Oral history interview with Timothy S. Bottoms, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Timothy Bottoms
INTERVIEWER: Missy Foy
DATE: October 3, 1990
[Begin Side A]
MF: If you could start off first by just giving some general information like when you were here
in college.
TB: I was at UNCG [University of North Carolina at Greensboro] from—starting as a freshman
in 1973 and graduated in 1977 with a business administration degree—a BA in business
administration. I was a town student for two years—freshman and sophomore and lived on
campus in Guilford Dormitory my junior and senior year; in fact, room 212. I still remember
that. What else for instance?
MF: That’s a good start. Okay. If you could maybe—how would you characterize student life
while you were here? Just some basic perceptions of student life while you were here,
generally speaking.
TB: Student life was—well, I guess you could it kind of a suitcase school because, you know,
when the weekends came around everybody headed off—we went to [University of North
Carolina at] Chapel Hill or Duke [University] or to [North Carolina] State [University] or to
home. My wife [Carol Croom Bottoms, class of 1977]—when she was a student here—if she
had had a car, she would have probably gone home to Raleigh on a regular basis. As it were,
as a town student she often went over and spent time with my parents, so it was a matter of
just getting the heck off campus.
MF: Yeah. So on the weekends it was pretty much of a ghost town here.
TB: Yeah. And you could not eat in the cafeteria on Sunday night, guaranteed.
MF: Why?
TB: Well, it was ptomaine palace. It seemed to be that they took the leftovers for, you know, the
previous several years and dumped them in bins for people to eat. I used to, as a town
student, would tell Carol, I'd say, "Well, look, you know, why don't we just eat on campus.
You can take me over to the cafeteria." And she'd go, "No, no, no, no, you don't eat in the
cafeteria on Sunday evenings." And so one day I pushed her too far, and she took me over
there and I discovered that, yes, it was best to go get a pizza on Sunday evening—even if
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you'd had a pizza on Saturday night, it was better. But the food was terrible there. But the
rest of the week I guess it was just kind of your average, everyday cafeteria food.
We had a very good group in Guilford Dorm as far as dorm life was concerned.
Everybody seemed to get along fairly well. We had, of course, a few pains in the butt, but
overall they were good people and had a lot of fun—a lot of water fights and various things
like that. Campus security referred to us as the "cesspool." They had no love for us; we had
no love for them.
MF: It seems Guilford Dorm has this reputation. [laughs]
TB: Yeah. Well. But you know, a lot of it, I think, was undeserved. It was just basic schoolboy
pranks. Like, I mean, you know, like one time they there throwing water balloons when the
campus security people drove by. I mean, what kind of damage does that do? Just a few
water balloons—yet two cars pulled up, and they come out and one of them has got his night
stick out. I mean it's not like Kent State [University massacre-shooting of unarmed students
by Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970] or something, but I guess it was just kind of the
reputation of the dorm that—you know, any time they came over to us, it was like they
threatened to call out the SWAT [special weapons and tactics] team. In fact that night they
threatened to haul us all down to Greensboro courthouse and charge us with, like, disturbing
the peace and all, and put us all in jail, you know, we were all like, “This is crazy.”
MF: How was it different being a town student and then being a dorm student?
TB: I never really noticed any real difference. The town students when I was one—so many
people talk, you know, about being alienated from student life. I think it was a matter of
being involved or just knowing people. It was sort of a standard joke among a number of
people that I knew more people on campus than most dorm students did. It was just that I'd
talk to anybody. If they looked interesting, I'd strike up a conversation, so that's the way I
always worked it. In fact, a friend of mine would always say that the way she met me was
that the fool started talking to her in the elevator and she couldn't get away from me, so she
had to talk back. So—but I really think it was a matter of just getting involved, and I'm sure
that's probably the case nowadays. If town students feel alienated, I'm sure that's the main
thing. If they could just kind of get involved with the situation. I mean, it doesn't take much.
I mean, there's always a few things on campus that’ll interest you.
MF: About how large would you say the town student population was at that time? Just, I mean—
TB: You mean percentages?
MF: No, no, not percentages. Just did it seem like there was a large town student population or
was it relatively minor?
TB: Oh, it was good size, I mean, you know, I think this school’s always had a large town student
population, but I don't know what kind of numbers we would be talking about. You know,
the number of dormitories, for instance, hasn't changed—I don't believe it's changed. They
haven’t built any new dorms around here since I was here?
