Oral history interview with Adelaide Fortune Holderness, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Adelaide Fortune Holderness
INTERVIEER: Missy Foy
DATE: April 26, 1990
MF: [clock chimes] If you could start, I guess by telling a little bit about your education at
Woman’s College [of the University of North Carolina]and then what you’ve done, well
briefly. I know you’ve done a lot—briefly sort of a couple of highlights what you’ve
done since then, and then I’ll ask you more in detail about your education at Woman’s
College.
AH: Well, I went to Woman’s College in the middle of the [Great] Depression [worldwide
economic downturn during the 1930s]. It was 1934 when I was graduated. I was a day
student because my father was an old family doctor, and people didn’t pay doctors. They
paid the grocery money and the milk money, but they didn’t pay doctors. So I was
really—I was very grateful for my education at the Woman’s College. It was—I didn’t
have as much association when I was there with the students in their daily lives as far as
living with them because, of course, I wasn’t in the dormitory, didn’t have meals in
Spencer [dining hall] and all those places. By the time I was a senior, I was out there a lot
of the time and spent nights with friends. But for the most part, it was a question of
almost as if I had been in high school and was going to school and coming back home. I
did make friends there and some good friends that I’ve enjoyed through the years. And
it’s meant a lot to them to be a graduate of the Woman’s College, as it has me.
I think probably one of the things that has been more memorable for me is the
association with the teachers. The faculty was a good faculty, and they made you feel a
kinship with them. I think they took a great interest in their students. Our classes weren’t
too big. We were invited into the faculty homes. I can remember many of them who had
us over. And we became friends. Of course, an older person and a younger person, but
really good friends. And that friendship lasted for as long as the faculty was there that I
knew—a lot of them. Of course, most of them are gone now, and there’s practically
nobody left. But it was great fun for us.
I can remember going into [René] Hardré’s [French professor] home and Madame
Hardré trying to teach us to order a lunch in French, order, dance or to do all those things.
Or Miss Augustine LaRochelle, who was a Spanish teacher and who had—would invite
us over. Each year she did something different. One year she did cookies, the next year
she did candy, the next year she did breads and she was an interesting soul. She was a
Spanish teacher. But I had my association mostly was with the faculty in the history
department, particularly Dr. [Walter Clinton] Jackson and then Miss Harriet Elliott [dean
of women, professor of political science], whom I was very fond of. And then there were
lots of—Mr. [Benjamin] Kendrick and Miss Vera Largent, Miss Bernice Draper [all
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history professors] and oh, just so many of the faculty that I really was very fond of and
kept up our association a long time.
I was fascinated by history, I guess. I certainly didn’t want to take physical
ed[ucation]. I didn’t want to take home economics. I thought at the time I should get a
teacher’s certificate, so I could teach because there was no empl—in the Depression. And
the faculty in the history department was so good; they were interesting. I loved the
liberal arts part of the college. There are a lot of things I wish I had taken. I wish I had
had some art history and some music history.
I’ve tried to make up for some of it by helping to start the Musical Arts Guild
[support organization of the School of Music], and when I was—I guess it was about the
time I was president of the Alumnae Association. And I’ve been very interested in the art
department and the Weatherspoon [Art] Gallery. So that’s been rewarding for me, and
it’s something that I wish I had known something about before. So it’s fascinating to me
to listen to a man like Bert Carpenter [chairman of the art department] lecture and try to
teach me something about my own art, which I don’t know much about but am trying to
learn. I didn’t like anything in the physical ed department except modern dance. Or
something, anything I could do to get out of baseball or wa—some of those thing that
people do. And I certainly didn’t want to have anything to do with home ec[onomics],
with sewing or cooking or any of those things. I still can’t do them today. Maybe I
should’ve; I would have had an easier fifty-four years of marriage. [laughs] But let me
see. What else did you want to know?
MF: What your association has been with the university—well, with the college and now the
university since then because I know you pretty well stayed—
AH: Oh my goodness. Well—
MF: —associated with it. Just some of the—for instance, some of the positions you served in.
AH: Well, right after I finished, I went to Marion, North Carolina, to teach two classes. And I
went in November because the secretary for the superintendent up there was having a
baby, and so I went. I had taken a little typing on, just on the side, so I went up and taught
two classes. I was there for about five months, and that’s the only time I’ve ever been
away from Greensboro. But I came back that summer and worked in Dr. [Walter Clinton]
Jackson’s office while his secretary was gone for maybe six weeks. And then Miss
Elliott. Harriet Elliott, asked me to come to her office. And I worked with—we had class
chairmen then. They would advise us and counsel us to the different classes. I had a
wonderful experience with them—with a Dr. [Helen] Barton [mathematics professor],
Dr. [William] Collins [art faculty], and Miss Ingraham [biology faculty] and Dr. Miller,
Meta Miller [French faculty].
