speech therapy instead of—speech pathology and audiology is what I changed my major to.
LW: And why did you choose that field—other than the course requirement? Was it something that drew you to—?
WC: No, not particularly.
LW: Okay.
WC: Not particularly. I mean, you know, how do you make a decision at nineteen, eighteen, nineteen years of age of what you're going to do with the rest of your life and I just wasn't one of those focused individuals. Hindsight now I wished I had gone into psychology and gone through and gotten a Ph.D. in psychology. And that's just something that I've learned over the years that I'm good at and that' s good at the active listening and talking to folks and asking them questions and doing that kind of thing. But that has just come with life experiences. So I wished I had done psychology but I didn't at the time. Probably would have made better grades.
LW: [Chuckles] That's alright. I definitely understand what you're saying. It's like how do you know at eighteen but—.
WC: Yes, yes, yes.
LW: But try to find where you fit in college.
WC: Yes.
LW: And so. I remember that. Are there any other professors you remember?
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WC: I remember Dr. [Floyd E.] Earle.
LW: Okay.
WC: He was one of the professors in the speech—and I think it was called communications then, it's combined and called something else now—and communications. He was professor who taught voice and phonetics and I worked for him as part of my graduate fellowship, grading papers, answering his phones, that kind of thing that I did back then. I got a chance to study for my comprehensives while I was supposed to be working so that was the other good thing because he had all these wonderful resources. But I remember him. He was, he was, I thought really a good, down to earth guy. He really was, yes, he really was.
LW: So you just mentioned fellowship and comprehensive. That's more of the graduate level. So did you stay at UNCG for graduate school too?
WC: I did.
LW: Okay.
WC: I went back. I took a break, went to work, got married, and then went back to school.
LW: Okay.
WC: Went back to graduate school.
LW: So what years was graduate school for you?
WC: Seventy—I finished in, gosh. I finished in '78 so I must have gone back in '76.
LW: Okay.
WC: Part time. I went back part time.
LW: So graduated undergrad in '73 and went back in '76. Okay, okay. So from your perspective, what was the interaction like, you know, between the African American students on campus with professors, faculty, or with the other students?
WC: Let's start with faculty and it depends on which area you were in.
LW: Okay.
WC: I think we all had different experiences depending on the areas and what our major was. The first couple of years it was difficult because the classes were so large until it was hard to get to know the professors and have any kind of relationship I think with the professors. But once you declared a major and you were finding yourself working with the—in your concentration or in your major area, I think we all had different experiences. I don't recall any negative 7
experiences with my professors during the undergraduate years. I just felt the pressure that I had to work harder than everyone else. Some of that was self-imposed, some of that was because when you were there and there were so few of us then you felt like you were carrying the entire ethnicity on your back so that you had to, had to do well and you had to be successful and you had to succeed because you didn't want anyone to form a stereotype based on what one individual did, so. There were—I think there was a lot of pressure that way, to do that. Now, the relationships with the students, that was all so very interesting too because with the other black students, we really—it was almost like if we went to the dining hall, we re-segregated ourselves. That was our way of getting enough energy and strength to make it through the rest of the day. Because you could walk around campus all day long and not see another person of color unless you saw them in the dining hall or they were in your dorm. But you could go from class to class and not see another person of color. So, when we did meet to eat, it was a gathering and a reinforcement and an encouraging and it didn't matter about whether you were a senior or freshman. That was, that was, that wasn't the case. It was about encouraging and keeping each other going. I think that's what a lot of it was like. For me, that's what it was like.
LW: Okay. So and any interaction with the administration such as Chancellor [James] Ferguson or—?
WC: We—there was the sit-in because they were going to withdraw funding for the Neo-Black Society.
LW: Okay.
WC: The funding was coming from student activity fees and they were going to remove, the administrators were going to remove that funding. And rather than let them do that, the black students then we had a sit-in in the administration building until they re-funded the program, until they reinstituted that funding so that much I remember. And it was a very peaceful sit-in. We didn't block doors but we sat all around on the floor in the administration building. And we'd get up and go to class and then we'd come back from class and sit again so—that was, that was a very great experience of accomplishment because the Neo-Black Society is still going. Yes, yes.
LW: So I take it you were a member?
WC: Yes.
