Oral history interview with Paula A. Andris, 1991 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Paula H. Andris
INTERVIEWER: Linda Danford
DATE: April 23, 1991
[Begin Side A]
LD: Mrs. Andris, can you tell me when you came to UNCG and in what capacity?
PA: All right. I came to the office of dean of the college in 1959 as, really, a part-time clerical
assistant. The office at that time was comprised of Miss [Mereb] Mossman, who was the
dean of the college, and one full-time secretary. And so they were bogged down and needed
their self-study on time. They were getting ready for a Southern Association [of Colleges and
Schools] visit, so they asked me to come since I was an alum of UNCG [The University of
North Carolina Greensboro] and had just met the secretary a few weeks before.
She called and asked if I would come and give an assist, which I did, and helped work on
some tapes from the inheritance of the university of the Chinqua-Penn Plantation
[Wentworth, North Carolina] that they had just come into their possession. And they were
doing an inventory and various things, so they asked me to work part time in helping to get
some of these documents together. And I worked part time that year. And then the next year,
in 1960, the secretary left. And so Miss Mossman asked me if I would move from part
time to full time and take her place. And after much, much study and many discussions at
home with my husband and three children, I attempted to begin to be Miss Mossman's
secretary.
And then that position evolved over the years until I, when I left, I was assistant to
the vice chancellor for academic affairs because during that period of time, from ’59 until
1986, the university emerged from—let's see, it was the Woman's College of the University
of North Carolina when I came. Then in a few years it became one of the three in the
Consolidated University of North Carolina. That was with State [North Carolina State
University] and [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill. And then, a little later—well,
several years later—we then started having men, became more coeducational. And then we
moved toward one of the sixteen units of the greater university, the University of North
Carolina.
And during all of that, our title, the office name changed from dean of the college to,
I want to say dean of the faculty, then to vice chancellor for academic affairs. And so, and I
grew with that, because I was fortunate in having two fantastic vice chancellors—because
they sort of gave me my lead and let me do what I would, get as involved as I wanted in
helping me to grow into the position. And hopefully by growing, I was able to develop into
the assistant they felt they needed.
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And of course, the university gets in your blood. [laughs] And I thrived on it. I
thoroughly enjoyed the, all the years I was there. But like I say, a lot of that was due to the
two administrators that I worked with—entirely different in style.
LD: And they were Mereb Mossman and—?
PA: Mereb Mossman and Stanley Jones.
LD: Stan Jones.
PA: Stan Jones, right. Miss Mossman was an administrator who had her own individual style.
She liked to be immersed in detail. She liked to see everything through. She was very well
organized and very efficient. She was the kind of lady that if she had a conference with you
this morning, it would be confirmed in writing and would be to you, if not that afternoon, the
next day. [laughs]
Mr. Jones was more one who liked to remove himself from the day-to-day operations
and dwell more on the long range. But I think that had a lot to do with where the university
was at that point in time, because a lot of the organization, the departments—when I went
there, the campus was basically departments. And with Miss Mossman it moved toward the
development of some schools, the beginning of the College of Arts and Sciences and the
beginning of some graduate programs, this kind of thing.
And then when Mr. Jones came, a lot of that organization had taken place and they
were now looking at developing this university with more graduate programs, and the
emphasis was on the development in the graduate area. Not that the undergraduate was
forgotten, by any means. It never was. But we were expanding and becoming more, you
know, the research-oriented university.
LD: And when did Miss Mossman retire?
PA: [Nineteen]-seventy, -seventy-one. I almost think of it in decades, because when I joined her
about ’60, and then Mr. Jones came about ’70-’71, and then he was there into the early
eighties when Vice Chancellor [Elisabeth] Zinser came on board. And then—those years are
not exact. I'm not great with dates. [laughs]
LD: That's all right. That's okay. That can be looked up somewhere else if someone needs that
information. Well, tell me some more about Mereb Mossman. I have heard many good
things about her as an administrator. For one thing, she was—has been replaced, ultimately,
by what seems like hundreds of administrators. I've had many people say, nostalgically, back
in the old days, Mereb did it all by herself. How did she do that?
PA: Well—
LD: Was there less work to do or was she just—?
PA: No. I'm not going to say there was less work to do. I think all the components were there.
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But when I went with her, she pretty much—was still—was over—and when I say, I don't
mean just at the office, reported to her. When I say that she was admissions, I mean she was
flat director of admissions. She was like director of registrar. All of those were under her
wing, and those—now like the, I'm trying to remember if Mr. [Rollin E.] Godfrey was the
registrar—had not been there that long. She had been the registrar until then. The
admissions, there was a Miss Newton there that was a sort of secretary. But Miss Mossman
was, you know—all of those functions still remain under the vice chancellor for academic
affairs, but they did not have the staffs in those times because it was—the ultimate decisions
were made in the dean of the college or in the dean of the faculty's office at that point in
time, until those staffs were developed, until the resources became available, really.
She became—well, she went into that office in 1951 and had many of those
responsibilities, you know, first-line responsibilities in developing, you know, like
admissions standards and those kinds of things, and then in the recruiting of the students and
all the rest. So that she had all of those responsibilities and as time and resources became
available, then the individual offices and resources became more developed.
Now they were there, and they had nucleus of staff, but there was a more direct
involvement on the day-to-day operation, I guess that's what I'm trying to say, than there is
now. The office of academic affairs, of course, still has the overall surveillance or whatever
they all report to, but there's not the hands on as it was at that time.