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MF: Not that I know of.
TB: So I would think that the dorm student population, number wise, has probably stayed fairly
stable compared to what it was when I was here. And I think when—in the ’70s, I don't
know, the school had, well—how many students do they have now? Okay. I don't know
either. But it seems like that seven or eight thousand students total.
MF: Oh, I know we have over—
TB: I know that there's over ten thousand or twelve thousand.
MF: Yeah. I think it's somewhere around twelve or thirteen thousand.
TB: Yeah. So I mean, you know, obviously the town student population has grown tremendously,
but as far as, you know, it was a good number. That's about all I can tell you.
MF: Were there any facilities for town students at that time, anything that catered to town
students? Let me give you an example. Back in the ’30s and ’40s, there was a little tiny town
student lounge or something like that. I guess the Elliott [University] Center was roughly the
same as it is now. So I guess—
TB: Yeah, the only thing that's changed really about Elliott since I went there was that they have
a computer lab where the old robot room used to be. That entire section used to be the robot
room and for town students—that's where you spent most of your time. I mean, unless you
were one of those that just loved to be in the library. And that certainly wasn't me.
We used to sit around there and play gin rummy for hours on end and smoke a ton of
cigarettes and drink gallons of coffee, and that was our social life. We had fun. The thing I
liked about our group when I was here was that—you know how most—on campus most
people are like all freshmen get together or freshmen and sophomores, and the seniors are
another group, and they’re that lordly group. And then, of course, aha, the graduate students
are king of all we both believe. Our group was freshmen to graduate students that would
hang out on a regular basis.
MF: Kind of crossed all—
TB: So it was a real unusual group because back at that time we had a lot of Vietnam veterans in
school, and so you had a lot of those guys and it gave a depth to the group, you know—the
experience that standard college—a slice of college life wouldn't have. I mean, you know,
when you have got a guy who comes in and says, "Hey, yeah, I’ve killed people." I mean,
the average college student can't claim that he's killed people.
MF: Or so we hope. [laughs]
TB: Or so we hope, yeah. But then you know— so it was an unusual group. Plus then you were
still seeing, you know, the last of the hippies and this sort of thing, so it was—you never
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knew what was going to walk through the door next. I had a buddy of mine who used to go
barefoot all the time. I mean I’d see him come in out of the snow barefoot.
MF: Was it some kind of statement?
TB: No. It wasn't a statement. He hated wearing shoes. And—well for one thing he was an ex-marine.
I don't know if that had anything to do with it. But he came in out of the snow one
day, and we had asked him, you know, "Are you out of your mind? You're not wearing
shoes." And he said, "My feet don't get cold." And he put them up on the table, and his feet
were literally hot to the touch and he had just come out of walking in the snow. So a strange
individual, strange metabolism. [laughs]
MF: I guess. [laughs] Also, to stay on the same note with being a dorm student, with the history
of having been a women's college, did there seem to be any holdovers from that in dorm
regulations or dorm life in general?
TB: Well, they had, you know, the rules and regulations, but the men's dorms just pretty much
regularly flouted them. It just—it just didn't seem to be any big deal. I mean there were
plenty of times that at two o'clock in the morning you'd have some girl walk in and go to
spend the night with her boyfriend. I mean, that was—you know. Now the women's dorms,
of course, were very strict. Carol was living in a dorm—and, let's see, she was in Mendenhall
[Residence Hall], and they were very strict. So, I guess you had your double standard even
then, you know.
MF: I don’t know. No comment. [laughs-unclear]
TB: No comment? Okay. Well, you know, I guess it depends on your dorm, but what I saw was
apparently strict. Let's put it that way. You're turning red.
MF: No, no, no. [laughs] Skeletons in the closet. Also with dorm life, with that time period, let's
see I think it was ’69 or ’70, that beer was finally allowed on campus, and so talk about a
whole new different type of dorm life with things like alcohol being around in the rooms
and, of course during that period, there were the big potheads and everything else.
TB: You mean recreational drug use?
MF: Yeah. Yeah. So how did that seem to affect dorm life? I'm trying to separate out that
obviously for that period of time what might have seemed normal for someone living in a
dorm—still, how did that play out?
