Oral history interview with Robert G. Eason, 1996 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Robert G. Eason
INTERVIEWER: William Link
DATE: March 13, 1996
[Begin Tape 1, Side A]
WL: Last time we talked, we talked about—mostly about the psychology department and the
development of the department under your leadership over the past decades. What I’d
like to do today is to talk a little bit more generally about the university and the College
of Arts and Sciences—
RE: Okay.
WL: —and to focus on your observations that you have regarding extra departmental
activities over the past twenty or thirty years.
RE: Okay.
WL: Maybe we can start with some general observations. You just mentioned to me when the
machine was off that you’re working on a vision statement for the university. What
would you say have been the—what’s been the history of the development of UNCG’s
[The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] role and its mission from your point of
view over the last twenty or thirty years?
RE: Well, as I recall that I mentioned in our previous conversation, when I came here, UNCG
had just recently become a branch of the The University of North Carolina as a full-fledged
branch, having become coeducational in 1963. I came in 1967, and, at that time
the mission was to, as I understood it, was to develop into a comprehensive university to
offer programs at all levels, as was the case and is the case for both [The University of
North Carolina at] Chapel Hill and North Carolina State [University].
So at that time it was my impression that the mission was to develop into a major
comprehensive university serving a function similar to that of Chapel Hill and North
Carolina State. And I think the university was very much moving in that direction when I
got here.
And as I mentioned the last time, due to the legislative changes that took place
with all of the branches of the higher educational system becoming part of the university
system, I think UNCG’s role changed almost immediately, although none of us were very
much aware, I think at that time, to what extent that the impact of that reorganization was
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going to have. And the effect of it didn’t take place immediately, but over a period of
years it did.
So I mentioned that there was a freeze on the development of doctoral programs
shortly after that. And, as I mentioned last time, this was a very narrow window of time
for getting some new PhD programs under way. And after that occurred, I think this
university still had as its mission to become a comprehensive university branch of The
University of North Carolina. And during [Chancellor James] Ferguson’s administrative
period, we made progress, I believe, in that direction.
But it was becoming evident, at least to me, that by the time that Ferguson
stepped down as chancellor, that UNCG’s role was indeed changing. And that while it
was not clear what our role was going to be—to me—we were not moving strongly in the
direction of being a comprehensive branch of The University of North Carolina as was
originally conceived when I first got here.
WL: Do you think people were aware of that by 1979?
RE: I think they were beginning to become aware of it, and I think when [Chancellor
William] Moran arrived on the scene there was a lot of concern and uncertainty as to
what UNCG was going to be even at that time. And you know, there were a lot of people
still here who had been associated with this place as the women’s branch of the
university. There was still a lot of sentiment, I think, even at the time that Ferguson
stepped down, for us to try to regain some of that heritage and function of the Woman’s
College [of the University of North Carolina] days.
And I believe when Moran came he stepped into a situation where there was a lot
of uncertainty here as to what we were and where we were going to go. Interestingly, I
think that during the time that Moran served as chancellor, the same feelings seemed to
me to be about as strong in terms of what we are and where we’re going at the end of his
tenure as chancellor as they were at the time he began. So I think we have had a lack of a
sense of direction from the late 1970s.
WL: You’ve dated the beginning really acutely then, when the restructuring—the implications
of the system restructuring—began to catch up with you.
RE: To really catch up, which was toward the end of the 1970s. Right about the time Moran
came was when it was really quite, I think, evident to a lot of us.
WL: Institutions hire leaders usually with some kind of mission in mind—I mean with some
kind of purpose. Was Bill Moran’s purpose associated with finding an identity? What
was—what kinds of things did people have in mind when he was hired, do you think?
RE: It was not at all clear to me as a faculty member what people had in mind. And it’s my
impression that the way—the procedure that was employed in selecting Moran and
maybe conducting the search in general—didn’t involve the faculty in a very active kind
of way. Certainly that was my impression. No one ever contacted me about—of course,
there were opportunities for us to get some information about the candidates.
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But I don’t think the university community was well informed at all about
whatever the purpose was for bringing a person like Moran to the campus. That was not
at all clear. And I don’t think I’m the only one who had that impression. I think it was a
general impression.
WL: You felt like you were in the dark, the faculty felt as if they were in the dark.
RE: I think so. And Moran never, in my opinion, laid out what he felt was the mission of the
university and what he saw as his charge, primary charge. I think it became fairly clear
after a while that his priorities were oriented toward improving the physical facilities on
campus and in developing the stature of athletics on the campus. I think from the very
beginning his attention was directed toward, into those two areas.
And as far as planning is concerned, I remember being on the physical planning
committee up until the time that Moran got here. And I can’t recall whether I was for a
year or two after that or not. But the—all of the focus, any kind of formal planning that I
was aware of tended to be more on physical planning than on academic planning.
WL: During the Moran years
RE: Yeah, during the Moran years.
WL: Well, let’s back up a little bit and talk about—I was going to ask you about planning, the
planning process that you were involved with. And I know that you were on the campus
long-range planning committee 1974-’75 and another version of that committee ’83-’85,
a ten year difference. Tell me a little about how planning worked in this first period, ’74-
’75. What—how much planning was going on on campus, how the vice chancellor for
planning—I think he worked with your committee, is that right?
RE: Yeah, the committee, that’s a bit misleading. That long-range planning committee was a
physical planning committee. It was concerned with the physical plan.
WL: It was?
RE: Yeah, and the chair of that committee was Henry Ferguson, who was the vice chancellor
of business affairs at that time.—so it was an administratively driven committee that
reported to the administration.
WL: I see. It had to do with buildings and facilities?
RE: It had to do with buildings and physical campus improvements, long range. That was the
first long-range plan to be developed for physical planning. As soon as Moran got here,
he apparently scrapped that plan altogether, just threw it out the window, totally ignored
it. And we had another, you know, long-range plan drawn up with a consultant coming in
after Moran got here. And I think that is the second committee I was on. I recall that I
was on that committee.