LD: I guess what I'm asking you is, did she want to keep control of these things, or did just the
size of the university become such that it had to—?
PA: Oh, I think it was the size of the university and, yes, yes. And it was some of: the time had
come. And again, it came back to resources.
LD: By that, you mean money?
PA: Yes, exactly. The money was the bottom line. And when you're one of three—and I'm
referring now to two big universities like State and Carolina. We often—I'm not saying the
vice chancellor, or I still say the vice chancellor rather than dean of the college, but rather,
administrator—but the ones of us on the back line, you couldn't help but think we were the
red-headed stepchild when it came to allocations of resources, you know, whatever assets we
had to work with. It seemed as though we were always a little short on what we needed in
order to advance those offices and all. So I think that kept her more involved than she would
liked to have been.
But as time did go on and we were able to, you know, establish those offices—not to
the degree they are today, but at least get them more on their own. And we had a lot of the
faculty come forward as administrators. I know, say, academic advising, we had Miss
Tommie Lou Smith that came from business, Dr. Laura Anderton came from biology, Dr.
Bert Goldman came from the School of Education, you know. And the offices grew and, of
course, the resources to the students.
And the basic line of our office, I think, after those student support offices got
underway, was more for the academic affairs concerns—that being faculty, the curriculum,
the budget to support them all. Those were our main purposes in being when I came on, you
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know, in the sixties. The appointment of the faculty and, of course, curriculum and faculty
governance, you know, all of that was an important part.
And there weren't very many of us to support all that in those days. I think of all of
the offices that have come into being since I left, and—for instance, we used to have to do all
the typing of the grants and all of the kinds of things you should have special offices like
sponsored programs now and those kinds of things.
But I think the bottom line during the Mossman and the Jones administrations for us
was the care and nurture of the academic program—that being not only the curriculum but
particularly the faculty. We were responsible for the faculty personnel from the recruiting.
And—recruiting may not be the best word there because indeed, they were recruited more at
the department level, the school level. But the vice chancellors were very involved in the
interviewing of—particularly from the assistant professor on up, feeling that they eventually
through the tenure program would soon, you know, have time to become professors, et
cetera. So they were very interested in helping to build the best kind of faculties that they
could, you know, at all of the levels.
LD: Let me ask you, do you think that—in a budget sense—that things got better or worse when
we became one of sixteen? Was that even harder than being one of three?
PA: That's hard, that’s really hard to answer because as the monies grew, of course, the demands
grew. And you were always playing a game of catch up. There was never the resources, I
think, to do all of the things they would like to have done. And I think that is a lot of why
maybe some of the graduate programs haven't come to fruition, you know. Because I can
remember—I'm not sure whether they have the doctor—do they have the doctor of biology
yet? That's been on the boards for years.
LD: I don’t know.
PA: And there are several others that they were working toward, you know, and have as long as I
was there. And a lot of that had to do with money.
LD: Money.
PA: Right.
LD: But it was a very competitive environment.
PA: Oh, I'm sure it was. Now, you know, of course, we always tried to develop our requests to
the best we could, but there was a lot of competition when you got down to General
Administration.
LD: Did Mereb Mossman do any actual lobbying for funds or was that all done through the
chancellor?
PA: That's done through the chancellor. They’re very, you know, the lines are very well drawn
through the chancellor, the business affairs officer, you know. They were the front line in
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representing us there. But it was with the proposals developed on our, in our office that they
would have to present—the academic programs, that is. And that was what Vice Chancellor
Mossman and Jones were about—was to continue the academic environment that had been
begun way back when, you know. That was the thrust.
Chancellor [James] Ferguson, Chancellor [Otis] Singletary—I didn’t know
Chancellor [Gordon] Blackwell—but all of them were academically oriented. They had been
faculty members themselves. They had come up through that kind of setting. Chancellor
[William] Moran, I think, is more business oriented, and I think we've seen, you know, a
different kind of emphasis since then. And that's not to say that a lot was growing old on the
campus—a lot needed to be replaced, a lot of fixing up needed to be done. And so it appears
to me that maybe it's their day in court. Now I don't know, but you know, when you've been
away for five years it does make a difference.
LD: You know that the office is now changed its name again. It's now the provost.
PA: Yes. That was something that Vice Chancellor Zinser would like very much to have seen
happen while she was there.
LD: What do you see as the difference in the name? Is it that—why is it important?
PA: The provost?
LD: The name provost, instead of vice chancellor for academic affairs.
PA: It implies—now I don't know this because I've not been there during that era—it implies an
additional kind of responsibility of—because it was always the chief academic officer. That's
who the vice chancellor for academic affairs is. The “provost” gives it, probably, a little
more thrust into the administrative area, et cetera. There's no question but what it's second to
the chief administrative officer, who is the chancellor. I don't know.
What was more interesting to me, that I was more familiar with, was in the name
changes of the office between vice chancellors. When Miss Mossman was there it evolved
into the office for the vice chancellor of academic affairs. And we were always there for the
faculty. I guess always sort of prided us on being their friend in court. You know, someone
had to be there to look out for not only the tenures and the promotions and all the other kinds
of activities we had, but it was us that had to look after the salary increases—being sure that
everything was approved through the board to be sure that when things went to business they
were just right, so that the faculty was never shortchanged.
