Oral history interview with Stanley L. Jones, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Stanley Jones
INTERVIEWER: Paul Mazgaj
DATE: December 27, 1990
[Begin Tape 1, Side A]
PM: Okay. Maybe you could say something about your impressions upon arriving at UNCG [The
University of North Carolina at Greensboro] and the circumstances in which you arrived.
SJ: Well, I had known about UNCG in various ways, but I guess—well, primarily because
[Robert] Bob Miller [dean of the College of Arts & Sciences] had been there. But before
that, because the Bardolphs [Richard Bardolph, history professor, and wife, Dorothy, who
taught at Bennett College] were there, whom I knew, and Dick Current [history professor]
whom, whom I had known, who had been my quiz—my quiz instructor when I took the
[laughs] beginning history as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin.
But I had not looked deeply into the character of the school until I was under
consideration to be vice chancellor for academic affairs. So after—before, of course, before I
went, I had found out as much about the university as I could, largely by reading. What I—
so I looked very carefully. I did have the impression that it was a university in the course of
development with some similarities to the University of Illinois [at] in [sic] Chicago.
PM: This was what year?
SJ: Nineteen seventy.
PM: Nineteen seventy.
SJ: With—late 1970. I actually came to the campus in the job in 1971, at the beginning of 1971.
I, of course, immediately saw that the major developments under way were—was becoming,
indeed were—it was changing, would evolve into the process of change in major ways,
having moved to coeducation from a women's college—
PM: That was in '63, right, that it changed?
SJ: Yeah, right, right. But that, in a sense, here in 1990, is still under way.
PM: Yes, that’s right.
SJ: That it was moving, and again that had started in the early sixties, to advance graduate work
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and a considerable spectrum of programs. That in a major way the state, the city, and the
University were moving to the end of segregation. And that the overall governance structure
of the university was under careful study. And that, of course, shortly after I got there, would
lead to the establishment of the new Board of Governors system [Consolidated University of
North Carolina]. As—shall I move on?
PM: Yeah, yeah.
SJ: Because, of course, once I was seriously a candidate, both from my own point of view and
the university's point of view, then I began to look seriously at the nature of the university.
And then I began to see, I think, what your question is probing about, what I saw in the
university when I arrived. A school with—which was moving into this change with some
major strengths, the most significant of all this for me, of course—I came out of, out of the
academic community, out of the faculty. I'd been a faculty member most of my life. The
strength of the faculty was notable. And, of course, from the strength of faculty flows a good
many things.
And for a historian, the library—and over many decades, there had been in that
institution a faculty centrally involved in research and in teaching in important ways. And
they had had a fairly good budget with which to acquire books so that—and the historian
[James] Jim Thompson was the head of the library.
He had recently come there, and he had established a very—certainly it was
inherited. I meant the previous librarian, I know that. He had—he had—there was an
excellent library administration which was superb, superb. There was, of course, an
understanding of books, the importance of the books. Well, I soon realized when I worked
with Jim Thompson was that he had very firm control of his budget, and nobody put
anything over on Jim Thompson as far as the budget was concerned.
Now there also existed in the faculty was good feeling. Faculties across departments
and schools cooperated with each other. They talked with each other. There seemed to be a
minimum of intradepartmental, intraschool feuding and so on. And also of interdepartmental
and interschool, so that, well, within the faculty then, was a very constructive basis for
building.
And of course, in addition to that, there was a strong budget situation and a
commitment to the expansion of the faculties and a system of faculty recruiting which was
very strong. There was also a good student body. And I was very impressed when I arrived
at the way in which the students reached out to meet me and to talk with me and were a part
of the recruiting process. That was very impressive.
PM: It was still very strongly women at the time?
SJ: Of course. It still is. I—you don't have fifty percent male today, do you?
PM: No, I don't think it's quite that many.
SJ: No. I think—my impression is it’s become rather stabilized around thirty percent, and that's
about where it was, I think, in 1970. But somebody would have to check those statistics.
Another major strength was the factor I've referred to earlier, the budget, the
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commitment of the state to support higher education. What seemed to be and what was
indeed an important way, a commitment to an appropriation process by which the university
would be well funded.
It turned out, of course, that over the years it was not as well funded for the
development of the graduate program as it should have been. But the—there were at that
time, of course, there was a broad array of master’s programs across all of the schools, and
there were doctoral programs in psychology and in English. I guess it really hasn't moved
beyond that, has it, today?
PM: No. We're now applying for a PhD in history.