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WL: And that one is more or less, that was in sync with the kinds of things that he wanted to
see?
RE: I do think it was desirable that that second planning process be undertaken because I do
believe that resulted in a better plan than the initial one.
WL: What was the initial one like? What—do you remember many features of it or—?
RE: Well, no, I don’t.
WL: Was it objectionable to Moran?
RE: I have no idea. As far as I know, he just chose not to consider that plan, but I don’t know
why. That particular plan, I think in terms of some of the types of development that were
to take place, were not all that different from the one that Moran’s group developed. It’s
just that his was more extensive and I think sort of an extension—not all that different,
but a more comprehensive and extensive plan.
WL: One of the things I heard when I first got here in the early eighties was that Chancellor
Ferguson was a faculty person, very oriented toward faculty,—hiring a first rate faculty.
RE: Yes indeed.
WL: But that one of the trade-offs of that—that there had been a certain amount of
deterioration of, or lack of attention to, facilities. Is that correct, do you think?
RE: Oh absolutely. It was correct. I think Jim Ferguson was very much aware of that and
wanted to do something about it. But he did indeed put the academic programs first, and
so that the campus got shabby and buildings were deteriorating, you know. I don’t know
that that’s changed all that much, really, in terms of the care and upkeep of buildings as
they seem to me to still have some of the same problems now as they did then. There are
just more of them. Certainly there are new buildings that have been completed since
Moran came, as you know.
WL: It’s easier to build buildings than it is to maintain them.
RE: Yeah. As a matter of fact, that seems to be just a continuing deficiency—that buildings
are built and then there are not adequate funds to maintain them. That’s true of the
building that I’m in [Eberhart Building], which was completed in 1977, the psychology
wing of it. But I kind of lost my train of thought.
WL: We were talking about facilities versus academic programs.
RE: Yeah, yeah. I think that—you know, I’m not a critic of Ferguson with regard to that. I
think he was putting the priorities where they should be with regard to what was most
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important in terms of the university’s mission. I guess I might have made a comment or
two about this last time.
I think Ferguson might have went too far in the direction of putting the resources
into the faculty and academic programs and not enough into the resources needed to
administer the university effectively. The ratio of administrators to faculty then was
certainly very, very different from what it is now. In fact, the administrators relative to
the faculty have increased by many fold.
WL: Well, there seems to be—one of the big changes of the Moran years was the big
expansion of university administration, university-wide administration. And if you go
back to the Ferguson—Jim Ferguson period—it was very bare bones, was it not?
RE: Very much so. Mereb Mossman who was the—who became the vice chancellor [for
academic affairs] rose from the position of dean to vice chancellor—had a secretary,
Paula Osborne [sic] [Andris], and she had no assistant vice chancellor, although it may be
before she stepped down from that position—I can’t recall, but I don’t believe it was until
after—who replaced her?
WL: [Stanley] Jones?
WL: Yeah, yeah—that the vice chancellor offices were established. And [Robert] Miller [dean
of the College of Arts and Sciences] had no assistant dean during that period. So there
wasn’t enough administrative help, there’s no question about that.
WL: You think he didn’t go far enough in terms of having adequate administrative staff?
RE: He probably did not. I don’t know what would’ve been the consequences for that in
term— of if he would’ve had to take faculty positions and put them into those kinds of
activities. I don’t think that the faculty would have particularly liked that, but no one ever
expected that he would do that. Of course, he didn’t.
I think there’s a lot of concern now about whether or not faculty positions—
faculty lines—are being used to support administrative-type activities. That’s an
impression I pick up. And some concern that while the, you know, the student enrollment
has increased over a period of time, that faculty positions, actual faculty positions, have
remained flat. But in hearing [Provost Edward] Uprichard talk about such things, the
number of faculty positions have not remained flat. They are formulated, I think, in
accordance with student enrollment.
But I think an increasing number of those positions are probably being held in a
category where the provost has some flexibility with regard to how those positions are
used in the event money has to be turned back and things of that nature. Whether any of
that money goes into the payment of administrative salaries, I don’t really know,
although I hear rumors that it is—that faculty lines are taken up to pay people who are
basically performing administrative duties.
WL: Well, and the lack of any other resources, it’s the way those resources come. It wouldn’t
surprise me at all. I’d be surprised if it weren’t that way.
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RE: No, it would not me either.
WL: I gather there wasn’t really a formal planning process at all in the 1970s that Jim
Ferguson was involved in or that engaged the faculty or tried to get at this question of
mission for the university, the role of the university.
RE: I don’t believe there was. I know I recall that we went through one of those, you know,
the self-study things for accreditation during that period. And also I do know that General
Administration [of the University of North Carolina System] required all of the campuses
to do some kind of a self study, I think for maybe five years, whatever. But nothing as
extensive certainly as is going on now with regard to really trying to develop a vision and
a direction for UNCG that would affect allocation of resources and what this campus
devotes major energies to for the next decade or so. Certainly that kind of planning didn’t
go on. In fact, I hadn’t seen any kind of planning going on of the type that’s going on
now in the years that I’ve been here.
WL: In the seventies or eighties—sixties, seventies, or eights?
RE: Right, that’s right.
WL: Then we had a vice chancellor for planning, I suppose, from the early seventies on?
RE: Yeah, we did. And I think nobody had a very good idea of what that person’s job actually
was. He sat in an office next to Moran and he seemed to have the responsibility for
assigning space to people in temporary buildings, that kind of thing, and I think took on
the job of developing the computer facilities on campus. And I believe Jim Clotfelter
[vice chancellor for information technology services] still has those kinds of
responsibilities.
But except for those kinds of things that the faculty were aware of, nobody had
any idea what a person did in that position. And I think the faculty still don’t have a clear
idea what it is that Jim Clotfelter does probably—what is the nature of that position. In
my current role as chair of this committee that I mentioned to you, and being on
university planning council, I’m getting a better idea—an idea, really—for the first time
what it is that Jim does. But I still don’t know fully what that position entails.
