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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Charles Hayes
INTERVIEWER: Linda Danford
DATE: October 6, 1990
[Begin Side A]
LD: Dr. Hayes, can you tell me when you came to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro] and in what capacity?
CH: Yes, I can tell you that. I moved to Greensboro in 1963 to work for—to be assistant director
of planning, city planning department. They—it was just at the—
LD: For the city of Greensboro?
CH: For the city of Greensboro. Just at that time urbanism was getting hot. Cities were perceived
as going down the tubes and so on. They had no one at UNCG to teach urban geography. So
they asked me if I would just teach a course, and the city gave me permission to do this. And
so I started teaching part time in 1965. In 1968 I, because of personnel difficulties with the
new director of planning, I came to UNCG full time. Does that answer your question?
LD: Yes. And who did you come to work for when you came in '63? Who was the— do you
remember?
CH: Craig Dozier [geography professor, department head]?
LD: No, no. The person downtown. Who did you come to work for in Greensboro?
CH: Oh, Ronald Scott. He was director of planning for a good number of years in Greensboro.
Then he went on to work for the state and retired six, seven years ago, and died two, or a
couple of years ago.
LD: So you came to UNCG full time in '68 in the geography department, and your specialty is?
CH: Urban geography.
LD: Can you tell me something about what that involves?
CH: Well, urban geography is really the theoretical base for urban planning. I guess, because we
deal so much in theory that indicates we really don't know much about it. But, basically,
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that's what it is. Where things are in the city, why they're there, where they should be, that
sort of thing.
LD: And how to move them if they're not in the right place?
CH: How to move them if they're not in the right place.
LD: What was the department like in 1968? How many members were there and—?
CH: I think there were four of us in '68.
LD: And was urban planning sort of the focus of the department?
CH: Well, yes, it was because that's where the jobs were. I don't—it doesn't make me any more
important than anybody else, but I expect ninety percent of our students who graduated and
worked in geography worked in planning. And so, yes, urban planning really was the mover.
LD: And where were your students getting jobs when they left? Were they getting jobs locally or
were they—?
CH: Oh, anywhere. Getting jobs locally and elsewhere in the state and elsewhere in the country.
LD: And were some of them going on to graduate work?
CH: Some were going on to graduate work.
LD: In preparation for becoming city managers or—?
CH: Well, no, it depends. Like the planning school at [University of North Carolina at] Chapel
Hill, which is a very fine planning school, really trains teachers of planning. But the planning
school at Georgia [Institute of Technology] Tech [Atlanta, Georgia], which is also a very
fine planning school, really trains planning directors. It's a different focus, those two
different departments. And many of our students who graduated in urban geography then
went on to graduate work in planning, not geography. Some in geography, but many in
planning.
LD: I've been told there was a cooperative program at one time between the geography
department and the romance languages, a Spanish program of some kind focusing on South
America.
CH: Oh, yes. Yes. And I don't know anything about that.
LD: I thought you were in on it. That's not where your interest in South America comes from?
CH: No. My interest in South America comes from spending time there.
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LD: What were some of the things that were going on at UNCG in 1968? The university had just
gone coed. That happened before you—
CH: I think it went coed in '63, but it was mostly co and less ed until about 1965.
LD: Yes. [laughs] Still mostly women?
CH: Mostly women.
LD: What other things were going on there? Was it a hotbed of—I know it wasn't a hotbed of
anti-war activity, but what do you remember? Do you remember anything?
CH: Well, it certainly wasn't during that period. Everybody else was—many other universities—
the University of Chicago would gather in the quadrangle, and the students together in the
quadrangle and go burn flags or something. At UNCG the students one day, for example,
said, "Let's don't meet today." And I said, "Well, we have to meet. Why don't you go burn a
flag at the Administration Building?" And one girl said, "Well, we would, but we don't know
where it is." And that's about the extent of the confrontation here.
LD: Do you think that was because it was a women's college or because it's a Southern
university?
CH: I think it developed from being a women's college. It's always been much more proper, I
think, than Chapel Hill, don't you?
LD: Yes. I think that's probably to be expected from the traditions of being a women's college. I
went to a women's college. Not this one, but I went to women's college undergraduate.
CH: Which one?
LD: Smith [College, Northampton, Massachusetts]. And we were often made fun of that we were
too polite. I don't know if that's entirely fair, but I know that criticism. What about the—there
was a big strike. Were you here for the strike? The cafeteria workers?