When Mr. Jones came, it was interesting to see that he wanted the “vice chancellor”
dropped off. It was an even greater emphasis that this was the office for academic affairs. In
other words, we represented that whole academic area and our main point in being, our main
purpose in being, was to support the faculty and the students in any way we could. And take
that literally [laughs]—from seeing that they had cars to go to a meeting to being sure that
they got the last salary increase or their promotion or whatever. Also, in working with them
in the development on the courses of curriculum, the faculty governance—being sure that
that was structured to benefit the faculty, the individual faculty, as well as the whole.
But interestingly enough, when the next vice chancellor came there was a reversion
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back to office for the vice chancellor—or office of the vice chancellor for academic affairs.
And that was just about the way that administration became, in that the office was there for
the support of the vice chancellor as opposed to academic affairs. It was an interesting kind
of move. And of course, it was that way when I left. I was with that vice chancellor for about
four years, I guess.
LD: Who do you think was the easiest to get to see if you were a faculty member, between, let's
say, Mossman, Jones, and Zinser?
PA: I would say even though they were different in their administration that Mossman and Jones
were on a par. They both worked pretty much with what I'd call an open door policy. And
tried—now, of course, there are always times when you couldn't do that. But there was one
thing particularly about Miss Mossman that I appreciated because knowing the pressure she
was under, knowing her own workload, et cetera, she was the kind of person that when you
sat down with her, it didn't matter how much she had on her desk or what concerns she had
on her mind, it’s as if she had not one other thing in this world to think about but you and
what you had on your mind.
LD: Which is a gift.
PA: A real gift. I attributed some of that not only to her own personality, but to the fact that she
came from a sociology/social work background where she had worked so much with
individuals, you know, and people and their needs. But until the day she died she was that
way, because I was fortunate to be able to call on her several times to visit with her, you
know. And she—no matter where she's coming from—and she suffered much in her last few
years—she was always so concerned about you and yours, whatever that might be. That's not
to say that the others weren't also, but she just seemed to have this special gift for that.
LD: When you came in ’59, was there any residual evidence of the turmoil that had taken place in
the early fifties over Ed[ward Kidder] Graham, [Jr.]? Was that all gone by then?
PA: Not really, not really. No. Oh, you could hear it whispered about, or those that were there,
you know, you knew something was going on. But, no, no. I'm aware that there were
concerns then, but I honestly could not even share that with you because I know nothing
about it.
LD: That was really before—but one of the things that I had been told was that the split on
campus tended to be between older faculty and newer faculty, and that the few criticisms that
I've ever heard of Mereb Mossman have been from older faculty members who felt that they
were—or that Miss Mossman was interested in bringing onto campus, actively interested in
bringing onto campus people with national reputations. And that tended to mean more men,
whereas the faculty had been somewhat more female.
PA: I can understand that. I can understand that.
LD: Do you think that's accurate?
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PA: Yes. I think that, yeah, to a certain degree. But I'd like to talk a little bit why. From my
perspective, that probably existed. In—when it moved, the transition, moving from WCUNC
[Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina] to UNC [University of North
Carolina] at Greensboro moved it from a different, from one world into another. Up until that
time, until there was a thought of coeducation and graduate programs and all the rest, it had
come from the background of teacher education, family-oriented type curriculum. Because
remember—no, you don't remember. [laughs]
LD: Well, I've talked to a lot of alumni. I feel almost like I went here, I'll tell you. You mean like
a home economics department, for instance?
PA: Right, right. But I'm talking now about just how the world has evolved for women. Back in
those days a lot of families wanted their daughters educated, but it was educated with the
idea that eventually, whether they became teachers or home economists or whatever, they
would be back in the child-rearing situation at home, right?
But as we moved on toward the sixties, the world was changing for women. And we
were broadening the liberal arts base, and you were then beginning to talk about different
kinds of majors. You were bringing now the idea of graduate programs and master’s, and
then, eventually, would go into doctorates and moving into a different world.
Well, the pool that was out there from which you pulled was predominantly men at
that point in time because the women had not yet—and I'm talking very globally. Of course,
there were some that—because we have a lot of them on our own campus. The university's
reputation was just fantastic while it was WCUNC, and this had pulled on a great and
wonderful pool of women that were sort of the background.
But then as we moved forward, developing more programs, well, we began pulling
on a national pool which was comprised of more men than women. And that's not to say they
were all men, but there was a lot of it. But we were also moving from a—if I may use this—
a family-oriented type atmosphere on campus to what might, you know, be more expected of
a university situation, in that in the older days, faculty, staff—there wasn't even a
breakdown. You know, now we have what we call SPA [subject to the State Personnel Act]
and EPA [exempt from the State Personnel Act]. Are you familiar with those?
LD: No, but I know those are administrative—
PA: Well, it's jargon to differentiate between the different kinds of staffs on campus—your
faculty, your administrators, your support staff. But back in those early days, it was just one
great big, happy family. There was no distinction between the secretary in the office and the
head of the department or the faculty that taught. And that was wonderful, and I wish that
still existed to some degree. But as you grow, there's a certain kind order that sort of has to
come out of that in order just to administer it.
And so, I can see how those who were here in that era would have found it a little
more difficult to adjust to bringing in—and of course, if they were going into developmental
programs, naturally they were going to want to maintain the national recognition they had as
a women's college transferring it over to a coeducational university situation. And I can
understand that it would have been difficult for some of the older—when I say older faculty,
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those who had been here longer—maybe to adjust to all of this infusion of new blood, if you
will, you know.
