Oral history interview with Sarah "Sally" M. Robinson, 2004 [text/print transcript]

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PATRICIA FAIRFIELD-ARTMAN ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Sarah "Sally" M. Robinson
INTERVIEWER: Patricia Fairfield-Artman
DATE: June 29, 2004
[Begin CD 1]
PFA: I am with Sally [Robinson], Class of 1961, June 29th—
[recording paused]
PFA: This is June 29, 2004. [unclear] Okay, we're on a little clicker number eight. Okay.
SR: I came to the university when it was Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina] as a freshman in 1957—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —from a background of living in the West. I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. My parents were sent to Winston Salem during the part of the Korean wartime. My dad worked for what was then Western Electric. It's now Lucent Technologies.
PFA: Yeah.
SR: And we were there about six months. And during that time period, there were events over at the Woman's College that the campus high school that junior and senior girls would go to and I came to those. So music things and some sports things. And I was active in what was the girls' athletic activities. There were like intermurals?
PFA: Yes.
SR: So and also played in orchestra. And they were interested in me both in music and in physical education at the Woman's College because I played the bassoon and there weren't a whole lot of, a whole lot of bassoon players—
PFA: Oh, yeah. 2
SR: —but there were no such thing as out-of-state scholarships and that kind of thing then and so we went off to Virginia and I finished my high school year around the Norfolk area, an area called Hampton Roads—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —near Fort Eustis, Virginia and I came back here to college. My parents subsequently moved all over the world and I moved to different parts of the country to teach when I graduated. I was, my father had always said if I found a place I really liked, I could stay there no matter where they went, if we could possibly afford it and so I was allowed to stay. I seldom went home during all that time of college years because they were somewhere where I didn't go—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —I was allowed to stay on campus between sessions and do work on campus. [I] worked different campus offices, the post office, and the dean's office and the dean of students and so on. And then off to summer camp to be a counselor and get on the train and come straight back to school. So the time that I was here from '57 to '61. I was probably home a couple of weeks of summer for four years—
PFA: Oh!
SR: —and, but in those times, I met people that both taught on the faculty here and people that were colleagues of theirs in other places, even as an undergraduate student. It was an interesting time to be here because we had no idea, none in this world, it would ever be anything but Woman's College—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —no hints and suggestions before 1961—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and, in fact, the conversations about it becoming co-edu[cational], the university becoming co­educational probably didn't even surface until '62/'63 in the State Legislature. About the time that a lot of civil rights things were happening that effected the whole university system. So while a lot of my classmates viewed changing the Woman's College to something lesser and different. From the Class of '61/'62, along in there, very, very hard­headed about the fact that we were the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —like Duke woman's college was the Woman's College of Duke University. That was always the big parallel that was— 3
PFA: Oh!
SR: —raised and brought up.
PFA: Yes.
SR: Resistance there was not, I don't think, to becoming co-ed, but to losing their status as one of the three branches of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, which had happened in 1933 so there was thirty years of entrenched history and a lot of communication about what an advantaged position that was and how good this was for our reputation and for our degrees and so on and so on. Then to just become one of sixteen campuses dash so-and-so was more than co-ed. It was—I'm—I'm, unraveling of a myth—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —about them, about the value of the Woman's College education—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —so but it was real interesting to, as a student, to see that and then then then as a student to be there in the days when that was never even imagined and to be a young alumnae listening to graduates, my friends who were coming after me in school complain about these changes and then I want, I have a brother who is eight years younger than I. He was
in the second class that admitted men—
PFA: Oh, wow!
SR: —it was a totally different experience for co-education. There were about 100 of them admitted to the freshman class of 800 or 1,000; however, many they admitted 100. And of that 100, I think ten graduated on time. So there's a whole thing about the '60s that
you'll get different stories from different people. All true perspectives, they were just at different points along the spectrum—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and so people who came to the campus in the '50s, in the '40s and '50s, like Dr. Anderton [biology professor], Laura Anderton and Gail Hennis [physical education professor, assistant vice-chancellor, assistant dean, and interim dean], the late Gale Hennis, Nancy White [Class of 1946, education and human environmental science professor] and the pride in environmental science classes, human development classes—
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: —and Rosemary McGee [physical education professor]—
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PFA: Yes.
SR: —you're going to have to write this down—
PFA: Yeah, yeah. I think I've got some of their names down here, yeah.
SR: —Nancy White, Rosemary McGee, Mary Elizabeth Van Dyke [physical education professor]—
PFA: [unclear] Rosemary McGee, is she still here?
SR: Rosemary McGee is out at a place now called River Landing. It's a very nice retirement community. In fact, a lot of these people have retired out there. Nancy White is out there at River Landing.
PFA: Nancy White, let's see if I have her name here.
SR: Nancy White, PhD. She was the first PhD from UNCG which she got in 1961. [Editor's note: Dr. White received her PhD in 1963 when the name of the school was Woman’s College]. Another real, and she's quite cogent and able to be a wonderful story and really understands about friendship. She's the woman in child development—
PFA: Yes, okay.
SR: —she taught at Curry School, she taught first grade at Curry School. You know, Nancy and she was a graduate of about the Class of '47, I think. So Nancy has a really special— three degrees from UNCG, long-time faculty member—
PFA: Wow!
SR: —special understanding—
PFA: Okay.
SR: —and a great eye for what really is going on.
PFA: Okay, oh great! And she's at River Landing?
SR: She's at River Landing. Marian Solleder, S-O-L-L-E-D-E-R [physical education professor]. Came—She's at River Landing too. Marian with an "A." S-O-L-L-E-D-E-R. She didn't come here until 1969 but she's in public health education and she knew a lot of these people all their professional lives. You know, a lot of the people who taught on the faculty here on both sides of co­education. Marian would be a person who came after it had already happened—
PFA: Ah. Okay. 5
SR: —before it was fully established. Because, you see, the class of '69 would be the second class to graduate [unclear].