MF: Working for Dr. Jackson and then Miss Elliott—
AH: I just did about six weeks for Dr. Jackson.
MF: —you probably knew May Davis, May Adams.
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AH: Oh yes. I knew May Adams [May Lattimore Adams, Commercial Class of 1935,
administrative staff].
MF: Adams, that was it. I couldn’t re—I interviewed her the same day as [unclear].
AH: Yes. She was in that—in the building and of course, to us, that was the Administration
Building. That was not the Foust Building.
MF: Yes, anyway with what you were saying?
AH: But I did go into—I loved being in the class [unclear] offices. But then I got married, so
they let me go. Chick, my husband [Howard Holderness] went to talk to Dr. [Julius]
Foust [president of the institution] and told him he thought I ought to—not to be working.
I wanted to continue because it was interesting. But it—he didn’t want me to, and I guess
it’s a good thing because I had a baby in the first year I was married and built a house,
our house over there. So I guess I couldn’t have handled all of that. But after that I—we
had five children, and I was really busy with all the things you do with five children.
MF: Oh, oh sure.
AH: With chauffeuring and scouts and music and dancing and all of the things you have to do
for five children. I became a little bit worn out with that, but I always kept up some
interest in the college. And I don’t remember—I was on committees out there and did—
worked over there and worked on some things when they asked me to. Oh and by the
way, when I was in school, I worked in the library some the last maybe year and a half. I
loved being in the library. So I kept—I had a real interest over there. But I don’t know
what happened and how I got elected, but now I was elected in ’62 to be the president of
the Alumnae Association. And that was a very rewarding, rewarding time for me. Maybe
where did, what did I do with my little thing about Barbara?
MF: Oh, here.
AH: I’ll tell you some of the things that happened to us then.
MF: Oh, okay.
AH: We—wow, it was a really turbulent time, awful time because we were mandated to
become a man’s school, be a coed school and let men come in. Although during this
Depression, there were some men who came because they couldn’t afford to go away to
school too.
MF: To [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill?
AH: But it was really a women’s college. And there were a lot of things we wanted to do over
there. And I was very interested in fostering some of the programs that we had not done.
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My husband one day spent a whole day to give one scholarship, one scholarship of the
women’s club. And he said, “What a pity that we didn’t have scholars,” so I was
interested in an alumni scholars’ program, which we have to this day.
I was interested in the house over there; our Alumni House was just absolutely
beautiful. So we did that over. We did a lot to it. We didn’t have much money. If I could
find my—the minutes of that year, I’ll give them to you. We practically had no money to
do anything with. And to this day I could go over there and in the library there’s a little
Chinese box that I took out of my house at home to take over there, just a little something
extra to make it look better. But Mr. Zenke, Otto Zenke [Greensboro interior designer]
here, helped us. And we redid the Pecky Cypress Room, and that was a lovely place. And
we’ll get it back again this June. It’s been in the Development Office, but we’ll get it
back. And we did a lot for the house. We had to buy linens and do things about the beds
and tables and all sorts of things. So we worked on that a great deal. We did a lot, I think,
with the seniors and upperclassmen as an Alumnae Association. And we established the
Alumni News [magazine]—Miss Vera Largent was the part-time person, [history] faculty
member, who helped us. Bibbie [Elizabeth Yates] King [Class of 1936] from here was
the first chair of that organization. So we feel real close to that. We had a—it was a good
year, but—
MF: Is Alumni News now a part of the alumni publications?
AH: What publications? Now they call them the college—that’s one of the rifts. The alumni
want it to be their—
MF: Publication.
AH: —their publication. I mean they don’t want it to be a marketing thing for the
administration. They want to be able to publish what they’d like to. That’s one of the
points—
MF: We’ll come back to that.
AH: —that they’re having trouble with. And yes, I can’t think of all the things we did except
that [Chancellor] Otis Singletary said we weren’t really raising any money and that we
just needed to combine it with a development person to go out and help us. There was not
much—we didn’t have much help in the office. And so we did it, provided they would
fund the office and fund our program. And then that would establish what we called the
Annual Giving Council. And the money that was left over, the Annual Giving Council
would distribute with the recommendation of the president then. I guess he was president,
I can’t remember. Yes, I guess he was then. So that worked out well. We did have this
council which worked. We really worked well for years. We would save up what money
we had, and then the chancellor would say, “Well we need to have a fellowship for a
professor, or we need this for a discretionary fund,” for him to do some things that he
couldn’t do with state money, or we needed to have it for scholars, and so things really
worked out, I think, pretty well. There was always a little battle between the alumni and
the development, but as with [clock chimes] people who do have somewhat the same
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purpose, but they enter in different directions. It was always—it always seemed to come
out all right. And people settled it until the last few years. Well, let me see. That I think—
oh, our garden—we have—did have on the side of the house as you passed by it there
was this little garden there.