SJ: Right, and there seemed—there had and there was—there had been a commitment at that, at
the very beginning of the establishment of the doctoral programs to begin to move toward a
doctoral program in history. But when I was there, there was a reluctance in the department
to move, I think, in part because of the reluctance of Dick Current to support it.
PM: Was that about the time that the academic depression began, where there was much less
demand for PhDs?
SJ: It was beginning then. No, I'm not certain that that was the reason for the reluctance. There
was a commitment also to move toward the development of a doctoral program in biology.
And at that time a building was under construction for biology and a commitment to link
psychology and biology as they are now in what it was assumed would be some closely
interrelated doctoral and research programs in that field. Though I believe in 1990, biology
still does not have a doctoral program.
PM: Although they are now applying for that.
SJ: The building was under way in 1971 and was completed shortly after that. It's a fine
building, very impressively planned.
PM: You mentioned the strengths. Did you see any weaknesses that—?
SJ: Well, I think I'm going to give some other strengths.
PM: Okay.
SJ: Another major strength, of course, was the relationship of the Greensboro campus to The
University of North Carolina system. The fact that it was—the Woman's College had been
the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. It was within—and at that time the
Board of Governors system, which brought all the schools into the University of North
Carolina, did not exist. The University of North Carolina at that time consisted of the N[orth]
C[arolina] State [University] campus, [The University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill
campus, and the Greensboro Woman's College campus.
Well, that brought, of course, contacts and a level of support which was significant.
And of particular significance now, in this stage of the campus development, because there
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was a commitment in the university structure to submit Chapel Hill and N.C. State to the
support of the school.
Another thing that seemed a strength to me was the Greensboro community, the way
in which it was supportive of the university, the way in which the community seemed to be
playing a liberal progressive role in the acceptance of integration and the development of
integration in the university.
And then also significant was the cluster of other schools, the cluster of colleges, the
extent to which there was in the Greensboro community a group of institutions which were
carrying on advanced educational programs in which, of course, by the nature, by the very
nature of things, UNCG would play a leadership role, could play a leadership role. And
particularly, we'd find strengths if it reached out to work with the other schools.
Another, for me [laughs], and this may seem strange in 1990, a strength at the
campus was the low priority given to intramural sports, that there were no athletic
scholarships. The school was comparatively free, the students were comparatively free to
devote their time to classroom study. That was important to me.
PM: That has changed somewhat.
SJ: If anybody pays any attention to this, that will seem like a very old fashioned [laughs]—and
then I was impressed, within, within this framework of change, there was evident a kind of
stability and continuity. That is, they were building on strengths and moving on in ways that
had not always been true in what I’d known at [University of] Illinois [at Chicago], where
the growth was very rapid and the change in direction happened so quickly.
And of course, for me, a major strength was the—well, very much related to the
strengths of the university, but—that I have noted, but also a personal matter was the kind of
leadership that Mereb Mossman had. Effective, the style, the way in which—the office of
vice chancellor was very new at that time, but Mereb Mossman [dean of faculty, vice
chancellor for academic affairs] had been there as dean in charge of the academic programs
for a long period of time. She herself had been capable, clearly, of growth, of significant
growth as the institution grew. And she had built a structure, an administrative structure
within the academic program with which I was very comfortable.
PM: You mentioned style, that you were comfortable with her style. How would you describe
that style?
SJ: Well, it was the style of gentle but very firm command and control. She knew her university
thoroughly. She was trusted and respected. She understood higher education. She was firmly
committed to the principle of faculty leadership within a—committed to a system of a
university in which faculty governance was the center.
But she was compulsive. I found that she was on every committee. [laughs] She was
on every committee in the university. She was,—she was just there. She was on it.
PM: Did you notice that when you arrived or had you been [unclear—both talking at once].
SJ: No, I noticed it very quickly—it was—you know, when she led me into an orientation,
when she introduced me to the university, it was mainly in terms of all those faculty
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meetings [laughs] she took me to. And one of the first things I did, of course, was divorce
myself from most of the—I didn't divorce myself from that management style.
But I didn't think that being present in all of those committees—and I was able to
develop a staff. I was able to, a small staff, not a staff of the dimensions that exists today, but
a small staff, mainly an assistant vice chancellor. And he sat in—who was Herb Wells
[psychology faculty] for most of the period that I was there. And he sat in on a lot. [laughs]
He became the vice chancellor's voice and ear in a lot of those, but some I just gave up all
together.
I've taken too much time talking about that, but not too much talking about the
significance of Mereb Mossman. And it would be difficult to describe in any way other than
I have. I realize what I've said does not give you a very good sense of Mereb Mossman, but
it is essentially, I've given you the things that were significant to me.