He is very much involved—he, as a matter of fact, is the administrative person
that the chancellor has turned over the responsibility to for the—for this planning process
evolving. And he calls the meetings of the university planning council and feeds
information and advice to us of all kinds at all levels. So he certainly has a—he’s in a
location where he has resources that he can provide that relates to planning.
And he seems to be personally very knowledgeable of what’s going on on other
campuses and what are the kinds of things that universities are concerned about in long-range
planning. So I’m getting to know that about him and that he’s certainly a valuable
resource person with regard to planning.
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WL: Let’s go back to the early 1970s when Mereb Mossman’s replacement was chosen—
Stanley Jones?
RE: Yeah.
WL: Did you have much contact with him?
RE: Yeah, I knew Stan well. I was not on the committee that—I don’t think, on the search
committee. But I knew, I had a very good close working relationship with [Robert L.]
Bob Miller [dean of the College of Arts & Sciences] at that time, and I got to know Stan
early on, even before he had accepted a job here, because of some contacts with Bob
Miller and Stan.
WL: They knew each other from—were they both from Chicago?
RE: Yes, they were. They were both from Chicago. And they were close friends before Stan
got here and still are. And I expect Bob more than anyone else was instrumental in, first
of all, getting the Mossman and Ferguson administration here, especially since it ties to
him. And then I just think Bob had a pretty important role in Stan’s coming here—in
applying for a position here in the first place.
WL: What kind of changes did Stan Jones bring when he became vice chancellor as opposed
to Mereb Mossman, his predecessor?
RE: Well, his style was just absolutely as diametrically opposed, I suppose, as it could be. He
developed—first of all, very early on, he added some assistant vice chancellor positions,
and my wife [Jean Eason] was one of them along with Herb Wells [psychology faculty].
So those were his first two assistant vice chancellors, I believe their titles were at the
time.
And so he got some people to help him that could provide—get information and
provide advice to him. But he also sought advice and moved much, much more slowly, it
seemed to me, than Mossman. Of course, I suppose he also had more to learn about a new
institution. But Stan always struck me as a very low key administrator. Mossman was not
low key. She was very, a very skilled administrator but she wanted to get things done,
and in her nice quiet manner she kept things really moving.
WL: She was sort of an activist?
RE: Yes, she was.
WL: Stan was a bit more hands off, laid back a little bit.
RE: That was my impression—moved more slowly, wanted to consider every angle before he
made decisions. All those things are good. I think Stan, on the whole, did a good job as
vice chancellor. And he let the deans and the department heads pretty much—certainly he
made the final decision about faculty and so on. But he certainly never overrode
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anyone— any recommendations that came up through our department. And I think
maybe on very—what he considered appropriate occasion—did that, but not very often.
He let people help him, it seemed to me.
WL: Was he accessible?
RE: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think that most of the deans liked Stan, liked working with him. I
know [Eloise] Pattie Lewis [dean of School of Nursing] did. Pattie thinks he’s wonderful,
and, of course, Bob Miller. So most of the deans, I think, felt that Stan was an effective
vice chancellor.
WL: And Bob had this old relationship with him so he felt—and that continued to be, he
continued to have a fruitful relationship with him all through the years?
RE: Oh yes. Yeah, they were friends, you know, throughout Stan’s tenure here and still are
close friends. You know, Stan is back in Chicago now. His wife died some months ago,
and Stan—I mean Bob—still keeps in close contact with him.
WL: How did Stan and Jim Ferguson work together?
RE: They worked together very well, which I would say was just the opposite of the way he
and Moran worked together. I think, well, you know, with Jean [Eason] in her position I
picked up some cues now and then that the working relationship between Stan and Moran
was not that good. Stan wanted—I think Stan felt that he was not being given the
flexibility and independence he needed to develop the academic side of the university—
the way it should be done without Moran, you know, maintaining too much control over
it.
WL: He seemed to periodically—is my impression—that Moran would periodically weigh in
to various areas of the university. And it’s been my experience in serving other
universities, if they have a provost, it’s best to give them a lot of breathing room and—
RE: Yes. I think Stan felt that he did not have that breathing room. And I don’t know if it was
his idea or Moran’s that he step down when he did. I think he—didn’t he have a couple of
years that he could have served in that position before he stepped down? I’m not sure.
WL: Of course, he left immediately, didn’t he?
RE: Yes, yes he did.
WL: Didn’t stay, I suppose. I think he could have stayed in the history department since he had
an appointment in history.
RE: Yeah, but he went back to Chicago.
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WL: Right. Let’s talk a little bit more about Bob Miller and the College of Arts and Sciences.
That was a new entity, wasn’t it?
RE: Yes it was. Bob was being—that position was being filled or a search was being
conducted the—as I recall, the first year I got here in 1967. I think Bob came in ’68, if I
remember correctly. So the search was going on, started shortly after I got here during the
course of that first year. And I remember meeting Bob and was impressed with him. And
certainly of the candidates that came here to be interviewed for that position, I felt that he
was the strongest person by far for the job.
WL: He was brought specifically to create this entity?
RE: That’s right.
WL: It was not in existence before he got here?
RE: No, it was not in existence. The—when I came there were the professional schools, but
the one in business didn’t exist. There were professional schools and then the various
departments, and the department heads and the professional school deans constituted the
administrative council of the university. And [Mereb] Mossman [dean of the faculty, vice
chancellor for academic affairs] periodically held meetings with all of these people
present and all treated on the same level. So prior to the existence of a college of arts and
sciences, the department heads and deans—she used that only one phrase—were all on
the same level and reported to her.
WL: These would be the arts and sciences department heads?
RE: That’s right.
WL: They weren’t in the School, they were department heads, co-equals with the deans?
RE: That’s right. And the department of economics at that time was one of those departments.
WL: Was there a perception that this didn’t work all that well and needed to be changed?
