Oral history interview with Willam Felt, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: William Felt
INTERVIEWER: William Link
DATE: March 22, 1990
[Begin Side A]
WF: —and it takes awful lot for the foreign language laboratory.
WL: Oh yes, of course.
WF: I guess I could write paragraphs [laughs] on that field.
WL: This is William Link and the date is March 22, 1990. I’m with Dr. William Felt in his home.
I'd like to start just by asking you when you first arrived on campus.
WF: On this campus, yes. Arrived here in September, possibly in August, of 1947, after twenty
years in Ohio. I've noticed here that whenever anybody retires they seem to forget all
previous years, as if the world started when they arrived in Greensboro at WC [Woman’s
College of the University of North Carolina] or UNCG [The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro], and that bothers me because in my case I taught forty-six years, twenty-five of
which were here. But that tends to ignore all previous years, such as twenty years at Ohio,
and one year in Massachusetts.
WL: Sure. Where were you in Ohio?
WF: At Denison University.
WL: Oh, yes.
WF: In Granville, Ohio.
WL: That's a good school.
WF: And yourself?
WL: I've spent most of my teaching career here—nine years.
WF: That's nine years?
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WL: Yes.
WF: And where did you originate?
WL: The University of Virginia.
WF: Oh yes.
WL: I came down from there to here.
WF: At Charlottesville [Virginia]?
WL: Yes. What sort of initial impressions did you have of the Woman's College?
WF: When I came here in '47—I don't know whether it interests you or not, but you might say I
came for a selfish reason. That was immediately after World War II [1939-45 global
conflict], and, of course I then went off to war, and then our college men [unclear] number.
And so when I heard about a job here with just women students, I figured they wouldn't be
taken to war and that my job would be more secure here, which may be very bad reasoning,
but that actually did enter my mind. And I came here. I've been here twenty years and
enjoyed them. A great university. Or rather a college, but called itself university incorrectly.
Then I came here and enjoyed it very, very much. Women, of course as I explained that, I
expected that my position would be more secure here in case of some new conflagration.
Another item I always like to remember is the women were more disciplined than the
men are, I think, in general. Take the matter of walking across the campus: the women walk
on—intended to walk on the sidewalk and not cross the grass. And therefore there was a sign
up there, which I always remember, which says, "The lass with the class keeps off the grass."
And they did.
WL: Did they follow the rules pretty well?
WF: They followed the rules pretty well.
WL: Yes.
WF: Now, of course, it's also well known that women seem to excel in foreign languages, whether
it's English or foreign languages, whereas the men seem to excel in sciences. I think that was
generally true. Now later on, of course, we're going to get into '62, and '63 and '64, when
men began to arrive. And you might think that might have changed the teaching
tremendously. I didn't find it so for the reason that the majority of our students were still
women and men were a fairly small number. But there were some good men in there, and
they deserve credit. And an occasional man would major in foreign languages. That's right.
WL: How did you feel about coeducation when it came to campus? Did you think it was a good
idea?
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WF: I accepted it. I never gave it any thought. You see, I'd been brought up with coeducation;
Denison was coeducational. But if—from '47 to the early '60s, we didn't have men except in
graduate school, of course. They were there. And it didn't bother me at all. And, as I say,
some of them excelled in their work. But the minority of the men excelled.
WL: The women students were better than the men students for a long time here?
WF: In languages, yes. Overall, no, I don't mean to give them any superiority.
WL: Right, yes.
WF: [laughs]
WL: But UNCG still continued to attract good women students, whereas the men students were
not quite as good?
WF: Oh, yes. The one thing that I'd like to mention: when the black students came, they were
women at first, and they excelled. And that embarrassed some of the whites because it is
obvious that these black students were picked. They were not the run of the mill. And they
were getting all As. And, of course, the other students were getting As, Bs, Cs, and Ds and
Fs. But the black students were all excelling. And that embarrassed a few people for a while.
WL: How did the campus feel about having the first black students? Was that a—how did that—I
guess the campus was integrated—
WF: Well, it was easily accepted. In a city it would be a little bit different. But with what I call the
elite, and that's perhaps being unfair to our own group of prejudice, in favor of our own
teachers, they accepted that, they expected it. And it was going to happen one day sooner or
later. And no problem at all, I would say.
WL: How would you describe—what other main features of the student body would you describe
when this institution was Woman's College of [the University of] North Carolina? What
were some of the prominent features of student life and the way that—what sort of student
activities did students participate in?