CH: No. That was—that strike was in Chapel Hill, but it affected us here. But I was—that was the
year I was gone.
LD: That was the year you [unclear]. What kind—what was the administration like when you
first came?
CH: Well, we had basically one administrator.
LD: The famous Mereb Mossman [anthropology and sociology faculty, dean of instruction, dean
of the college, dean of faculty, vice chancellor for academic affairs].
CH: Mereb Mossman. She was something else. [laughs] That woman, she—we’ve hired how
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many—forty people to take her place. And although the student body's just roughly doubled
since her. I really liked her. She was quite a gal. Very efficient—kind of like [William C.]
Friday [president of the University of North Carolina System], who was really very efficient.
But the university was much less sophisticated then. It's a lot, really a lot more sophisticated
now. Teaches more sophisticated subjects, and, I don't know quite—
LD: When did that transition take place?
CH: I think, gradually. It's a lot bigger too. That is, twice as many students, but there are a lot
more buildings now. We made do with fewer buildings back then. I don't know quite how to
describe it. Your husband's in physics. Does he think it's more sophisticated now than when
he came?
LD: Well, it was already changing, I think. But there's been a lot of building in the last fifteen,
twenty years. And then again, we're not interviewing me. We're interviewing you.
CH: Well, that's true.
LD: But I think that I've heard that from a lot of people that the administration has exploded and
the number of students is much—many more students. Do you think that that's an
improvement?
CH: I think there's some improvement in some things; some things aren't improved. I think we
have way too many administrators. Lord, every faculty member has a dog and an
administrator now, right? And I don't think we need that many. I didn't think so when I was
teaching. But I think the faculty is better now than it was when I joined it. I think they are—
they do more significant research and do more research. I just think it's a better faculty now
than it was twenty years ago.
LD: Was there more contact between the faculty and the administration then?
CH: Sure. I think so. Anybody would—again Mereb Mossman was something else because she
knew everybody's name. She knew who you were.
LD: Was that a liability?
CH: Well, it depended on the day that she saw you. But yes, I mean, you could talk to her any
time. You were welcome in her office at any time.
LD: She certainly is a legend. Did she have her detractors or did everyone love her?
CH: I don't know. I—she was awfully nice to me. She was very encouraging to me because I had
done a lot of real world work joining the academic and the applied geography, and she was
very high on that. So I got along with her fine.
LD: Would you say that some of the change in faculty was attributable to her? I mean, did she
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make a conscious effort to upgrade?
CH: Yes, she certainly did. Yes, certainly did.
LD: And what—how did you see that?
CH: How did I what?
LD: In other words, how did the faculty change? Was it because they were coming from different
places, different universities?
CH: I think that you could say that now UNCG has a faculty that is at least nationally recognized.
And I think when I came there; it would be more, you'd say that generally, although there are
some national scholars, that the faculty is regionally recognized. I think that the research has
picked up. I think, really, teaching and research are inseparable, aren't they?
LD: My husband thinks so. He's a strong believer that that's the case.
CH: I think so too.
LD: But it seems that from people I've spoken to that Mereb Mossman must have thought that
that was the case.
CH: Mereb Mossman thought any—anything you could find out [unclear] the truth was a great
thing to have and she didn't care whether your research was applied or locally oriented or—
just as long as you're doing it. I think now the emphasis is definitely on more academic
research, the emphasis at UNCG. Which is all right, I mean. You can shift, you can do
research—just tell me what to do and I'll do it.
LD: What—can you describe any broad trends that you observed in your department or on
campus?
CH: Well, I think one of the really great things about UNCG when I first started teaching was that
the teachers, the researchers and the PhDs met the classes. And I think we are poorer for this
not being completely so anymore. I mean, I don't think, present company excepted, I don't
think that a graduate assistant can do the same job as the faculty member, and I think there's
a lot more of that today.
LD: Was there more of that in the geography department, specifically?
CH: No, no. There's not in the geography department, only the bigger departments.
LD: Well, I think from the student standpoint, that's absolutely correct. Toward the end of the
time that you were here, the university really took on more of coeducational aspect. Do you
think that changed UNCG's—?
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CH: Yes, I do. I think that, without knowing whether it's inherited or acquired with these traits,
men take certain courses and women take certain courses. I mean, there's an overlap, of
course, but I think that men help the geography department because men like geography
better than women do, although we've always had women students. So, yes, that's probably
true of some of the hard sciences, don't you suppose?