PFA: Okay.
SR: There are some dissertations in the library that might help somehow, one by a woman
named Janice, Jan. I don't know if it is Jan or Janet to tell you the truth, Watson
W-A-T-S-O-N?
PFA: Yes.
SR: And it's the educational history of the life of Ethel Martus. [Editor's note: In 1980, Jan Carole Watson published her dissertation titled Ethel Loroline Martus Lawther: Her Contributions to Physical Education.] And Ethel Martus Lawther was the first dean of the School of HHP.
PFA: Wow! Okay.
SR: There may be a dissertation about Naomi. Oh, got that wrong. But Naomi [unclear] was a physical education person and that's wrong.
PFA: Okay.
SR: Albanese, Albanese, Dean [of School of Home Economics] Naomi Albanese A-L-B-A-N—
PFA: All right.
SR: —E-S-E—
PFA: Okay.
SR: Now another person who came soon after co-education. It was a colleague of Nancy White. There was a woman named Mildred, Dr. Mildred Johnson [home economics education professor] and she came, Johnson in the usual way. She lives in Greensboro here, very active volunteer like, does emergency room work at, at Moses Cone [Hospital]. She's just great— [chuckles]
PFA: Okay.
SR: Or Wesley Long branch of Moses. She was the chairman of home economics education very soon after co-education. And, once again, she has very good insight about what the transition was like on the co-ed side and what the stories and networks were like, Dr. Albanese hired her.
PFA: Yes, okay. 6
SR: She came as head of home economics education in the late '60s and retired in the late '90s, I mean, Mildred Johnson. Super lady and very, very clear. Her daughter went to UNCG and then to medical school at [the University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill and is a very well-established gynecologist in Charlotte—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —so there's a real interesting, do we believe in UNCG education, value of the education—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —Kathy graduated from the biology department, went to [the University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill to medical school, etc. etc.
PFA: Okay, yeah. What about Laura Anderson [sic]?
SR: Laura Anderton—
PFA: Anderton—
SR: —she's alive and well and lives over about three miles in the apartments near campus where she always lived.
PFA: Yes. Do you think she would talk?
SR: Oh, yeah.
PFA: Okay.
SR: You'll need a [unclear]
PFA: [laughs]
SR: She has a lovely Rhode Island accent and has a great history. She's probably one of the first women, full professors in the biology department.
PFA: Yes.
SR: When I was a student, she was finishing her PhD at Chapel Hill and worked as a counselor in the dormitories and teaching biology full time. A lot of these people did work in the dormitories along with their teaching. Dr. McGee did. Rosemary did. Laura Anderton did. Just the last few years, we've lost a lot of these folks. There's a wonderful book called Women in Science, I don't know the author—
PFA: Yes. 7
SR: —but you'll find it in the women's study literature, I'm pretty sure.
PFA: Okay.
SR: It's not a long book. It has stories about brilliant women with, who had good possibility of research careers in science, who went usually to teach and often could only
get positions in women's colleges—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —in my opinion, there were several of them here: One named Maude Williams [biology professor] who was batty as all get-out but brilliant, she is gone from us now. Charlotte Dawley, the late Charlotte Dawley D-A-W-L-E-Y [biology professor]. There was a woman named, a couple of women in chemistry and then two women in math. One married and I don't know her maiden name. I mean I don't know her married name but Dr. Anderton will know all about those people—
PFA: Okay, yeah.
SR: —and one of the things, one of the reasons to bring up Dr. Anderton is that she taught in the biology department, so she knows, and she was advisor to all the pre-med and pre­physical therapy students.
PFA: Yes.
SR: She knows the network over there in the science building, in the Petty Science Building. The women chemists, the women biologists and oh, I wonder if Anna Joyce Reardon [physics professor] is still living. I don't think so.
PFA: Yeah, I have Anna Joyce Reardon.
SR: Reardon. You'll have to ask doctor—ask Dr. McGee—
PFA: Okay.
SR: —about her. Rosemary is not offended if I can't remember who is here and who isn't. Anna Joyce Reardon is in that class of brilliant women scientists. She discovered something about the photo, Polaroid process in her dissertation—
PFA: Yes, wow!
SR: —and did beautiful photography work and everybody took her physics class to take physics, but they took her photography class from art and from all the fine arts people, all the different levels of students. She had a beginning and an intermediate photography class. We had a little lab over in the basement of the Petty Science Building and some marvelous work came out of there, you know, coordinated between art and science. 8
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: There was a place on campus and you will want to ask Mildred Johnson and Nancy White about it and maybe Dr. Solleder—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —called the Home Ec Cafeteria.
PFA: I remember that!
SR: The Home Economics Cafeteria.
PFA: It was in Stone Building.
SR: It was in the basement of Stone Building. A later dean got rid of it, not one of the ones that are there now. Okay?
PFA: Yes.
SR: Because it was probably needing a big upgrade for modern OSHA stuff. But it was a major center, faculty community across all the disciplines.
PFA: Yes.
SR: David Purpel [education and curriculum professor] when I first came here. David Purpel and I would say, "Okay, let's go to lunch. How about the Home Ec Cafeteria?" Students who were in food service classes and in the food service major and the dietetics and so on supervised it and served it and so on.
PFA: I remember it. Yeah!
SR: It was a true internship type place and of course incredibly inexpensive and no parking problems—
PFA: Yeah!
SR: —and clean and healthy—
PFA: And I remember they had one of those things where you put your tray, if I remember—
SR: That's right! Yeah. The Home Economics Cafeteria, I think, was a central living place of people. In the physical education area, there were very few male faculty—
PFA: Yes.