LW: Okay, and so were you heavily involved with the organization?
WC: No, I was too busy trying to party and study when I could [laughter].
LW: Okay, now do you remember—so you have, you know the sit-ins of the [building], were there any other thing that NBS did or that have any special meaning for you in the role that it played in your student life at UNCG?
WC: The role that it played was it helped keep me focused. At that time it helped keep me from feeling so alone. I didn't feel like the lone ranger. That there was a group of people that looked 8
like me, that were experiencing some of the same things that I was experiencing, that we could have fun together that we could share problems and issues together. It wasn't a complaint group but if there was something that was really bothering me, you could, you could, always share that. It was a great networking system, group, long before the word networking was the thing to do—buzzword. It was a good support for me. I tell people the NBS and A&T [North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, Greensboro, North Carolina] kept me sane, which is, back during that time. The guys from A&T would drive through the campus and my freshman year you saw so few men, particularly black men, because I think we had twelve black men on campus whenever I went, that we would run to the windows whenever they would come through, driving through. We would run to the windows and look out and be waving and just be really, really silly and crazy. But we established good friendships with them. They would come and, of course, we would go to parties, we would go to their games. Where we felt like we were being included and I don't think we had—I don't think I felt included as much in the activities on campus at UNCG. So that's why I say A&T kept me sane. Trying to jump over to of the –a lot of the, a lot of them didn't understand why we had to spend so much time studying but UNCG was hard. I mean, academically, it was very challenging. So, but, they kept us same, they kept me sane.
LW: So you mentioned that the guys from A&T would come riding through UNCG's campus?
WC: Yes.
LW: This is the first time I've heard about this.
WC: Oh, that's when they could ride down the street, you could drive down the street [College Avenue] right in front of Mary Foust and the guys would come—it was almost like they were cruising but you know.
LW: Okay.
WC: The guys would come over and they would just—as anybody would do, they were checking out the women, you know, and then they would drive through campus and we'd wave and yell and that kind of thing. The—my roommates and I, the four black freshmen females that were in Mary Foust with me, we met some guys from A&T, it must have been our second night, second or third night on campus, and they wanted to invite us to this party and we didn’t know whether or not we should go to this party. But we figured numbers, safety was in numbers, and the four of us and I think there were like three or four guys, I can't remember. But they ended—we went, and they ended up being some of our best friends from A&T and that was back in the day when guys were really gentlemen, chivalry was far from being dead. It was this, it was a world in which if they took you to the party they expected to take you back and no really meant no, and they ended up being some of our best friends during the time that we were there so. That was the connection, the good thing about being connected.
LW: Well, you know, I always have to ask. There are two HBCUs [historical black colleges and universities] in Greensboro.
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WC: Right.
LW: And so was there any interaction with the ladies who were at Bennett [College, Greensboro, North Carolina]?
WC: The Bennett Belles, we didn't—I didn't interact a lot with the Bennett Belles. Now, I understand some people did interact but I didn't interact a lot with the ladies from Bennett. We called them the Bennett Belles. We didn't interact—I didn't interact a lot with them, the ladies from Bennett.
LW: Alright. You mentioned you started out in Mary Foust Residence Hall. Did you stay there all four years?
WC: Yes.
LW: Okay. You stayed there all four years.
WC: I lived—during the summers I lived in—where did Ruth [Helen Wilson, Class of 1974] and I live during the summer? Over near the Quad—I can't remember the name of the dorm now. But we—I lived in a different dorm during the summer, Ruth and I when we went to summer school. I want to say it was Mendenhall [Residence Hall] but that might not be right. It wasn't the high rise. It was—.
LW: A hall-style dorm?
WC: I don't know. I don’t remember. I'm sorry.
LW: It's okay.
WC: It's only been forty-five years, I mean [laughter].
LW: It's alright [laughter]. But could you tell me a little a bit about what it was like to live in the dorms?