RE: No, although I think everybody realized that if we really were going to grow we had to
have a college of arts and sciences with a dean. So that was readily accepted as
something that had to happen, although I don’t think anybody was particularly unhappy
with the way it was being administered at that time. But there was no concern or
resistance that I recall to—everyone thought the establishment of a college was a
desirable thing to do.
WL: Was seen as something that was going on across the country and—or had been?
RE: Yeah, yeah.
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WL: This was just bringing UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] up to
date.
RE: That’s right. A few department heads who had been around here for some time didn’t
hesitate to express to the newer members of us that it was going to demote us in terms of
our power, which it did. I mean, that was an obvious consequence.
WL: You didn’t have direct access to the—
RE: To the provost or vice chancellor, if you want to say that.
WL: How did the first couple of years of the new College work? How did they work out, what
sorts of things did Bob Miller have to be concerned with and worry about creating this
new entity?
RE: Well, I think he must have been concerned about, you know, what kind of organization
he needed to try to run a college, because he developed a—he had immediately put into
effect, as I recall—an administrative council, which, of course, is the department heads,
and a faculty council, which was an advisory group directly to him who he, you know,
assigned study jobs to, that reported directly to him as a co-equal council to the
administrative council.
So I suppose he came here with that kind of an organizational plan in mind
because he instituted that right away. I think he, I don’t know how general this was, but I
think he got very well acquainted with my department and what the needs were. [It]
wasn’t a very big department at that time, but he was very sensitive to what the needs of
my department was and did everything that he could, I think physically possible, to help
us meet our needs and advance toward our goals of offering, developing a nationally-recognized
PhD program.
Bob was extremely supportive. I assume he was for history as well—or for
English. History’s [PhD program] didn’t develop for reasons I’ve already indicated, I
think, due to the narrow window closing. But I thought Bob did a good job, and I had a
very good working relationship with him from the very beginning.
And I thought that he was, really handled us all—handled all of us in a fair and
equal manner. I think there are some out there who may not think so, but my impression
was he did and he was really excellent in running the administrative council meetings, I
thought. And [he] shared information with us, invited discussion, wanted everybody to
provide input. I thought he was a very good administrator.
WL: How did those meetings go, how did those meetings proceed given the fact that you had,
especially in those early years, you had a whole bunch of department heads that had been
department heads for a while. I imagine [they] had been used to being independent
entities. Did, must have had an interesting mix of personalities.
RE: Well, it was an interesting mix. [Dr. Richard] Dick Bardolph [history professor] was one
of the older members of the group and, of course, Dick never hesitated for an instant to
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express exactly how he felt about things. But I don’t remember any meetings in which
anybody, I felt, was really quite out of line or behaving in an uncivil manner.
I do recall that there were some people there who could defend their positions and
make their case for what they thought was in the best interest of the university very well,
Dick being one of them. Some of the smaller departments had department heads who I
think were not very outspoken and not very effective at that time. I recall the geography
department was one of those. They—that person was replaced later with a stronger head,
as were a number of the other departments. But it was a very mixed group, some very
outspoken and very enthusiastic about how they wanted to move ahead with developing
their particular academic units, seeing the university grow.
I’d mentioned last time that Mereb had brought in young people into the science
departments. Those were all, I think, very effective—were very effective at that time.
Peter [Walter] Puterbaugh in chemistry, Bruce Eberhart in biology, who I had great
respect for, was a good friend of mine. Bob Clark, who had the department of physics,
was trying to build that department, not toward a doctoral degree but strengthen both the
undergraduate and master’s levels. And then I remember, can’t think of his name now,
but the guy in the theatre and communication, he was an excellent department head. Do
you happen to know who I’m trying to think of?
WL: Jellicorse? John Jellicorse?
RE: No, prior to Jellicorse [Herman Middleton was department head prior to Jellicorse]. But,
there were some good people here at that time. Mossman had hired some people who I
thought were very effective in their department head positions. And Bob Miller came in
and worked with that group very, very effectively.
WL: We had strong leaders there at that level.
RE: Yeah, at that level, with two or three exceptions.
WL: Right. Was the actual administration of the department, the running of the department,
did that change dramatically with the College structure? Or was—you now reported to a
dean but aside from that, was it a similar enterprise in terms of running a department?
RE: Yes, it was, at that particular time. And I don’t remember exactly when it changed—it
was really more than ten years I think, after I was here that we went from an unlimited
headship tenure-type thing, where you could just stay in there forever as long as your
faculty didn’t try to kick you out and the administration thought you were doing an
effective job. That was changed, I guess, before you got here, but I think not until well
into the latter part of the 1970s that we went to a kind of a, you know, a limited number
of years for headship.
But up until that time, the departments were managed by a head who had, who—
was totally responsible for what happened to that department. He could run it as a
democratic department, and I think the most effective heads did. They worked with their
faculty to make decisions with regard to what the department was doing, where it was
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going. But the department head had veto power and total authority over what that
department would do as far as the administration was concerned.
And I recall that Miller relied on the department heads to keep him informed of
what the departments’ needs were. And he did not—maybe he did in some problem
cases—but he didn’t go around the department heads and talk to the faculty, but—
without the faculty being present.
He would come occasionally to a faculty meeting in our department. But he—if
some faculty member came to him to complain, I know that he would say, “Go back and
see if you can work it out with Bob Eason first,” if it happened to be somebody in my
department, “and then we’ll all work on it together.”
WL: But he didn’t make—aside from this change in the term conditions of the appointment of
the department head—Bob Miller didn’t try to limit the theoretical power and autonomy
of the department heads?
RE: No, he did not, although he did want to—and this was his position and his responsibility
to do so—he wanted to make a case and to make decisions about establishing priorities
with regard to what the departmental needs were with respect to establishing the
College—priorities at the college level, before then reporting to the vice chancellor of
academic affairs. So he did, he was a—he played the role of screening what the
department heads presented to him.