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SR: —none before co-education. In fact, in physical education nor health were there any
male faculty before co-education and only a few afterward for about ten years afterward. In 1974, I went to a professional meeting where a lot of the people from all the country were there and, of course, in 1974, we are still talking about women as full professors and the why aren't there any—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and I can remember Celeste Ulrich [Class of 1946, physical education professor], who has retired as the dean of the Univ—health and human performance of the University of Oregon saying, "There are twenty-one full professors at UNCG, fully co-educational institution and has been for almost twenty years, now twenty years. Twenty-one faculty who are full professors, female, and nineteen of them are in the School of Home Economics—
PFA: [chuckles]
SR: —the School of Nursing or the School of Health and Human Performance."
PFA: Wow, amazing!
SR: Yeah. So you will want to find out about those women in the College of Arts & Sciences who were full professors—
PFA: Right.
SR: —like Dr. [Helen] Barton—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —in mathematics for whom there is a lounge named for her, I think—
PFA: Is she alive?
SR: No.
PFA: Okay.
SR: Long gone, but there will be people that know about Dr. Barton. There might have been someone in art, but maybe not until in the '70s or '80s when Joan Gregory came.
PFA: Yes, Wow!
SR: I don't know when Joan Gregory came and that would be worthwhile finding out. She's in the Department of Art.
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PFA: Okay. Is she still there?
SR: No, no. Yeah, she's living. I see her at the symphony, but she's retired.
PFA: Okay.
SR: Dr. Joan Gregory, art—And she would have a very different story to tell on college [unclear] than the people from home economics and exercise and sport science and education. Saying education reminds me of Jane Mitchell, Dr. Jane Mitchell. Did I mention her? She taught, she was a professor of French who also taught in the School of Education. And she sits behind me at the art—
PFA: And she's alive?
SR: She's very alive. Ann Saab. Did I mention Ann Saab? Came probably shortly after co- education. A young PhD from Harvard—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —distinguished historian. S-A-A-B, just like the car.
PFA: Yes.
SR: —she lives in the neighborhood. She lives in that, you know, on Wright Avenue pretty close to Lindley Elementary School—
PFA: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
SR: Okay. One of the names that I gave you earlier that I understand has passed away is Elizabeth Boyles [Class of 1950, English professor, author of A Good Beginning: The First Four Decades of UNCG].
PFA: Yeah, yeah.
SR: She died this spring.
PFA: Oh gosh! See, this is why I need to—
SR: Yeah. But Ann Saab is a wonderful historian and has a very good sense of balance and no bones to, to pick—
PFA: Yes.
SR: I think a friend of hers named Jean Gordon, Dr. Jean Gordon [history and political science professor]—
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PFA: Oh, yeah, I've heard of her.
SR: —yeah, would be a wonderful resource, also, a historian. As I say, I'm not sure when Jean and Ann came. They were here when my brother was here and that would be the middle '60s.
PFA: Right.
SR: Most of the history department was male when I was a student, which I thought was fascinating, except for one splendid woman now gone, long gone, named Josephine Hege H-E-G-E [Class of 1927, history professor].
PFA: Yes.
SR: Okay.
PFA: Yes.
SR: So Dr. Saab can tell you about Josephine Hege. She had no PhD, but she did have a master's probably from the University of Wisconsin. Taught wonderful writing skills, procedural things. I was chairman of the faculty, I was the student chairman of the Faculty /Student Grievance Committee and she was faculty chairman of the Faculty/Student Grievance Committee—an entity that exited in another era—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —before we had quite such a big student affairs department.
PFA: Okay.
SR: And I learned about agendas and setting your agenda and publishing your agenda and
staying with your agenda and staying on track and staying on time and doing what you
say you're going to do and getting your minutes out all from Dr. Hege. Not from anything I ever learned professionally as a grown person. Anyway, she just had a wonderful mentoring way and there's a faculty, if I can think of the history faculty member's name, a man who I said this to one day when we were, the faculty group was
muddling about around something and I said, "Well, I learned forty years ago how to do this from. Dr. Hege." And he went "Ah, what a wonderful colleague she was. I was just a
brand-new faculty member out of the University of Chicago and she taught me all those things too." There was just a really, you know, quick moment of connection across, he didn't have any reason to think this exercise and sport science person was going to do or say anything that he would be interested in linking up with—
PFA: Wow!
SR: —it was an interesting communication maker— 12
PFA: Yes.
SR: —was, of course, how grown-up procedures or disci, not disciplines specific.
PFA: Yes, yes, yeah.
SR: Now, let's see: In the theater area, there might have been, I think Kathryn England [drama and speech professor] was a faculty member. She might have been a professor. Other female professors when I was a student were often in the languages and in Spanish and French and Russian, German. Yes, the person, some of the people that taught Spanish and French probably taught Italian—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —there were people in the School of Music, a professor named Cowell, I don't remember her first name, C-O-W-E-L-L [sic]. [Editor's note: The Dr. Robinson is referring to Elizabeth Cowling.] Was a cellist, brilliant and I've often wondered if some of the women in the music and in the arts had the same stories as the women in science, but the women in science got written about—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —which is they're very gifted, but they're female at the wrong time. [chuckles]
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: So they would come, and they would teach, and they would mentor. The public schools of North Carolina, especially in the cities looked to the Woman's College and to East Carolina [University] and lesser extent to Western Carolina [University] and to Appalachian [State University] for their music teachers—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —so there was a whole network, and some of the smaller colleges as well had outstanding music programs. Probably Salem College, for example—
PFA: Yes, oh, yeah.
SR: Now, but when I was here, it was very much women, women's work.
PFA: Oh!
SR: Okay?
PFA: Yes.
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SR: We didn't have a school of nursing. We had an undergraduate college and the Department of Physical Education, which was separate for some reason from the college and the Department of Health, which was connected to the Student Health Service and then they sort of, after co-education, it became [Department of] Physical Education and Health. The college never taught the health or physical education.
PFA: Oh, wow!
SR: It was always served by free-standing entity sort of like the School of Education was—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —independent of that and the School of Music was independent. The School of Music was the first school to be independent of the college—it meant, you know, the School of Music still reported to the dean of the faculty, okay? But the dean of the college was not over the School of Music.