WC: Actually, after my freshman year, well after the first semester of my freshman year, it got better. I got there, had a roommate and when her parents realized I was black, they wouldn't let her unpack. They wouldn't let her move in. So, then I was gonna—there was a black upperclassman down the hall who wouldn't let the second girl that came—to move in with me did move in. She was white. But there was black girl down the hall who had a room by herself and that wasn't going to work. So, whenever another student came in who happened to be white, she wouldn't let her unpack and move in. So, they switched us around and ended up—I ended up having a black roommate my freshman year, well the next part of the freshman year. But after that, it was pretty much okay. We had verbal confrontations every now and then with other people and I think some of it was—it was a lot of stuff going on. A lot of it was a cultural thing going on. There was, “You're making too much noise,” and it's like Saturday night and we're having either a party or we're dancing or you're making too much noise and so we got into verbal 10
confrontations about that. There was one incident one night and I'm guilty of doing this. The next door neighbors came out and yelled at us for something and it wasn't even like midnight. It was kind of early—came out and yelled. And I got so mad because the way she yelled, she yelled as if she was talking to an animal or interpreted it that way. And I never will forget, and I—this is very dangerous—and I never will forget. I took one of the guy's lighters and lit their name tag that was on their door on fire. Dangerous, shouldn't have done it, I remember doing that. Definitely remember doing that. And so then they ran to the, to the, said that they were scared, they were frightened and that they couldn't stay in the dorm and they went to stay with somebody off campus because they thought their lives were in danger and we had to have this big dorm pow wow about it to try to smooth it out but—. It was, it was, and a lot of that was I think just intolerance and also a culture difference that was going on at that time too, you know. You don't stand up there and yell at us like that. Who do you think you are? Which was how we reacted, well, which was how I reacted so—.
LW: I understand. Well, I know dorms, you go there, go to sleep, study—were there any social aspects? I know you mentioned dancing.
WC: Oh yes. We would, we would—there was like maybe one or two televisions among the black folks right. So they'd get together and watch football games on Sunday in one room and then there was also, we'd have to watch the Soul Train [popular t.v. show] on Saturdays I think. And then you have to try out the dances right? So then you have to have the music to try out the dances and then we may party some on the weekends and so that that seemed to disturb some people. Now Mary Foust at that time, now mind you, small town girl, I could look out on our courtyard and the druggies would be hanging out on our courtyard.
LW: The druggies?
WC: The druggies. The folks who used drugs and they'd come up from, what—at that time—what we called The Corner, which was the retail area there on Tate Street. And, they would, they would be on our courtyard but somehow people didn't see that as being a disturbance. It was only when the black folks played their music that it was quote a disturbance or you were getting too loud or that kind of thing so. That was a little bit shocking. There was a young lady who lived above me—must have been freshman year? Freshman year, who OD'ed [overdosed] and I don't think I ever will forget that, that was also very shocking, again small town girl, not accustomed to drugs and drug use. I was just flabbergasted and actually overwhelmed at some of the things you encountered. But for the most part, living in the dorms, particularly Mary Foust, was a good experience, a good, pleasant experience. And we got to know people, you know.
LW: And so, was there a—how would you describe the drug use on campus. That's something you don't hear talked about a lot.
WC: I know, I know, they don't [chuckles].
LW: And so I'm just curious, if it's okay to ask about it.
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WC: I know they don't talk about it. There were known drug users that hung out in the courtyard, front courtyard of Mary Foust. We knew they were. They were not students. You could—they would have a conversation with you, you knew that they were high. What they were on, I'm not really sure what they were on. But at that time, whatever folks were using in the late sixties and early seventies, that's what people were using. I was too afraid to try it. Now, I got falling down drunk several times which is not a good thing, which wasn't a good thing. But, I was too afraid to try any of the drugs because I just wasn't sure what it was going to do and how it was going to affect me. And I had, I think, hopefully enough sense to stay away from it. And I had seen some things that disturbed me to the point that I didn't want to do that. I walked into a room in the dorm and a guy had been shooting up and he knotted out with the works in his arm and, you know, at nineteen years old that just freaked me out to no degree. So, after that, I thought, “I'd stay away from it,” right. Met a guy on campus who was a campus guy. Talked to him one day. He came to the room to talk with my roommate the next day and he couldn't remember meeting me the previous day. And I found out later he was high when I met him so therefore—that's why he didn't remember meeting me. But drugs were pretty prevalent on campus that freshman, sophomore year, pretty prevalent. Tried to stay away from it.
LW: Okay, and so it was just those two years. So was there a crackdown on it so to speak?