But I think for all that that may have rankled at times, it, you know, on the surface, at
least, and as a unit, they certainly pushed forward. There may have been regrets for
individuals—you know, “I wish we had the old times back.” And I feel that way myself
when I go over there now and I run into certain situations, and “oh, for the old times,” you
know. But it's just part of the world and evolving, you know, into the university that they
wish it would become.
LD: Well, there certainly is uniform, widespread respect for Mereb Mossman, no matter what
personal impressions people have.
PA: Well, there's no administrator—if they really are good administrators, you can't be a “yes
man,” you know. There are going to have to be hard decisions. And there's no decision in the
world that's going to please everyone. And if you're a good administrator and you have
certain goals—not you personally, but if the university has established certain goals and
you're working toward that, there's going to be flack.
There are going to be people that are not in agreement, and it won't be just with
Mereb Mossman or Stan Jones or [Provost] Don DeRosa. It's no different than a family
situation. Mothers and fathers have to make decisions that the children aren't always going to
like, you know. But it's what's best for the family, what's best for the university.
LD: Where was your office when you first came?
PA: In the old administration building, in the Foust Building.
LD: Foust.
PA: And we had little cubby holes. And when Vice Chancellor—no, excuse me, Chancellor
Singletary decided that he needed more space, he went over to the Alumnae House into the
lower level, Pecky Cypress room, down in the lower level there. Then we graduated to the
offices that he left. It's the one with the bay window right at the steps. And then in the, what,
mid-seventies, then we moved to the new Mossman Administration Building, where it has
grown and mushroomed with staff, et cetera, et cetera.
You know, you talk about what one woman did and what little staff she had to
support it, you know. And then with Mr. Jones, we had progressed maybe to two or three.
And there's no way that I can describe to you the volume of work that had, paperwork that
had to be ground out by that office, you know, to support the activities of those vice
chancellors.
It was six and seven days a week and most nights for us in that office at that point in
time. I'm glad to say that they, you know, have been able to get away from that, because it
was terribly hard on us. It was hard on our own family lives. You know, at times our families
didn't feel we existed, you know. [laughs]
LD: Was it hard to work for Zinser? [pause] [laughs]
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PA: It was more difficult to work for Dr. Zinser than it was for either of the other two vice
chancellors. A lot of it had to do with style and expectations. I'm not certain just how to put
it, but she's a dynamo. She is a human dynamo. And it was [pause]—
LD: Did she expect everyone to be a dynamo around her?
PA: Yes, although it was interesting. She had that expectation, but yet she was trying to build the
staff so that they would be normal, eight-hour, five-day-a-week people. That was a goal of
hers to achieve that. And that was part of the concern, I guess, because when you brought
staff on with that perception, but yet when the work load was there that far exceeded that, it
was difficult to manage.
LD: Because it sounds like you were working pretty hard before, in terms of hours.
PA: Everyone was. But we had a fantastic staff with Mossman. Most of the folks that came—I'm
talking two. The two young people that came with us, with Miss Mossman, were still there
until Dr. Zinser came. All the way through the Jones era, as most of those stayed, you know,
ten, fifteen-plus years.
LD: Continuity is important in an office like that.
PA: It’s terribly important because with that volume, you didn't have the time to be going back
and always training, always telling. You needed folks who had initiative, who knew their
desk, who had the initiative to go on and do whatever was expected.
We also, in that office, tried to make certain that everyone knew what was going on
[in] every other office, because of the volume that had to go through there, you couldn't
afford for any desk to be down for any period of time, for vacations or sick or whatever the
case might be.
So it was important to have a staff that had a smattering of everything but then
zeroed in on their own special assignments. And we had that kind of staff. In fact, I think
most of the folks are still on campus but in other offices.
LD: Did it take Stanley Jones and Dr. Zinser any time to—after they got into the office—to sort
of get to know how things worked?
PA: Well, again, I'm going to have to talk about the individual administrators. Again, style. Stan
Jones was one of the most prepared people I've ever known for anything. Before he went to
any meeting, he knew exactly what the background was, what the expectation of the meeting
was to be. And the same held true for his coming to the university. He almost worked us to
death before we ever laid eyes on him, because he would send lists of all this material that he
wanted sent to Chicago so that when he hit the floor, he hit it running.
And this was about the time that a lot of groundwork was being done to establish the
greater university, you know, the sixteen. And there were just volumes of material. And
remember that he was a historian, so he wanted newspaper clippings. He wanted all
publications. We used to just haul, you know, just tremendous boxes off to him so that he
would be prepared.
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And he worked every weekend. And it wasn't necessarily to catch up, because he
came back every night to catch up the day. But every weekend was spent preparing for what
was on his calendar for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I mean, we made a point
of having everything at his desk. Whatever meetings were coming up during the week, he
studied them that weekend so that he was prepared. And didn't spend a lot of time during that
week having to prepare for it, because he was taking care of what was evolving during the
day.
LD: So he must have depended on you quite a bit to help him prepare.
PA: Well, it took all of us. It took all of us to do it. Now you remember, he had an assistant vice
chancellor, maybe became an associate, I can't remember. Herb Wells was there, and then I
was there, and then we had, let's see, a secretary to support Herb. And then there were one,
maybe two, others then that worked with me because so much of the minutia was in
personnel and all that the state requires.