PFA: Okay.
SR: Okay?
PFA: Yeah.
SR: And the that would be in the '20s and then in the late 1920s, the Home Ee got the same status. They were the School of Home Economics and their director or their dean was not supervised by the college and then after that the School of Education in the '30s—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and then we didn't have any new schools at all until 1969.
PFA: Wow!
SR: After co-education and after, in 1969, maybe '68 or '69, the School of Nursing and then [the School of] Health and Human Performance and then [the School of] Business and so and it just, you know, became a university structure with the college and the schools after co-education. And there may be some who feel that was a significant change point when in a way the relationships changed.
PFA: Yes.
SR: It from a sort of "we're all in this together" to a more adversarial, more openly adversarial. I don't know to what extent it was adversarial before that—
PFA: Yes.
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SR: —because, as a student, all that politics was not discussed in the exercise and sport science area. In the physical education department, we did not talk in front of students about campus politics. I'm sure they were very much alike.
PFA: Yeah.
SR: But it wasn't something the students really witnessed.
PFA: Yes.
SR: Like we witness it now—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —some people are very condescending towards students from certain majors—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and, as a student, the only place I ever felt that and it's really comical because he would be very offended if he knew this, a man named Donald Russell who was once the dean of education. When he taught educational philosophy [he] was very snide about different subjects—
PFA: Wow!
SR: —in different ways. I mean, everybody got the needle in different ways.
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: And I think he thought he was being clever, but it wasn't always received that way.
PFA: Yeah, I bet, yeah.
SR: You know, sometimes your cleverness and sometimes you're too clever—
PFA: [chuckles]
SR: —later when I returned to campus, Don Russell was the acting dean and we met at a faculty meeting and he said, "You're that Sally Robinson! You were a very smart student and I expect you're a very smart [unclear]." And I'm, and the people all around me are [unclear] and I said he taught educational philosophy about another 100 years ago and so.
PFA: [laughs]
SR: —and they would tease him about Donald the dinosaur and just really have a wonderful time at his expense because he started it— 15
,.
PFA: Oh, yes. Interesting.
SR: Yes. And now from the School of Education, when I came back here in '76, several of the faculty members, Dr. Russell, Dr. [Jane] Mitchell, Nancy White, Dr. [Elizabeth] Boyles were still here. People who had been twenty years ago had been faculty—
PFA: Wow, that's neat!
SR: —but they had been young faculty when I was a student.
PFA: Yes.
SR: And so that that crew that are in their middle-seventies now, Nancy White, Rosemary, Mary Ann, Rosemary McGee—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —Dr. Anderton is probably eighty, but very clear—
PFA: Okay.
SR: —I'm trying to think what other departments I've left out. They'll know about oh, I wonder if she's still around: Kathryn [Frances] Eskey [Class of 1945, music professor].
PFA: I have that around here somewhere.
SR: E-S-K-E-Y. Catherine [sic] with a "C" [sic], I think, I might be wrong about that. E-S-K-E-Y. She was around here as the organ professor.
PFA: Organ?
SR: Organ. Shortly after co-education. And she retired before they got that organ built in
the new music building—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —that that tells you how slow things were to develop.
PFA: Yeah.
SR: You know, in certain economic times. She was very gifted and would know sort of the music, the music side. Eleanor McCrickard [music professor]. I think I'm saying that right. I—I may have it a little wrong.
PFA: Yes.
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SR: Yes, she's a history person in music. Her husband Donald [McCrickard, economics professor] is in the business school so if you look at names in the directory close to that.
PFA: Okay.
SR: You'll get that.
PFA: Okay.
SR: She has a good, she came later. She might have come in the '80s, but she knows sort of all the how the stories of how it was.
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: —and I don't know if she and Kathryn Eskey were even conversant because people are just so—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —in their own categories. But people from nursing probably have an interesting perspective. Doris Armenaki [Class of 1974, nursing professor], was one of the first, she's still living in the neighborhood here. A lot of people do. Between right where we're sitting and campus. A-R-M-E-N-I-K-I [sic]. I spelled it wrong. I can see it in my mind's eye, but I've spelled it wrong.
PFA: Yeah.
SR: There aren't Armenakis in the faculty directory. She was one of the first professors of nursing here and a great story teller and a good memory and clear.
PFA: Oh, okay.
SR: Well, that will give you some network—
PFA: Yeah. Okay. Let me ask you: I've got some other names I got: Rosemary McGee is here.
Doris McKinney [physical education professor]?
SR: Dr. McKinney passed away.
PFA: Nancy, Mary [sic] Miller [Marilyn Miller, library science professor]? School of—
SR: Yes, yes, library science. Yes, she's still here.
PFA: Okay, Jane Mitchell?
SR: Yes. 17
PFA: Okay. Charlotte Perkins [drama and speech professor], I don't think she's alive.
SR: [unclear]
PFA: Yeah, Anna Joyce Reardon?
SR: You'll have to ask Dr. [unclear].
PFA: Oh, that's right. Clara Ridder [home economics professor]?
SR: Dr. Johnson will know. Mildred Johnson [home economics professor] will know.
PFA: Okay.
SR: Or Dr. Johnson will have some wonderful other names. Mildred Johnson, I think, I gave
you this morning.
PFA: Yeah, yeah.
SR: Home economics area. Because she goes to the beach with somebody that was, that was on this campus when I was a student that's in that same department—
PFA: Oh, good.
SR: —lives in some residence that's near the Moses Cone [Hospital]—
PFA: Okay.
SR: —doesn't drive any more but is sharp as a button.
PFA: Did we say Clara Ridder?
SR: We don't know about her.
PFA: Yes, N.V. Singletary? Singletary?
SR: Don't know.
PFA: Somebody Sloan?
SR: Don't know.
PFA: Laura Anderson [sic].
SR: Anderton?
