Oral History interview with Hannelore "Lori" Vinica Bushell [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Hannelore “Lori “Vinica Bushell
INTERVIEWER: Linda Danford
DATE: April 18, 1991
[Begin Side A]
LD: Lori, would you tell me when you came to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro]? What year?
LB: I came in 1965.
LD: As a student?
LB: As a student—as a freshman I lived in Gray dormitory, and I think that was the last year that
some of the old regulations applied. We had closed study in the evening from 7:30 [pm] to
10:30 [pm]. If you left the dorm, you had to sign out and your options were the library or
some cultural event—a movie or a concert or whatever. At 10:30 [pm], closed study was
over, and lights out was at 11:00 [pm]. So most girls made the choice between making
popcorn or something to eat or a shower. [both laugh]
LD: But not both?
LB: You didn't have time.
LD: What if a cultural event went past 11:00 [pm]?
LB: Well, I don't remember. I think most cultural events were probably on the weekend—
anyway the longer ones. On the weekend, I think maybe Saturday was—Friday and Saturday
must have been twelve o'clock you had to be back in before the doors were locked. So that
gave you a little time. During the week, you did not control turning out the lights. They were
turned out globally in the whole dorm. So at 11:00 [pm], it was dark.
LD: Really? Meaning there was no electricity? What if you had a little lamp you could plug in?
LB: I think you probably could. I'm kind of vague on that, but the idea was at 11:00 [pm], lights
were out. And that was that.
LD: Was there a house mother?
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LB: There was a house mother.
LD: Do you remember the name of your house mother?
LB: I don't remember her name. I remember my second year that house mother was a tippler.
[both laugh] And some of the girls knew it. I remember her—she had a lot of lovely
negligees that she always wore in the morning, but she definitely—she tipped the bottle. But
there was a house mother in all the dorms.
LD: Did she check up on people or did the house officers do that?
LB: There were—actually each floor had kind of a floor guard or some—an older girl who was
in charge. And I remember we had a girl at the end of our hall; she and her roommate were
juniors or seniors. We could not go onto the main campus in trousers. We had to wear skirts.
However, if you had an early class, an eight o'clock class, you could put a raincoat over your
nightgown and go to class that way, and a lot of girls did that. Because there were hardly any
boys at all. So—and the ones that were there were definitely nerdy, so nobody cared
anyway. Also, you could wear curlers. Girls wore curlers to class. And then that—
LD: You had to wear a skirt, but you could wear curlers?
LB: Uh, huh. And a nightgown and a raincoat. I remember Dr. [James N.] Ellis walking into an
English class. Everybody was sitting there, and a girl in the second row had on curlers. And I
remember he just made this grimace with his face as he saw that girl and she didn't see him,
but he took note that she was wearing curlers, which was cute.
LD: Tell me—before we go on with this—tell me how you ended up coming to UNCG. You
were—and was it still Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina] in '65, or was
it UNCG?
LB: It was already UNCG, but just—I think maybe a few years.
LD: And it was also officially coed, but there just weren't very many boys?
LB: There weren't very many boys yet.
LD: You were living in—?
LB: We lived in Charlotte, and it was basically a question of going to a state school. And I think,
possibly, I maybe didn't even apply to a whole lot of other places besides UNCG.
LD: And what was the reputation of UNCG?
LB: Very good, very high academically. I mean, in the English—there were certain departments
that were very well reputed. The English department had Peter Taylor [author, writer,
Pulitzer Prize winner]. There was Randall Jarrell [poet, literary critic, children's author,
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essayist, and novelist]. Oh, a lot of people were attracted to—the theater department was
well reputed. There are certain departments that attracted a lot of students and graduate
students. And on the whole, I think UNCG was fairly strict academically and well regarded.
LD: Were there regulations concerning absences from class?
LB: Well, not as such. I think it was left to the discretion of the individual teacher, but it was—
attendance was heavily encouraged and, you know, three cuts, that type of thing, you know. I
remember everyone in those days knitted. And I remember going to assemblies in the
auditorium in Aycock [Auditorium], and all the girls had their knitting and they were all
clicking away while they were—and in class, I remember girls knitting.
LD: It is remarkable how similar this is to what Smith [College] was like when I went in '67.
