Oral history interview with Sarah H. Stewart, 2006 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG in the 1960s Oral History Collection
INTERVIEWEE: Sarah H. Stewart
INTERVIEWER: Lauren Hawn
DATE: October 3, 2006
LH: This is Lauren Hawn and I am interviewing Sarah Stewart. She was a UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] student in 1965 to 1969. How did you choose UNCG as the college you wanted to attend?
SS: At the time I was living in North Carolina. I thought I wanted to major in speech pathology and it was one the few speech pathology schools in the state. Plus it was, you know, great tuition in school [in state] whatever. So I even went early admission to UNCG back then. So I knew early in my senior year this was where I was going to go and I really did not even look at any other school.
LH: Oh, that is exciting. What was your major at UNCG?
SS: I started out as a speech pathology major. But after my first really serious speech course in speech therapy I realized this is not for me. So then I majored in political science and that is what I graduated in, with a BA in political science.
LH: So why did you decide to major in political science?
SS: I think because my roommate was majoring in that. [chuckles] I wanted something fairly broad and generic. My father’s belief was then, you do not go to school to get a job; you go to school to be educated, and really believed in liberal arts education. So I just picked a major that interested me and went that way. I really had no idea what I would even do with it.
LH: So then after UNCG you decided to do nursing?
SS: I decided my senior year at UNCG through a series of events that I wanted to go into nursing and so I had to creep in just a couple of science courses and then applied to [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill and then got my BA in political science from UNCG in ’69 and then went to Chapel Hill’s for two more years and got BS in nursing. At the time, UNCG just closed down its AD [associate degree] nursing program, which was a two year program, were just converting to the bachelor program, it was very new. [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill was the recognized, you know, good school for nursing. So I switched and after four years, it was time to move.
LH: Okay, yes, I knew that they had started their program in ’67 I think. 2
SS: Possibly it was very new, yeah.
LH: [unclear] What was your overall experience at UNCG?
SS: Fantastic. It really was, it was a very good experience. I mean not everything was wonderful, but made friends for life. I felt I got an excellent education, had some really broad experiences. I went, you know, I also had the sophomore slump. I was very active in campus life, especially campus politics. So you know, just when I look back on it was
everything I wanted a college experience to be. It was good.
LH: Going back to campus life and you know, being involved in the politics. What types of things were you involved in with the campus politics? I mean, I have some things I wanted to ask.
SS: Yes. Okay. Well. Freshman year I was in a thing called freshman cabinet which was to get people involved in campus politics and campus leadership. And I was a dorm representative and then I was on freshman cabinet and then I ran, I mostly did the class officer route and was an officer each year. I was secretary my sophomore year. I was president of the junior class and then I was vice president or something of my senior class. I also was on the judicial board my senior year. So I did—you know, I just kind of went along with that route.
LH: In 1967 there was, they started doing different types of workshops and everything to get students to be more outspoken on things. In 1967 they had a black power symposium. Do you remember that at all?
SS: Oh yes I do. I certainly do.
LH: I remember it said it caused a lot of controversy. What was your reaction to that experience?
SS: You know—I’ll be honest— I don't specifically remember the Black Power [Forum] symposium, but I well remember a little bit later than that. I mean, obviously the—I guess more what I remember is Nelson Johnson who has lately been active in Greensboro politics, was also very active between A&T [North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University, Greensboro, North Carolina] and UNCG at that time and there was a strike of the cafeteria workers. You know, it became a racial issue in addition to an economic issue and everything else and a lot of A&T students got involved with this as well, came over to our campus, demonstrated and I still have that memory at night and things stayed very peaceable. There was a lot of speeches, some demonstration, you know, the black fist in the air kind of action. But things at that point stayed in a dialogue point. So that is mostly what I remember is I think very much the effort of keeping the dialogue going and staying away from anything violent, I guess is the word that I want to use.
LH: Were you ever scared that there might be a violent uprising, with that?
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SS: No. But you know I was also there—the—I was there both years when Martin Luther King [Jr.] was assassinated [in 1968] and Robert Kennedy was assassinated [in 1968].
LH: They had sit-ins then, didn't they?
SS: We had sit-ins but also Greensboro was put on curfew and we were put on curfew in the dorm. I can remember because you know, daylight savings time or whatever, it was still light, we were confined to our dorm after seven or eight o’clock at night and I can see the National Guard going through the campus on their jeeps with their guns making sure we stayed in our dorms. I am sure the same thing was happening over at A&T, that they stayed. It was just really to ease some of that kind of tension. Because I am sure there were demonstrations. But, evidentially, fairly—my memory is fairly contained because I never felt my safety was of concern. But you definitely didn’t balk too much at being curfewed. Except I can remember a bunch of us, a lot of us girls hanging out windows and unfortunately making cat calls at the National Guard. [both laugh] Waving like “Hi guys, what are you up to?” But yeah. Both springs we were curfewed because of that.
LH: So just in the spring or all year?