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PFA: Jean Buchert?
SR: Jean Buchert [English professor] is living at Friends Home West [retirement community]. See, these are all people I see at the symphony. If I don't see them then I ask.
PFA: Yeah, Gail Hennis is—
SR: Is deceased.
PFA: —deceased. Claire Callahan? Callahan? Art? Kupferer?
SR: You're not thinking Kupferer maybe?
SR: Anthropology?
PFA: No, it says art.
SR: Okay. No, I don't know about her.
PFA: Margaret Klemer, faculty School of Nursing?
SR: Yes, Doris would know. Armenaki would know.
PFA: Margaret Landon [nursing professor]?
SR: Don't know.
PFA: Eloise Lewis [dean of the School of Nursing]?
SR: She's passed away, I think.
PFA: Okay, Frances Ann Ashcraft McBane [music professor]?
SR: Don't know.
PFA: Those are the ones I have.
SR: Okay, there's—oh, I've left off somebody that's really—
PFA: Oh, I have Marian Sollender.
SR: Yeah, Marian.
PFA: Helen Thrush [art professor]?
SR: Art? 19
PFA: Yeah.
SR: Don't know.
PFA: Okay, Catharine Turner, nursing?
SR: Yeah, I think she's living and she's a really good resource.
PFA: Okay, Betsy Umstead [Class of 1949, exercise and sports professor]?
SR: Betsy Umstead died last year around Thanksgiving.
PFA: Okay, and Nancy White?
SR: Yeah. Now Harriet Kupferer [Class of 1943, sociology and anthropology professor].
K-O-E-P-H-P, K-L-O-E-P-P-F-E-R [sic], I think. It's really interesting, yeah, and she may be in the directory.
PFA: Okay, okay.
SR: And I said Joan Gregory.
PFA: Yes.
SR: Joan Gregory was Department of Art. And if she's still living, Elaine Burgess,
B-U­R-G-E-S-S, sociology. Wonderful per, you know, human history type person.
PFA: Okay.
SR: See, it wasn't just co-education happening in the '60s. It was a whole civil rights issue and the whole integration; racial integration issue that was enveloping Greensboro. The schools were still staying as apart as they possibly could and doing things like moving the teachers first for several years before they moved the children. And, you know, sort of tip-toeing, tippy-toeing. We didn't have public kindergartens in Greensboro until 1969.
PFA: Oh, my gosh!
SR: When they had to because the legislature said we'd give you money. Right?
PFA: Yes.
SR: And so they were doing the kind of Tennessee Plan and in some ways with the integration class, year by year by year. Start them in first grade and then the next year second and third—
PFA: Wow! 20
SR: —and fourth. They were trying everything. And we're still trying everything in Greensboro to solve this delay of more social blending—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and Dr. Burgess has a really good take on that and would very well be able to talk about the co-education of the university as one more manifestation of changes locally that had both political and human elements to it.
PFA: Yes.
SR: —I mean, human relations elements but also local political—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —elements.
PFA: Okay.
SR: See, we were really dean of the faculty from 19, in the 1940s with Mereb Mossman [dean of instruction, dean of the college, dean of faculty, vice-chancellor for academic affairs]—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —a female—
PFA: Mossman [Administration] Building?
SR: Yes, until into the late '60s and a dean of students from forever, always the lady principal and then the dean of students until Jim Allen became the dean of students in the late '60s. So there wasn't that there were no leadership role models—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —they weren't department heads, they were full professors. There were deans, there was no president or chancellor until Dr. [Patricia] Sullivan—
PFA: Really?
SR: Yes, in the '90s—
PFA: Yes.
21
SR: —this had to do sometimes, and depends on what your take on it, with the politics of North Carolina's higher education. We didn't have a woman chancellor until after the School of the Arts had a woman chancellor.
PFA: So there the—
SR: Yeah, yeah, and it was not a happy breakthrough.
PFA: Yes, sticky? But they say the sticky floor, they call it.
SR: Yes, exactly. And now, of course, the dean, the president of Duke [University] is female. Who would have ever thought that?
PFA: Yeah.
SR: Fifty years ago? So these women, who are now in their various stages from seventy to ninety, really were here at a very important time and in the social history of Greensboro and of North Carolina. And to a larger scene as well as the nature of friendships on this particular campus. Everywhere I've ever taught though when I would go, I left here as an
undergraduate, graduated bachelor's degree, Bachelor of Science went off and taught as a full faculty member of the University of Texas because in those days people who were physical education were often hired for those non-credit physical education programs—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —as skill teachers—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —and health teachers and so on. When I get there and, of course, that was 40,000 students and a huge faculty and I get myself all dressed up in my non-gym clothes and I go to faculty meeting and my colleagues say, "Where are you going?" And I say, I'm going to faculty meeting." And they said, "Really?" And I said, "Am I not allowed to go to faculty meeting?" And the head of our department says, "I'll go with you." And off we went, and she said, "You' re the first faculty person in years that's wanted to come to faculty meetings." I said, "Well, there's these famous people who teach on this faculty.
They're going talk, aren't they?" And she says, "Well, yeah, they always do. Harry Ranson will stand up and blah blah blah." And I said, "I want to hear what they have to say themselves, not just read it in the student newspaper." And she just chuckled and said that that sort of gave them the message about where I had gone to college more than a message about me—
PFA: Oh, my God.
SR: —you know, it's sort of like what was the social preparation for being a faculty member for the students here. I had classmates who went to Sophie Newcomb [College] and did 22
the same thing who did the same thing, who went to [Mount] Holyoke [College] and made the same statement and Vassar [College] and Wellesley [College] and so on—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —you know, we went off to teach at really good places. Then the University for Women in Mississippi and what is now Winthrop University—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and then lesser lights, you know—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —Due West, South Carolina.
PFA: Did you come back? Where did you get your PhD?