LB: Really?
LD: Yeah. And some professors will allow you to knit in lecture, and some would not.
LB: And some would not. Yeah, that's right! [laughs]
LD: And it was real, you know, individual. I have to say that I would—it would drive me nuts to
face a class where girls were sitting knitting.
LB: It would be unthinkable today.
LD: Amazing. So you lived in Gray Dorm the first year?
LB: Yeah.
LD: Did you live in a dorm all four years?
LB: No, no. I spent my junior year abroad, but the second year my roommate chose to go to an
apartment, but I wasn't quite ready for that. But at the time there was a shortage of
dormitories, so there was a dorm off campus called Kiser Dorm, which used to be a nursing
dorm. It's right next to Wesley Long Hospital. And so that was made into a dorm, and there
was a little shuttle bus that went every fifteen minutes back and forth from Kiser Dorm to the
cafeteria.
LD: That must be a building that's no longer there.
LB: It is still there.
LD: Is it? It must be something else now.
LB: It's something else now, and I think maybe they've changed it and added to it or something.
Yeah. It was only used as that for maybe two years at the most.
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LD: How was that spelled? Kiser?
LB: K-I-S-E-R
LD: Oh, Kiser, as in like—
LB: As in the just like the school across the street. So that was kind of a way of getting away
from campus but still being in a dorm. So that's what we did. But that second year—already
the whole closed study and all that was eliminated. You still had to sign out if you went
somewhere on the weekends or if you went on a—even on a date, you still had to sign in and
out. But already things were changing quite a bit, and marijuana had hit Tate Street and
mini-skirts were coming in. And, you know, long hair and the hippie period was getting into
swing, and the changes were really—were coming.
LD: What was Tate Street like?
LB: It was fairly sedate. There were some little shops that had sort of a range of goods from
greeting cards to knitting supplies and selling supplies. The Corner was there pretty much in
the same form. Addams Bookstore used to be a movie theater, and it was really wonderful
because on the weekends it used to be full—just crammed full of students, and they would
have interesting films, sometimes foreign films, and it was always full. And it was a lovely
place to go because it right there on the edge of campus. Crocodiles [café, bar] was not there.
LD: Were there any restaurants? There weren't any restaurants like that, were there?
LB: No. In fact, one of my roommates was a drama major, and she knew Emmylou Harris
[singer-songwriter, musician, class of 1969-did not graduate]. And I remember when that
restaurant there across the street from the music building was first built; she used to sing
there on Friday nights.
LD: When did she graduate? Do you remember?
LB: She was in my same class. That would have been '65 to '69. Yeah. And we would see her
walking around on campus.
LD: Was she well known then before—?
LB: Well, she sang. I remember my roommate saying what a great voice she had and she was
going places and then she sang there. I never went there to hear her sing, you know. And
later, only when she got famous, did I remember that I had known her then or had known of
her.
LD: Did you come here to be a German major or did you—were you not sure?
LB: I came here just for something to do after high school. And in fact, my mother—I had asked
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her what should I put where it says "major" on the application, and she said, "Write down
business, dear." And so I wrote down—
LD: [both laugh] Most mothers were telling their daughters to write down home ec.
LB: My mother didn't know about that.
LD: I've had more people tell me that they came here because their mothers wanted them to be
home ec majors.
LB: My mother didn't know about that; being foreign, she didn't know that. She would have
probably done that too. But I ended up in the business building with this advisor, and he
didn't know why I was there and I didn't know why I was there. And I told him I was
changing—I was going to be a German major, so we arranged that. But I think I slid into that
because I placed into third-year German when I got here, and it just evolved. And then after
my junior year in Germany, really, that was it. There really wasn't anything else I could
major in.
LD: You should explain for the tape that you're a native German speaker.
LB: Yeah. I came to this country at twelve [years old] and learned English at twelve, so this was
kind of the natural thing to do, I guess—there not being any other overriding interest that I
was plugging into.
LD: Do you remember where UNCG had junior year abroad programs?
LB: The one that I went to was in Heidelberg, but it wasn't actually a UNCG program.
LD: Just something they participated in?
LB: Yeah. It was under the aegis of Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, and they just collected a
whole bunch of people from different colleges. I think they must have had something in
France, but beyond that—yes, they did because I knew a girl who had come back from Paris.