SS: Well, when Robert Kennedy's was in June and we were still in school in June so for like three or four, almost that week after we were and also were for Martin Luther King. He was earlier in the spring but we were on campus and I think for, I want to say three to four nights we were curfewed. Yeah.
LH: I cannot imagine that. I cannot imagine them putting curfews.
SS: Oh yes, there was well it was a city wide, but also campus enforced.
LH: In 1966, The Carolinian, the newspaper had referred to UNCG as a suitcase college.
SS: Yes.
LH: And that is was only good for academic and not for social life. Did you feel that way whenever you went to UNCG?
SS: I really—yes and no. I think what I have felt since then, not only with my daughters but talking to other friends in school, isn't every campus a little bit of a suitcase college? There is always that crowd that packs up and gets out of town every weekend. Or like my daughters now, I mean, they all have more cars. We didn’t have cars. Not many people had cars back then. So someone had to come get you or you had to bum a ride with somebody. So they—but now my daughter might go to State [North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina] but who knows where she going to be that weekend. She could be at Chapel Hill, she could be home, and she could be, whatever. But I stayed a lot of weekends. I wasn’t one of those who went home and there were always people to go to the movies, bridge was very popular back then, we played a lot of cards. If you 4
wanted to go to State or whatever or any school for a date weekend you could do that. But I mean it was just, I guess I never felt this great need to get away.
LH: Did y’all go out a lot on the weekends? Or did you mostly stay on campus?
SS: You at least, if you knew anybody with a car, [chuckling] you at least went out to eat or the movies. But also back then downtown Greensboro was still—that was the main shopping. That was the main restaurant area. So you just got on the bus and went downtown. I mean, you would spend Saturday, I do not know if you could imagine this. It was wall to wall people and they were all just shopping or window shopping or eating out or whatever and that is what you did. So I mean, that was just a bus ride down Market [Street] or Friendly [Avenue] or whatever. Or someone had a car, you would at least go out to eat. My senior year I remember every Sunday afternoon we all got involved in this baseball league, even Chancellor [James S.] Ferguson would come over, because he was the chancellor at this time. We would have these crazy baseball games going on in the afternoon and of course then you still had the golf course, you played tennis. I mean, I guess it was kind of half and half. Half on campus and half off.
LH: Do feel that UNCG was lacking campus amenities like the football team, fraternities, and school spirit?
SS: I obviously did not; I do not think I felt that way. I am not willing to say though that I represented the norm. Because obviously I associated with and was very involved with people that were very involved with the campus, with campus life, had a lot of friendships along that line. So I did not feel a lack of involvement or whatever. I did not feel like I had to go somewhere to find that, no.
LH: Were there, I know that males were allowed in 1963 so that was couple of years before you entered. Were there a lot of males in your classes, do you remember?
SS: I remember like fifty or sixty guys. I can remember a few of them. When my freshman year they lived in a house right off campus. I was in Shaw dorm and they were in one of the houses [that] used to be right across from Shaw. So that is where most of them lived if they were not commuting town students. But by my senior year they had a whole dorm. I think one dorm maybe two dorms. I do not remember maybe one or two dorms and it was that dorm across from Moore and Strong [Residence Halls]. What are they called? Wasn’t Phillips-Hawkins [Residence Halls]. What was it? Anyway. Somewhere over there. So they were all in a dorm by then but no, I remember one guy in particular, Jack Pinnex, I still, we still stay in touch with and whatever. I am sorry, he would be a fantastic one for you to talk to. Jack has always got an opinion, he eventually became a lawyer. So we were good friends with some of them. I didn’t date any of those guys. But they were good friends to sit down and have a cup of coffee with or joke, whatever.
LH: So it was not really weird for you to have the males in the school?
SS: I think because it was still predominantly, when I was there, felt like a woman's college. 5
It really did. I mean, boys were there but it was not a coed university at that point. And still a lot of the traditions, a lot of the way things were done were still very much oriented to the women.
LH: Did a lot of the traditions start to fade while you were there?
SS: I would say definitely yes that they were fading at that point. Even like class government used to be the big thing, you got the [class] jacket that was a big deal. Sophomore year you got your jacket and you had a class color. You got your ring your junior year. You had “Rat Day” which is sophomores picking on freshman, doing all this stuff, for one day, they had to do anything you wanted. You know all that kind of stuff I would say that memory is that was starting to fade by the end of my senior year. I was feeling. But we have to talk about what is was like when I came as a freshman and what is was like by the time I left as senior too. It was very, I mean, it was a 180 degree turn in that college.
LH: What all happened?
SS: You see freshman year, you’re talking about curfews, are you ready for this? Lights were out at eleven-thirty. You got a penalty and had to go to in-dorm court if you broke that violation. You had to sign out when you went out. You had to sign out every place you thought you were going. Whether it was to just go get a drink at the Fifth Burger [?] and then go to a dance club and then go to someone’s apartment, you were supposed to list every place that you went. Because in loco parentis was still very much in effect. The school was your absent parent. They were you parent and your parents were somewhere else. And so you have a counselor, you had a room mother, dorm mother. She is literally standing at the door when you come in, sniffing your breath to see if you’d been drinking. And you had to be able to sign in. That would have been another court violation, if you were so drunk or whatever that you couldn’t sign in, then you were in big trouble. I mean, and no one thought anything of this. This is the way it was.