SR: I went to the University of Texas and taught there and then went, for two years and then went to a place called Springfield College, which is the international school of the YMCA.
PFA: Oh!
SR: To do a very specialized degree that they were only one of two places in the country that did that. One was at Eastern Washington University at Cheney and the other was at Springfield, Massachusetts and I thought I've lived in the Pacific Northwest in the snow, now I will go to New England in the snow!
PFA: [chuckles]
SR: So I went off for a year and got a wonderful education there, but they had fairly recently become co-ed and so that was the other way—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —so that was a very interesting, you know? Okay, I'm in this program in which all the internships, all the plans, all the curriculum is geared towards men who going to assist in the football training room.
PFA: Yes.
SR: It was called Adaptive Physical Education Special Therapeutic Activity. And so I went in and I said, "You guys don't want me in the football training room and I don't plan ever being in another football training room." And my advisor said to me, I was twenty-23
something, "Well, go plan your own program then." And I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah." And so I went on off—
PFA: [chuckles]
SR: —and I found internships in the in the Children's Hospital and in the Burn Center and in the City Hospital of Springfield and with the Cerebral Palsy Association and a special
school and I had a little collection of internships that got me the hours that I needed. And it was great!
PFA: Yes!
SR: And then later in life, I went back to Texas for a year. Things were changing there. The dynamic was very much changed because of some things in the higher administration at the university and I, they didn't have a PhD, they had only an EDD and I didn't want, if I had stayed at Texas to get my PhD, I had my master's and I thought this will set me up to do this for a while and they wanted a PhD right away, or EDD and I thought I, if I go over there to the School of Education and I take that doctorate in education at Texas in Austin, I will never leave, I will never leave!
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: And I wanted to see more. And so a group in Baltimore called, now they're called The Society for People with Disabilities and it was called The Society for Crippled Children and Adults then. And I went to be their director of their program, all their recreation and camping programs year-round.
PFA: Yes.
SR: So we had all, we have summer camp for twelve weeks. Then we had all these other activities for people with disabilities. And met a man there, who was the head of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins and his son was developmentally disabled and I, Dr. Moore and I worked on all these projects, like getting people to make, the kids themselves to make little books, that you get on the bus and get on the thirty-six bus and you show where you need to go to—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —to the library. And the bus conductor would look at that and let you off at the right stop and, you know, and stuff like that. Well, then, I was there two years, three and then I went to the University of Wisconsin where I did my PhD. And at the end of my program, three, four years later, he, my advisor said to me there is a, there is a new, there is a job opening for the director of Special Olympics and the man who is choosing the person for the job is over in the health sciences department and he would like to meet you. So I go and we walk in and he said, "I know you! You used to be in Baltimore. I know you!" [chuckles] "You used to be the head of pediatrics" and we shook hands and had tea, but I 24
said, "I have an opportunity to go into an academic position and so I don't think I can become the head of Special Olympics as much as that would be attractive and I'd love working with Mrs. [Eunice] Shriver [founder of Special Olympics, pioneer in the worldwide struggle for rights and acceptance for people with intellectual disabilities, sister of President John F. Kennedy]—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —but I just can't do that right now." I was thirty and I needed, if I was ever going to have an academic career, I needed to start it. In those days—
PFA: When was that?
SR: —in 1970. And so I went to Boston to teach [unclear]. I met Mrs. Shriver in another context when I was in Boston—
PFA: Oh, wow!
SR: —she was a friend of my dean, who was a woman in physical education and health and recreation, but everybody wanted to work for, which was part of the reason that I took that job in Boston.
PFA: Yes.
SR: I thought this is probably going to be my chance to work for Catherine Cowell. Interestingly enough, her niece was a classmate of mine at Woman's College.
PFA: Wow! That's amazing!
SR: And her niece is married to the provost at Wake Forest [University]. Emily is a poet; her name is Emily Herring-Wilson W-I-L-S-O-N [Class of 1961, author]. Her husband, Edwin, is the provost at Wake Forest [University]. Emily has a very interesting and comical take on all this time—
PFA: Really?
SR: —because she was probably like the, she was the everlasting president of our class and she was still in North Carolina and she was teaching at Wake [Forest University] or Salem College and, you know, right in on the North Carolina politics of this era—
PFA: Oh!
SR: —and was friends with many of the faculty members and of the student-faculty, you know, appropriate student-faculty. But more so, because she was president of the Student Government [Association]—
25
PFA: Yes.
SR: —so the people who were presidents of Student Government [Association] in that time period who are still living and who might be interesting. You can find them in the yearbook, but I can tell you too what I think would be wonderful and are still here in North Carolina. Three, I can call three from that era of the pre, I don't know any of the ones after—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —but the Alumni House will know. One's named Sadye Dunn, D-U-N-N [Class of 1957]—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and she worked in admissions after she graduated.
PFA: Wow!
SR: —and then a woman named Catherine White something. I don't remember whether it's Williams now, I don' t know. She's in Chapel Hill and alumni records would know. That would be the Class of '57—
PFA: Wow1 Thanks.
SR: —no '58, Class of '58. Sadye Dunn would be the Class of '56 [sic], probably. And Emily Herring-Wilson. And she's at Wake Forest. She's in women's studies over there—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and a poet, wonderful social historian. She and a woman who lives here in Greensboro who's a photographer go around and take pictures of older North Carolina women and tell their stories—
PFA: Oh, really? Wow!
SR: —and she, she and Susan, their first book was about black leadership, black females in North Carolina—
PFA: Wow!
SR: —Emily's from Columbus, Georgia and she has this marvelous Georgia accent still.
PFA: [chuckles]
26
SR: And so she calls up these women and they, she gets them, this is the story Emily tells. She gets Down East, she walks up, parks her car, walks up with her little briefcase up the walk and [unclear].
PFA: [chuckles]
SR: —and the son comes down and says, "Who are you?" And she tells, and he said, "Well, you can talk to my grandma here on the porch." So she, she came up and she sat down, and a woman looked her up and down and got her talking and smiled sort of and Emily said, "You thought I was black."