WF: I don't have a good answer for that. Of course, at first everything was for the women. All the
officers were women. And then gradually, why, men would appear. But, you see, I retired in
'72. And by '72, while there were fewer men on campus, they did not dominate. They don't
yet dominate. As I believe I heard Chancellor [William E.] Moran say the other day, we have
about sixty percent women now and forty percent men. Those aren't precise figures, but it's
still a little larger for the women. And so the men did not then dominate, and I don't think
they do today either.
WL: How would you characterize the faculty? Let's say when you first arrived in 1947.
WF: The first thing that interested me was curious because with all these women here, wouldn't
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you expect to have a lot of women instructors?
WL: Yes.
WF: We had a fair number, but the majority were still men. And you might say that's due to
prejudice, I don't know, history—the preparation of men and women, like I say, was the
answer really. But gradually the number of women teachers increased. Now I did not know
at first that the women received smaller salaries. I had assumed erroneously that they got the
same salary. And I was quite surprised when someone said, "No, we are not paid as much."
At the same rank.
WL: Is that right?
WF: Yes.
WL: I didn't know that.
WF: And I don't have any figures to support it. But it was interesting that a woman said, "No, we
get less." I don't think that's true today. But, of course, I don't have any figures either. But I
think the situation has changed completely.
WL: And so there was a kind of—a little bit of a hierarchy of salaries?
WF: Yes, I suspect that. Well, there is one thing—I don't whether that interests you or not or the
university, but in the late '60s and the early '70s there seemed to be a movement among the
teachers to see that good teaching and departmental work was equally rewarded as well as
research. Now hitherto, you write a book, put out an extra paper or something like that, and
you're a great guy and so deserving of a promotion, whereas some were very, very active.
Myself, I was active in AAUP [American Association of University Professors], which were
university professors, every year a member, and AATF, French teachers, and SP. I'm a life
member of both of those organizations. And I was on national committees. And in fact, I was
vice president of AATF, so I was very active. And I don't regret it. Only it's true that if you
do those things you're not writing books; you're not doing research.
WL: And so rewards came for publications mainly?
WF: It seemed so. Yes, it does seem so. Yeah. Tisdale—here's a man, I talked with him the other
day, he's still in English now.
WL: Charles Tisdale?
WF: He didn't want me to refer to him because he was—simply Tisdale, a member on the
program for promotions.
WL: That's right. Which emphasized teaching and service as well.
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WF: Yes.
WL: —as well as research. That's funny because one often hears—I came in 1981, and one often
hears—
WF: '81? Gee whiz! [laughs]
WL: Yes. That one often hears—people today always refer to the—well, the sort of good 'ole days
in which teaching and service counted more than research. And what you're saying is
research has always been emphasized over teaching?
WF: Yes.
WL: Is that true?
WF: I think so.
WL: What about the romance language department? What can you tell me about the sort of
department that existed when you first came and how it changed over the years?
WF: Well, I had some thoughts on that. Winfield Barney, Winfield Supply Barney, was the head
when I came. I think he came here in 1919. And he lasted until, I think—well he died in '53,
and so one of our first scholarships was in his name. I have a list of scholarships here that
were established in that department.
WL: Oh yes.
WF: That was the very first one for him. And then later on for Meta Miller—a scholarship was
established in her name. She followed Dr. Barney.
WL: As head?
WF: And then René Hardré, with a scholarship in his name. In fact, he's the founder of the
Alliance Francaise. And I'm still very active in the Alliance Francaise [organization that
fosters French language and culture], which meets monthly, usually on our campus. And he
came in middle to late 20's and died in '64 and was a great man. I would say there are two
men—since I'm a French teacher. Perhaps this is too personal, but it's a fact in my life that
I've been influenced by two Frenchmen. In Denison [by] Auguste Votabrecht , who was
from Alsace, France, influenced me very, very much and helped me. And when I came here,
I instinctively looked for somebody of that caliber and there was René Hardré. And so he
was a great help for me.
WL: How many people were in the department when you first arrived?
WF: When I first came?
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WL: Do you remember?
WF: Yes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, I've written eleven names
down here, of me and others. But there—the reason I have some of these figures at hand here
is that Roch Smith [professor of romance languages], a recent department head, is getting
ready for the—the same thing that you are, the centennial [of The University of North
Carolina at Greensboro].
WL: Yes.
WF: He said, "Will you work on the history of our department?"
WL: I see.
WF: I said, "All right. I will do it to the extent as it is revealed from the college catalogs."