And then we had all the budget development, you must remember. All the writing of
the proposals and getting them out, you know, and then the distribution when it came back.
And while there was an accounting office across the hall, we had to have our own set of
books in order to always know what had been expended, what balances we had, because you
really worked those books to be sure that you used what resources you had during the year.
So it was a working office.
But back to, then the difference with Dr. Zinser—
[recording paused]
PA: Dr. Zinser, of course, was a different kind of administrator. And it's difficult for me to make
evaluations because I know that there are all styles. But Dr. Zinser came from a different
kind of background. Dr. Jones, Miss Mossman had been administrators in other capacities.
Dr. Zinser had not had that same kind of experience when she came to us. I think she had
been a dean of a school of nursing for a year or so, but certainly not the scope that the other
two enjoyed. So that Dr. Zinser's style was not as studied as the other two. And
consequently, I think it kept her—
LD: From being as effective as she might have been?
PA: No. I don't mean it as effective, because I really can't judge that. I think history only takes
care of what anyone is able to—and we've had a chance with Mossman and Jones to see
what's been accomplished. But no, that she was always having to prepare at the last minute.
Because when she came, she had not had the opportunity to bone up, to be as prepared for
the differences to begin with in the, what the state of North Carolina requires of its
administrators. And there's a lot to learn there.
And then coming right into a lot of activities—the long range plan was going on.
There was an academic program inventory that was being developed, there was a plan to be
written. And to find herself forced into all of that activity along with the day-to-day—
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personnel, curriculum, faculty development, all of that, was really an overwhelming task for
her. And so it worked us all to keep her prepared to the degree that, of course, she wanted to
be when she was carrying out her functions.
LD: She was preparing a long term—could you say something about that? Because right before
she left, she submitted this report. Who commissioned that? Was that something that the
chancellor—
PA: Well, it was an outgrowth—and the chancellor, of course. But it was an outgrowth of this
long-range plan that had been evolving out for several years. In fact, it had been used as a
basis for the self-study, the Southern Association accreditation several years before that. But
then there were certain requirements that Dr. Zinser imposed on the schools and departments
in wanting a lot more information, a lot more statistics in order for her, then, to put together
the ultimate plan.
And that, of course, came into fruition after I left, so that I really can't speak to that. I
did have privy to it and did see it. And I understand there've been, you know, some materials
that have been lifted from that and that there is possibly before the faculty now. But it had to
do with program development, the faculty resources, the budget resources that were set
before the academic community. The plan—you know, that great, nice, beautiful plan for the
university over the next few years.
LD: Do you think that faculty had more control over their, well, control over the curriculum and
the academic program twenty-five years ago than they do today?
PA: [pause] All right. Let me—may I just phrase it a little bit differently? Those that want to be
involved, I think, can be. But I saw a real change in faculty over the years in the degree of
how much they wanted to be involved in the central governance, if you will. A lot of that, I
think, was due to the fact that there were those old bugaboos that kept rearing their head, like
“publish or perish” and the importance of research, et cetera, et cetera.
And as I saw the “younger” faculty coming on those last few years before I left, it
seemed to me that there was less desire to become involved in curriculum development, that
kind of thing, committee assignments. Probably because of the, you know, to save what time
they had from their classroom and research, you know, to, for development of their own
agendas.
And I'm not being critical of that, because there is so much to running a university
beyond the classroom. And the committee structures, you know, all of that structure that
came out of the governance. Those “older” faculty, it seemed to me, that had been brought
up with the expectation of having to do those as part of their load, continued to. But the
newer ones coming on had not come with that expectation and consequently tried to protect
themselves.
And I'm not being critical. It's just, there had to be a balance, I'm sure, for them of
what was important at that point in time. And it may be, as they accomplished or finished
research, publications, achieved tenure, that then they could change their agendas and then
become more involved in this central governance than they were able to do when they, you
know, first came.
But I know in working in our office in the development of committee lists, you now,
12
making up the, composing the membership, sometimes it was very, very difficult to get the
younger members to want to serve, simply because of what they perceived as their own
priorities. And again, you know, only they could judge that.
For that reason, some may feel that they weren't as involved—going back to your
original question—as they might have been. But to me, it seemed like it was more of a
priority choice than it was that they were being deliberately left out. Of course, as the
university’s grown, there's been a lot more structure and of course—in fact, they had to start
budget committees and this, that, and the other, so faculty would feel that they were having
an opportunity for the input they wished, that kind of thing.
LD: Well, I think size certainly has a lot to do with how far removed you are from the
chancellor.
PA: Well, it does. Exactly, exactly. And I don't know what this new structure's going to be like,
because, again—we're talking about the faculty senate; now I've just read this, I'm not
familiar with it at all—but we're talking about the faculty maybe not being as involved with
curriculum, et cetera. How many faculty council meetings I'd go to where reports on
curriculum committee and all the others would be made. And you'd do well to get fifty or
sixty faculty there. And we're talking out of a possible four or five hundred. Now I know that
people are off campus for meetings or they're in classroom. They've got, you know,
legitimate excuses. But I can't think that's one hundred percent.
So that I'm not certain that it's always fair to feel that they've been removed from
something. It may be that there hasn't been initiative on their part to become as involved and
take advantage of opportunities that were there that they chose, for whatever reasons, not to
take part in.