[laughter]
PFA: Oh, that's perfect.
SR: And the lady beamed and told her story.
PFA: How wonderful!
SR: One of my first doctoral students here, African-American doctoral students, the book had
just come out and was on my desk. Ophelia, she teaches at—Ophelia teaches at Central, North Carolina Central [University]. The book was on my desk and she came in and she sat down for a conference and I realized I didn't have her—
[recording paused]
SR: —she was somewhere else She said, "Are you busy?" I said, "Well, I always have time for you" and I can do something else while she's looking at the book and she wasn't offended. She said, "I know this lady. I know this lady. I was a student of this lady. I've heard about this lady." And they were from all over North Carolina. So you know, that was sort of, since you're talking about friendships and networks. In North Carolina, there may be across so many dimensions. The female experience and the social groups like—There is a social educational honorary here, it's not a social, it's an educational honorary called Delta Kappa Gamma?
PFA: Yes.
SR: Lots of these women are in that organization, okay. [chuckles]
PFA: Wow!
27
SR: And they have friendships that go across the state, both in their disciplines and in their age group or in the times that they were in the political office of Delta Kappa Gamma. It crosses racial and social disciplinary lines in ways that are very interesting. There are of course, the sort of colleagues in the same discipline—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —you know, the library science people and the home economics people and the health education da da da people. When I taught away from here, especially when I was in Wisconsin, people teased about how tight the people were from, not just Woman's College and the UNCG—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —but the whole group called the Southern Association for PE for College Women. And they called them SAPECW mafia—
PFA: [chuckles]
SR: —that, that you went, you would go to a big summer conference. Everybody went to all the meetings. That's the things that's so interesting about exercise science people. They pay the money and go to meetings. Well, they went to all the meetings, but they played poker all night.
PFA: [laughs]
SR: And [laughs] canoed or would swim and went kayaking or hiking. They'd always pick somewhere that the golfers could play golf. And they'd be out there, they'd play golf in the morning before breakfast and then go to meetings all afternoon. But the network of association there was from every region. But if one of them ran for office, though, don't put two Southerners against each other—
PFA: [laughs]
SR: —they wouldn't accept it—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —they didn't want to split their vote.
PFA: Wow! Amazing!
SR: Yeah. Then in some of their professional organizations, like the early childhood probably and the whatever home economics, education organization and in physical education it's called The Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. So that's why, when I hear you say that Adrian is studying in the dance department and you say 28
where she's from, I'm thinking, yeah, she probably was linked up with Sue Stinson [dance professor]. Not because I would have any reason to know about Sue other than as a faculty colleague, but except for the fact that her work is published and talked about and acknowledged in the physical education world as well as in the dance [world] where she's very distinguished—
PFA: Yeah, yeah.
SR: —and very much appreciated. So the appreciation for each other's gifts; sometimes it was leadership, sometimes it was academic. I can remember research coming to the campus as a, as a goal when I was a student—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —in the departments that, up to that time, had had much more of an instructional emphasis. It came with, some people with graduate study, for example School of Education, home economics or physical education. It came with the faculty members with some other subjects as in the sciences or in history or in the production areas.
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: If Miss [Virginia A.] Moomaw [physical education professor] were still alive, she died last summer, she was ninety, she would want to tell the story of going to Chapel Hill with the other people to try to get the MFA, the Master of Fine Arts degrees to our campus in to '50s. And they went over to Chapel Hill and the people on the Graduate Council at Chapel Hill who controlled our graduate education then, said, "We want literature. We want, you know, we want creative writing, we want the music, we want the theater, we, we want the art, but dance has no literature."
PFA: Yes.
SR: Dance has no literature. It only has its performance and riding back, Miss Moomaw told her colleagues that's not so. She was one of the skilled pre-eminent people in labanotation.
PFA: In what?
SR: It's called labanotation—
PFA: Ok.
SR: —they do these little grafts of what the person's body—
PFA: Oh!
29
SR: —this is before video. She said, "Of course, most dances have been filmed so there is a film literature, but there's also this notation called L-A-B-A-N-O-T-A-T-I-O-N." And all the master's students in dance used to have to know how to Labanotation. So if I am sitting erect and there's a line of my body and then my head and where my arm is here, and leg and different—
PFA: Yes, yeah.
SR: —symbol system. Symbol system to be able to read a dance the same way you would read a piece of music." So they got back, and they re-wrote their proposal and on the way back, they said. "Oh, Virginia, we're so glad you told us this." And a spokesperson from one of those five departments, theater, music or art or creative writing, said to the head of the graduate faculty, "Oh, but you're wrong. We've brought Virginia Moomaw and her labanotation system and if you can't, if you don't want dance, you don't want any of us. We're integrated arts at the college—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —Woman's College."
PFA: Right.
SR: And they caved in and they gave us our MFA's in the middle 1950s.
PFA: In the '50s, I think?
SR: Yeah.
PFA: Yes. And when did you come to UNCG?
SR: '57.
PFA: '57, okay.
SR: As a student and I graduated in '61. I came back in '76.
PFA: '76, okay.
SR: And I've told Mr. Link, [William] Al Link, the oral history person in the education, in the history department. One of the things that most surprised me when I came back in '76 was not what had changed, but what had not changed—
PFA: Yes. Right.
SR: —some of which really needed to change, and some of which was nice to see still about on the campus, and some of that lives in the people, some of that lives in the traditions. 30
And like we talked about Josephine Hege and the procedures and the knowing how to do things and accepting that there is a good way to manage the Curriculum Committee that was going to be productive and courteous and some people worked very. The Curriculum Committee was very a powerful entity—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —because it was one of the few areas reserved to the faculty in the, what's called the University Code—
PFA: Right.
SR: —the legislation that controls the management of the university.