LH: It sounds so bizarre now.
SS: It does. It is just phenomenal. You could not wear pants on front campus and if you did, like if you were in your dorm and you wanted to go down to Tate Street, you had to wear a raincoat over any pants or shorts. Because otherwise you were in a skirt when you were on front campus. I know this is hard to believe. [chuckling] You had to dress for Sunday dinner. That was another killer. Sunday lunch.
LH: Y’all had Sunday dinner, every Sunday?
SS: Every Sunday, it was still cafeteria style but that was the big meal and you had to dress. You could not go in pants. You had to go in a skirt or blouse or dress or—and nice shoes. Yes. You couldn’t smoke on front campus. Oh gosh, what else. But anyway that whole sign, and you were only allowed to go out. You could have someone come in and visit you, what was it, like one or two nights a week. You only could go out two nights a 6
week. You had to pick which two. If you went out on a week night then you only got to go out again Friday or Saturday night.
LH: Oh my goodness.
SS: That means leaving the campus. Now you could stay on campus and do whatever you want. And a curfew every night. There was a curfew every night; I think it was 1:00 [a.m.] on Saturday night. For freshman first semester lights out at eleven-thirty. So if you had some late paper to write or something to study, they had these big closets on Shaw dorm; I mean it was a big closet. You would go in the closet, shut the door, put on your flash light, sit on your suitcase. I am serious. [both laughing]
LH: I know that there are plenty of nights that I stay up past eleven-thirty doing homework.
SS: But I want you to know—let’s see. We said goodbye to the no smoking while you are walking on the front campus. I will never forget the head of the student legislature when they got rid of this rule was saying “You know what you really could do is that you could hold the cigarette and you could stop, you are not walking, take a puff; then walk a little bit further, stop, take a puff,” she said ,“Do you see how ridiculous this is?” Of course she got cheers and ovations. We also got rid of the pants rule that year. That was my freshman year, got rid of the pants rule and got rid of, you could smoke and walk on front campus and you could wear pants on front campus.
LH: So was that the whole dress code, just the skirts? You had to wear skirts.
SS: You had to wear skirts or dresses, and not to class. I am trying to think if on Saturday, because we used to have Saturday classes if they would let you do it on Saturday. Some girls, because even if they were not going away for the weekend they were going out Saturday night, a lot. That is when you had different hair styles; they would wear curlers to class. I can remember that. Except Dr. [Richard] Bardolph's history class because he would not allow curlers in his class and he would humiliate you if you wore them. Can you imagine all of this? [LH chuckling] But let’s say by my senior year, okay senior year, curfews are gone. They did lock the dorms and if you are over twenty-one—There was locking of the doors if you were under twenty-one, but if you were over twenty-one you could come and go as you wish. You were either given a key or they had a security guard that would open the door for you and lock it back. If you were over twenty-one you were allowed to have alcohol in the dorm and my God there was no alcohol on campus at any function prior to that because some people were minors, you know, that was the thinking. I mean—it was just—and of course [you could] wear pretty much what you wanted when you wanted. There was the no more sign in or out kind of thing. You might flip a card just because they would know you were, there was still that issue of if you are not there then someone needs to know you are not there. That was about it.
LH: Were there a lot of protests against that? Because I am sure that some people probably were not too happy to change that, especially parents. 7
SS: And really not, I think it was just an evolving process that I certainly do not remember parents being alarmed as it happened because I think it was just an evolution that was happening everywhere. That it was almost, you felt as if we were one of the last. I used to think that until one of my daughters decided to go to an all girl's school. They still had a few rules and regs that you do not have at your big state universities:
LH: I went to UNC Asheville [University of North Carolina at Asheville] and we had curfews there.
SS: Yes, and they had curfew at Mary Baldwin [College, Staunton, Virginia]. But curfews started going away.
LH: It is still around a little.
SS: It is still around, it is, my daughters.
LH: Were drugs a big issue on campus? Like when all this was changing and everything.
SS: Right.
LH: Was it a big issue in general?
SS: You know, isn’t that interesting that I have—now alcohol was definitely an issue. I do not, I do not remember drug use being an issue. But it fascinates me because I immediately left UNCG in ’69 and went to Chapel Hill for the next two years. In those two years—and I was an RA [resident advisor] one of those years in the dorm—drugs were very much an issue. Which makes me think that is was so prevalent and obvious there. I mean, you didn’t go to a party and people weren’t smoking pot. There was a big problem with it being in the dorms and having to almost police that because you had to. That I can’t believe that it flipped that quickly, I don’t remember that being, I don’t even remember friends talking about it that much at UNCG.
LH: Do you remember a lot of hippies? I know that the hippie era started in like ’67. Do you remember a lot of hippies being on campus?
SS: No, I do not. [pause]
LH: In 1967 they stopped dorm room searches. Do you remember dorm room searches at all?
