George E. McSpadden (1912-2000) received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of New Mexico and earned his doctoral degree from Stanford University. In 1967, he was appointed professor and head of the Department of Romance Languages at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, He retired in 1979. McSpadden recalls instituting the teaching of language in the language in French, Spanish, and Italian and the faculty who published a textbook in that area, Robert Stinson, Jose Almeida and Steve Mohler. He describes the Latin American Studies Program and its faculty, Ramiro Lagos, Harriet Kupferer, Joseph Mountjoy, and others. McSpadden talks how budget cuts and the reduction of and then lack of a language requirement caused cutbacks in department faculty. He discusses when a master's program was instituted, but not a doctoral program because that existed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. McSpadden talks about Dr. Elizabeth Barineau, his mentor who died, and the connection between Valdese, North Carolina, and the Waldensians of France. He feels that public institutions have grown away from their classical foundations and discusses his involvement with the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship on campuses.