WC: I think that—I don't know if it was a crackdown or if they just started trying to move the folks who were gathering and loitering around off the campus and I think that that was kind of like campus-wide. That they were trying to get folks who were not students or who didn't have any businesses on campus, they were trying to move that out.
LW: Oh wow.
WC: It was a lot of—a lot of stuff—.
LW: Thank you for sharing that. That was—I had no idea.
WC: You won't get a lot of people who would tell you about that.
LW: I understand. Well, the dining hall. You mentioned about, you know, the dining hall it was the place ya'll could go. I always have to ask, what was the food like?
WC: Oh!
LW: I'm just going to move the recorder right quick, quickly.
WC: Oh, the food was terrible my freshman year.
LW: Oh no.
WC: I lost twenty-five pounds my first semester. Because it wasn't home cooking.
LW: Okay. 12
WC: That was one thing. I wished I could lose twenty-five pounds now, but, it was not—and we would pick at the food. I mean, we had a meal plan and most of us had the three days-a-meal plan and we had the powdered eggs and the mystery meat and that was covered up with specialty sauce and you didn't know what it was that you were getting and I mean so—.
LW: The same old jokes about cafeteria food.
WC: It was horrible. And we didn't have options. You guys have Chick-fil-A and those folks on campus now. We didn't have that. That was not on campus. If you wanted to get anything different to eat, then you had to go down to The Corner, to the grocery store on Tate Street and buy something from them, from the grocery store down there, which is no longer there. But you had to go down to the grocery store to buy, if you wanted to get something else different to eat, other than that. So, we didn't—the food was horrible. And we had those, the rectangular tables which encouraged more community than those little small round tables, which encouraged community eating and group eating. And we had a set place, set tables that we would sit and it was always comical to me that a group of black folks would come in, usually about the same time, and sit at the table they were eating and white folks would get up and move—they would not stay. They would get up and move. And like, "Oh okay, you can have it. You can have it."
LW: Well, do you remember if you were involved in any extracurricular activities outside of—other than NBS?
WC: No.
LW: On campus.
WC: I didn't.
LW: That was your only one.
WC: Yes, that was the only thing I did.
LW: Well, do you happen to remember if there still any, well, if there still any campus traditions that were going on when you were a student there?
WC: It was painting the statue of—what's his name?
LW: Dr. [Charles Duncan] McIver.
WC: Yes.
LW: Charles McIver
WC: It was dressing him up for what any occasion, all occasions and painting him. I didn't participate in any of that but, yes that was a big tradition then. 13
LW: Okay. Any other? I keep hearing about several but I didn't know—?
WC: That's the only one that I remember. There probably were more that were going on. I was just out of the loop. I wasn't in the cool group [chuckles].
LW: Alright, and you already touched on this slightly but there wasn't a whole lot of men so I kind of take it, you know, it just became—UNCG just became coeducational the 1963/1964 school year. But even if they allowed men, I'm assuming it still felt much like a woman's college?
WC: It did.
LW: Okay.
WC: It really did. There were twelve black men on campus. We had a male dorm and then we had—what was it? Phillips-Hawkins [Residence Hall]. I think one side was male and one side was female. We had a few men in Mary Foust, I think. But yes, it was very much so, still very heavily female. Yes, that's why we went crazy when we saw a man [laughter] at eighteen, nineteen. We’d go running to the windows.
LW: When they came cruising through the campus?
WC: When they came cruising through the campus.
LW: And so would you say, you know, the 1960s and seventies were tumultuous times. So would you say that, you know, there was a political atmosphere on campus or was there—?
WC: There was. I think there was and I think people at UNCG—when A&T had any kind of disturbance on campus, they basically tried to shut UNCG down. Because I think that they were afraid that it would spill over to UNCG. But, yes, there was a very political—there was a lot of talk of politics on campus.
LW: Okay.
WC: A lot of talk of being involved. That was back during the, during the Vietnam War. Very much so was anti-war. Pull us out, get us out of that. But yes, it was a very political time on campus. There were attempts to try to smooth out problems with—the disturbances that, when the conflicts that happened with integration didn't go as smoothly nation-wide as people thought it was going to go, or people hoped it was going to go and so there was a lot of political conversations and involvement, I think, at that time.
LW: So really, at UNCG's campus, there was a lot of discussions that happened, not so much, you know, protests and student rallies?