SS: Oh, how interesting, boy, you are really jogging my memory. And I do remember dorm room searches and I am trying to think what was the criteria for those. Did they say why?
LH: I do not think they had any reason. They just said— 8
SS: They could at will.
LH: They could at will if they had suspicion of alcohol or drugs or stuff like that.
SS: Right. I think that you were a—see, I did not serve on any courts until 1968 or 1969 and were they doing dorm searches at that point? Because—no.
LH: They stopped them in ’67.
SS: Right so I do not remember having to deal with that in the court system. I do remember it occurring, but because people would always fuss about it. I don’t, not much else about it.
LH: So you served on the court system?
SS: I served on the court system.
LH: What did you do on the court system?
SS: I was [on] the court system, and the president of the student government that ran for that was head of that student government that year. One of her campaigns, which was a change was “one should not be academically punished for a social infraction.” Which means if you broke a social rule—kids were even kicked out of school prior to that if you did certain things, and we made the stand of: there may be other penalties but it would not have an academic impact on you. You could stay in school, you could finish classes unless you did a perjury or I mean, plagiarism, those kinds of things. That’s an academic issues but this was more the social issues. So when I served on a court we dealt with cases that I remember would be girls, let’s say, that—you know, they still locked these dorms at night. That’s just for safety and security reasons. Anyway some girls let’s say snuck out one night and left the door propped open and so anyone could have gotten in the dorm. And rapes did happen on this campus. And so something like that was a very serious safety impingement. I remember more cases along those kinds of lines.
LH: What would their consequences be?
SS: I don’t remember. I’m sorry.
LH: So were rapes a big issue on campus?
SS: They were but they were very, a lot of it was rumor and conjecture because there was extremely tight control over information. But I can remember one girl did get—she was on a first floor room; I don’t think anyone broke in the window but somebody did get in the dorm. I don’t know whether I knew her or not, I do remember that incident. I do remember we used to have to woods back down in there and I remember someone getting, hearing that someone got raped then. But I did not know anyone personally and again, you just heard the rumor. Do you know what I mean? There was never anything to 9
help substantiate this at all. Yeah.
LH: Yeah. You said that you were part of the student government. Were there other organizations that you were involved in?
SS: I did some community tutoring my freshman year where we would go into some of the local schools and do some tutoring. You know, I was not, I do not remember belonging to any—Because there were like travel clubs and stuff like that and I do not remember doing that. We had no sororities. There was always the hint that there were secret societies, but you never heard about them. No. Nothing else stands out in my mind that was in an organized group with.
LH: Enrollment started to increase within the later 1960’s. Do you remember some of the buildings being overcrowded? [Allen] Trelease [history professor who wrote the history of the university in his book: Making North Carolina Literate…] mentioned in some of the readings that from about 1965 on—
SS: That is interesting that you brought that up because that did click in my mind. One thing [that] used to happen a great deal was that a lot of women came to UNCG because see back then in Chapel Hill only in a few programs that accepted women otherwise you could not enter Chapel Hill as a freshman if you were a woman, unless you were like in nursing or physical therapy or a couple of other things. So a lot of girls went to UNCG for two years and then they left. So our class size I want to say almost dropped not quite in half but it was a very big drop for who was left for junior and senior year. We were much smaller. That was a very big deal. People left after two years, and I forgot about that. But I do remember, yes, both, I think it was my sophomore year a lot of rooms were three girl rooms. And they would put in a set of bunk beds and another one because there was not enough room. And some girls had to use the—we had parlors. Do they still have parlors? They don’t call them parlors. [laughs]
LH: Bathrooms? In the hall?
SS: No, not bathrooms. We had when you entered downstairs we would have a small side parlor and there would also be a living room kind of area.
LH: Okay.
SS: Some girls literally had to start out, because they had to wait to see who actually showed up and who lasted that first four to six weeks. Eventually the room assignments would filter out. But some even had to sleep in lounges; I guess you would call them lounges. Okay. Some girls did have to be in lounges or you’d have three in your room. That did not happen to me, but I remember easily being on a hall where that was. It was just hard because the rooms were really obviously not set up for that.
LH: It is funny that you said that a lot of people did not have cars. I have read that parking had become a really big issue within the later ’60s because more commuter students 10
started coming in and stuff like that. So you did not have a car on campus?
SS: I never had a car when I was at UNCG. Occasionally, if I got a car, I got it from my parents for a weekend or two and I had to go park it off campus, you know. So I never had one just for my use. Which is interesting, when I went to Chapel Hill, I had one all the time.
LH: And now that would never happen.
SS: I know, I was going to say none of my daughters went to school without a car. Except, Mary Baldwin, one school didn’t want you to have them your freshman year. I don’t remember, anyway. But I am sure, no, I remember parking being an issue mainly because you had a lot of commuting students and there was no place for them to park.
LH: I have read they had started regulating parking in 1965 or 1966 and it was like a dollar a year to pay for parking. [laughing]
SS: Probably so.