So it must have been in Paris and beyond that I'm not really aware.
LD: Maybe they participated in other programs, but didn't have any of their own.
LB: Right. I think that's what it was.
LD: Do you remember—who were the professors in the German department when you came?
LB: Well, there was Dr. [Anne F.] Baecker, who was the head of the department. There was Dr.
[Frederick M.] Rener and—
LD: That's Fred Rener?
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LB: Yeah, Fred Rener and then there were several people who kind of—there was [Dr.] Ludmila
Jasenovic was the Russian teacher.
LD: Could you spell that. Sometimes it's hard to—
LB: Jasenovic? You want me to spell? J-A-S-O-N-O-V-I-T-C-H. Something like that. And then
there were some other non-tenured people who kind of rotated. And I remember they were
short. When I came back from my junior year, they needed someone and if I'd had a BA
then, they'd have put me to teach. But so—I know they had one man that came from
[University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill—Dr. [Christoph] Schweitzer—to teach some
upper level courses, and then they just had some various other people.
LD: Was there a language requirement at the time?
LB: Oh, yes.
LD: Of what? How many semesters?
LB: I think—well, see, here I'm not sure because I was put into third year right away. But I think
you had to have two years anyway.
LD: Pretty much the same as it is now.
LB: Yeah. I'm not too sure about that.
LD: Do you remember having any contact with the chancellor when you came?
LB: Not really.
LD: You never saw him on campus?
LB: That was [Dr. James B.] Ferguson at the time, I believe.
LD: Well, when you came it might actually have been [Dr. Otis N.] Singletary, but he may have
been away on leave because he was here and then he went to Washington [DC]—took a
leave of absence, I think, and went to Washington to do some work. And Ferguson was a
kind of interim chancellor and then was named chancellor. But I think in '65 it was still
Singletary. But you weren't aware of that.
LB: Unless he addressed something—a gathering in Aycock, or something—I don't recall him
directly.
LD: Did you have regular assemblies?
LB: Yes, there did seem to be regular assemblies.
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LD: At one time they called it chapel. Were they not calling it chapel anymore?
LB: No, it wasn't chapel. No. But they were assemblies that everyone was required to attend. I do
remember that.
LD: And what were the programs like?
LB: I don't know. It's kind of vague. It's very vague right now. I mean—
LD: Nobody can remember what those chapels were about, [laughs] those assemblies.
LB: I remember—the things that stand out in my mind were other things. It wasn't that. I
remember once seeing the Joffrey Ballet at Aycock, and it was just a mind-boggling event
for me. It was really wonderful. One of the pieces had slight sexual overtones. It was—but
very discreetly and wonderfully done, and then we all complained the next day. The
Greensboro newspaper found offense with the performance because it was, you know—
LD: Suggestive?
LB: Too suggestive for Greensboro, and we were just sort of these philistines, you know.
LD: It sounds like the newspaper has changed a lot since those days.
LB: I imagine so. I imagine so. [laughs] The Joffrey Ballet—the only, well, the Joffrey Ballet, I
remember, they came here having made the commitment to come just before they got more
famous. So they were already really too famous to come here, but they had to. But we
benefited from that. It was very nice.
LD: Do you remember any plays that were put on while you were here? You said you had a
friend who was in the drama department.
LB: I remember one play—that was A Winter's Tale—that was very good. They did—they had—
I remember several Shakespeare plays, and the costumes were always absolutely
outstanding—incredible costuming and the plays themselves were of high quality. I think the
drama department was very good at that time.
LD: Did they invite men to come from off campus to play male roles or did women take the male
roles or what?
LB: Well, now that you mention it, there were men in the plays. I don't know exactly how they
handled that. Maybe the fact that the drama department was so well reputed, it would have
attracted maybe more men than some of the—as students—that some of the other
departments. And I do remember one man—what is the George Bernard Shaw [playwright
and cofounder of the London School of Economics] play? The Man in Arms?
LD: Arms and the Man?
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LB: Arms and the Man, And I remember one young faculty member played one of the male leads
in that. I do remember that. Yeah, that was good.
LD: Was it your impression—general impression—that most of your faculty were women when
you came in '65?