TB: Pretty much under control. I mean, obviously you had the drugs in the dormitory. You had
alcohol in the dormitory. I’m remembering when my roommate and I had a collection of
liquor bottles that we'd gone through. But it wasn't as if we had drunk a prodigious amount at
a prodigious rate. Of course, I was just starting to drink in college, so I mean I was—
MF: Sort of an initiation?
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TB: Yeah. And I think by the time, by the time I was in the dorm I, you know, I was getting—I
was turning pro at drinking, so I consumed a pretty good amount, but it seemed to be under
control. There were a few people who used drugs. They were up on third floor—well, let’s
not single out the third floor—it happened on my floor too. There were times when you
could walk in the hall and the smell of marijuana would just about knock you right back
down the steps. You could walk from one end of the hall to the other and be stoned. You
didn't need to go in and smoke it. It was just what was in the hallway. That was the thing—I
never went along with it. I always used to tell people that all my vices were legal.
So, you know, I could get busted for being drunk but, I mean, at least, you know, it
wouldn't be possession of an illegal substance. I was of age to have the particular substance I
preferred. Plus, I used to do most of my drinking off campus. I had a friend of mine, and
we’d go over there and if we tended to drink too much over there, you know, he had an
apartment. He'd just say, “Hey, go in the other bedroom and sleep it off.” So, that was—
that’s the way it worked for me.
MF: I'm not sure if this was after you graduated. It may have been two or three years after you
graduated. I know that I heard there was a student in Guilford [Residence Hall] who
accidentally shot himself in the stomach.
TB: Shot himself? That was probably after my time.
MF: I know it was the late ’70s, early ’80s at the latest.
TB: I knew somebody in the dorm who had a pistol, but I mean, it was—
MF: Somebody told me his name, but I can't remember his name.
TB: This guy I knew who had the pistol, he wasn't wild with it, and I've really never been quite
sure why he decided he wanted to have it. It wasn't that he felt that he needed to be
protecting himself against anybody or that he was a wild man and liked to shoot up places.
He just had it. I don't know. I don't think that anybody when I was here—that there was
anybody that really got hurt.
MF: I think it was probably ’79 when it happened. I’m not sure. It was just one of those that I
picked up in talking to different people. Just one of those stories.
TB: Probably the worst we ever had was somebody, you know, spraining an ankle or something
jumping out of a window while they were drunk or high. I mean, that was probably about it.
MF: Well, I guess—staying in the same loop, but changing a little bit—well, the late ’60s, early
'70s around this campus and particularly on this campus going into the later ’70s, there was a
period of change—the protests coming up here and there. Of course, you had some Vietnam
veterans in your classes. How did this thing play itself out? How did you—?
TB: I don't remember any really particular protests. Oh, I'm sure there must have and they just
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don't come to mind. The school seemed pretty apathetic, I mean, about the outside world.
They were certainly more concerned with what was happening on campus or what was, you
know, what they were going to do that particular weekend.
The big thing I remember is the streaking craze that went on for a while. As far as
protest, I don't seem to remember anything. I'm sure that there were bound to have been
some stuff that happened in there, and I just do not remember. I should have looked at all my
old yearbooks before I came over here. [laughs]
MF: Yeah, to stimulate your memories. I know, even when I came to school which was not that
many years after you, there was still this reputation. If you said, “UNCG,” people would say,
“Oh, Woman’s College [of the University of North Carolina], the women’s school or
something.” Was that—did that reputation seem to linger a little bit at that time?
TB: Oh, sure, sure. I can't break my father-in-law from the habit of calling it Woman's College
even today. Carol always tells me—in fact told me when we were students here that since it
was an old women's college that the coeds were the men. It just had that image. I mean—you
know, I can remember telling people, "Yeah, I go to UNCG." And you heard all the jokes.
All the men who go to UNCG are gay, or, you know, this sort of thing. So, you know, you
just ignored it. There was no point getting upset about it. The good thing about it was that
when I came on campus in ’73, it was six women to every guy, so it was very nice as far as,
you know, there were a lot of women out there. But I guess it's like any time on campus—a
huge number of them had boyfriends at home and so on and so forth, so it was interesting.
MF: How was it to be a man on a campus with so many women, saying sitting in a class? Where
usually in high school the men had outnumbered the women, and now here you are in a
situation where, more than likely, the women are going to outnumber the men.