WL: Right.
WF: And I spent a long time in the library. And, as you can see from my report here, about twenty
or thirty pages long. And so I found out a great deal about the department—what courses
were offered and what the purposes were. If there's a change in direction, I would say it came
in the '50s, although if you read the catalog you might think the weather had changed. Then
it would say that we taught foreign languages. But then you say—you read on, you find a
stress on grammar and pronunciation and not much speaking. Although they include the
words, you're not actually doing it. It's pretty largely a grammatical study. And that's my
beginning. Except for the fact that I began my study in French in Middlebury [College,
Middlebury], Vermont, with a language course that insisted that you speak the language.
You swore and you signed a statement that you speak only their language during the six-week
sessions. I'm not talking about my years abroad, which were, of course, very, very
important.
WL: Right.
WF: But nevertheless, that started me. Now, when machines seemed to be—for—that we could
use in languages were developed in the late '50s, we had in the old administration building—
we had what we called a laboratory. It wasn't just a classroom with chairs. And some
machines up here and wires down here, and students had earphones. And before you came I
looked for a picture, but I couldn't find it, showing some of those students in that first
laboratory. The reason I stressed that is because that was the real beginning of the laboratory.
Because in 1960 when you went to the McIver Building, then we had a physical laboratory
with booths, about thirty of them, and each student had recording devices, and we had a
lavish stack of tapes and played out to them. And I think the students benefited very, very
much. Now, perhaps I'm stressing this too much, but to me that was an important event.
WL: Sure.
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WF: —in the methods and progress of teaching foreign languages here.
WL: The first—what you described just a minute ago, the first language lab was in the Foust
Building? Is that right?
WF: Yes. Was in the—
WL: In the Administration Building?
WF: In Foust Building. It was there. We called it a lab, but—
WL: It wasn't a full-fledged lab?
WF: No. I call it full-fledged when you have individual booths and individual recording
machines. And that we had from 1960 on.
WL: I see. Once the new McIver Building—
WF: Yes, with the new McIver Building.
WL: Right. Where was the department located when you first arrived here? Was it in the—?
WF: In what you call Foust. I call the old Administration Building. Yes.
WL: I see.
WF: On the second floor.
WL: The second floor of the Administration Building—
WF: Yes. Yes. The old Administration Building. Yes.
WL: —where the new McIver Building—?
WF: Then you went to the new building, the new McIver, in '60.
WL: I see. What about—presumably there was a language requirement when you first arrived?
WF: Oh, yes. That varied, of course, over the years. And I—can't quote me, but that's a good
thing. But it used to be heavier than it used—than it is now. I understand that while there is a
requirement it's been weakened some.
WL: Right.
WF: The question is how much you must have and what you should continue. And I'm not
familiar with the details in 1990.
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WL: Yes.
WF: Which is the last decade, as you know, of the ninth decade. And we start the next decade
next year in '91, our tenth decade.
WL: Yes.
WF: [laughs]
WL: Actually the new century begins in 2001.
WF: And one. That's right. And very few people know that or realize it.
WL: I'm aware of it because my field of history is late nineteenth, early twentieth [centuries].
WF: Yes.
WL: And they had the same debate in 1901, whether it was 1900 or whether it was 1901.
WF: Yes. Yes. Yes.
WL: The language requirement was weakened over the years, wasn't it?
WF: I consider it was. Yes. There are people who might give a different answer to that.
WL: Yes. The college reinstituted it, but the university still doesn't have a language requirement.
WF: They don't?
WL: A two-year language—the two-year language requirement is required by the College [of
Arts & Sciences] now, for the last seven or eight years.
WF: It has?
WL: But the university has no language requirement.
WF: I see.
WL: Say, if you're in the School of Business or the School of Education—
WF: Then you would not have to have any to enter—
WL: No language at all.
WF: —or to take here.
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WL: That wasn't the case when you first were here, was it?
WF: I think everybody had to have a language to get in and then must continue one or two years
here.
WL: Yes.
WF: Depending on how much you'd had it in high school. Usually it was equivalent of a second
year of college language work.
WL: Tell me about the administration here. The—how did the administration-faculty relations—
was there—what kind of relationships were there between faculty and administrators?
WF: Well, much of the time it was good. But there was one case when it was bad. There was one
chancellor that was very unpopular. I could give you his name, possibly, if I thought of it.
WL: Chancellor [Edward Kidder] Graham [Jr.]?
WF: Yes.