LB: Not really. Not really. The English teachers—well, I had Dr. Ellis. There seemed to be a
good number of men in the English department. Dr. Rener in the German department. I had
Dr. [Jonathan] Rosenthal in philosophy. Dr. [Eugene] Pfaff in history. The history
department had a lot of men in it. I had a male math teacher. Biology was a man. No, I don't
think so. No.
LD Tell me something about campus life? Where did you eat?
LB: Well, we ate in the cafeteria—pretty much in the old cafeteria. I don't know. I think mostly
most of the girls went away on the weekends. A lot of girls had boyfriends that were
elsewhere, so often they would be gone. And it didn't seem as if many boys came—
although, I think, yes, now that I think of it, there was—. The reason I thought of that was on
Friday and Saturday nights, just before dorm closing, there was always a cluster around the
door kissing, and they had to hurry up because the girls had to get in by 12 [am]. So
everybody's dates were dropping them off. Yeah. So I think, actually, there a lot of boys that
came. Also, they set up—in the beginning they set up busses that bussed girls over to Chapel
Hill, which was totally outrageous. It was one of those meat market situations, kind of
ghastly. And then, I guess, maybe some Chapel Hill boys were bussed over here for different
occasions.
LD: Were there any big dances during the year? Big social events?
LB: Yeah, yeah. They were in Elliott [Hall, student center]. I remember that, and that was nice.
That was nicely done. There was not—no really athletics events. It was mainly just girls, you
know, going to class, going to library, going to things in the evening. There didn't seem to be
a whole lot of activities. Or maybe—I was gone one year too, and I didn't participate heavily
in any activities such as student government or any particular clubs or anything. I remember
the—I forget what they call it now—but the black club [Neo-Black Society] was just getting
started then. And—
LD: Did they still have those societies? Years ago there were societies called, like, the Adelphian
Society and—
LB: I don't remember that. They had the Golden Chain [honor society] or something with daisies
[laugh] that you could be nominated for if you were an outstanding senior. The other thing I
remember is that we had class blazers. Each class had a different color blazer and that went
in rotation, so that after the burgundy came the navy and then the olive green—not the olive
green—the bottle green, you know. And when it started over, you know, the colors would
start over. Girls were actually wearing those on campus, so you could kind of see which
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class they were in. And we didn't—my roommate and I—we didn't get blazers. We just
didn't get into that.
LD: What was your color?
LB: It might have been navy or burgundy. I can't remember. But that was discontinued shortly
thereafter, too.
LD: We had gym suits.
LB: Gym suits?
LD: I mean, we obviously didn't wear them all the time, but our gym suits were—each class had
a color, the same way. And we didn't have—they may at one time have been blazers.
Certainly weren't by the time I got there, but our gym suits were the color of our class.
LB: Of the class?
LD: I remember distinctly because ours were green, and it was the most unattractive green. It was
really horrendous. Were you here when the cafeteria strike took place? Do you have any
recollection of that?
LB: I don't remember that.
LD: I think it was in '69. It was a labor—there was a labor strike that stirred up some
demonstrations, particularly at Chapel Hill. It was a—it was not just in Greensboro that it
took place.
LB: I don't remember that. Something in that vein that makes me think of that is there was a
Speaker Ban Law [On June 26, 1963, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the
Act to Regulate Visiting Speakers] in Chapel Hill. And I remember that there was a man
who was alleged to be a communist had been invited to speak in Chapel Hill, and they
disallowed him—they refused to let him speak there because of the Speaker Ban Law. And
there was an uproar about that, and some teachers, I think, were fired over that. All those
kinds of things. But that was not here, directly.
LD: Do you remember any controversies or demonstrations of any kind or was it a pretty quiet
campus?
LB: On the whole, it was pretty quiet I would say. In retrospect, I've talked to some black girls
who were here then, and they mostly didn't have a positive experience. I think it must—
there must not have been very many black girls much before the sixties, and they said there
was a lot of prejudice and they were all sort of crowded together in one corner of one hall.
And—
LD: So they weren't spread out throughout the dormitories?
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LB: No, not at all. They were kept together, segregated—more or less segregated, I guess. And of
course, they stuck together too.
LD: I wonder when they stopped segregating them in the dorms.