LD: I'm sure you're right. Tell me a little bit about your—I didn't realize you were also an alum.
When were you at Woman's College?
PA: I was back in the forties. And I'm really not a four-year alum. I was here when they had what
they called the commercial department.
LD: Oh really?
PA: Yeah. And that was in ’43-’44.
LD: Well, could you tell me something about that, because I have heard people mention that.
PA: That was a fantastic program, it really was. And it did a, well, it performed a great service for
not only the state, but nationally, because a lot of the gals that came to that program—this
was when there were just women on campus. A lot of those people have ended up in the
Office of the President of the United States. They've—you know, all over. A lot of them
have been here at the university and state offices all over.
It was a really neat program. It gave—it was in ’40, well, the early forties and the
war years, when it wasn't possible for a lot of us, you know, to come for four years. And it
gave us an opportunity to get away from home and sprout wings, you know, sort of, in loco
13
parentis [n the place of a parent], which they sneeze at now. But it was neat because we
weren't as sophisticated and all as the young people are today.
LD: Oh, I don't think—I don’t know about that.
PA: Well, you can say it tongue-in-cheek if you want, but nevertheless, it was a neat opportunity
for us to be exposed to the university or the college environment. And it gave us something
beyond business. We had to take, you know, a lot of other courses, too, and English and
writing and even down to health, you know, and swimming. You had to swim or flunk and
all that kind of good stuff. So we had a smattering that one year.
But the concentration, of course, was in business. And some of us had had some in
high school, some had not. But if you go back and look at some of the graduates of that
program over the years, you'd be amazed at the contributions that they have made in every
walk of life. It's been great.
LD: Did you come and live on campus then?
PA: Yes. It was a campus experience, and Hinshaw Hall was sort of the center of that group on
the quad. And—now there were town students, as well. And I couldn't tell you how many
were here at that point in time, but it was enough for that dorm. And we had our house
mother. We did all the same kinds of things. And in fact, as much as I don't like it, they've
merged us with one of the four-year groups now. I can't remember which one.
LD: Oh, for reunions?
PA: Yeah. And it implies that, you know, we were the four-year graduates, but not instead of—
this was the alumnae, I guess, in record keeping or something. It was just easier to throw us
in with the others.
But a lot of that faculty then moved on into the regular faculty when the program was
abandoned, and that was done during Dr. Singletary's tenure.
LD: Which must have been ’62?
PA: Yeah. [Dr.] Roscoe Allen, by that time, was head of the program. And Roscoe was moved
from there—actually became then the administrator at the first computer center, the
academic computer center, administrative computer center. And that is one man that I cannot
sing the praises of too highly, because if it hadn't been for him, I don't know what we would
have done, eventually, when Washington, D.C.—during the civil rights business, integration
and all of that—said that you will put your personnel information on the computer. This was
affirmative action and all of that.
And at that point in time no one on campus was interested in computing. The
business office wanted nothing to do with it, and one of the reasons was General
Administration would accept nothing done on a computer. And admissions, academic
advising, registrar, they weren’t to the point where they wanted it. So he really was ours.
And we developed—I didn't know doodly [sic] about computers, but I learned. I
could get those programs up and bless Dr. Allen's heart, we'd sit down and I'd say, “Now this
14
is what we're trying to get, and this is what we want it to do.” And we had the most fantastic
list of programs developed by the time others woke up to the gem that we had across campus
there. And by that time, though, there was some resentment of how much we'd been able to
use it, so we sort of had to take the back seat for the next few years while everybody else
caught up.
But it really helped us. I just cannot begin to tell you how much it really helped us. It
was agonizing because if you take all those faculty files and put on—I think at that point, we
had about a 135 or 150 possible units of information that we could put on. And we had to
bring people in off the street that didn't know a faculty member from, you know, to lift the
raw data—
LD: And enter it on the—
[End Side A—Begin Side B]
PA: It was wonderful to have had all of that time to build our file, because it wasn't too long
before General Administration decided to put all the personnel for the total university
[system] on. And then we had a lot more required of us.
And without those beginnings it would have been even more difficult than it was.
Because now it's evolved to where the budget books—and the Bible we called the BD-119—
that's a listing of every position on campus, whether it be administrator, faculty, or staff. The
position count, the amount of money, and then its, you know, total tells you how many
positions are available for the campus, how many are used, how many are vacant, et cetera.
And it really is the Bible. This is what General Administration quotes to you or reminds you
all the while. And it's within that document that you live. So if it's not right, you can be in
real trouble.
LD: Well, that's interesting. What kind of contact did you have with [Vice Chancellor for
Business Affairs] Henry Ferguson?
PA: Henry, personally?
LD: Well, as an administrator, his office.
PA: His office. At his office, we had to work very closely together, because while we held the
kitty, so to speak, once it came—now it all came down the line through the chancellor to the
vice chancellor for business affairs. But then academic affairs had its allocation. And then we
dispersed or assigned. And while we kept balances, it was their role to certify those.
And they were the pipeline to Chapel Hill and to Raleigh, to the state budget office.
So we had to work very, very closely because it wouldn't do for us to spend something we
didn't have. So there was daily contact with him and his staff.
But we had grown so at this point that it was pretty much a line-type operation, in
that there’s the vice chancellor to vice chancellor and then staff to staff—you know, working
under the direction of those to save their times, and then you reported back and so—but I
15
worked, you know, very well with Mr. Ferguson, thought very highly of him. And Mr.