LH: I can’t believe how much it has changed, because it is definitely not a dollar: Do you remember the consolidated university day where Chapel Hill and Raleigh [North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina] would come, they would have busses for UNCG students to bus them to Chapel Hill?
SS: Oh, I can remember my freshman year, part of freshman orientation you came for like a week before classes started. Oh yeah, that is when you felt like you [were] part of a cattle car because you were put on these buses and they would literally drive you to NC State; because again those were basically all-male campuses. Chapel Hill was an all-male campus for freshman and sophomores. Literally, I can remember being like four or six buses and they would stop the buses and let you out. And here’d be all these guys and these girls would just come floating out and they would have some kind of parties arranged. No, that is what it was like. You did that at Chapel Hill and you’d go to State. It was optional, you could choose not to go, but most people went.
LH: So was that every other semester or more?
SS: My memory is that they just, I only remember maybe after that experience with freshman orientation, I chose never to do it again. I do not remember. [both laughing] I did the two trips and then I did not do it again. Of course all of us had friends too that were at State and Chapel Hill and we hooked up with them. But still my memory is that only freshman were bussed over like that, but there may have been other events, maybe for football games and stuff, because again, people didn’t have cars. I bet for football games they bused people over. Did they? That is what it said?
LH: It said for State and Carolina games.
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SS: Yes that what I figured: There must be buses that took you then.
LH: I thought that was interesting.
SS: It is also interesting being a part of that. You would get off that bus and here are all these—oh, God. [laughter]
LH: That would be just weird.
SS: It was weird!
LH: What was your typical day like? Your freshman year, we will start going through your years. What would be like your typical day? Were your studies very hard?
SS: My studies were not—you know, but it’s interesting, for some reason I have just been going through my parent’s stuff and found some old report cards and I didn’t do as well I thought I had done. It is kind of funny but anyway. [both laugh] I had come from what I felt a very good high school, it was Durham High School. It was the only high school. So I felt very well prepared. You had kids coming, obviously, from everywhere in North Carolina from very small high schools and counties. We were in one of the bigger ones. I remember feeling like the course load was pretty much what I was used to from my senior year in high school. That is not to say that it was easy, but it was not overwhelming as it was for some girls.
I was one, either I studied fairly often—I used to, what was it, you would go to class, you had friend you paled around with, you went shopping. If I went out it was probably on a Saturday night. I am trying to think. Played tennis or did that kind of stuff. I am just trying to think what else. I was a great napper because I was one of those, especially in the later years when I didn’t have that stupid curfew, I was one of those that would easily stay up to two or three getting work done. You might have an eight or nine o’clock class but I promise you I could come back and be asleep in fifteen minutes, nap for two hours get up for the next class.
I always kept some kind of part time job on campus. Because back then you always had someone sitting at a desk, so that anybody that walked through the door would be meeted and greeted and answer the phone because you didn’t have phones in your room and you did not have cell phones. The only phones were one on a hall. So you would get them to come over the intercom: “Sarah Horton you have a phone call” and you would go and get the phone call whether it was somebody calling from somewhere else on campus or your family calling you. So I did that kind of job. I might do that job twenty hours in the week, twelve hours in the week. That is about it.
I played a lot of bridge. I have to confess that I used to even miss class to play bridge. That was the big thing, people just sitting in a dorm room you would have a great card game going. There was always someone to play bridge. My senior year we started getting away from bridge. We were playing spades, had a couple of board games we had going. It was kind of like if you did not want to study someone would just yell a game and there you could always find four or five people that would play a game. I am trying the think what else. 12
TV was not as big back then. People did not have TVs in their rooms. The TV was downstairs in the lounge or in a hall. Only, I remember by my senior year seeing a few in people’s rooms. Everyone had a stereo, everyone had music. Back then it was records, not tapes and CDs. [laughing] So, everybody had music but people didn’t have TVs and you did not have cell phones. You had to talk to each other. I was one, this was my father's influence I know, they did offer a great number of the concert and lecture series. There was always some kind of symposium, or discussion or just something going on that you could do that on campus. I really did do a lot of that. A lot of meetings, I remember back then we used to have a lot of meetings for whatever, class officers or all the functions that classes did during the week.
LH: So you were pretty busy all the time.
SS: Yes. I really—I felt very busy, I do not ever remember feeling bored. Let me put it that way, like if “I can’t get out of here I am going to lose my mind.” I am sure there were moments like that and I did hit an absolutely horrible sophomore slump. I did the typical, I gained the most I had ever weighed in a long time was my freshman year: I really ate, ate, ate. There, you had to buy the meal plan, there was no choice, you bought the meal plan. The cafeteria was there and it was already paid for. By the end of my sophomore year I think I was the least I had ever weighed. I just hit this wall of, I don’t know. It was just a tough year. I didn’t sleep well, didn’t eat much: I remember crying a lot: I just remember being down about a lot of stuff, just a real slump. I tried to take too many classes and I had to cut back on one, it was just tough year for some reason. Then the next two years were great and fine.
LH: [unclear] How long were your classes? How many hours, credit hours were they?