LB: I don't know. Not as long as I was here, I don't think.
LD: I've asked several faculty members who say that they thought integration went very
smoothly.
LB: Well, I think maybe from their point of view. But I think from the girls themselves—these
girls were fairly bitter about it, you know. But that was afterwards when I talked to some of
them.
LD: So now you left in 1969—
LB: Left in l969.
LD: —and you went to graduate school?
LB: Cornell [University]. And graduated there—I mean, I was there for four years, but I didn't
finish my PhD until 1975.
LD: And then?
LB: Then I spent a year in France and after that got a job teaching here in the German
department, and there was still Dr. Becker as chairman and Fred Rainer was still there. And
then in the meantime, [Dr. Robert P.] Bob Newton had also come here. And—who is now
the chairman of the department.
LD: Was it always the Department of German and Russian, or did they add Russian later?
LB: Yes. No, Russian was there the whole time. It was never very big, and I don't think it is very
big now, but it was always there.
LD: So what was it like to teach in a department that you had been an undergraduate in?
LB: Well, it was a little bit daunting. I mean, Dr. Baecker can be a daunting person. It was
interesting too, just not for the fact that it was here, but just when you come out of graduate
school you think that you need to be pals with the students and you—not until later do you
realize that that's the absolute wrong approach. You can't do that. You have to create a
distance, but it was definitely a learning experience. And—
LD: But you were quite a bit younger than the other members of the department, so it would have
been more natural for you to be friendly with students.
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LB: Yeah. And I mean—I was obviously closer to the students and—I don't know. I was a kind
of a quasi-hippie, I guess, in those days. An educated hippie. [laughs] And sort of still
looked like one. But I think I learned fairly quickly that you can't do that. You can't try to
create—you have to create a distance because you're not, you are not a student. You are the
teacher, and that kind of thing just doesn't work. But it was an interesting year. And I think—
I mean, I never approached—I approached—I must have approached—even then
approached it as something of an interim situation. Even then, I think I realized that I wasn't
a scholar and that I probably wouldn't end up in the department in the long run.
LD: Do you think the department treated you like a colleague or like a former student?
LB: Well, there was an ambiguity there, as well. I mean, I think it's difficult if you do have a
former student to shed that right away and treat that person as a colleague. And it was a non-tenure-
track position, so I tended to teach more of the lower level classes and maybe do
some of the other work like the German conversation hour and that type of thing.
LD: Was there a lot of pressure on you to be on committees?
LB: No. In fact, I don't think I ever was on a committee.
LD: Do you think they were doing you a favor not to put you on committees or do you think they
just didn't—?
LB: Well, I think it was a non-tenure-track position, and so I think there's already a lack of
commitment there to begin with. I mean partially, being on committees, you know, is kind of
making your way and making connections and getting to know people, you know, getting
ready to—for your own tenure and trying to get yourself established and that interest, of
course, wouldn't have been there if you're not going to get tenure or even try to get tenure.
LD: Let's go back for a second to your undergraduate days. Was there a physical education
requirement?
LB: There was a physical education requirement. And the physical education department also
had a very good reputation. And that—there was a lot of choice and a lot of variety and kind
of unusual things.
LD: Could you, for instance, take dance?
LB: Oh, yeah. There was dance and archery and field—I guess lacrosse and fencing. There was
just all sorts of things which—
LD: What did you take? Do you remember?
LB: I had gymnastics.
LD: Oh, really.
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LB: That was my favorite thing. Yeah, I really liked that. I think I had tennis too. I learned the
rudiments of tennis. Our gym uniforms were kind of well suited for tennis because they were
white and they had a little skirt, so we all looked the part.
LD: Were they still taking posture pictures when you came?
LB: No, I don't remember that. I remember, though, our pictures for the yearbook were sort of the
vignette style, where you had the bare shoulders and it kind of faded out below that.
LD: Did they drape something across your shoulders to take the picture?
LB: Yeah, I think that—
LD: And did they tell you to wear pearl earrings or something?
LB: I don't think anybody mentioned that.
LD: Did you buy a yearbook?
LB: Yeah, I bought a yearbook.
LD: Do you ever look at it?
LB: I haven't looked at it in years. I think it might be at my parents’ house. I did get my ears
pierced after my freshman year. After exams a bunch of girls talked me into going
downtown, and a jeweler did it.