MF: A little flower garden?
AH: Yes. And that year—you’ll have to go see it—we worked on it, and we called it our
Secretary’s Garden. It was right out of the window of the secretary of the Alumni
Association.
MF: Yes, and it’s got slate, a slate walkway around the bushes.
AH: That’s right. You know where it is.
MF: Right. I sure do.
AH: Well it was—it was just a mess out there, and we fixed it up. Of course, it’s changed
through the years, and it’s grown up. But it was fun.
MF: I think there’s ivy growing on the walls around it now.
AH: Yes, and it’s very—well, let me see. After alumni, [unclear]—I’m sure that the women in
the state were principally—can’t think of the word I want to use—well, they elected me,
I’m sure, to the board of the greater university [Consolidated University North Carolina
System]. That was in 1968, I believe it was. And I served there for I guess it was three
years until the question of the Board of Governors came along. Well, I fought the Board
of Governors because I felt that the Consolidated University of just— originally just the
three—[University of] North Carolina [at Chapel Hill], [North Carolina] State
[University, Raleigh, North Carolina], and the Woman’s College [of the University of
North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina] were the three prestigious ones in the
university. But then along came this question of everybody going to the legislature and
trying to get money. So a lot of the teachers colleges were joined in. But before that—
MF: Was Carolina—?
AH: —before that, we did, they did take in—we had in the Consolidated University we had,
well, [University of North Carolina at] Wilmington and [University of North Carolina at]
Charlotte. I believe there were five of them then. Funny, I can’t remember. But anyway,
at that—by the time we did lose as far as keeping this consolidated university as it was.
By then we were, had—well, they came up with fifteen and they, of course, took in the
black colleges and the teachers colleges and everything became the university.
MF: Now when did that happen, that it took in everything?
AH: It was about ’72.
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MF: Was there much objection to taking in the teachers colleges and black colleges?
AH: Well, I did. Yes, there was. But I mean we felt—I felt particularly—I mean many did.
We are a very poor state by and large. And it’s very expensive to fund universities and
research for universities particularly. And so I really felt—but it was mandated again by
the legislature again that we have this. Bob Scott was just insisting on it as governor. So
we did the best we could, and I was selected—I don’t know how exactly—but anyway, I
was selected to go on the Board of Governors. So I served there for eight or ten years, I
guess, and I was defeated by—although I think the nominating committee, which before
this had always—the legislature had followed the nominating committee. I understand
that the nominating committee voted for me eighteen to one. But Billy Watkins [a
Democrat and NC House of Representatives majority leader from Granville County]
decided he wanted somebody from his town to be. So the next day they called me, and
said I was defeated and I got off the Board of Governors. But in some ways that’s good
because Chick and I, my husband, were given the award, the University Award [1984,
highest award from UNC Board of Governors]. We had been given the medical award
[1971, Distinguished Medical Service Award from UNC School of Medicine]. But we
never would have gotten it, see, if I had been on it, I never would’ve gotten it—my
award. I’ll show it to you. So I was pleased over that. And maybe some of the things that
happened, I might have been fighting again. You never can tell.
MF: Yes. What was the nature of the resistance to bringing in the other schools into the
system?
AH: Well, I think that they probably felt they weren’t really universities. It’s not a question of
being just a school in the system; they weren’t really universities. And so there were—
MF: Like, which ones were involved in this? I’m trying to think, trying to get an idea of which
schools were already in?
AH: Well we—you wouldn’t have thought of this—Appalachian [State University, Boone,
North Carolina], or Wilmington [College, Wilmington, North Carolina], or Charlotte
College [Charlotte, North Carolina] for that matter. But it had become a university—
MF: I guess A&T [North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, Greensboro,
North Carolina] probably also.
AH: And Central [North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina] and Winston-
Salem State [University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina] and Elizabeth City [State
University, Elizabeth City, North Carolina].
MF: But was Fayetteville State [unclear]—
AH: And Pembroke [State University, Pembroke, North Carolina] and they were not really
universities.
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MF: Yes, East Carolina [University, Greenville, North Carolina] was still ECTC [East
Carolina Teachers College, Greenville, North Carolina].
AH: Yeas, we called, always called East Carolina ECTC—
MF: Yes, I know. It’s either that or—EZU is the other thing I hear.
AH: [laughs] Really? EZU?
MF: I started out at East Carolina.
AH: You did? We called it ECTC when we were coming along. But that—let me see, well,
that covers pretty well. What else would you like to know?