LD: I think it probably—it certainly must have an impact on city planning because you don't see
many women in urban planning.
CH: Well, you see a lot of women in urban planning.
LD: You do?
CH: Yes, yes.
LD: I was going to ask you how many, what the breakdown was, were your majors pretty evenly
divided between men and women?
CH: Yes. Our majors when I started and we were more co then ed, were mostly ladies. But as the
years went by and we got more and more men, it became about evenly divided. I would say
that when I left, yes, about half and half.
LD: Is it as easy for women to get jobs when they leave?
CH: Yes.
LD: In city planning?
CH: Yes. I see absolutely no sex discrimination in planning.
LD: Good. Good. Because it doesn't look to me like the Greensboro planning department is
very—
CH: I don't know that department anymore. All I know, I know the director and that's about it. I
don't know the—oh, and I know [J. Michael] Mike Cowhig [Class of 1968], who was a
student of ours, but the rest of them have all turned over. I don't know the workers. Are they
mostly male now?
LD: I think it's mostly male, but I may be misinformed. That may just be an erroneous
impression. What about your relationships with other departments? I think Dr. Dozier told
me that he felt that when he first came, which was in 1960, the department was a service
department for other departments and that it gradually changed and acquired a role of its
own. But did you have a lot of interaction with faculty members of other departments?
CH: Yes. Informally so.
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LD: How about combined majors or something?
CH: That is kind of a recent thing. There wasn't much of that. We knew—when I first met you, I
asked about your husband. You said his name was such and such. He was in physics. I said,
"Well, I don't think I know him." But fifteen years ago, I would have known him. We knew
people. We had coffee, and we discussed business as well as football, and so, yes, there was
this kind of interaction.
LD: Where there places on campus where faculty tended to gather?
CH: Yes. At that time, the Faculty Center had coffee, and we'd sit around and have coffee there.
LD: Do you think people use that facility more than they do now?
CH: Yes. Then the faculty was smaller. You couldn't fit the faculty into it now. Yes, I think we
used it. Then we got to a point where we'd have coffee in the Dogwood Room [Elliott
University Center]. And then they began to discourage that again, and so I don't know where
they have coffee now.
LD: What about the chancellors while you were here? When you came Otis Singletary must have
been here.
CH: Singletary was chancellor. I never saw that man. He wasn't on campus any time I was here.
He was off in Washington [DC] doing something [took a two-year leave of absence to help
create the Job Corps] and he took a job, Tennessee, Texas, somewhere. Kentucky [became
president of the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky]. So I've never met him. I
knew [Chancellor James S.] Jim Ferguson pretty well because he taught a course next door
to me in my early years. And I—although Jim was a great guy, I never really felt he got his
fair share of the money from God over there in Chapel Hill.
LD: [laughs] God in Chapel Hill?
CH: Yes. And I may be wrong. It's just my impression. And—
LD: That was not his focus, I gather, as an administrator.
CH: Well, what was his focus?
LD: Well, I've heard people say he was very well informed as far as what was going on
academically on campus. He was more of an academic administrator.
CH: Okay, maybe so.
LD: Maybe that has something to do with it.
CH: But really, wasn't it his job to get us our share? It was kind of a, "We're all equal, but some
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are more equal than others." I mean, when the money was being passed out, we came up
short. And isn't that his fault, if that is true?
LD: Well, I think that that is one of the—certainly is perceived now as being one of the functions
of the—
CH: So this is not just my feel—other people feel that?
LD: No. I think that is probably true. My husband certainly thinks that. What about—well, do
you think that there was improvement when [Chancellor William E.] Moran came in that
department?
CH: Moran seemed to get more money for buildings, but not necessarily for other things. And
there are many people who feel that there are more important things on a college campus
than buildings. And so I don't think he did that much better except in building, but I gather
what he's trying—nobody's told me this, so I'm just guessing—what he's trying to do now is
make our name in athletics. We’re going to [National College Athletic Administration]
Division I and so on. I would guess that that's what he's trying to do. And it seems like for a
university to have a national reputation, you either have to have a law school, a medical
school or a winning football team. Isn't that true? [laughs]
LD: Something like that. I think it's probably true. I do believe that that is behind the move to
Division I athletics, but we're not going to have a winning football team. We're not going to
have a football team.
CH: No, it's got to be basketball then.
LD: Or soccer. We have a pretty good soccer team.
CH: Yes, yes. And we're getting a lot of publicity.