LD: Was that the shocking thing at the time?
LB: Kind of. I mean, my ears were not pierced and some girls had their ears pierced, but not the
majority, by any means. But more girls were doing it, and, in fact, a lot of girls were doing it
in the dorms with ice cubes and needles, you know—just home made jobs. But we went
downtown and—in fact, going downtown then, we used to walk. Nobody had a car. I don't
think anybody had a car. We used to walk downtown, and downtown was something that
you dressed up for. Downtown was very busy; all the shops and the big department stores
were downtown.
LD: Which ones do you remember?
LB: I guess there was Thalhimers and maybe Iveys. I'm not exactly sure. I remember where they
were. And there was a nut house there that sold nuts, and there was a movie theater
downtown that we used to go to on the weekends, too, that was always extremely busy.
Loads and loads of people went to that.
LD: On Elm Street?
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LB: On Elm Street. There was Montaldos, a little discreet distance away from the other shops
where Merrill Lynch is now—beautiful, beautiful store. All the other dress shops and shoe
stores—. We didn't go downtown very often, but I do remember getting dressed up to go
downtown. It was a—you know, you didn't just kind of casually go downtown.
LD: Were those stores all still open when you graduated in '69?
LB: As far as I'm aware. My last year—I don't remember going downtown the way we did when
I was a freshman and sophomore. It's possible that maybe some of that urban decay had
started back by then.
LD: But it must have—Greensboro must have seemed different to you when you came back in
'75.
LB: Well, having come back from abroad, you get a whole different picture anyway. And it was
my last year, and I read a lot and I was really interested in my subject then, so I don't know.
My last year I was just kind of not real excited about coming back to Greensboro, and so I
just—I assumed a slightly eccentric character my last year. In Germany I had bought a
leather jumper, and I remember for several months in the winter I wore it every day. I never
wore anything else. I wore that with different shirts underneath. Everyday I would wear that.
It was kind of a statement, you know, that I was making at the time. I can't remember exactly
what I was trying to say [laughs] but it was something that I felt like doing at the time.
LD: Well, presumably a leather jumper doesn't need to be washed frequently.
LB: Well, presumably not. And I did wash my body and my other clothes underneath.
LD: [laughs] Good.
LB: And I was heavily into—I had spent two months in France that year, so I was in some upper-level
French classes and I was doing the upper-level German stuff, and I was heavily into
that and, you know, I fancied myself to be very intellectual that year, so I was minimizing
everything else, and my jumper was a statement in that direction, I guess.
LD: How would you characterize students at UNCG? Do you think they were serious about their
studies?
LB: I think the people that I knew were very serious about their studies.
LD: Did it vary from department to department?
LB: I don't think so. I really don't. I think the people that I—even as a freshman, I remember my
roommate had a very heavy schedule in science, and she was very interested in what she was
doing. And at that time I was still thinking I was going to major in home ec, and all the girls
in those departments were very interested in what they were studying. And then in the
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English, French, and German departments, which I took a lot of courses in, everybody
worked hard, you know. You didn't get the feeling that people were just kind of sloughing
off or wasting their time at all.
LD: And you say you did take courses in the home ec department?
LB: Yes, I did.
LD: Who do you remember from that department? Was [Dr.] Naomi Albanese the chairman of
that department?
LB: I don't remember. That was my freshman year, and I changed after that.
LD: What kinds of courses did you take?
LB: I remember taking a clothing construction course. I may have taken maybe two courses at
the most. Before I then thought I might be a math major for maybe one semester. [laughs]
And then it became clear that I would probably be a German major. But I was also taking a
lot of English courses and some French courses. But it was definitely going in that direction
after that.
LD: What I originally asked you was whether it seemed very different when you came back in
'75. Was there a big change? What was the nature of the change between '69 and '75?
LB: Well, lots more men, for one thing, on campus. And more sort of what at the time one would
have called more acceptable looking men that one might consider going out with. Because it
was kind an unstated joke about the men at the time. I mean, it was just not anybody that one
would consider having a date with. It was non-date material at the time. But that seemed to
have changed, and, of course, fashions changed drastically. And I remember my senior year,
a lot of the people that I knew were fairly eccentric. There were just kind of some really
flippy people around. There was one girl who always wore just totally shocking mini-skirts,
and she had one dress that had sort of holes all over in odd places. I think it may have been
made out of a potato sack.