MF: Okay, well let’s get into some more specifics now. Gosh, I can’t—you’ve done a whole
lot with the university, yes.
AH: Yes, I think I have. I’ve probably run out of time.
MF: No, no.
AH: That’s enough.
MF: With student life—when you were a student, I know you were a student during the
Depression And some people have told me that they felt rather isolated from the
Depression by being a student on campus. But you were a day student.
AH: I was a day student.
MF: And so did you feel like you were more exposed to the Depression?
AH: Oh, of course I was more exposed to the Depression than if I had been on the campus.
Definitely so, I think. But campus life was full. And there was a lot to do every day, and
sometimes I could take Mother’s car and sometimes I’d be driven out there and picked
up. So I think I felt it. But when you’re young, you don’t think too much about being—.
We had fun. And I went a lot of places. Loved going to Carolina and Davidson [College,
Davidson, North Carolina] and occasionally State and occasionally Duke [University,
Durham, North Carolina].
MF: Yes, I heard there were a lot of field trips to Carolina.
AH: Well there weren’t exactly field trips—I just went.
MF: Well, quote unquote, field trips. Some girls would get together and go.
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AH: Well I didn’t get with—no, I didn’t go with the girls. I went with the boys. [laughter]
MF: Oh, that sounds more fun.
AH: A lot more fun. I had a good time when I was in college. I mean, it wasn’t all work; there
was a lot of play. So that’s good.
MF: Yes. And even though you weren’t living in the dorms, do you—I’m sure you got some
impression of what dorm life was like?
AH: Yes. Oh, I’d spend the night occasionally. Somebody would say, “Come on and spend the
night; my roommate’s not going to be there.” And occasionally I would do it, but not for
the most part.
MF: Yes. What kind of—there were the so-called parietal rules at that time. How did they
seem to affect—?
AH: Well, they didn’t affect me at all.
MF: But the students who were on campus?
AH: Well, I don’t know because my father was so strict that I don’t know. [laughter]
MF: More strict than campus, right?
AH: Oh, maybe. I was probably a goodie-goodie. Oh, he was so strict that—oh my goodness, I
couldn’t do anything. I do remember he wiped lipstick off me, my mouth, when I was
going to Chapel Hill. And I said, “Daddy, I’m going to put it on as soon as I get out of
town.” Oh, me. But—we had fun anyway.
MF: I’d also been told that I—a couple of people, it’s been hard to determine exactly when it
occurred, but it was, ’31 is about the best I can narrow it down that a lot of the girls got
together and drew up a petition to be allowed to smoke, and I was just wondering if you
remembered.
AH: Oh I couldn’t smoke. My father wouldn’t let me.
MF: Did you remember anything about that happening?
AH: No.
MF: They were petitioning to be able to smoke on campus.
AH: No I don’t recollect that.
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MF: Oh. And then I had found out they had actually been allowed to smoke in their rooms all
along, but just not out on campus.
AH: No I think you had to—when we came along you wore gloves to church and hats and did
all those things. Maybe not quite as much as they did in the ’20s, but you just did that. I
mean, everybody did it.
MF: Do you remember Tuesday Chapel? It might not have been on Tuesdays at that time. Do
you remember the chapel meetings around noon?
AH: I can’t remember chapel meetings so much as mass meetings.
MF: Yes, well. It became—called Tuesday Chapel later. I’m not sure exactly when it became
called that.
AH: Well, I don’t remember. But I do remember there is a right much money over there in the
chapel fund that hasn’t been used.
MF: Oh, is there?
AH: Yes. And I would think there would probably be half a million dollars.
MF: Wow.
AH: I don’t know.
MF: Just because it’s not used over consecutive years?
AH: It was given for the chapel fund, and during the war, a lot of people gave money in
memory maybe of a brother who had died or something in the war. And there is money
over there.
MF: Well, you were saying earlier about Dr. Jackson. What was he like?
AH: Very liberal. He was the lea—one of the least race-conscious people I know of. He really
was. And I mean he was—in that sense, he was liberal sociologically. And when people
warned us [unclear] I was always, admired him for it. And he was a really good teacher,
very good teacher. Everybody wanted to get in Dr. Jackson’s classes. And Miss Elliott’s
too.
MF: Yes, I was just going to ask you about her.
AH: She was great. And she got—well, she was an interesting, really interesting woman and
interested in politics when most people weren’t. She had Eleanor, Eleanor Roosevelt,
[wife of President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt] there, and she was on a—
national committee woman [Consumer Commissioner on the Advisory Commission to
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the Council of National Defense (1940-1941), Chairman of the Woman's Division of the
War Finance Committee (1942-1946), Deputy Director of the Office of Price
Administration, and US delegate to the United Nations Conference on Education, Science
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in London in 1945] and—
MF: She was in WAVES [women’s branch of the US Navy]?