[Wendell McCullen] Murray before him and Mr. [George M.] Joyce before him.
See, I'm an old timer. [laughs] Go way back. Relationships were very good in those
days. That's not to say it was perfect because there's a certain competitiveness. You can't help
it when everyone is working toward the same goal. But because of the function assigned that
office, they have a little different avenue for getting there. So there had to be a certain
amount of discussion and—what's the word I want?
LD: Cooperation?
PA: Cooperation was another one, but it escapes me right now. But yeah, cooperation. And there
had to be give and take with all of that. But if it hadn't been for people in the business office
and the budget office, I personally would never have survived. Because when I told you I
went to the vice chancellor's office in ’60—that's when I became full time—the secretary had
left abruptly, and when I came there was nothing there. I had no guidelines, no anything.
And of course, you couldn't haunt the vice chancellor to be constantly telling you how you
do this or who do you go for that. And if it hadn't been for key figures in those offices, the
budget office and the business office, I would have never survived, literally.
LD: I was unable to interview Charles Hounshell for health reasons. Can you tell me something
about his position?
PA: He was a vice chancellor for administration. And interestingly enough, I ran into him on
campus before coming over here.
LD: Yeah, I saw him on campus today, actually.
PA: And we're going to have lunch, hopefully, one of these days. It was a title, a vice chancellor
for administration.
LD: Under James Ferguson?
PA: James Ferguson, right. I'm trying to think of—
LD: Now this was a position that James Ferguson started? Established?
PA: He established. Yeah, he established that. I think to relieve his office a bit of just that, some
of the administrative duties. And rather than having an assistant—now he had a secretarial
staff. He had an administrative assistant, but this was one that could represent him, could do
a lot of the, carry out a lot of the functions of the chief administrative officer to relieve him
of the tremendous load that he had. Because a lot of what the chief administrative officer has
is not really not appropriate to assign to academics or to business.
It's evolved in different ways since Mr. Hounshell was there. And by the way, when I
say “Mister” versus “Doctor,” that came from Stan Jones. When he came, Miss Mossman
did not have her doctorate, but he did. But he sat me down I think about the third or fourth
day he was in the office, and he says, “As soon as you can, drop that ‘Doctor’, do”—to the
16
point that it started a rumor around campus [that] we had a VC without a doctorate, because
he insisted on the “Mister.” He just didn't like that kind—he was a very modest man, and he
didn't like that kind of attention, you know, drawn to himself.
LD: Well, you know, it's less common up north.
PA: To say—
LD: To use “Doctor.” When I was in college, we called all of our faculty members “Mister,” and
most of them had doctorates. So I think it's somewhat custom.
PA: It's custom and if—I had something happen to me once, if I can say something a little
anecdotal here, in that one of our faculty members had just gotten his doctoral degree. And I
called his home and asked for “Mister,” and his wife corrected me, “You mean Doctor.” And
I said, “Oh, yes.” Well, I was taken aback a little bit, because I was so into this “Mister” bit,
until I remembered that he was a first generation college graduate from his—he was out of
Harlan, Kentucky. The first family member that had ever gone—
LD: That's a coal mine, isn't it?
PA: Right in the heart of Appalachia. First one that had ever been to college, much less got—so I
thought, bless his heart, I'm proud of him. So he was “Doctor“ from then on. But, no, I think
that may have had a lot to do with it. Maybe in the south, you know, we didn't have as many
generations receiving doctoral—
LD: Well, also I think it's a slightly more formal culture, and titles are more—I think it just part
and parcel of the polite culture, which is not a bad thing. But it may—when we moved down
here, and people started calling Steve “Dr. Danford”—because my father’s a medical
doctor—and I just, it just sounded funny. I thought it was—but I'm used to it now.
PA: But anyway, but as I say, Mr. Hounshell was really carrying out the functions to relieve the
chief administrative officer from part of that load.
LD: Did he go to meetings and that sort of—?
PA: Oh yes. Oh yes. And he was a member of the chancellor's staff—or chancellor's cabinet that
they had. And of course, that still is made up of the vice chancellors. And of course, the
graduate office, their titles became so—I'm not even sure whether they still have it. It used to
be a vice chancellor, and then when Dr. [John W.] Kennedy, [vice chancellor for graduate
studies], left—
LD: I think it's called the dean of the graduate school. Is that what you mean?
PA: No. I think it's, I think it’s—well, I know there's an associate vice chancellor for research in
there. It's a combined title, so I better not get into that. And by the way, I'm delighted that—I
still call him dean, though, from the college—is acting as that vice chancellor, because that
17
man has done so much for this campus.
LD: Now did he succeed—?
PA: Miss Mossman brought him, he didn't succeed anyone. This was the beginning.
LD: No. When she became—when it became the University [of North Carolina at Greensboro],
she became the vice chancellor for academic affairs. Then they created the position—
PA: All right, let's back up just a little bit. It was while—okay, we're coming from developing
from WCUNC into the university. And there were all departments at that point. I'm trying to
remember if there was a school. Don't hold me onto this, because I don't remember the dates
of the creation. Like School of Education, I think, was first. But basically, they were all
departments. And every one of them were coming in, be it biology or art or whatever,
answered to the head of our office, whatever the title was at that point, still dean.