And I think that some department heads probably felt the effects of that more
adversely than others. But you know, I always felt that Bob was perceived as being a fair
department head. If any other—excuse me, I meant dean. If any department heads felt
that he was not, they didn’t share that information with me.
WL: What about the office that he set up, Bob Miller, the office of the dean of arts and
sciences? How did that work? I suppose it wasn’t a very large operation, was it?
RE: No. Initially it was a very small operation. I think it was first set up in the Ferguson
Building or maybe somewhere else temporarily prior to that.
WL: It wasn’t in Foust [Building]?
RE: It might have been Foust. But as soon as the Ferguson Building was finished—and I
don’t remember exactly when that was in relation to when he got her; I think he was here
for a few years before that building was finished—he moved over there and was in there
for a number of years before that office was finally moved into this building. But it was a
very small operation. He may have started off with one secretary and maybe added
another person part time after a while. But it was a small operation. He had no assistant
dean, you know, at the onset. I can’t recall exactly when one was added, it was quite late.
WL: There was one by the time I got here. Jeutonne Brewer [associate professor of English], I
think, was his assistant.
RE: And what year did you come?
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WL: Nineteen eighty-one.
RE: Yeah. Well, it was—
WL: But it was quite small.
RE: It was very small. And it may not have been until [Chancellor William] Moran got here
in what, 1979, that an assistant deanship position was established in the college?
WL: How would you sum up Bob Miller’s style, how he operated?
RE: That’s an interesting question. As I’ve already said, Bob and I were—and are—good
friends, but when I sat down with him to discuss departmental matters, it was very
businesslike, you know. And I would tell him what the needs of the department were
from my perspective, and he would discuss to what extent those needs could be met
within the context of the resources available and the overall priorities of the college and
so on. But he was always very understanding and—
[End Tape 1, Side A—Begin Tape 1, Side B]
RE: —it was very clear to me why he wasn’t able to provide those resources when it was
unrealistic.
WL: But he could be hardnosed if he had to be?
RE: But he could be hardnosed if he had to be. And I know for a fact that he was with some
people.
WL: Let me ask you about some other people. You mentioned Henry [L.] Ferguson [Jr.] [vice
chancellor for business affairs]. He was here for a long period of time in business affairs.
RE: Yes.
WL: How did that office work at that point, since you were on the committee working with
him?
RE: It seemed to me that it was a very autonomous—with Henry Ferguson sort of running an
aspect of the university that Henry Ferguson—I mean Jim Ferguson—really didn’t know
much about, wasn’t involved in, and he let Henry Ferguson handle that operation. And
Henry Ferguson, it seemed to me, had almost total control and power with regard to what
he did. It was a very autocratically-run operation.
And this planning committee that I served on—I always felt that Henry wanted to
have absolute complete control over what went on in that committee planning process.
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And if he felt like he was losing control, he could become very nervous and irritable and
cranky, and make comments that, you know, weren’t very nice.
WL: What kind of ramifications did that have in terms of facilities, the way facilities were
handled on campus, that kind of heavy-handed, if that’s the right word, autocratic—
RE: Well, in terms of the effect that it had on the faculty—of course it had a negative effect.
People felt that facilities were inadequate, buildings were dirty and they simply had no
control on what was happening to the physical plant. And it was extremely difficult to get
any kind of service from the physical plant when you needed it. It was just a very, I think,
poorly-run operation during that early period that I was here.
And I really think that Jim—or Henry Ferguson, while he had many—has many
good qualities, he was not cut out to effectively administer an office of that kind. He left
this place with a legacy; one of his legacies is he did create an attitude that still exists to
some extent among the faculty and the university community that the administration has
too much control. It tries to impose from the top down what’s going to happen on the
campus. And a lot of that, I think, a sensitivity to that was brought about by the operation
of the business office.
WL: The way that the day-to-day kinds of things that faculty would run into, the
unresponsiveness, perhaps—
RE: Yeah, yeah, or perceived unresponsiveness. He didn’t have enough help, either, I’m sure,
so that if something needed to be repaired and needed to be repaired quickly, such as a
bathroom being terribly out of operation or whatever, it may not get repaired quickly.
Everything seemed to be inefficient. To get an ordinary work order completed
from start to finish would seem to take an inordinately long period of time, far more time
than it usually should. Also, departments had to pay for all of those physical plant types
of activities. And everybody felt that, we all felt we were being overcharged for what, for
what was done, the type of service that we got.
WL: Sounds familiar.
RE: Yeah, those situations probably still exist.
WL: Prices have gotten even higher.
RE: But I do recall, I think that when Moran’s—when Fred Drake [vice chancellor for
business affairs] got here, things began to dramatically change and improve with regard
to how the business operation was conducted.
WL: Fred Drake was brought in to revamp the operation?
RE: Yeah, I think so. And he—he certainly did to a significant degree. I do think that some of
the people who were here when he came, that remained on until they retired, still
functioned pretty much the way they did. I mean, they had developed habits about what
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to do, how to do it. And things at that level didn’t change with some of those people until
they retired.
WL: It’s very hard to change a bureaucracy.
RE: Yes it is, indeed.
WL: You have culture that’s entrenched, especially university bureaucracy. How—you say
that Jim Ferguson gave him a lot of slack, gave him a lot of control. What is—was that
consistent with Jim Ferguson’s general style, did he tend to do that? Was that the way he
did, would he let his immediate subordinates run things pretty much the way they wanted
to?
RE: I would say that that’s my impression of his general style, although he didn’t have many
immediate subordinates. It very quickly went from him to deans and to department heads
and faculty. So that was not perceived as a problem except with people like Henry
Ferguson.
WL: Well, you had, you did have, I think you had a vice chancellor for planning by the early
seventies, did you not? You had—maybe nobody knew what he did at that point, but was
it Charles Hounshell?
