Mary Katsikas (1939- ) graduated from the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) in 1961, majoring in chemistry. She began working in UNCG's chemistry department in 1963 as a laboratory assistant and is now a manager in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Katsikas describes town student life, the sense of mission and dedication instilled by the faculty, the obedience of students and the differences in current students. She talks about the chemistry department faculty, how the atmosphere changed with the addition of male faculty and other faculty who were important to her, such as Dr. Richard Bardolph and Dr. Anne Lewis. She discusses the independence, traditions and social life of the all-women's college, its physical layout, coeducation and integration and its passivity during the social upheaval of the 1960s. She feels that the institution's emphasis should be on undergraduate education.