Along with that went, of course, which was essential to me, as much as I had ever
been in the administration, control of the budget which related to academic affairs. That she
had established a pattern of very effective control and that is, and that’s very, very
significant. When you are in that kind of administrative position, knowing where the money
is and that you’re in control of it is very, very, very important, and not always, in my
experience, something that is usually achieved. Because there are lots of other people out
there [laughs] who are very eager—
PM: To control money.
SJ: —to tell you how you ought to take, how you ought to spend your money and to tell you that
you have too much control over too much money. But of course, when you are responsible
for the academic program, you never have too much control of too much money. And I could
see that that was a firm principle with which Mereb Mossman would work. And a principle
of which I was—the only kind of thing with which I would be comfortable.
Well, okay. I should say that it was also important to me within the framework of budgeting
to know that the state had a fairly progressive tax structure. The state income tax is pretty
well structured in North Carolina to support the state's affairs.
And of course, I understand that right now the—in 1990, the university is having
some—the state overall—and the university is having some difficulty. But when you come
as I did, from Illinois, where the tax structure is unprogressive and ill [unclear], you can, you
can understand the significance of what I saw, to me, of what I saw in North Carolina.
You want me to talk about problems. What I did not see immediately, of course,
because nobody was going to tell me when I was a candidate for the job, that maybe there
was the—a loss of momentum in the development of the doctoral programs. That emerged, I
think, as a major problem. Not a problem that anybody agonized about. It was sort of more
like a problem, like a problem of slow death.
But, you know, history had been abandoned. Biology was not moving. And generally
there was in the development of the graduate program responsibility at Greensboro [UNCG]
the lack of adequate state funding and at Greensboro itself, a certain unpreparedness. [pause]
I believed that the leadership had to come from the faculty more than anything else.
And in recruiting new faculty, [I] watched very carefully for the recruitment of people who
were—who had major involvement in research, commitment, an ongoing commitment to
research and that, who would be interested in the development of doctoral programs. I hope I
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didn't in that process mislead incoming faculty members to believe that there would be
doctoral programs faster than materialized.
But, of course, the constant work on the budget and the nudging of deans and
department heads—by the time I left, that we had a pretty strong battery of doctoral
programs in the process of approval by the Board of Governors. And these—and some of
these, I believe, have materialized:—the Doctor of Musical Arts in the School of Music, the
PhD in physical education. That's probably it.
PM: And you seem to indicate that it was internal, this slow pace.
SJ: It was a combination, but what I'm trying to indicate is that I think at the time I left,
internally this problem was pretty much resolved. And doctoral programs in various ways
were moving, were moving into the—and also, additional master’s degrees, master’s in
dance, for example, were in the course of development.
But that was a problem. I guess it continues to be a constant problem—the rate at
which the degrees will develop. I think that more degrees will develop as Greensboro
develops further along in the development of advanced graduate teaching and research. But
it will depend on, of course, the combination of faculty initiative and leadership and
administrative leadership and budget. And, of course, the interest of the—that's generated in
the Board of Governors.
PM: Any other problems that you saw?
SJ: Well, of course, the development of—yeah, the problems are implicit in some things—
[End Tape 1, Side A—Begin Tape 1, Side B]
SJ: Many of the problems are implicit in what we've already said. The development, the issue of
integration—I'm now moving on, but I have been throughout this, moving, really, across the
whole range of time. The integration, and I can't say that, well, I can't say that there's much
of— much of a problem there. But of course, the problem of integration is related to the
whole issue of alleged discriminatory practices.
We were handling integration in a major way in terms of student enrollments, but
also in terms of faculty recruitment and faculty retention. And the university was aware—
committed to increasing the black, the non-white proportion of the student population and
also faculty.
But shortly after I got there, there developed a court, a Federal government
mandate—court, law, congressional legal mandates which required elaborate reporting
processes and also, eventually, before I left, the possibility of legal action against the
university with accusation of discrimination, the violation of equal employment opportunity.
A question also, of course, is discriminatory content and program structure.
I generally felt that there was a healthy attitude toward all of these problems, a
sincere desire on the part of everyone to move as quickly as possible to remedy, to improve
the situation. I think, well, you never have completely happy results, and I don't think the
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university claims to have, claims to have made progress—which indeed it has, but total
success comes, comes very slowly.
One of the things to which I devoted a great deal of attention was the development of
a positive, cooperative relationship with the North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State
University [A&T], and I had the very good fortune while I was there of developing such a
working relationship with the vice chancellor for academic affairs at A&T State University,
Glenn Rankin. And we had, I believe, considerable success in working out cooperative
programs between departments and schools in those areas where there could be a
complementary—whether or not that continues, I don't know. I hope it does.