TB: Oh, year, that definitely a case of fact. I didn't have any problem with it. It was just a lot of
pretty women. It was okay with me. I mean, you know, if the lecture got boring, I mean,
there was hopefully some scenery within the classroom that you could concentrate on.
MF: How were your classes? What were your classes like?
TB: They were okay. I mean, you know, I did a lot of business courses, and I then got a minor in
history, which is what helped me get into this program here—now into the master’s here
without having to take some undergraduate courses. I just—the way I look back at it, when I
got out of school I hopefully discovered that most of what I'd studied, like in the business
department, had absolutely no application in the business world. I remember some stuff
from—oh, I think a little stuff from my insurance course showed up in real life, and a few
things here and there, but you know, most of it—when I got out in the real world, that's when
your education started, especially in the business world. So—
MF: So did some of the stuff seem maybe outdated, or just not relevant?
TB: It just—well, when I came out, of course, and went into the securities industry, it just didn't
appear to be relevant. Now, you know, I’m not condemning everything wholesale because,
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you know, it depends on what your field is. If you're in engineering, obviously you're going
to use a lot of what you study. But, in particular, with just a business administration degree,
which was just basically a broad overview of business—well, I guess the best thing about it
is that at least it gave you some familiarity so you weren't going in absolutely cold, so I can't
condemn it wholesale.
And of course, you know, they gave me a degree. I got the degree—I can't say they
gave me a degree. I earned my degree, so let's put it in its proper context. But, you know, it
opened doors for me that, you know, not having the degree wouldn't have opened, but I was
just kind of—I went to class, did the work, and got the grades and that was it. I mean—
MF: What about faculty? What do you remember about some of the faculty? I suppose some of
them are still here.
TB: Yeah, there are still some of the same ones here. Like in the history department, who did I
have? Well, [pause] Dr. [Karl] Schleunes was here, and I took German history under him,
and enjoyed that—very good professor. Dr. [David] MacKenzie, in Russian history—I took
his Russian history courses and enjoyed those. Let's see, what other history professors? I
guess Dr. [Allen] Trelease was here, but I never had any courses under him.
MF: What about the rest of college?
TB: From what I hear, apparently most of the business faculty has changed. Some of the names
that I've run across, they just don't look familiar. Dr., what was his name? Stuart [D. Allen] I
can't think of his last name. He was a young professor here when I was an undergraduate,
and I just read in the paper they’ve just promoted him to full professorship here, so he's
stayed on, but he's about the only one I can remember. But he was—you, know, I remember
taking his course, and he taught a business history course and it was like, “Hey, what a kid.”
So he just looked like he was our age. It was sort of like, "Wait a minute. Who did you pay
to get this title of doctor?" But I think a lot of faculty has changed since I was gone, left,
whatever.
MF: How does it—does it seem like the school has changed much from the time you were an
undergraduate here to—now you are a graduate student in the history department?
TB: I don't know because—
MF: I’m talking about the university in general.
TB: I don't particularly see any changes. Attitudes—well, I don't have any contact with that many
of the undergraduates now, so they’re kind of an alien race for the grad people. I do know
that when I left campus in ’77 that the peace sign was around, the tie-dyed tee shirts and
miniskirts, and I walk back on campus in ’89 and it's all back again. I thought I'd—you
know, time warped back to the ’70s. What goes around comes around or whatever the
expression is.
MF: Yeah, let me hit on a couple of points, a couple of things here I want to make sure I don’t
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forget. There was a service society.
TB: APO [Alpha Phi Omega].
MF: APO, yeah. I couldn’t remember. What do you remember about APO? They brought the
rock.
TB: Is that who did it? I didn't know that. I never got the impression that they did much. They
just seemed to be a group that all wore APO tee shirts and hung out together in the robot
room, and we made fun of them. Well, I mean, it's not that they were like nerds or anything
like that. It was just that they took themselves far too serious, and we just couldn't have that.
Oh, no. They had this pomposity that needed to be deflated, so we were self appointed in our
rounds to do that. But I guess they did some stuff. I just don't particularly remember them
doing anything of note.
MF: Nothing of importance?
TB: I just remember them wearing their blue and yellow tee shirts all the time. And that's about
it.