SS: Most of them were three or four hour credits. It was generally a three hour course and it would only be a four hour course if you had a lab. Like I took, I always took a science every year, which did help. Except somehow I missed chemistry and had to take it senior year for nursing school. If you had biology you went to three one hour lectures and then had a three hour lab and that would be a four hour course. Three hour course and normally you would carry, what would you carry, between fifteen to eighteen hours. One the semester I tried to carry I think eighteen or nineteen was not a good plan. No and I dropped it. I also had one semester where I made all A’s and flunked philosophy of religion. I can remember my father just saying, “Try one more time; I want to understand how this happened.” [laugh] I said it is real easy if you don’t go to class and you don’t do the work then you don’t pass the class. I just did not do very well. That was Dr. [Warren] Ashby, who most people really loved, but he and I did not do well together.
LH: Do you remember the attendance policy in your classes at all?
SS: Not really, I want to say you were allowed three absences? I really don’t remember that well but I know you were only allowed so many. But then you also had, Ashby, I took what was it my junior year? I am sure it was my junior year because I can remember skipping and playing bridge where I was. He is one of those that didn’t deal with that 13
issue, does that make sense? You do have professors that do not deal with that issue and he did not. That is all I do remember and we got the classic freshman orientation too. My husband, he was at Duke [University, Durham, North Carolina] and—which is you are sitting in this huge auditorium and they give you the talk, look to your right and look to your left and one of you will not be here at the end of this year or I think at the end of the semester. [LH laughing] They were right, they were right.
LH: That is so funny.
SS: Yes.
LH: You said that they had Saturday school. Did you ever have to take a Saturday class?
SS: Oh gosh yes. Freshman year you always got stuck, because what they did then was you had either Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes or you had Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday classes. Most of the labs were Tuesday and Thursday afternoons because there wouldn’t be anything Saturday afternoon. But they had class up until twelve. My freshman year I had it both semesters, I had a Saturday class. You did not get to call in registration or use a computer you had to go stand in line and grab the cards. When the cards were out for class and you did not get in that class and you had to think of something else. I was just rereading something from—I’d written my parents and I just was taking about that nightmare of registration.
LH: I bet that was a nightmare.
SS: It really was. Of course then you could pre-register after that first freshman year. Then you learned who to talk to and what classes to avoid. You would stay away from those eight o'clocks if you could, but that freshman year you paid all your dues. That is all there was to it.
LH: Do you remember, did they have Saturday classes when you left?
SS: No, I don’t—My thought would be no but as a senior there’s no way you would take a Saturday class. So I don’t know but I think they were much more minimal, but also in those upper classes you would also take a seminar class from like six-thirty to nine-thirty: That is your three hour class, you do it in one shot deal and you didn’t have that kind of option your freshman year.
LH: So y’all did have night classes?
SS: Oh yeah. We definitely had night classes. I only knew about them because you usually only took those your junior year and senior year. I remember both years having those: Especially in poli sci we definitely had night classes.
LH: Let us see. Is there anything else that you would like to mention?
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[telephone rings]
SS: That is my phone, which I am going to ignore. The only thing that I am really struck with is, no, I do remember doing what, you know this is horrible. I can remember being in a march, there were a lot of marches back then and demonstrations: I can remember doing one that went to downtown Greensboro. It started at UNCG and went downtown to the court house. What is horrible is, I cannot tell you what we were marching for. That bothers me that I can’t. Now I have got a couple classmates that I could call and they could tell me but I can’t remember. But you are always being photographed by the press or whatever. Well, I remember my senior year someone in my class wanted an interview at the SBI, the State Bureau of Investigation. When they interviewed and one of the things you’re asked, you get a security check or whatever, this person was sat in a room and showed all of these film clips and they were pointed out every time they demonstrated, every time they marched. It made you realize because I can remember thinking, you remember seeing the cameras but you think they are just the journalist and the TV station, but it’s not or they save them. I remember thinking oh my “God my father will kill me,” because they were taping you and somebody is keeping a record of this: I remember all of us just being so incensed and blown away by that. Just crazy.
LH: But do you remember some of the marches that went on, on campus? I know that you do not remember the one that you were in, but do you remember some of the other things students marched about, protested about?
SS: No, and I regret that. I’m sorry. That is just me and my memory, not that they were not important at that time. I was just making the comment to my husband, I then went to Chapel Hill for two years and the only thing I can remember is at that time the Vietnam War was really in the forefront. There were sit-ins and sleep-ins and people camped out on the quad. I can remember all of that going on when I was in nursing school at Chapel Hill. But that was not, people were talking about the war when I left UNCG but it had not quite escalated. Now I was at UNCG the summer of ’68, which was a horrible summer. That is the Kent State [Editor’s Note: Kent State was 1970], that was the Democratic Convention, in Chicago, where the police came out. I mean, it was—I was gone that summer; I spent that entire summer in Europe, which was also a wonderful experience, grand. A lot of that was going on, I remember that the National Student Assembly—what was it called, NSA? I’ve forgotten—whatever. At that point—now, I was helping my daughters plan a trip and we used them to get all this travel information for students, student pass ports and whatever. I remember thinking when I was in school, this was a very political organization. That met and talked a lot about student's rights and what is going on in the world today, what is our stupid government doing. There were demonstrations and active things and I am thinking we do not hear from our campuses anymore. We do not. The students, which normally is your seed of thought, your intellectualism, your radicalism whatever. These are the people that are making the outcry and the demonstrations, but no more. I do not think you do, but in my time my memory is that very much even if I was not a part of it, it was obviously going on around me very much and a big part of the conversation. But oh well. 15
LH: Did you ever participate in the camping out and protesting of the [Vietnam] War at Chapel Hill?