PM: I think there certainly are ongoing efforts.
SJ: My own feeling is that over time there is logic in the merger of the two schools, which could
create a very powerful university.
PM: Did this relation with Rankin begin early in your tenure or did it develop—?
SJ: Well, I suppose it materialized midway. Along with that, of course, a major factor in it was
something also that—that worked out very well, and that was the program—I've forgotten
what we called it, but the program in which there was a cross—there was cross registration
among all the schools in the—do you know, does that still exist? I hope it does. And—
PM: I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
[recording paused]
SJ: Well, what we got was an understanding that nobody would charge any special fee.
PM: Yes, I think that's still exists.
SJ: You could go—if there were a course at A&T that wasn't available at UNCG—and of
course, this was most significant in bringing an exchange between black and white students
within the university, because a lot of A&T students—we monitored the enrollment of a lot
of A&T students.
PM: Oh, you did find it significant?
SJ: Oh yes, very significant. And it was significant because A&T offered programs that were
not—the technical engineering and so on—that were not available at UNCG. A considerable
flow of students from UNCG to A&T. The distances are not great. We talked about
developing a bus system in which would move to the three major private schools—
Greensboro [College], Guilford [College], what's the other?
PM: Bennett [College]?
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SJ: Yes, Bennett. They got—they had grants. They had a program previous to this, a similar
program in which they exchanged classes. And they had a grant—they had a grant to support
that. And they had through that grant for a while a bus system which was expanded so that
our students and A&T students could use it. But I don't think—I don't think that's been
sustained, but I'm not, not certain.
PM: I'm not sure. I know students speak of the consortium arrangement, so I know that there’s
interchange. Now whether they have transportation, I'm not sure.
SJ: Anyway, you know, one of the principles I've always worked with and worked with here in
Chicago very successfully—when you have a cluster of resources located at various
campuses, don't look upon the situation as threateningly competitive. Look at it as a cluster
of strengths.
What you have is, and here in—and when we were building the University of
Illinois, we found that the fact that the University of Chicago was here and nearby helped us
immensely in recruiting faculty. Now that's, of course, true with a larger geographic sense in
Greensboro where the knowledge that [The University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill,
N[orth] C[arolina] State [University], and Duke [University] are nearby. Probably yourself.
[laughs]
PM: Oh, I spend a lot of time at Duke.
SJ: Yes, Duke would, in your field, Duke would be the, the strong school. I don't know how,
[unclear]. How are we going to talk and eat? Particularly this, which is extremely crisp and
chewable.
PM: Well, we could turn it off for a while.
SJ: If you want, sure.
[recording paused]
SJ: The question of recruiting more males—one of the major problems for me was that issue. A
lot of people, of course, believed that the solution to it lay in developing a more vigorous
athletics program and a recreational program. But it was— it was clear to me that our major
problem—of course, a lot of people believe that it was just the overall image of the
university as a female college.
But it seemed to me from the very first that our major problem lay in the program
structure. Indeed, it had been a women's college, and the program structure was built around
programs that were predominantly of interest to women. Now you begin with the most
obvious, the School of Home Economics. But, and then next, education, which is not
necessarily of course, a major, essentially a woman's professional field, but is, has
particularly in that setting, has been traditionally seen as that.
In physical education, where you might expect that there would be some major
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appeal to men, again the Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina] structure
predominated there. And it was a physical education program which attracted students on a
national basis. It was nationally distinguished, but the students attracted were, were female.
I had the interesting experience when I came to the university of teaching an honors
course. And, of course, there were in the course specially-selected students. Admission was
on a selective basis. And I had the very interesting experience, for me, of finding that the two
ablest people by far in that class were in physical—were majors in physical education. So
it—and they were from out of state.
PM: Goes against the stereotype.
SJ: [laughs] Right. Well, what—what I saw the university as needing was the development of—
the restructure of its program structure. One of the major ways in which this restructuring
has taken place is in the development of the School of Business, of course, where
registration, enrollment has grown in a major way, and I think is strongly male.
But in the arts and sciences, the development of the science programs was probably
not as strongly supported as it could have been. The science programs had not developed the
strong enrollments, and probably that related to the nature of university support as anything
else.
And today, the fact that the building—the Petty Science Building, which is highly
inadequate for chemistry and physics—I think those programs still reside there basically.
And that, I believe, is not a high—is not even currently high on the university's priority list in
terms of additional building.