LD: You mean cut out or ripped out?
LB: Yeah. They were cut out. And she called that her swiss cheese dress. She always wore a
body stocking underneath, and it was a statement, but she always had clothes like that. And
then one day she had a dress on that came to mid-thigh, and everybody asked her why she
was dressed up and she'd had a job interview. [laughter] The clothes—the fashions were
definitely changing. And then, of course, jeans were coming in, and trousers and bell
bottoms were just coming in—were beginning to. So there was a big change. And then
people, of course, were starting to get into drugs; not heavily, I mean, not by today's
standards. But smoking a little grass, that type of thing.
LD: So then by '75 you think the eccentrics were gone?
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LB: Well, by that time they'd become more consolidated. It wasn't the new thing that it had been.
And so everybody was then smoking grass and everybody was doing all these things, so it
wasn't eccentric anymore, really. The movement had consolidated and lost some of its edge.
LD: Which always happens.
LB: Yeah, which is inevitable.
LD: Did Greensboro seem much bigger?
LB: Well, to tell the truth, I don't really know because I'd lived in Chapel Hill initially and
commuted at least for one year, and so Greensboro was not where I lived and it wasn't what I
was interested in really. It was just a place to come where I did my job. Also, as a student,
we didn't have cars. Nobody had cars, so we hardly ever—unless we walked downtown or
walked to Friendly Shopping Center, which was a long walk, we never were really aware of
any greater size of Greensboro than that.
LD: What about busses? Were there busses?
LB: There were busses to go downtown, and I remember riding the bus downtown. I don't
remember riding the bus anywhere else.
LD: Probably wasn't one that even went out Friendly Avenue.
LB: There may not have been. Later, when I lived in that dorm off campus at Kiser, we rode our
bikes to campus some. But here again—now the German department did have a club where
Fred Rener officiated, and we took bicycle rides out to Guilford Battleground [Guilford
Courthouse National Military Park] and had picnics. And I remember riding a bicycle out
there. But overall—
LD: That was also very far.
LB: That was very far. But, overall, I had no other concept of Greensboro being any particular
size. I mean, I think mainly as a—maybe now, of course, it's different with most students
having cars. But I think then—it was just that—a sort of a separate world for us that
consisted of the campus and possibly downtown and maybe a few other points. And it wasn't
as if it was a city that one would assess in terms of population and size and that type of thing.
LD: Do you remember the dean of women?
LB: No.
LD: You didn't have any contact with her?
LB: No.
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LD: What about Mereb Mossman [dean of instruction, dean of the college, dean of faculty,
vice chancellor for academic affairs]?
LB: No contact. I was more—I was kind of a retiring type, I guess. I mean, I'm not a joiner and
so I didn't join any organizations or really get into any kind of other campus life, so I didn't
encounter those people.
LD: Is there anything else you'd like to add to the memories?
LB: I would say that I got a very good education here. I think as far as the professors went—and
even at that time, I think that probably the general level of the students was possibly higher
than it is now. So I think from the standpoint of professors as well as peer group, I think I got
a very good, stimulating education here.
LD: Do you remember your fellow students as being mostly from North Carolina or from out of
state?
LB: Well, there seemed to be a contingent from New York-New Jersey.
LD: There's always a contingent from New York-New Jersey. [laughs]
LB: We called those the northern girls that came down to land southern gentry from Chapel Hill.
[both laugh] There were girls from other places. I think the majority, though, are probably
from North Carolina or from the south. I do remember Dr. Pfaff, my history teacher in
particular. He was a very controversial guy. He would say outrageous things in class, and I
think he did it on purpose to make everyone sit up in their seats. But I think he was one of
the most influential teachers that I had. Also, there was Dr. [Paul E.] Lutz, who I think may
still be here in biology. He was a wonderful teacher, although later on from Dr. Baecker I
heard that he always opposed languages in the faculty meetings, so she was trying to a take
away my enthusiasm. But as a teacher, he was wonderful—just outstanding. So I think from
that point of view, I think it was a very good place to come.