AH: No, no, no. That was Katherine Taylor [Class of 1928, dean of women, dean of students,
dean of student services, director or Elliott Hall].
MF: Oh, that’s right. You’re right, that was Katherine Taylor.
AH: That’s Katherine Taylor, who taught me. And is still—do you know Katherine? Have you
seen her?
MF: No, I don’t—no, I haven’t.
AH: Well she’s a very—
MF: I had heard she wasn’t—
AH: —she’s not well.
MF: Yes, that’s what I heard, she wasn’t very—
AH: But she was a brilliant, just a brilliant person, compassionate, and a good teacher. But
that’s the thing—
MF: Yes. Miss Elliott, though, she went to New York and to Washington for political—
AH: For lots of things, yes. She was a really good friend of Mrs. Julius Cone, Laura Weill
Cone [1910 Diploma, Class of 1927, honorary degree 1943]. And you know, Mrs. Cone’s
daughter and I were good friends. We grew up together here.
MF: Oh really?
AH: Yes. Frances Stern, Mrs. Cone’s daughter by her first marriage. And Frances’ father died
when she was very young, and then she married Mr. Julius Cone and was—she’s the one
who wrote the school song and—there’s a picture in here. You will see her picture in
here. And she was on the university board. She was a strong, smart woman, greatly
admired.
MF: You were saying also that when you had been president of the Alumni Association in the
early ’60s that it was a really turbulent time. Do you remember some of the things that
were going on on campus?
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AH: Well, all of these things that were changing from a women’s college to a—
MF: Right, to a coed.
AH: Well that, to a coed kind and then trying to deal with the new Development Office, you
see. And taking away things from the Alumni Association.
MF: Yes, and then the racial issues going on in Greensboro as a whole.
AH: Well, not—
MF: I’m wondering how much—?
AH: Well, I guess, I’ve forgotten what the year was.
MF: It was late ’50s—
AH: I think that’s—
MF: —when the first black student came on campus. I can’t remember her name.
AH: No, I think it was later than that.
MF: Oh really? I thought it was about ’57 or ’58.
AH: Well, maybe you’re right. I do remember that our third child, second daughter, was
president of the student body at what is now Grimsley High School—it was Greensboro
High School when I went there—was president of student body and when they had the
first black girl to go there.
MF: How did that go over?
AH: Well, I think it worked out all right. [clock chimes] There’s always some problems. But
Sandra was very protective of her, very protective. And I think that that was what—
MF: Did you know anything about [Chancellor] Ed[ward Kidder] Graham [Jr.] when he
was—? It was in the ’50s.
AH: Yes I did.
MF: Did you know him or just—?
AH: Yes I did know him.
MF: You did know him?
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AH: I was on some committees; he asked me to be there. I got on two committees [unclear]. I
don’t think Ed paid as much attention to the committee members unless they wanted to
do what he wanted to do. Which he did, later—
MF: What was—?
AH: These were some upsetting times, I think, for the former college because we had—Dr.
[William Whatley] Pierson came back twice, I think, as an interim president—in and out.
And so that was—I guess Ed was there in the ’40s, wasn’t he?
MF: I guess he came in the ’40s. And it was some time in the early to mid-’50s, I guess, when
he left.
AH: I know Ed wasn’t there very long. I can’t remember how long he was there.
MF: I think it was—
AH: I think his wife’s a—
MF: I think it was more than five years.
AH: I think his wife is in Durham now, Elizabeth.
MF: Yes, that’s what I’ve been told
AH: But you see, [Chancellor] Gordon Blackwell came in—
MF: Right.
AH: —there too before Otis Singletary came. And then [Chancellor James] Jim Ferguson.
And then Otis came back. And then Jim Ferguson came in as the chancellor. I was on that
search committee for the Board of Governors as I was on the search committee for
Chapel Hill one year. And Bill [William C.] Friday [assistant dean of students at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1948 to 1951, assistant to the President
of the Consolidated University of North Carolina Gordon Gray from 1951 to 1955,
Secretary of the University of North Carolina system, and acting president from 1956 to
1957, when he was chosen to take the position permanently] told me that in all the
schools and with the turnover in chancellors that Jim Ferguson was the only who was
requested by the faculty to return. He was greatly loved and respected by the faculty.
MF: And when was Jim Ferguson—?
AH: I don’t know. I’d have to go to the calendar to see.
MF: So he was after Blackwell.
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AH: Oh yes, and Singletary. And then he came in as head of the graduate school. He and—
then Otis went off to—went to Washington [DC] as head of the North Carolina Council
on Education [Ed. note: became director of Job Corps in 1964, became vice president of
the American Council on Education in 1968]. I think it was. And then he came back, but
then he left again. And Jim became not just acting chancellor, but the chancellor.