SS: No, I did not.
LH: You were too busy in nursing school.
SS: I am afraid very definitely busy in nursing school. We were on the floor everyday so you’re working. But no. You were not only going to school but you are working on the floor: But no and I will be honest with you even though poli sci [political science] was my major and I felt I was [not] very involved in campus politics at UNCG. I would not describe myself as an activist. I am not.
LH: Summers—did you go home for summers most of the time?
SS: I worked as a camp counselor for the summer, each of those summers and worked at a North Carolina camp, and basically was there for eight or ten weeks and home beginning and end. I did that for freshman summer, sophomore summer. My junior summer five of us from UNCG literally got a Eurail pass, a charter flight through Chapel Hill, spent three months in Europe for the summer just going from place to place to place, which was fantastic. Do you want to know at what price we did that? You would die! I am talking three months. We left June the sixth and we came back just before Labor Day, two thousand dollars for three months: That was the Eurail pass, that was the flight over and back, and that was all our food and all our lodging. I am perfectly serious. Isn’t that phenomenal?
LH: That is phenomenal.
SS: Phenomenal! That was when Arthur Frommer wrote his book Europe on 5 Dollars a Day and that’s what we did. That is what we did. I do not know what his book is now, but I know it is not five dollars a day. I think it might be like fifty a day, I think might be what it is. It was a grand time. I can remember when were in Paris that summer, that was the horrible summer in the United States, I felt, but it was also in Paris. We were there right near their Bastille Day and there were parts of Paris we could not even get into because the students from the French universities were really demonstrating and things were out of control. I can remember seeing it in the paper and hearing about it. [recording error] Robert Kennedy was assassinated just before we had left for that trip and all we heard in England is what a violent country we are. That was back in a time when their Bobbies or policemen didn’t even carry guns. They really did consider us a very violent country. I think for us it was very hard, I mean you just think America was, back then was in spite of all of its problem we were one of the great countries, great people. Here you had people like “No, you are not.” We remember having to constantly dealing with that issue that summer when we were there.
LH: Well, I have a few questions that I want to, ask, just not relating to this. What type of music did you used to listen to whenever you [were] in school? 16
SS: I wish my family was here because they would just hoot and howl at this point. I do not listen to a lot of music or popular music I guess you could say. I enjoy it but I could not tell you who sang it and I couldn’t tell you what they are singing. What I do remember is though I do love Mamas and Papas. They were very much a favorite. That is when Dionne Warwick was still, she even came to UNCG and sang, the Supremes—used to listen to all them. I was not an Elvis Presley fan. Let’s see, Neil Diamond was a biggie and I ought to pull out his album “Hot August Night.” That is when he was singing the really harder, you know, stronger stuff. Those are the ones that stick out the most in my mind.
LH: I listen to lots of music so I had to ask. You said that she, who did you say had come—from the Mamas and Papas?
SS: No, Dionne Warwick who is a black singer, solo singer. She came to UNCG to perform which is really a big deal. She’s a Motown singer, kind of thing.
LH: Did the whole campus come to that?
SS: Yes, that place was, yes, I remember Aycock Auditorium and that is all we had back then was packed. You felt fortunate to get a seat because back then they couldn’t seat all of us in there. You had to fight for the tickets and you could bring—I think you could bring a guest I can’t remember: A lot of the stuff you could; but not everything you could.
LH: I wanted to ask about the Daisy Chain. I don’t really know a lot, can you explain that?
SS: Not the Golden Chain, you want the Daisy Chain.
LH: Well, you can explain both, so.
SS: Okay. Daisy Chain, do they even do that anymore?
LH: No, they ended it in the late ’60s.
SS: Did they really?
LH: Or early ’70s.
SS: It must have been early ’70s because we still did it when I graduated in 1969. We still did the Daisy Chain.
LH: It must have been early ’70s when they stopped doing it.