MF: What about the Neo-Black Society? Do you remember the NBS?
TB: They kept to themselves. I mean, they really—
MF: What was the impression among white students of the Neo-Black Society?
TB: The general impression was that they were getting support from the university that a lot of
the white students weren't seeing. Well, for instance, like the town students. Because—you
know, the thing is— in the robot room you were right there at the Neo-Black Society, and
you know, we saw them have their own room and all this sort of stuff and—it was like,
“Gee, they're getting all this stuff from the university, and there never seems to be anything
done for the town students.” I had heard—I don't know how much truth there is to it—I'd
heard at that time that there was a white guy who tried to join the Neo-Black Society and
that he didn't get in. So, you know, there was this air of reverse discrimination.
You know, I think that everybody was—I’ll use the term progressive, fairly
progressive, on campus at the time. Of course, there's always extremes on either end, but I
think the average people had no problem with blacks. But, you know, you saw that and you
kind of, it’s like, "Wait a minute," you know. Yes, you have to take history into
consideration, but you cannot correct several hundred years of injustice by doing a reverse
discrimination number on white people. We just didn’t see that as being fair, but then again
we didn’t lose a lot of sleep over it because we figured there was nothing we could do about
it.
MF: Wasn’t it at that same time also that student government refused to fund the Neo-Black
Society? I think it was in 1976. I may be wrong on that because they said they weren’t an
open society. It was the same time this white fellow tried to join.
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TB: Well, in that case I don't remember any of that, but, you know, I guess if I knew about it then
I'm sure that I went, “Yeah, because if they're going to be that way, they shouldn’t get
funding.” But I can't remember that in particular.
MF: How did race relations in general seem, you know, considering that the Neo-Black Society is
sort of a mini-separatist movement?
TB: We didn't have any problem. Of course, you know, the black community wasn't large on
campus. I don't think it's large today, really. I'm sure it's larger than it was. But we never had
any problems. We had a number of blacks in the dorms. We all got along very well. The
only person that I ever had any trouble with in the dorm was—it was in my senior year—he
was white, but he was just a redneck jerk. I mean he kicked my door in and pulled the lock
out of the door frame. And as far as I ever found out, the school never made him pay for it or
anything. I mean the guy just—that's the only real trouble I ever had. I knew a number of
Black people and never had any problems. We were all one big happy family. It was us
against the security people, so we were happy. [laughs]
MF: What about international students?
TB: Well, you know, over in I[nternational] House we had a few—we had at least one who was
from Pakistan, and he was just a great fellow. Mahmud, and he answered to Mahmud muddy
water, and he was a great guy. He really was. It was funny—the things that would happen. I
think he was in class one time, and his—the instructor was talking about alcohol abuse, and
asked Mahmud if they had any problem with alcohol in Pakistan. And he just kind of looked
at the guy, and said, "No, because, you know, it was a Muslim country. We don't have
alcohol, but we do have a very serious drug problem." [laughs] So, yeah, he was a great guy.
He really was. He got along famously with everyone.
I just don't remember any particular disputes around the dorm, among people, you
know. There were little minor things that we'd get ticked off about something, but as far as
people hating each other, I don't remember any problems on campus in general. Everybody
kind of seemed to get along okay. Maybe it was that they just kept to their own little world
and ignored everybody else. Well, you know how it is. I mean, you know, here you are in
your nice safe little womb called campus, and you don't have to deal with the rest of the
world.
MF: Do you remember anything really about student government or any of the organizations for
students? I guess they had campus rec[reation] organizations and intramural sports and stuff
as well.
TB: Yeah, but it just didn't really make much of a—I've never been a—for instance, with sports,
I've never been a sports fan so I mean, I really never kept up with any of that. Campus
organizations? I don't remember particularly any number of organizations. Let's see, you
had, well, you had APO, and then you had a woman's counterpart of the service
organization, but those two stuck together all of the time. When you saw one, you saw the
other. Student government we kind of viewed as a joke. I had a friend of mine who wound
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up being in student government, and he would come back and say hours upon hours of
nothing. He says, "Why am I going up there and wasting my time?" So, we just didn't have a
particularly good impression of student government.
MF: Yeah. What about of the administration in general?