PFA: Yeah, yeah. Is that like the senate faculty. Faculty Senate now what we call it?
SR: There still should be a Curriculum Committee, both an Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and a Graduate Curriculum Committee.
PFA: There is? Yes, there is. Okay.
SR: And, oh! I know a person that would be wonderful! Rebecca Smith [Class of 1947]. Becca Smith was a young faculty member at the transition time and a graduate of, she was in home economics education and human development—
PFA: Okay.
SR: —and like Nancy White, I think she got all three of her degrees here in home economics and she's very communicative. Her husband was a school principal.
PFA: And she's in town?
SR: Near town.
PFA: Okay.
SR: Probably in High Point or Randleman or you know?
PFA: Yeah, yeah.
SR: They live in a home that her husband's family has lived in for several hundred years—
PFA: Oh!
SR: —two hundred years, several generations.
31
PFA: Wow! That's amazing.
SR: Yeah.
PFA: Well, this is—
SR: And I knew, see Rebecca Smith, Elizabeth Boyles, Joan Gregory, all those people I served on the Curriculum Committee with, either at the graduate or undergraduate level. Ann Saab and I worked a lot together on the work of the graduate school when she was associate dean of the graduate school.
PFA: Yes.
SR: And so I know them in different contexts over a time period from 1957 to now.
PFA: Yes. And do you still see them sometimes?
SR: Oh yeah. They have the row of seats right behind me at the symphony and down there is Joan Gregory and Kate Barrett [physical education professor]—
PFA: Okay.
SR: —and Harriet Kupferer and so on.
PFA: Oh, great. Okay. This is great. Anything else?
SR: I think we're good. I've misspelled Harriet Kupferer's name horribly. I will have to, but you'll find her okay—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —it may be K-U- P-P-F-E-R [sic]. You know, it's an interesting name. But she was an undergraduate here then went away and got her PhD in anthropology and came back to teach. So she would have been an undergraduate like Nancy White in the '40s.
PFA: Yes, yes. Do you know Nancy Fogarty [Class of 1966, librarian]?
SR: Oh, sure. Nancy, good, good resource.
PFA: Yeah.
SR: She would be a wonderful resource. There may be a person that I've missed that Nancy Fogarty would know if I'm right about her name. I think it was some name like Tommie Lou Smith [business and economics professor]. That's a woman.
PFA: Okay. 32
SR: And she worked in admissions. She might have been the director of admissions during that troubled times of change and [unclear].
PFA: Okay.
SR: And Nancy Fogarty would know her. Another wonderful resource would be Dorothy Darnell. Yes, very even-minded person. And Dorothy Darnell [Class of 1944] was in what we used to call the Class Chairman's Office. It's now the Department of Academic Advising?
PFA: Yes.
SR: And she recently retired from academic advising and she knew everybody in Mossman [Administration Building]. And the person who also knew everybody in Mossman—what is her name? We called her Sam. It's Samantha—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —Watson. She was in the Registrar's Office. She may not be a Samantha. Sam may stand for her initials—
PFA: Okay. I have it.
SR: —but everybody calls her Sam. And then Terry, it's a woman. T-E-R-R-I [sic], think I—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —Weaver, W-E-A-V-E-R [Class of 1959]. And she was a graduate student in art when I was a student and she has just recently retired from UNCG from the Elliott University Center staff.
PFA: Okay.
SR: And they all, Dot Darnell, Sam Watson and Terry Weaver know everybody and
Everything but they are very discrete and helpful. And they will have a perspective on how the relationship between staff and faculty because those are people like, if you needed anything at Elliott Hall when, it was called Elliott Hall then, and when Terry was on duty, you just ran in and said "Terry, this is what I need", and she would say, "I can't do that, but you could so and so and so and so." Or I would bring something that needed to be mimeographed and there was nowhere for a student to do mimeographing, she would say, "Come in at 11:30 on Sunday before I close and bring your own paper—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and I will teach you how to do this." It was, you know—
33
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —a network of student support but also, she knew a person needed it for class or needed it for your honors project—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —one of the ways that research was very much encouraged was people like Cat White and Sadye Dunn and myself and so on, the student leader group types were almost always doing research, some of it pretty interesting and good research as senior students in our honors project—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and it would be guided by a member of your department and then you had people on that just like the regular masters—
PFA: Yes, yes.
SR: —and people—my people were from home economics—
PFA: Okay.
SR: —that were on, I would say, [unclear] study about can people, can women on this campus
manage with exercise and diet and support to not gain so much weight living in the dorm—
PFA: Wow!
SR: —and does that have any relationship to their motor performance. Well, of course, it doesn't in an eight-week study. But you can manage your weight on campus. And so one
of the people on my committee was the Director of Student Health Services. A woman named Ruth Collings [college physician]—
PFA: Yes, yes, wow!
SR: —and so there were interesting opportunities of students to see these networks of education, research. We didn't see the social science side. We knew it existed, but that wasn't our business—
PFA: Yes.
SR: —and we probably got significant social skills from life in the dormitories. The ninety-six percent of the students lived in the dorm when I was a student. The other four percent lived in town.
34
PFA: Wow!
SR: The only people that could live in town were people with a parent in town or who was
married and there were very few married students. And once they were married, they
could not live in the dorm unless they had really, really special permission. One of them was one named Beryl Weckwerth [Class of 1958], whose husband was, he graduated from the Naval Academy and he was at sea. She was the senior house president, so she was allowed to live, of course, in the senior house president's suite by herself.
PFA: Amazing, that's great.
SR: Anyway, it was a fun time but there was, like I say, all these levels that you're going to
uncover—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —that have to do with social, intellectual—
PFA: Yeah.
SR: —professional—
PFA: Yes.
SR: You've hit some things when you talk about leadership and research and intellect and the critique of each other's work.
PFA: Wow. That'll be interesting to see where it comes together.
SR: Yeah.
PFA: Okay, let me just press—
[End of Interview]