But then, as we were approaching this new era, it was decided to develop a College
of Arts and Sciences, bring all the liberal arts together. And we still had the Department of
Physical Education and some of these other departments had not evolved into schools. In
fact, some of those didn't evolve into schools until Mr. Jones came.
But any rate, the college was first. And so Mr. [Robert] Miller was recruited. Miss
Mossman recruited him to come and develop the college. And then it was after that, you
know, when Miss Mossman—and I say resigned and retired because actually she went back
to teaching—that Mr. Miller, I think, in fact, recommended Stan Jones. And then he
eventually became vice chancellor.
LD: Bob Miller came here from Chicago.
PA: From Chicago and Karl Schleunes, they all came about the same time from the same vat. I'm
not sure, I guess Mr. Jones—well, I don't know. Bob Miller, you know, brought Mr.
Schleunes then into the history department.
LD: So that was the connection?
PA: And then after that—of course, it seemed fast to us, and yet it's slow, I guess. It takes so long
for any event to come to fruition in the academic world, whether it's the appointment of
administrators or development of programs. But you know, over the years we've developed
the School of Business and Economics and, of course, home economics has now become
another title. But at any rate, you know—
LD: And the School of Phys[ical] Ed[ucation] has had two name changes since I've been here.
PA: I know. And it was Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance [HPERD] when I left,
but I understand it's—
LD: Now it's something else. HES is the, are the letters.
18
PA: Yeah. At least they've gotten—you know, and they, with HPERD they've put the S in front
of School and it made it “SHEPARD.” So you know, at this point in time when I look back,
it's amazing how much the university has grown over these last twenty-plus years. But yet
when you were working through it, it just was agonizingly slow. You know, it just seemed as
though it took forever. But the bottom line was resources, you know. And resources was
imperative—when I talk resources, I mean dollars, plain old dollars, and the positions that
went with them, to go out to do the recruiting to bring that necessary component on to
develop those programs.
LD: Do you think that UNCG and Woman's College has been hampered in its attempt to get
financial resources from the state because the alumnae are women?
PA: It may not be so much now. It was. My personal opinion was that there’s no question about
that when we were one of the three. I don't think there was any question about that. Because,
you know, State and Carolina were so entrenched, you know, and these were the men and
you've got—these are men in the legislature. These are men in there, you know. And even
though their mothers had gone and their sisters had gone and their wives had gone, they had
a, you know, the women had reached the point where they were thinking of becoming
professionals and moving out into—they were still pretty much home-oriented. And I think it
did influence it.
Now I'm not going to say that it's the same now. Unfortunately, I think we've got a
different problem now. Just plain old revenues, you know. But I think there's still a question
and a feeling of whether or not we're getting our fair share. But so many have their hand out
now, when you think of sixteen campuses. There was a point in time where I thought the
university [system], in hand with the legislature, would look toward the combining of more
campuses.
LD: Such as, for instance?
PA: Well, of course, I think the first thing you think of, well, UNC[G] and [North
Carolina]A[griculatural] & T[echnical State University] would be a natural, which I don't see
as being the natural that might look—geographically, yes. But when you see the difference
in the programs, but also—and to digress just a moment, Mr. Jones worked awfully hard at
trying to bring together that cooperation, and successful to a degree, between Vice
Chancellor [Glen F.] Rankin, who was at A&T at that point, and our office.
We did a lot of joint meetings, set up a lot of meetings. We had some weekend
retreats at the Ramada [Inn] down on West Street, West Market Street, where the deans
could sit down and let their hair down and talk about their concerns for their own campus,
their dreams for their own campuses and how that they could work together. And
cooperation was begun at that point, at least for this exchange of students—consortiums,
students taking individual course on our campus that might not be offered over there and
vice versa.
But their function was quite a bit different from ours. You know, they're more
agricultural, agriculturally-engineeringly oriented, although they do have a lot of the same
kinds of core that we do simply because you have to have it to support those other programs.
But when you came to some of the others—of course, you know, you get on thin ice
19
sometimes when you talk about the different institutions, because some are so predominantly
white and predominantly black. And a lot of us are super-sensitive to all of that because I
went through that era of developing the affirmative action plans, you know, with all of the
“quotas” they imposed on us, you know, the student goals. And of course, that also went
over into faculty recruiting, you know, trying to have more black presence in the classrooms
for the students. Rightfully so.
But again, you're talking about the pool that existed and how much you were able to
do, because you didn't have the dollars either state funded or from, that you got as an
offshoot from grants, research-oriented type things that you could at the larger, like State and
Carolina.
So there have just been interesting subplots, if you will, while you’re trying to run
your university and trying to, you know, to keep the money out there to support supplies and
material and to keep the teachers in the classroom. There were all these other subplots with
trying to bring universities together and, you know, to work out the black-white issue and et
cetera, et cetera. And that's what kept our office hopping.
LD: Well, see, that's why it was so important to interview you. [laughs] Can you think of
anything else you'd like to put on the record or remember before, before I let you go?
PA: Not really, except to say that I don't regret any of the time that I was there. It was a fantastic
twenty plus years. And it gets in your blood, you know, and it's really neat to go back and to
see what's happening, and to see the folks and how the programs are moving along and to
check to see if they’re all looking after the faculty. Because like I say, I felt our real purpose
in being was to be the faculty's friend in court, so to speak.
LD: Well, there are a lot of people on campus who miss you.
PA: Thank you. Thank you.
[End of Interview]