TB: The administration was tolerant. I mean, I guess they realized that, well you know, with my
time period we weren't seeing all the troubles from the late ’60s or early ’70s, but, you know,
I guess a lot of kids were kind of, you know, would like to assume that air of rebelliousness.
And the administration pretty much took the position that unless you really caused some
serious problems, you know, they just kind of looked the other way and kind of let us work it
out of our systems. They were remarkably lenient.
I don't ever remember anybody really—like the guy who kicked down my door. Like
I said, I don't think he ever paid for it. I know a guy who burned the painting that was over
the fireplace in the lounge in Guilford Dorm. He came in one night and looked at it, and it
was a student—it was a painting of a student studying, and so he took offense to this idea
that someone should study on campus. There was a fire going in the fireplace; he took it
down and burned it. The administration basically called him in and said, you know, "You
can either pay for it or replace it with something suitable." We had some guys in the dorm
who had a large oil portrait of [General] Robert E. Lee that we hung up, and the
administration didn't seem to have any problem with that. Becourse the Yankee students
were demanding equal time over a portrait of [President and General Ulysses S.] Grant. But
every time an argument started along those lines, the New Yorkers would start fighting the
people from New Jersey, so we never had anything to come of it. So I guess we were one of
the few places on campus that had a Confederate war hero's portrait hanging up in our
dormitory for all to see.
MF: Over the fireplace?
TB: Over the fireplace. Avenerated spot.
MF: I don't want to miss anything, so I just want to ask you if there's anything else that really sort
of typifies the university experience for you her or for other students in general that you
observed.
TB: Well, for me, I just enjoyed it. It was—fortunately, I didn't have to work too hard at it. I
didn't have the best grades in the world, but it’s my understanding that I got out of here with
above average grades—overall grades. It was just a nice place to be. People were nice. The
professors were—for the most part, seemed competent and understanding. I don't ever
remember having any particularly hard-nosed professors that weren't willing to work with
people.
Administration was okay. Yum Yums was still in their old building. I mean, that was
a trip down memory lane right there. It was just—it was a nice place to be, you know, that
you had a little insulated place to be, plus you were in the middle of Greensboro so you had a
lot of facilities were available either on campus or directly off campus. So, I enjoyed it. I had
a good time. My father will tell you that I should have worked harder and gotten higher
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grades, but that's in the past. [laughs] I agree with him now, and that seems to make him
happy. "Yes Dad, you're right."
MF: Well, some of the things that are going on now at UNCG—we seem to be in a real building
phase and the planned move to Division I in athletics.
TB: You're coming up on a sore spot. [laughs]
MF: Well, that's another thing I was going to ask you about—Divisional I athletics.
TB: I think it's ludicrous. I mean, like I say, I've never been much of a sports fan so I don't keep
up with it, but it just seems to me that if you want to be a sports school or if you want to
attend a sports school, then go to Carolina; go to State; go about anywhere. UNCG was
always an academic school, and that was what I always—that was my point of pride was that
it was a school where people came for academics. You weren't here because they had a good
football team or a good basketball team. You know, if you wanted that sort of thing you were
close enough that you could avail yourself of it by driving to Chapel Hill or to Raleigh or
Durham or wherever.
But I just think that this is ludicrous. There ought to be one school in the university
system that is known for academics only. Why do we have to, you know—there are so many
things on campus that need to be done, I can't imagine channeling the funds to academics
[sic] that can be used elsewhere. As a graduate student, and I’ll plug that, we need to keep
our library open full time so that we can go and make use of—well, that's the whole reason
for being in school is to study—not to have a ball team.
MF: And currently the library hours are somewhat diminished?
TB: Well, what is it? Well, not somewhat, very much diminished. I understand the funds get
earmarked for certain things, but I really do think that the administration ought to do a better
job of— If they’re out soliciting these funds—that they ought to give themselves more
flexibility.
The idea of—I don't know how much it's costing us to build that silly student
fountain or, you know, whatever it is over in front of the dining hall, but it's just out of its—
it's crazy. I mean, who—great. Everybody can go sit around a fountain. Oh, boy! Can we
even afford to keep the water running in it? That’ll be the next question. I mean, if we cut
back on the library, let's cut down on the water and don’t run the fountain.
I'm not sure about this student activities building either, but that's money that
obviously came out of, you know, building funds or whatever. You know, I know about that.