WL: That was a period of great turmoil actually, wasn't it?
WF: Yes. Yes, it was.
WL: Yes.
WF: Now, of course when it came to [Chancellor James S.] Jim Ferguson—well somebody
appreciated him, I've forgot his name. Obviously—but Jim Ferguson was probably tops
among the various chancellors during my term here.
WL: The most popular among faculty?
WF: I think so. He seemed to have a good understanding and realized that we're here essentially
to teach, and we have these students and we must do the best job we can. And that's our
prime concern and not administration. If we administer to improve teaching, the
administration—administrators don't teach, which he recognized. In fact, Moran says,
perhaps I'm wrong in that, but—or was it [C.D.] Spangler [president of the University of
North Carolina System]? I guess it was Spangler the other day who said that, "I have never
taught." Yes.
WL: I don't believe Moran has either, actually.
WF: Yes. It makes a difference—your attitude, I think.
WL: Yes.
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WF: Are you a member of AAUP? Or were you at that meeting? That's really what I'm getting at.
WL: I missed the meeting. Yes. But I am. If you had a concern, would you go directly to the
chancellor as a faculty member? Was there access?
WF: No. I might feel inclined to and I might want to, but there's where you get into trouble. You
should go first of all to your department head. And if you go over his head, then you'll get
into trouble. Now if your department head will take it up, let him go or the two of you go,
but not directly to the chancellor.
WL: Yes.
WF: That gets you into trouble.
WL: How did the department heads work? Were they very powerful in, say in the '50s and '60s?
WF: Well, I think Meta Miller did a fine job. She's one who found Winfield Supply Barney. And
then as an acting—when [James C.] Jim Atkinson was acting for a while. And then there
was [Herbert] Gochberg, and then it was [Charles] Blend, and Roch Smith for a while. And
then [David] Fein, I think it is— no, [Mark] Smith-Soto, I think, yes. I can't comment on
anything between—after '72. And, of course, that’s quite a while, you see. It's getting on
toward eighteen years.
WL: Yes.
WF: So I cannot give you anything up-to-date—
WL: Right.
WF: —on the university. Except I can say, if you want to, considering the alumni business. I
know that's a much talked-about topic.
WL: Yes.
WF: And a misunderstanding, I think, and we don't know what side to take. But my wife and I
both inquired about our own colleges, and we find the situation is quite different elsewhere.
I'm a graduate of Clark University [Worcester, Massachusetts], I don't give to the Alumni
Society, I give to Clark University. My wife is a graduate of Middlebury College. She
doesn't give to the Alumni Association; she gives to Middlebury College. Now here, the
situation historically has been different. I think that's the root of the trouble.
WL: Yes.
WF: And I'm not saying what it should be, but just historically it's a fact— its origins are different.
And how it will be worked out in the future—that I don't know.
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WL: The difference being the nature of that—of the Alumni Association or the nature of the
alumni?
WF: Yes. Well, I think it's the association. Yes.
WL: How do you think the institution has changed? How did it change, in your twenty-five years
here?
WF: Twenty-five years. The increase in advanced courses—if you have advanced courses, that
means more advanced students, that means more graduate students. Now, in romance
language we did not have a doctorate; we do have master's [degree]. And so, as I noticed
somewhere in here, if you follow the number of the courses—and incidentally they have all
the courses listed way back to 1892—the numbers rose up into the 400s. When you get into
500s, then you're into the upper level. But undergraduates could take those classes. But I
don't think our department, romance language, had any 600 classes yet. I may be wrong on
that. I shouldn't comment on that. Some things I don't know.
WL: So an increase in a number of the advanced courses?
WF: Increasing—yes.
WL: A proliferation of courses, also, do you think?
WF: Yes. And also, one thing—I don't know whether it's worth mentioning or not because if you
were an outsider setting up courses, you would think a certain way and design a course
according to that, which there's nothing wrong with it. But then when they started today's
courses, I'm surprised at some of those titles. And I think the reason is almost accidental or
incidental. We hire some fine faculty; each has his or her own specialty, and the department
head recognizes that. And so they institute a new course, which you've probably never have
thought of, particularly in the abstract. Therefore we have a course on Gide. Who would
expect one on Gide? I would expect one on the late nineteenth century or nineteenth century
or theater or novel or something like that, but we find some specialized courses and—that
may not be important—but I think it's due to the special preparation of certain of our
teachers. I had no problem myself because I was an eighteenth century man. And they had an
eighteenth century class; they wanted a teacher, and so I was assigned.