WC: Not as a whole. 14
LW: Okay.
WC: Not as a whole.
LW: So it was very much a political aware, just really discussing the news of the day.
WC: Right, right.
LW: Okay. Well, so what did you do after you graduated UNCG? I know you went to graduate school.
WC: Yes, but I worked as a speech pathologist in public schools.
LW: Okay.
WC: For five years. I'm licensed as a speech pathologist and got tired of the public schools and started working in private business. Started off as a secretary in private business and ended up working as an organizational development specialist was the last thing that I did in working with teen development and helping teens function and work a lot better than what they were. So, I ended up spending probably a majority of my time not doing anything that was related to my major. Go figure, I know.
LW: [Chuckles].
WC: I did all kinds of crazy things. I told people I was the person who couldn't keep a job. I think I have worked—I've worked in real estate, not actually selling real estate. I had a broker's license for a while. I've worked in a paper company, paper manufacturing company. That was real interesting world to work in. I've worked in the credit card industry and banking and I've worked in the energy industry. So, I tell folks I just don't know how to keep a job. Flow from one to the other. And none of it, absolutely none of it has to be with speech pathology at UNCG.
LW: Well would you say—were there other aspects of UNCG that may have prepared you or there were things that could learn from UNCG that helped you along the way?
WC: I think so and I think more than anything else I'm glad I chose the speech path because I was told, which I won't forget, my second job with public school, the guy said, "We've never had one of you as a speech pathologist." This was 1973, '74, '74, '74 that he told me that. The HR [human resources] director told me that. Now he said that to me now, I'd sue his rear end but, you know, '74, so speech pathology was good because what he was saying, and what he eventually said, he said, "You are so articulate," was what he was saying. Now, that's offensive now to say that, to try to say that black folks can't talk. But I think that that was what helped me and so many of the other jobs I got and some of the other positions that I got was to do that. And the jobs that I would take on, I would volunteer to do anything that was outside of my job. So, if in one job, they needed volunteer speakers for United Way, to push United Way to the various company-wide—I volunteered to do that. People thought, "That's great, that's good. She can talk. 15
Can she do da-da-da-da, you know." So then, if you can talk, they think you're automatically smart. So then that's kind of how, at least the private, some of the private sector did it. So then opportunities opened up and then people were willing to give me a try. So, from that perspective, yes, I think UNCG did wonders for that and the fact that I had completed it, that I graduated was also, you know, another big factor. Sometimes public, sometimes the private sector doesn't, or at that time, they weren't paying a lot of attention to the major unless it was something specific that they needed or wanted. The fact that you managed to finish it was extremely important to them, that you were actually able to finish the program said a lot, sent volumes to them. So, it's changed a lot now I think. Much more specific I think now than it was then. "Well yeah we got us a college graduate over here. She can figure out how to do that." You'd be amazed at things that go on in the workplace sometimes that went on way back then.
LW: Well, have you been involved with UNCG since you graduated?
WC: Yes. I've been to some of the—needless to say I went back—well, I've been involved in some of the local alumni activities here that I've done a few of those and usually I am the second oldest person there [chuckles], which is quite comical because I can't relate to anything that they are doing. We had an alumni thing in which, area alumni, in which we were trying to encourage, or we were welcoming students who had been accepted to UNCG. Went to that and then there was also an activity that we did, that I attended, in which they were trying to encourage students to come to UNCG. We did that at a picnic. I've been back on campus a few times, not very many, but a few times. A group of us get together, a group of the alumni get together, UNCG alumni, get together for A&T's homecoming every year. I know, I know. For A&T's homecoming every year and one year we actually went on campus and met with some folks on campus and talked about some of the current issues and had breakfast and then we did a walking tour of the campus. And that was funny to see how the campus has so changed, so dramatically changed. When we were on campus and you saw a person of color, you immediately spoke. You recognized, you acknowledged that person. We had to almost force people to speak to us. We were walking around on campus and like, "What happened? What happened to all of that camaraderie that we had?" So, I hadn't been back on very often. Yes. We have a new chancellor [Chancellor Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr] and emails have been flying around. We want to really make sure the alumni, black alumni, that I've talked to, we really want to make sure that he's successful and that he succeeds and that we show all support. So, you may see us on campus a little bit more and doing some things a little bit more because we all acknowledge that's a significant milestone at UNCG.