I helped sell the bonds that paid for expansion of the dining hall. I don't have any
problems—you know, if they're willing to put them out there and let the investor put up the
money, fine. But otherwise, money that comes in—seems to me that it ought to be going to
support the primary reason for having the university and that is teaching and research.
Anything else is extraneous. Does that give you an idea the way I feel about it?
MF: Yes. Yes. Now some of the people who support this new Division I athletics— they claim
that in order to move into larger university status that you almost need to have this move.
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What do you think about that?
TB: I don't know. We’re seeing so many abuses, you know, within the athletic systems—what
kind of reputation does that give you if you move to that sort of status and you wind up
having those abuses, how is your school thought of then? Great—we've got all these guys
out playing football or basketball, they can't spell cat. That's something to be real proud of. It
makes my heart, you know, just swell with pride, but I just can't imagine the necessity for it.
I mean, you know, some people are going to say that—if they want to say that I'm
anti-growth or whatever, fine. I just think that it's not the purpose of the university. If you are
going to have sports—sports are fine, great, fine. But it's a case of are you in it because you
want your students to have an outlet and a way of building school spirit and as a unifying
factor on campus, or do you do it so that you can bring in millions of dollars from the
alumni. Now it's nice if you've got the millions of dollars coming in from the alumni, but I
think, once again, you've made a wrong turn when the reason the alumni give is because of
your ball team rather than the quality of your academics.
Granted people don’t get excited about somebody making a discovery in like—what
was it? Last summer, summer before, about the guy whose discoveries in Crete—a professor
here—people don't get excited about that, but it gives you an idea of what is possible with
the staff that you've got. You ought to fully utilize it. It just seems to me that channeling
anything away from that is a grave mistake.
MF: Again, on current topics, I’d like to give you the chance to ask—if there’s anything I forgot
to ask you about? I don’t want to miss anything.
TB: I can't think of anything right off-hand. I'm enjoying being back on campus. It's fun. Maybe
I've got a view that's a little bit more—that with being older and having gained, hopefully
gained, some maturity that I look at it and see it more as a joke or as just being humorous
compared to something that would just get me all bent out of shape back when I was an
undergraduate or even a few years later. But it's quite an opportunity to be able to come back
and look at what's going on and just kind of laugh about it and say, "Gee, you know," and I
kinda [sic] think—hopefully I wasn't like that. And then you realize that yes, you probably
were or probably worse. So, it's funny. It's funny.
Everybody on campus is just been— the students have been nice, although I kind of
resent being called “Sir” all the time, but the faculty has just been tremendous. Everybody’s
been real supportive. No one has really—they’ve been encouraging in getting an education,
and I think that's been a real good sign. And not—I haven't seen any instances of anybody
actually putting roadblocks in anybody's way. You know you are expected to do the work,
but they—you know, they take mitigating circumstances into consideration and just have
been easy to work with.
I think the main thing for me that I probably didn't see as an undergraduate is I'm
willing to communicate with the professors more, and I think by keeping the communication
open it makes it easier for me—and probably, well, for one thing, I'm not scared of them. I
mean as an undergraduate, I'm sure I was afraid of them, but now my view is that what are
you going to do to me? The worst you can do is throw me out, and, you know, that's one
little chapter of my entire life, so I'm not going to get too upset about any of it. But it's been
good here. I've been enjoying it, enjoying it a lot. Anything else?
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MF: Do you have any other names of students who were here at about the same time as you that
you think would be interesting to interview?
TB: Well, my wife Carol was here. Carol—her maiden name was Croom. She got her degree in
nutrition out of the home ec department—School of Home Economics, I should say.
David Cates—he is now living in High Point. He got his degree in history; got out in
’77. Let’s see—who else?
Keith Hodges. He lives in Asheville. He got an econ[omics] degree, business
degree—something or other. He was my roommate. He and David and I grew up together, so
were all on campus together.
Let's see. Who else? My sister-in-law, Anna Bottoms; her maiden name was Ferrell.
She was Carol's roommate at one time. And she and my brother met at Carol and mine's
wedding. And when we got back from our honeymoon, they were the hot item and got
married so that was interesting.
Let’s see, who else? There were probably others; no names come to mind right now.
MF: All right, well. What year did she graduate?
TB: All of were class of ’77.
MF: Okay, thank you for participating.
[End of Interview]