WL: Yes.
WF: You know no problem there at all.
WL: The campus presumably became bigger during the time you were there?
WF: Oh yes, physically, yes. And if I had time, I would go into that. This was a campus—in terms
of physical buildings when I came here, and now it's added this and that and that. And, of
course, it's—anybody else can easily name the buildings that came after '62 or '52 or
whatever date you want to take—grown tremendously. And one fact that ought to be
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mentioned is that while the city is glad to have the institution here—and we bring economic
benefits, of course—but we keep gobbling up more and more land, taking it out of the tax
base, and they don't like that very much.
WL: It takes it out of the tax base.
WF: And I do not swell with pride whenever they say, "Gee, we've got 11,000 students this year
and only ten [thousand] last year and only nine [thousand] that year." That doesn't mean
anything to me at all. What I like is to have a class and know my subject and do a good job
teaching it. That's what I like. Yes. I could—I don't think I did any better at it when I retired
in '72 than when I came in '47 with more students. I don't think so.
WL: Did you find it harder to teach over the years?
WF: No.
WL: I mean, in terms of the circumstances?
WF: No. I don't think it became any more difficult. I enjoyed my work. Oh, that—by the way, to
me it is a point I'd like to make, particularly to all of the young people. So many people when
they graduate, they say, "I'm going to get a job. Which job should I take? I'll take the one that
pays best." And sometimes it's okay. But I think often it is an error. You can't see your whole
lifetime ahead. If you could, you would perhaps change the procedure. What I would like to
do is to do what I want to do and enjoy doing. Now I wasn't born a teacher; I fell into it
accidentally. To me, a very interesting story to accent, but I won't give to you
here. But here I was teaching. I could have quit—my father was in business. Why wouldn't I
be in the business? No. To my surprise, I enjoyed it. I like the people—my associates, the
other faculty members. What they did and thought and read. And that's the reason I kept on
in teaching. And so that's what I would say to any young person today: Pick what you think
you would like to do during your entire lifetime, and don't go by the salary. That's number
one item.
WL: Did—was this campus a fairly congenial place to be, do you think? A civil—it always has
that reputation as being civil. And do you think that was true for you?
WF: Yes. Yes, it was. I enjoyed being here and enjoyed my associates. What I'm thinking about
is, “I wonder who would give a different answer? And why?” I don't know of any different
answer. But if you'd go around and talk with a hundred people, there must be some who
would think differently.
WL: Well, there are always going to be people that are unhappy. There are, in fact, people whose
experience was an unhappy one.
WF: Yes.
WL: At the same time, I've been hearing from a lot of people that there's always been this tradition
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of collegiality and civility among the faculty.
WF: Yes, it is.
WL: It goes back to the '30s and '40s and '50s.
WF: This may be minor—I don't know, maybe important. But in my teaching days I always had
luncheon at the cafeteria. We called it the home economics cafeteria.
WL: Right.
WF: And that was very good because we associated with other department members.
WL: Yes. Socialize and—?
WF: One little thing that was interesting. On one day a week, possibly Thursday, the men met by
themselves, which we enjoyed.
WL: Where would you meet?
WF: In one of those side rooms. I can't give you the number of it, but in the home economics
cafeteria. Later on, I heard that some of the women resented the fact that the men went off by
themselves. What value there is to that I don't know. But it did mean that all the women were
left by themselves.
WL: Was there much sense of competition between men and women faculty? You mentioned
before that women—some women perhaps were aware of the fact or knew of the fact that
there was a salary differential.
WF: Yes.
WL: Presumably they weren't happy about that?
WF: Yes. I'm sure, in talking to women, you get quite different answer. I heard that late in my
career here. I assumed it first and falsely that we're all the same and received the same salary.
I was surprised to find out that there was a difference. But I think that's a thing of the past
now.
[recording paused]
WF: Then among the librarians—among the other people on the campus there's Charles Adams.
WL: Charles Adams. That's right.
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WF: Who is retired, of course, as the librarian [Jackson Library director]. But he came—he was
here before I came.
WL: Yes.
WF: And he's over at the Presbyterian Home [High Point, North Carolina] now.
WL: Yes, we're going to interview him.
WF: You are?
WL: Yes. Katherine Taylor [dean of women, dean of students, director of student services,
director of Elliott Hall] was in the department with you?
WF: She was—yes.
WL: Dean of women and—
WF: Yes. You don't—oh, that—is that machine on now?
[End of Interview]