RE: It was Charles Hounshell. And nobody did know what Charles Hounshell [professor of
political science, vice chancellor for administration] did. Everybody knew that he had
been a long-time friend of Jim Ferguson from their Millsaps [College, Jackson,
Mississippi] days or whatever [previously taught at Emory University, Tulane University,
University of Alabama], and that Jim brought him in here to help him partly out of
friendship, because he needed a job.
WL: He’d lost his job, I believe.
RE: I think so. And I think—but Charles was perceived as a nice easy-going guy who
everybody liked but who didn’t have much responsibility. And that may be one reason
that people, some people wonder what goes on in that position, what is it that Jim
Clotfelter [vice chancellor for information technology services] does.
WL: Right, because it wasn’t clearly defined from the beginning.
RE: Right, that’s exactly right.
WL: There was a development officer, is that correct?
RE: Yes, there was a development officer, and that office existed when I got here.
WL: That was George Hamer?
16
RE: That was George Hamer. And I recall George Hamer in that office was held very much in
high esteem. That is, it was a very high-level office that reported to Mossman and to
Chancellor Ferguson, and I suppose directly to Ferguson. And I recall that he was highly
respected and considered to be one of the top-level administrators in the university when
I got here. That did not continue to be the case when he was replaced, and I can’t
remember who replaced him but that office—
WL: Patterson? Charlie Patterson?
RE: Patterson, Charlie Patterson, I believe. And it expanded greatly, and I do think that
Charlie Patterson was respected and perceived as doing quite a good job, although he was
a glad-hander type, slapped people on the back and that kind of thing. And so people
perceived him, I think, sort of in that light.
But everybody, I believe, recognized that he was able to do some things for the
university through that office that went beyond what had been done before. I think
disaster struck, more or less, when he was replaced by—I’m blocking on the guy’s name
that Moran hired [Bernard Keele].
WL: Yeah, I’ve got it, I know exactly who you’re talking about. He was here a few years.
RE: He was here a few years and he, he struck me as not a very sensitive person who was
misplaced in his position. And I’ll give you a specific instance of why I considered him
an insensitive person. When Bruce Eberhart passed away and the biology department—
we were all shattered by that, of course. He was a young guy doing a great job. The
biology department felt—we’ve got to do something, we’ve got to do it right away to
remember Bruce. So they proposed that that building be named the Bruce Eberhart
Building.
Well, the major chunk of that building was built during my department-head
years, and I was involved in planning, you know, and seeing that building through to
construction, the psychology wing. And so this development officer, whose name I can’t
think of, got together with biology and worked out what that building was going to be
named before I even knew about it as department head.
So I was pretty, pretty upset by that. I think I—you know, I had no objection to it
being named the Bruce Eberhart Building, the whole thing, although I think I could have
made a case for naming it in, as two different wings, you know. There were some
alternatives that didn’t get considered, because there was not an opportunity.
WL: Right, that was just done, without any consultation with psychology people.
RE: That’s right.
WL: Let’s talk about the, some other things that happened in the 1980s. The—and I suppose
as we get any further than the 1980s, you’re not department head anymore and maybe
your contact is—you’re a little bit more removed?
17
RE: Well, certainly from the administrative branch of activities. I stepped down in ’80 as
department head, one year after Moran came. And for a two-year period there we had an
interim head, Ernie Lumsden [professor of psychology]. You know Ernie, don’t you?
WL: Yes.
RE: Ernie was Bob Miller’s assistant dean at that time. And when I stepped down, Ernie came
back into the department and was, served as the acting department head for two years
until the search committee was able to find a head. And it selected Gilbert Gottlieb,
which—
WL: In 1982.
RE: Nineteen eighty-two—Gilbert came and, you know, Gilbert was good for the department
in a number of respects, but I think that overall the department suffered from his
headship. He was a researcher; he just didn’t have the personality or the sensitivity or the
desire.
I can’t think of any attribute that would qualify Gilbert to be an effective
department head. He wasn’t one, and I think he knows he wasn’t. I’m not sure if he
knows it or not, but he wasn’t. A rift developed in that department shortly after he got
here that hasn’t healed and never will heal—that could have been prevented had he
handled things differently. That’s in my opinion.
WL: What was the basis of the rift?
RE: Primarily personality things. Didn’t have so much to do with questions having to do
[with] what’s in the best long-range interest in the department, what direction should it
take and that sort of thing, as allowing people to divide into groups, political groups, with
regard to who’s going to be in the driver’s seat during his administration. That kind of,
very petty kinds of things that should not have happened.
WL: Yeah, but can happen.
RE: It can happen, and once it does happen and you get those, you know, groups that pulled at
one another like that over a period of time, how do you stop it? It keeps happening.
WL: Yeah, it becomes embedded—
RE: Yes indeed, yeah.
WL: —continues. Very hard to shed that kind of thing once—
RE: That’s right. So I see that as one of the undesirable legacies that Gilbert gave the
department, left the department. He’s known for his research and his theoretical writings,
and that’s his strength, what he does well and he continued to. That was his top priority
18
when he was department head here. So the department, as a department, did not, I think,
gain any major strength or make any major advances while Gilbert was department head.
WL: Was part of the problem he kept up a research program that absorbed a lot of his time and
energy?
RE: It did. And Gilbert, you know, lived in the Raleigh area, and still does, and he chose not
to move his family over here. So he never really moved to Greensboro. He did, I think he
bought a little condominium-type place near the campus, close enough to walk actually.
And he would, his schedule typically involved working things out so that he could have
real long weekends in Raleigh, leaving here on Friday as soon as possible and then
returning Tuesday morning. So he’s got four days there and basically three here out of a
week. And that’s not a very effective way to run a department. There are things that need
to be, that come up on a daily basis that need to be taken care of.
WL: Right. Well then, let’s see, his successor was Walter Salinger [professor of psychology] is
that right?
RE: That’s right, yeah. Walter was—that’s correct, Walter replaced Gilbert.
WL: You didn’t retire—when did, when was your retirement?
RE: I retired two years ago.
WL: Two years ago. So you were there throughout the eighties.
RE: Throughout the eighties until ’93, I guess.