LD: Were a lot of girls—did they tend to be engaged by the time they graduated?
LB: There were a lot of girls that had fraternity pins and those little necklaces and lavalieres or
something, they were called.
LD: I think you get a lavaliere first and then you get a pin.
LB: Oh, yeah—then you get the pin. I think you're right. There were—a lot of girls had regular
boyfriends at Chapel Hill. That was the thing at the time. The girls would go to WC
[Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina], and the boys would go to Chapel
Hill and that was your arrangement. I think towards the end of my years here, I distanced
myself somewhat from the regular—most of the regular girls here. The friends that I had, we
were all thinking about graduate school and other things, so I didn't have a really good
17
handle on that.
LD: Let me ask you one more thing. Since you graduated, what has been your contact with the
Alumni Association? Do you receive mailings from them?
LB: I receive mailings from them, and I usually—over a number of years, I've been making
contributions—not any sizeable amounts, but with the recent fracas at the Alumni
Association I have just earmarked that money for Friends of the Library and let it go at that.
If I were to make a more sizeable contribution, I would make it directly to the Alumni
Association.
LD: Can you tell me something about the recent controversy between the Alumni Association
and the chancellor [William E. Moran]?
LB: Well, this may not be exactly according to the facts as they are objectively written down
somewhere I'm sure. But my personal impression is that the chancellor is trying to seize
power away from the Alumni Association and doing so to control the money where the
power lies, obviously. And I think he's done this in various ways—and the ways in which he
has changed the university, which are not all negative at all, by any means. He's had to adapt
to the changing times. He's created a big-time athletic department. The business school has
been big and has big name people in it and that type of thing, which I'm sure is all beneficial
to the university. However, having gone here in a different day and time, I don't approve of
that, and I don't see any cogent reasons for the changes that he wants to bring about as far as
the Alumni Association is concerned. So it's kind of a pipe dream for me ever to have some
sizeable amounts of money to give away, which I would then immediately put in the hands
of the female contingent in the Alumni Association.
LD: But if you had it, you would?
LB: I would, yeah. ’cause I—I would. I think it's—that's where the money should go. They
should continue to appropriate the funds in the way they have been. And so as far as I'm
concerned now, I just earmark my contribution to the library, which to me is an important
place to give money and let it go at that for the time being.
LD: Do you—where did you get your impression of this controversy? Did you get it from the
people in the Alumni Association or from newspapers?
LB: No, no. As an alumna—is that the correct Latin ending?
LD: Uh, huh.
LB: Good, Linda. You get newsletters and information from the Alumni Association, and as the
controversy was unfolding, different letters were mailed at different times informing the
former students. And then also, at a later point, there was an official letter from the
chancellor's office stating his position and then also finally the solution or compromise that
was eventually worked out. So this was direct mailing from the university.
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LD: What compromise did they work out? Now, you give ten dollars to the Alumni Association,
who has control of that money? Who decides where it goes?
LB: Well, unless you—I think you have to earmark—if you want to make absolutely certain that
your money goes where you want it to go, you must earmark it. Otherwise, if it's money
that's not designated for a specific purpose, it goes into a discretionary fund, as far as I know.
LD: Controlled by the chancellor?
LB: Controlled by the chancellor.
LD: What about the building? Who owns the building? The Alumni House?
LB: The university, as far as I know.
LD: Okay. Have they always owned it? Who built it? That's what I can't remember.
LB: I don't know these things—these things I don't know.
LD: But wasn't that part of the controversy? Who was going to consider the building as belonging
to them?
LB: I think the maintenance of the building and salaries of the people working for the Alumni
Association—that type of thing was questioned. I just basically see it as a power struggle,
and there was a compromise that was worked out when the two parties went to the—
LD: Mediation?
LB: Center for Creative Leadership [training center for leadership education and research in
Greensboro]—and they had mediators and arbitrators or whatever they're called. And
something was worked out. It was all written down, and there was a letter mailed out from
the Alumni Association stating that some agreement had been reached. And I guess it is a
true compromise. However, I think anybody who definitely chose one side over the other
can clearly make their contributions in such a way that it benefits the side that they would
like to benefit.
LD: Okay, thank you very much for the interview.
LB: Sure.
[End of Interview]