LW: I think the UNC System in general, perhaps.
WC: Yes, yes, yes.
LW: It is exciting to see how that will play out. And you kind of already mentioned the impact UNCG had on your life, you already addressed that some. Well, I don't have any more formal questions. Is there anything else you would like to add to the interview?
WC: I'm trying to think because, you know, it's a so much of—I went through that time and the focus was on getting through, particular the last two years. It was—the focus was on graduating 16
and getting through. So I really didn't do a lot of things that a lot of people do. I think that's—I really did party hard the first summer that I was in summer school. That was probably my best summer there. The next summer I was so busy studying I didn't have time did not do a lot of stuff but that was probably my best summer there. And, it helped me try to figure out how to balance out the partying side with the studying side. I couldn't try any of the stuff I used to do. I could not try it now for anything in the world. But, I think that happens to us as we get older, which I think.
UNCG was a safe place. It was, and by that I mean the things that we would do, my friends and I would go down to The Corner, which we were not supposed to be doing. We would go down to the corner freshman year and hang out with people we didn't know. Let them buy us drinks and we weren't supposed to be drinking. And we would walk back to the dorm at night by ourselves. And no one ever bothered any of us. And we would go either in a group or you could walk back alone and we were never bothered. And that I think gave, gave me a sense of safety in the surroundings and the area. Sure we had our verbal spats with folks in the dorm but I think that's probably to be expected every now and then. But on the whole, I felt safe there. I felt, and with my little niche of folks that I was around, I got the encouragement and the support that I think I needed in order, in order to stick it out whenever it got really tough academically, whenever it got tough, when academics required everything. I really wish that I had better study skills whenever I went. I don't think I really knew how to study which made it a little bit more difficult. And I really wish that I had better writing skills for the term papers, better writing skills. However, with all of that said, I got enough feedback for me to be able to improve my weaknesses enough to be able to survive and thrive and then I continued to add to that as I've, as I've matured as people like to say. As I've aged, I've managed to add on to that. All in all, I think my experience at UNCG was kind of like a diamond in the rough. I think academically it was very challenging. But because there wasn't a great emphasis on athletics, people just kind of, zoom, kind of let it fly over their heads and they didn't pay any attention to the school. At the time that I went, their nursing program was rated very, very high nationally. And they were known that they would produce great nurses. Their chemistry program was the same way. Their business program was the same way. So there were a lot of—academics, the focus was on the academics and not on the athletics, which is probably one reason why I really liked it. So the experience there was really good. It was a good, life teaching experience. And it's hard to put that in words.
And I tried to encourage a lot of the young people that I encounter today that they need that experience of going to school and living on campus, even if they are in the same town. They just need that experience of staying on campus because there's nothing like it. I think you learn, you learn how to deal with all different kinds of people, all different types of personalities, you learn a lot more about yourself and how you handle things and how you resolve things. You learn how to survive and stand on your own feet. And I credit UNCG for doing that too because they didn't do a lot of hand-holding. I mean you're eighteen years old, you're on your own, you've graduated, okay, this is it. And that was the approach that they took so—. I do think though that some of the transition, they may need to help some of the freshmen with some of the adjustment period, particularly the men who end up there now. They are having difficulty retaining men, particularly black men and some of that I think is that they may need to look at what do they may need to do to help, particularly that freshman year, when they go buck wild because they have all of these women, you know. I had a nephew who went to Central [North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina] and said he’d never seen so many beautiful black women in 17
all of his life and he just went buck wild for a semester but, you know, you kind of expect that and then they calm down. It would be good if they had some mentors to help them not go completely buck wild.
LW: Remember, education.
WC: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's it's about education. But I can't say too much because I went wild too. But I managed to keep my grades up enough. I went wild too but I managed to keep my grades up. But I think that's the difference. They forget to keep the grades up. I kept the grades up.
LW: Alright, well, Ms. Cline, thank you so very much. I have enjoyed speaking with you, hearing your stories and I'm sure that it will definitely help students in the future to understand more about UNCG and its history, so thank you.
WC: You're welcome and thank you. I hope I've covered all you points.
LW: [Laughter] You have. Alright, so we're going to stop recording.
[End of interview]