WL: I noticed that—well, I remember quite well that you were involved in the various efforts
having to do with race and gender, university-wide committee, I believe.
RE: That’s right. Yeah, I chaired the university-wide committee.
WL: You want to tell me something about that, where that came from, how that came into
existence?
RE: I can tell you what I think is the immediate trigger for bringing it into existence. It had to
do with the black students on this campus. Essentially, well, they—it was not actually a
rebellion, but they, through their organized, I guess, black student organization, were
creating so much racket and getting Moran’s attention and distracting him from other
things to the point that he knew he had to do something about it.
Also, Ron Crutcher [associate vice chancellor for academic affairs], who was in
the School of Music, was working closely with that group. And he was making Moran
aware of the fact that there’s some real problems here involving the black students on this
campus and some racial issues that must be addressed. I think those are the most
19
immediate things that preceded Moran deciding that a committee needed to be appointed
to study racial issues on campus.
WL: What would you summarize as the most important accomplishments of that committee—
the kinds of things you discovered or—?
RE: Well, I think that—let’s see, as I recall there were three major areas that he wanted the
committee to address. I’m not entirely sure I can—I can reconstruct those right now. But
the committee, I know, did address those areas and presented some recommendations
with regard to how they should be addressed. And that report Moran took seriously. I
think maybe it’s one of the few committee reports that he did not ignore, and he did
something about. So as soon as that report was accepted by the faculty—wasn’t called the
faculty senate then, whatever—
WL: Faculty council?
RE: Faculty council, and then passed on to Moran. He immediately appointed some additional
committees for implementing the various—studying and implementing the
recommendations. Those implementation committees worked for some months or a year,
and there indeed were some programs instituted, and I think are still going on maybe with
modification, some being added.
But I think that set forth a process that is still continuing in some way. I don’t
know if, how much success has derived from all that, but I do believe that things are
continuing to go on as a consequence of that committees charge.
WL: As a person who’s been around this campus for a while, how would you describe the
past, the role of African American students here over the past thirty years? When you
came here were there very many?
RE: No. When I first came here I doubt if there were a dozen. I hardly ever saw a black
student on campus, although there—I knew there were a few. But you know, I guess the
increase as I perceive it has been very gradual. And it was not really until we had to meet
the guidelines that were imposed by way of the government on the system that there
began to be really significant increases in black student enrollment.
WL: That’s more the 1980s, really—
RE: Yeah. I recall that in those earlier years the few black students that we had—I can recall
one or two truly outstanding black students, really good, bright students. And after—and
I think in general the quality has slipped a lot compared to what it was with the black
students when I first got here. And of course, that same thing applied to the white
students as well, because we were still getting really bright women during those earlier
years.
But in terms of the racial kinds of problems or irritations that might have been
going on, those were not very evident. They might have been going on to some extent in
the dormitories or whatever. But I didn’t sense any problems until maybe around the
20
eighties that there seemed to, that you know, that you heard more about racial dissention
on campus.
WL: You think that was a product of greater numbers?
RE: It probably was a product of greater numbers.
WL: Were you here for the 1969—this is kind of out of the blue, forgive me—but what
happened in 1969 with the cafeteria strike? Do you have any recollection of that?
RE: I was here.
WL: Any involvement or recollection?
RE: No, I don’t remember any details about that.
WL: That seemed to have been a kind of crisis point in the student—the period of student
unrest nationally that was the main, one of the main events, I suppose—the most
important event on this campus. Some people were in it, and some people were not.
RE: Yeah, you know, that’s interesting. I don’t really recall any details about that at all.
WL: Yeah, thought I’d ask anyway.
RE: Yeah.
WL: One thing I haven’t asked you very much about, given the fact that you were so involved
in the PhD program, is that—the graduate school—the structure and organization of the
graduate school. Tell me a little bit about that.
RE: Okay. When I came, I immediately became a member of the graduate administrative
board. John Kennedy was dean of the graduate school. He had been here, gotten here a
few years prior to that from Chapel Hill. And it was a very, very small group. I think
there were maybe five or six or seven of us at that time and they were all appointed by
John Kennedy.
And the—it was sort of an informally run operation, too, at that time. John, if he
had new master’s programs or whatever that had been submitted by a department that he
wanted to have evaluated, he’d have us read those programs and give him our evaluation.
So it was quite informal, I recall.
But there were some—I don’t mean to imply that he didn’t have some sort of
written procedures that he followed. He had—actually they were in the early stages of
being developed, I would say. But he was developing procedures for approving faculty
for serving on the graduate faculty, and graduate courses that were being developed by
departments had to funnel through the graduate school and through this, through his
council.
21
And we had, I recall, appointed a—the group gradually got bigger, I think
probably it was ten or twelve people when I stepped—I was on it until about 1975 or ‘76,
somewhere in there. And he appointed committees. I remember we had a curriculum
committee; we had a committee for evaluating faculty members applying to serve on the
graduate school. So he had a few sub—a few committees like that to make
recommendations to the group and to him.
WL: Where were they located at that point? I mean, early—
RE: Very early on?
WL: Don’t mean to put you on the spot.
RE: Well, boy, I have to search back. I’m trying to remember where he was before the new
building was complete.
WL: Doesn’t matter, I was just curious.
RE: I think, I think it was in this building, but I can’t remember where.
WL: So a lot, were a lot of the offices—the vice chancellor of academic affairs was here—and
were there other administrative offices in Foust [Building]? Was it, it was the main
administrative building?
RE: It was the main administration building, although as you know, the chancellor’s office
had been moved into the basement of the Alumni House. And the office of development
was there at that time as well and, of course, it’s taken over the space now entirely. But
it’s interesting, I can’t remember where John Kennedy’s office was during those early
years.
WL: What about something like tenure and promotion? I’m wondering how that changed over
twenty or thirty years. Did the standards change or did they remain the same or—?