MF: Yes. I had heard that with Ed Graham’s wife that she was a really wonderful person.
AH: She was.
MF: Is she still going by Graham as her last name?
AH: I don’t know, and I think—
MF: And see because, yes—
AH: —she’s living in—I think so—she’s living in Durham I think.
MF: Yes, because I was going to try and get in touch with her but I wanted to figure out if she
was going by—
AH: I think so, Elizabeth Graham.
MF: I think she is. I think that’s what I’d been told. But he was only there for—
AH: Short time.
MF: Yes, like maybe five years or something.
AH: I don’t even think it was that long. Maybe it was.
MF: Maybe not. Yes. I was just—I guess I was just assuming; it sounds about right.
AH: I think you’ll have to get the calendar out to tell you.
MF: Right. To figure out. Yes.
AH: You can get that at the library.
MF: Apparently there were some hearings before he left, but nobody seems to know where the
minutes of the hearing would have been.
AH: No. I don’t believe we do.
MF: I get the impression when people tell me they don’t know where they would be is that
they mean probably don’t exist anymore.
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AH: I don’t know.
MF: Yes, so. Well, that’d be an interesting thing to follow.
AH: Betty Brown Jester [Class of 1931, Alumnae Secretary] probably could tell you more
than anybody.
MF: Oh really? I didn’t think to ask her. I’ll call her and ask her. She was involved in the
hearings and—?
AH: I don’t know.
MF: Okay.
AH: I will not get involved myself.
MF: Okay. Let me ask you something about Blackwell when he was chancellor. While he was
chancellor, some of the girls from Woman’s College sat in with some of the sit-in
demonstrators in February of 1960 [led Woolworth’s Department Store chain to stop
segregating lunch counters] from—the ones from A&T. And apparently he was pretty
upset over the fact that they had sat in and they were wearing their Woman’s College
jackets. And I wondered if you remembered.
AH: Well, I don’t know. I really don’t remember anything particular about that to tell you the
truth. At that time it was a question of whether—there were things that were legal and not
legal as far as schools were concerned. I was much more interested in the—at that time,
what was going on in the public schools more so than I was in the college thing. I do
know that some people from Woolworth’s came down, and they were trying to work
things out peaceably. A lot of this did not get in the newspapers. But I do remember that
some people came down from New York and were hours in our library talking, trying to
see how they could work things out. But none of that’s even been in the newspapers.
MF: No, I wouldn’t imagine it would have been. But also, I was wondering since you were
involved in—directly with the campus in the ’60s, do you remember in the late ’60s the
cafeteria workers’ strike?
AH: No. No.
MF: I think that was ’69.
AH: That was probably too long after I was president of the student body.
MF: Yes, okay.
AH: Some other student or alumni person might be able to tell you about that.
15
MF: Okay. And I don’t mean to jump around in topics here, but I just remembered that I
wanted also to ask you about some of the men who were attending classes at Woman’s
College during the Depression. How were they accepted on campus? Were they really
outsiders or were they—?
AH: Well, I’m sure they were just day students as I was. And they came to try to get an
education and didn’t have money to go off to school. No, I think they were—you know
what it was [unclear]. But that, it was nothing. They were accepted as far as I know. I
didn’t know of anything different because at that time people were just aware of the fact
that a lot of us just didn’t have enough money and people wanted an education. And that
was a stopgap for them.
MF: And Chapel Hill was the men’s school in the system.
AH: Well, they did take women after their sophomore year.
MF: Yes, but it was basically a—
AH: It was basically men, yes.
MF: It was too expensive to go.
AH: You couldn’t afford to.
MF: Yes, right. Okay. Let me just turn this over.
AH: Don’t you think you have enough from me?
MF: Well, actually I’ve still got plenty of room left before I’m finished with this side. One of
the really important issues in—granted I’ll understand if you want to be vague or if you’d
rather not talk about it. Is this rift with the Alumni Association and Chancellor [William]
Moran? Maybe just a little bit of factual information about what’s the conflict about?
What does it involve?
AH: Well, I suppose, have you interviewed Cathy [Stewart] Vaughn [Class of 1949, Alumni
Association president] or Betty [Crawford] Ervin [Class of 1950, Alumni Association
president]?
MF: Betty Ervin, not Cathy Long, I’m pretty sure I’ve interviewed Betty Ervin.
AH: Well, they have been president, presidents of the Alumni Association at this time. And, of
course, they know all about it. But I—they have kept me, they’ve kept me apprised to
what’s going on. There’s several issues that have come up. It’s the funding of the office;
it’s the publication; it’s the turning of part of the Alumni House to the Alumni
Association. There are just other issues—programming, who’s to do the programming.