SS: That is because you had sister classes back then as well. Your sister class would do this
for you, so that when you are a freshman your sister class is the junior class. Then when they graduate you are juniors and then that what, and you are paired off all the way 17
through. But anyway, when you graduate, we used to have what was called a class day and that was the day before you graduated. It would be held in the lawn or whatever before the administration building. There is a brick walk way, I think, in there. Is it Foust Administration Building? It would be in that grassy park in front of it. Parents would be invited and that is when a lot of awards and honors would be given out and they had to do more with not scholarship but with leadership and service kind of things. There would be a few speeches. You had to wear white, white dress, white shoes. Your sister class who would be the rising juniors—they’d just finished their sophomore year—they literally got up very early one morning would go out and pick wild daisies in whatever fields they could find. It used to be that you could go by the airport there was always some there; I forgot, along the highways—but literally just pick wild daisies. A florist would arrange this long greenery kind of garland. I forgot how long, but we are talking long. I think we are talking twenty or twenty-five feet long and there were two of them. They bring these daisies back and stick them all through this greenery. That is a whole day project, the day before. Then when it is time for you to march, through your sister class marches through first and they are each carrying it, however many choose to do it, they are carrying it on their shoulders. They are also in white.
So here is this daisy chain on their shoulders on both sides of you. When the senior class marches in, of course we were all in white you walk through this daisy chain and then take your seat. That’s when mini dresses became popular: I wore this short white dress, [laughing] I mean it was one of those that if I stood I could barely touch, anyway. I remember my father, I keep bringing my father up but anyway, my father said I thought we were going to a graduation ceremony; you look like you are going to the pool. I just laughed at him. Whatever. Then there [are] all the speeches and the awards and the honors. That was done on class day and then the next day would be the graduation. And we had George McGovern [Unites States Representative and Senator from South Dakota and Democratic Party presidential nominee in 1972], a very political radical at that time he was on the left, far left. A lot of people were not very happy that he was selected to be our graduation speaker. We graduated out at Grimsley High School at Jameson Stadium and we did it outside. We had to sit on that field and it was hot as hell. Here you are in this gown and you just about wore nothing underneath it because you had to sit out there in this blazing sun. If it rained, I forgot where they put us. Soon after that switched to the Coliseum, but not at that point we did it out there in Jameson Field.
LH: What was the Golden Chain?
SS: Now, Golden Chain, which I think still exists at UNCG—that recognizes scholarship, leadership, and service. You can be inducted in your junior year or your senior year. I do not know how they do it now, it used to be a really big deal because the doors were still locked for the night. Usually the house president or someone would come knock on your door and say “The house mother wants to see you downstairs” and usually you knew. When you went downstairs they were all waiting with candles that are currently in [a] golden chain and they have this thing to say to you and they pin on this paper yellow chain. You wear all the next day so that everyone knows that you have been inducted. It was a very, very high honor to get that. Then you buy the gold chain after that, the real, it is just a little decal kind of thing. That is what the gold chain is, but I think that still 18
exists. I could be wrong. I imagine they handle the induction thing a little differently. It is a very girly thing and I don’t think they do that anymore.
LH: How many were in your graduating class?
SS: That is an interesting question, part of me wants to say five hundred or a thousand. That is horrible, I am looking at that annual it could not have been more than five hundred and some. I want to say five hundred and some. If it is a thousand I am going to feel horrible: I am thinking of the annual and thinking of all the people on those pages and I am thinking there is no way it is a thousand it had to be five hundred. But I am thinking at that time where our class literally almost dropped in half by junior year. Those that stayed stuck it out.
LH: [unclear] Is there anything else that you would like to share that I did not go over? I just want to make sure that anything I did not ask you about that you want to share, get it out there.
SS: I think—I do feel that from 1965 to 1969 was a very exciting time to be in college, it really was. When you think about all the changes that were going on in the world and because you still had that kind of activist campus I think it was also it was that luxury of going for an education not because I’ve got to get a job. Unfortunately, not unfortunately but that was still the mind set back then. If you didn’t find a husband you would find one pretty soon after. He would still be the primary bread winner, but still the main choices for women at that time were nurses and teachers. People were just starting to branch out into other stuff. And so, you know, it was a time of great change, to me, of great change in this country and as well on campus. It was a great way to be in but it was also a very safe environment in which to have that experience. You’d be exposed with it but, hey, you only had to taste what you wanted to taste, I guess you could say. And it was still very much primarily a woman's college, and I even convinced one daughter, though I’m not sure now it was the right thing to do.
I very much believe that for many, not for many, but for some people, single sex education has some real pluses for a lot of people. I do not think on a coed campus I would have been involved the way I was involved. I really don’t believe that or I think that participation in class, speaking up, I think it can be a time to very much strengthen and enhance a women without the fighting for the guy and boys being involved or whatever. All those issues are not there so I think for many it is time where they can truly blossom. You had great female role models, though we had just as many, that was one of our complaints, we had just as many male teacher as female teachers. I think we felt hey they ought to give a little; we ought to have more female role models. You did have a significant number, we always had a male chancellor while I was there which I think some of us grumbled and griped about, but anyway, that was the times. You did not have that many women leaders in education at that point. That is all I wanted to say. You have been very kind to let me just expound.
LH: I am so glad that you agreed to do this.
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SS: I just really wish that my roommate and also the person that was president of student government, Randy, I wish the two of them were here because I promise you there are-things that they would remember and look at me like my God how could you have forgotten that and of course we did this. They would be much stronger at that than I am. They were also much stronger politically than I was. But anyway you got a taste.
LH: Thank you very much.
SS: You are quite welcome.
[End of Interview]