RE: I don’t think the standards have changed all that much. I think the procedure has changed
a lot in terms of how many groups get into the evaluation process and at what level. Of
course, when [Bob] Miller established the College, it was not long after that that this
faculty advisory group to him, he appointed a subgroup of that council, you know, [it]
very quickly developed a curriculum committee and a—
WL: Tenure and promotion?
RE: Tenure and promotion committee. So that happened by around about 1970s, beginning of
the seventies, somewhere in there. So there was that additional step to go through. There
was also a, of course, a university tenure, promotion and tenure committee. But the—
WL: Was that, was that committee in existence when you first came here, do you recall?
22
RE: I’m not entirely sure if it was when I first came. I think maybe it probably was not. I sure
don’t remember anything about it.
WL: Fairly early on in your time here there was such a committee, though?
RE: Yeah, fairly early on. And I was on that committee for three years back in the early
eighties, I guess. And it was going through a transitional period then of trying to develop
procedures that sort of minimized the amount of arbitrary decision making that would
have to go on at that level and trying to get more standardization to the kind of materials
that were brought forth.
And prior to that time it was very uneven with regard to what kind of information
was being submitted for people being considered for tenure and promotion. And I think
once we got past the department head, that it was basically being screened by the
administration, by the deans, the vice chancellor—to the extent that the graduate dean got
in on it, I’m not sure—the vice chancellor for academic affairs and then on to the
chancellor.
So I guess the major change is the greater emphasis of faculty evaluation at the
different stages, than was the case then. But I really—in all honesty do not think that the
standards have improved, at least with regard to promotion and tenure. I think it was just
as rigorous then as it is now, and it may be, sometimes I think, even more so. I think
faculty groups believe it’s very important that you have wide representation and points of
view represented. But you can get faculty groups that have such diverse opinions that by
the time you get a promotion on up the line, it’s either an ambiguous one or for whatever
reason it doesn’t mean all that much.
And I recall when I was on the university committee, we sent a lot of marginally
acceptable things to the chancellor, you know. We’d write them and wind up with a lot of
things near that borderline point with maybe even the majority of them being closer to
there than clearly acceptable for promotion or not.
WL: That was the function of the committee? The nature of the committee?
RE: Yeah, it’s the function of the committee, and I think it’s a function of the groups—
diverse group of faculty that make up these committees. I don’t know this, but I’d see no
reason why it isn’t still going on that they have major difficulty making, reaching a strong
group consensus about the promotability [sic] of a faculty member, say, in a department
that only one of them there knows anything about and that person isn’t allowed to
participate in the recommendation. So I don’t know how valid those recommendations
are, having served in that capacity.
WL: That was your experience?
WL: That was my experience, I would say. Also, sitting in the department which, in which the
entire department gets to decide by vote whether or not a person is promotable. You
frequently—I don’t think in my department, at least in recent years, not since I was
23
department head, do I recall anybody being unanimously recommended for promotion by
that group. Maybe, but I’m not sure that that’s the case.
WL: I think in some departments the tendency is maybe to make it unanimous. Maybe, you
know, they’re not as rigorous—
RE: Well, they don’t have the rift, perhaps. You know, I mentioned the rift. Once you get a
political rift, that always gets in the way of unanimous decisions, or can get in the way
with regard to any, yeah—
WL: Personnel or otherwise.
RE: Especially if it involves a faculty member depending on which camp they’re perceived as
being in.
WL: And they have to be in one or the other.
RE: Yeah. So getting unanimity is extremely difficulty. I do recall that with one person who
went up some few years ago, I think—well, Gilbert, well, I guess Walter was department
head—the way the people who are not in favor handled it was to abstain. So you got
“unanimous” with three abstentions or something like that, which is not good either, I
don’t think.
Well, anyway, I sort of got off the track of your question. But I don’t think, I
think there are more steps now, evaluation steps that I question whether it’s improved the
rigor of the process or has in any way made it a more valid way of promoting those who
are most worthy of promotion and not those who should not be.
WL: I’ve taken a lot of your time. I have one more question that I’d like to conclude the
interview with, and that is what you think UNCG’s future is? What do you see as
prospects of the university based on your thirty years here? Do you have any ideas about
that, any thoughts?
RE: Well, I have some based on what I see going on now, I think. And that is that I think
UNCG once again has a very bright future, not in terms of being a major comprehensive
university with, you know, a number one research status in the near future, although it
may, who knows when.
But I think that it has a bright future for developing its programs and directing its
strengths toward meeting the needs of the Triad region, in particular. Working with the
Triad community to find out, in an interactive kind of way, find out what it wants from
the university and how it can help the university both politically with the legislature.
But I think UNCG, with the right chancellor—and I do believe we have one who
is thinking on the right track right now and using an appropriate style for accomplishing
something—I think there’s the potential for this university to make some really strong
headway in the next decade toward having lively, viable, effective programs. Making
its—I think its undergraduate programs should and will improve, and then we’ll start
seeing that taking place over—fairly soon.
24
And I think that strong master’s programs that are serving a useful function will
be continued, others will be added that are perceived as being needed along the—but
along lines of strength. I think poor programs will be discarded. I think the funds of the
university, the university’s resources, will be more carefully channelized in appropriate
ways to maximize the way it functions.
These are some impressions I’ve got from what I think is going on right now. I
think there’s some really serious planning underway that can institute a change with
regard to what, how this university should function and the direction that it should take in
the next decade that will make it a better university and make it a happier place for
faculty to want to be in as well as students. I see lots of hopeful signs right now, sort of
the way I did when I first came here when, you know, we all thought we had the green
light to, to where the sky’s the limit.
WL: Build a research university?
RE: Yeah, but now with a much more considered and perhaps more realistic understanding of
what we can do, what some of the limitations are and the directions we should be going.
I think UNCG will have an identity within the next couple of years and everybody
will know what that identity is. And they’ll know what our general direction is, including
some who may not approve. At least they’ll know, everybody will know. So those are
some of my current impressions.
[End of Interview]