And what will be—how we will have money for an alumni association, how the alumni
16
will. What will be done, I don’t know. I hate—I don’t know exactly what to tell you
because they are in mediation. I had loads of letters from people who are really very
upset about it because the Alumni Association is really the link of alumni to the college.
It will be different; it is changing.
I think many of the alumni in future years will be loyal to their department or their
school, one they are finishing from rather than to the university as a whole. I mean if they
were history that they majored in, they’ll be loyal to the history department or to human
environmental sciences or some of those things. And I think that that’s a big change, I
think, because when I came along there was loyalty to the whole school. I think the
faculty were loyal to the whole school, not just to their department. And I think that is a
big change. A lot of things [unclear]. But I do think that the alumni of years ago and
probably even until now—now what it will be in the future, I don’t know—their only real
contact is with the Alumni Association. And so that makes another difficulty.
MF: Yes.
AH: I think you should talk to Betty and to Cathy because they’ve had long, long studies. And
probably the people who are on the Alumni Association board mostly have taken a
prominent part in the committee work. They’ve gone into the history of the Association;
they’ve gone into everything you could think of. I mean it’s just pages and pages of
typewritten material and printed material, putting forth their side of this. And, of course,
Dr. Moran’s [unclear].
But they are—all alumni associations are associated with their schools in a
different way. There’s not a set way to do things. The Alumni Association is a separate
organization in Chapel Hill, for instance. But they report directly to Paul Hardin, to the
chancellor. And they sit in on—the director of the alumni association there sits in on his
Monday morning administrative council, where the Alumni Association here is just
underdeveloped.
MF: What are the possible solutions?
AH: I don’t know. I’m really—don’t feel free to say anything until we find out something
from the mediation because I have a real definite point of view because I would not have,
as I’ve told you, and as I’ve told Bill Moran, I really would not have thrown out the baby
with the bath water. I would not have, if we hadn’t been assured that the Alumni
Association would be funded, that we would run—we would manage the Alumni House.
We would have our own publications. We would have our own programming. And we’d
have our alumni annual giving council.
MF: I know Barbara Parrish [Class of 1948, Alumni Secretary, Director of Alumni
Association] resigned—
AH: Yes.
MF: —in, I guess, in December? I think it was December, late December, maybe mid-
December. Was that directly related to the problems with Chancellor Moran?
17
AH: Yes, I would think so.
MF: Yes. I would think so, although I’ve never asked her directly.
AH: Well, I would think so.
MF: One person had told me that it seemed as though she had timed her resignation to
coincide with sort of a climax in the dispute, but I didn’t understand what the implied.
AH: I think that is not—I think that is not true. That, well, the out—it might have been the
final outcome. But she had asked to resign several times.
MF: Oh, okay.
AH: And the Alumni Association just would not let her.
MF: I see.
AH: But one of the things that probably is a big impediment to solving the problem is the
dual—can’t think of the word I want to use.
MF: [clock chimes] Role?
AH: Yes—well, the dual role, I guess, for her but in her [unclear] to the Alumni Association
and to the Development Office.
MF: I see.
AH: They want the Alumni Association and the—and Bob or whoever is head of the
association to be in an advisory role rather than have the secretary report directly to the
Alumni Association itself.
MF: So rather than a supervisory, yes—
AH: Sort of an advisory rather than—
MF: I see. And that’s—her position since resigning still hasn’t been filled, has it?
AH: Well yes. Well, in fact—
MF: Is Brenda Cooper [Class of 1965, MEd 1973, Director of Alumni Affairs, Secretary of
the Alumni Association]—?
AH: Brenda is the acting—
18
MF: Yes. I didn’t know if she’d actually—
AH: She’s acting.
MF: She’s acting. Acting, what is it, I guess, called, acting secretary?
AH: Acting secretary, yes.
MF: Okay, yes. Is Brenda Cooper just not sure she wants to take it over or—?
AH: I don’t know. No, I don’t know.
MF: That was just a thought that occurred to me right now. I just wondered why she’s acting
and not official.
AH: Yes, she’s working very hard.
MF: I know she is. I know she is.
AH: She has to. She’s a great person, a very nice person.
MF: Yes, I’ve been over to talk to her quite a few times. As a matter of fact, she’s helped us a
lot on this project.
AH: Yes, she would. She’s very helpful.
MF: Yes it’s hard see, to find out really—
[End of Side A—Begin Side B]
AH: Well, is that enough for me? You’re tired of me.
MF: No, I’m not. I’ve lost my thought now, what I was going to—thought that I wanted to ask
you. It was something dealing with Brenda Cooper, but now I’ve lost my train of thought.
AH: Well, now they’re in the middle of getting a development officer first. They don’t have a
development officer; they have an acting one.