LD: I don't think we get enough, actually, for the soccer team. I think when we get to Division I
we will. Are there any other burning issues you'd like to talk about?
CH: Any succinct comments I have? I can't think of any.
LD: Things you always wanted to say, but were afraid to let it hang out.
CH: Let me see.
LD: Did you enjoy your career here?
CH: Oh, very much, yes. Yes, very much.
LD: Rewarding?
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CH: Yes. And I think maybe we had a better setup in geography than perhaps some other
departments because we always decided what we should teach and when. It was up to us,
except we had to teach this big service course. This earth science, they call it. But fortunately
them's [sic] don't know how to milk don't have to milk. And I'm not a physical geographer,
so I couldn't teach that course.
LD: You got off the hook?
CH: Yes. You might say mountain to me, I'd say, "What's that?"
LD: [laughs] Well.
CH: But I think I'm—I feel very chauvinistic about the university, and I wish it well. I'm happy to
see the building going on. The last year I was here I served on the campus building
committee, although I didn't approve of all the placement of things, speaking from a
planning background. And I yelled about it.
LD: What did you not like?
CH: The talk then was we were going to close Spring Garden Street.
LD: Well, that's still the talk.
CH: Oh, I think that's a big mistake. We want people in town to say, "Hey, this is our campus."
We don't want to lock them out. And, in fact, there's safety in numbers. And what makes a
campus safe for coeds are a lot of people milling around, and if you shut the people out, the
townspeople out, there's fewer people to mill. Right? Oh, and another very unsafe thing are
parking decks. We’re going to build a parking deck. Sorry that that has to be done if it has to
be done.
LD: Parking has become a controversial issue—
CH: Parking is rough. I mean, what they're selling over there is a hunting license instead of a
parking permit. [laughs] But I know it's tough. It's really tough. But I think for one thing, this
is Planning 1A, okay? You put things, activities that cease business after dark together,
okay? Was that clear? That was an awkward statement, but, for example, anything that's
going to go into the evening should be close to the library. We can't move that. That's there,
okay? So you should put things around the library, and you should insist on simultaneous
closing hours, so every body's leaving at the same time. This makes the campus safer, okay?
LD: I've never heard that suggested, but it sounds like a great idea.
CH: Well, any planner would suggest that to you.
LD: Presumably, they hire planners to help them decide these things, don't they?
CH: I think the planners downtown tell them anything they want to hear. That's my impression. I
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looked at that map that they had two years before I retired in the paper what they’re going to
do, where they were going to put things. I wrote the chancellor a letter, and said, "This is
crazy. I haven't read your plan, but this map is crazy." And he said, "Why don't you serve on
the planning committee?" And I've always avoided work. [laughs] And there I got myself
into that. But there are a few little, a few basic things about planning, and that's one of them.
In fact, where this has been done in an aging shopping center where they require
simultaneous opening and closing hours, safety has shot off the graph. I mean, this has been
done many places in the country.
LD: You mean in communities where a lot of older people—?
CH: Well, no, I'm thinking of shopping centers that are aging. The center itself is aging and has
become dangerous and so on. Well, lighting is important, of course, but this simultaneous
opening and closing hours is very important. And this—you should watch this on a campus,
and put things where people come out of these buildings together to go get in their cars.
LD: Well, I know that they started an escort services and those kinds of things.
CH: It's important, yes.
LD: And they have there a couple of attacks every year, so I know that they're aware of it.
CH: Yes, oh yes.
LD: My husband used to walk the dogs through the golf course at night, and the campus police
got to know him quite well. But they would occasionally scare up people just sort of hanging
around. And the golf course is [unclear]. There's that large, wooded swathe that goes up
along Market Street. It's really not a very safe.
CH: They used to call that Peabody Park.
LD: Really?
CH: Yes. You're talking about the area right east of the golf course?
LD: Yes. It goes up toward the dormitories.
CH: Right. Right. Yes. I'm concerned about the safety of that campus and other campuses, and I
think we ought to do all we can that doesn't cost too much money.
LD: Now that suggestion of yours doesn't cost anything.
CH: It's just where you put these things. And I think we should do everything we can that doesn't
cost anything. Don't you?
LD: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Any other things you want to get off your chest? [laughs]
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This is the time to do it.
CH: I can't think of any. It's—as I've said, I've really enjoyed my tenure at the university and wish
them well. Wish you well.
LD: Thank you very much. I enjoyed the interview. Thank you for giving it to us.
[End of Interview]
UNCG University Archives