MF: What is the nature of the Development Office now? Because it seems somehow related to
the Alumni Association, and I can’t quite figure out what the relationship is.
AH: Well, the head of development is the vice chancellor for development, and the vice
chancellor has publications and alumni and programming and all these things that get
bigger and bigger and bigger. And the Alumni Association is getting smaller and smaller.
19
MF: Oh, so it seems like they’re sort of taking over—
AH: Taking over a lot of the things.
MF: —a lot of the responsibilities. Okay, I see, because I know that the Development Office
goes out and talks to a lot of the alumni. And I remember thinking to myself—I thought,
“This would be what alumni office did.”
AH: Well it should be done together.
MF: Right.
AH: I mean that’s the perfect way to do it. You know? Because people in the Alumni Office
know the alumni and the development people don’t.
MF: Yes. Well, that makes sense. With the Alumni House, a lot of alumni that I’ve talked to
feel very attached to it.
AH: Very possessive about it. They want it kept, and kept as it is in the right furnishings. It’s
used, of course, for all—for the university almost exclusively. And that’s what the alumni
wanted. It was— it’s what they want for it. But they don’t want somebody coming in one
year and say, “Well, we’ll want to change this.” And then the next year we put a modern
rug in an eighteenth-century house. I mean, type-house. And they want it to be run in
good taste. And we feel very possessive about it.
MF: Right. Well it’s beautiful.
AH: I think it is a beautiful house.
MF: And there are bedrooms upstairs, right?
AH: Two are down and two up.
MF: Two down and two up? Okay, I didn’t realize there were any down.
AH: You ought to go see them sometime. We’ve just done them over. They’re nice bedrooms,
and alumni who come or people that are interviewing for positions come. The university
uses it a great deal. And the Alumni House is used, too, for weddings and for people of
alumni. Some of them can’t afford to have wedding receptions at country clubs. They
don’t belong. And it’s here to use for alumni in that sense too. We rent it out. Have
problems, but we’re trying to redo some things over there.
MF: I know this is shifting topics again, but I just remembered before we finish there was
something I wanted to ask you about was when Woman’s College became coeducational
and became [The] University of North Carolina at Greensboro. As Woman’s College,
20
I’ve been told it was a very prestigious school and really one of the top three women’s
colleges in the nation. And as UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro],
not to belittle anything about UNCG’s reputation, but on a national scope very few
people have ever heard of it.
AH: No. That’s right.
MF: And so I was wondering, what do you see as that difference? How did that happen?
AH: Well.
MF: Do you need to—?
AH: I really don’t know. I think the [unclear] has just come back. During the time that I was
there, we did have—we had a variety of people. We had people from the towns of
Greensboro, people whose mothers had been there. But we also had people from all
different sections of the country who came to the Woman’s College. It was less
expensive than you’d go to a college, say, up Northeast. So a lot of people would come
down to this— to the Woman’s College. After, I don’t know why, after they came in, but
with them, you didn’t have the same feeling I guess after it became coed. And then it
became more of a regional, urban university. Lots of people in this region would come.
So I think it’s probably very true now. A lot of us—you don’t have the same student
government or men are there. And a lot of the women just elect the men. You don’t have
the interest I think in the student legislature. You don’t have the interest in student
government probably that was there when it was a women’s college.
MF: Yes. Do you think it lost something when it became UNCG or that it began competing on
a different level?
AH: I think probably it began competing on a different level. There’s now research. They’re
doing research, and a lot of things that we didn’t have when we were a women’s college.
And there’s a different level. I mean you’ve stepped up to a university level from a
women’s college.
MF: Yes, and I mean it’s undeniable it’s [unclear].
AH: And then all universities had to admit women, so, of course, there are more women at
Chapel Hill now than there are men. Now I don’t know about State.
MF: I’m not sure about that.
AH: But all—well, it probably—all of them have more women than men. Maybe all of the
branches of the university, of the whole university, probably more women than men.
MF: Yes, there are more women going to college now than just about any other time I think.
21
X [some other person]: Hey!
AH: Hey! How you doing? This is Missy Foy, honey. This is my daughter.
MF: Okay, so—but generally, you feel that Woman’s College really contributed something to
your life?
AH: Oh, I feel it definitely did. But I’m all for the university now as it is. And I think to have
university status is wonderful. I’m thinking in terms of back of the Woman’s College, but
there’s no turning back. And I—we need to go forward, but go forward beautifully and
accomplish something. And we need to take a lot of the women with us. See, I’m all for
equal rights for women. I’m not a feminist, but I’m for equal rights.
MF: Right. Okay. Well, thank you so very, very much for your time.
AH: You’re welcome. Loved it.
[End of Interview]