It's clear that, you know, those fields—engineering, agriculture, things like that—are
elsewhere in the state, and they’re not going to be at Greensboro. And Greensboro is not
going to attract—there's a significant component of the male population of the state and
surrounding region which will not be attracted to Greensboro. Well, it is a problem that the
university simply has to live with. But I certainly agonized over it and thought, tried to think,
my way through to some program initiatives that would be helpful.
Another problem, of course, which is a—is an all-state, all-North Carolina problem
but which impacts on every, every one of the campuses—is the historically—the
proliferation of campuses, state-supported campuses across the state. And I had thought that
with the Board of Governors there would be a major movement to the consolidation of some
of that structure and the elimination of other campuses.
But in the budgeting for the university, that certainly is a central problem and a
problem, that in various ways, we had to deal with administratively. The—an observation on
the Board of Governors system. It was clearly hoped that the Board of Governors system
would somehow deal more effectively with the state budgeting, perhaps provide a vehicle for
some solution to this state-wide campus proliferation and also control effectively the
development of new programs. Clearly the Board of Governors failed to do that.
There was a steady series of very significant retreats: the creation of the medical
school at East Carolina [University], the establishment of the veterinary school at NC State
and the constant increase in state support for the private schools that the Board of Governors
found itself agreeing to.
I'm now, of course, six years, seven years out of touch. I don't know what—I don't
hear anything about the Board of Governors. I have no idea what is happening within that
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structure. But I do not hear—I've not heard that there is any movement toward the
consolidation of campuses.
Well, those are some things. Would you like to ask me some questions?
PM: Yes. Okay. Maybe you could—going back to when you, when you first arrived on campus,
if you could say something about your relationship with [Chancellor James] Jim Ferguson.
You obviously worked with him very closely at the beginning.
SJ: Well Jim Ferguson, of course, was a major strength. Anyone who came to see the campus
would recognize that Jim Ferguson provided a kind of stability, a kind of human dimension
which was very reassuring. You also recognized very soon how widely across the campus he
was respected. More than that, he was loved. He was a—he was a personality that was
significant to the campus and which set a standard for the good feeling that existed within
the faculty and within the administration. He was a central factor in that.
Also you realized very quickly that he had a very strong, effective working
relationship with [William] Bill Friday [president of the University of North Carolina
System], with the administration at Chapel Hill. He had—he had friends throughout the
state, friends at Washington [DC], and all of —this—again, they respected and admired him.
It was not—you know he was not the kind of person who tried to manipulate people. He
wasn't one of the good ole [sic] boys, let's say, whom they would look, whom they would
expect to try to manipulate or something.
He was the person whom they—they would consult more than, if they wanted to
understand something or see something clearly, they would consult him. They would not
expect him to, in turn, try to manipulate them for any particular purpose.
I found a very, a very interesting aspect of his personality, which sometimes I found
it difficult to understand, was you—I think you can see from the way I've talked here, that I
talk pretty directly [laughs], which a lot of people in North Carolina would view as a Yankee
sort of approach. I don't think that's true at all. I don't think that, in those kinds of provincial
terms.
But Jim Ferguson liked to—well, he would hesitate to speak directly, particularly if
he thought you might see it as critical. So he would proceed by indirection, telling maybe a
joke, telling some sort of an incident, which [laughs] you would eventually recognize was
pointed at you very gently. [laughs]
PM: You had to draw the moral of the story?
SJ: That's right. [laughs] He preferred that—he very much preferred that kind of approach. He
found it very difficult to be openly critical. And was, from my point of view, super cautious
in a way that he—of course, worked much better that mine [laughs], in my blunt, but—
PM: Well, I suppose that's one aspect of his administrative style that— Are there others that stand
out in your mind as opposed, say, to other administrators that you worked with?
SJ: The thing that stands out most is how considerate he was, how protective of the university,
superb at public relations. He knew how to talk to newspapers, which I never could. [laughs]
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PM: Was that a major, did you talk to newspapers very often?
SJ: As little as possible. Generally, I would try to pass any newspaper call on to Jim Ferguson. It
seemed the wisest thing to do. But yes, the newspaper called us a lot, you know, in critical
moments.
PM: What about some of the other members of the administration stand out in your mind that you
worked with? Henry Ferguson [vice chancellor for business affairs], for example, in business
affairs? How did he function in relation to your, to your office?
SJ: Henry Ferguson knew his—what I respect in working with people is if they know their
office and what it's responsible for and can deal with it effectively. And Henry Ferguson was
effective in all those respects. Sometimes—Henry Ferguson maintained very close
relationships with the budget officers in Chapel Hill and in Raleigh—
Sometimes Henry Ferguson and I would be at odds over what should be done with a
certain allotment of money and who had the right to make the final decision. I often felt that
Henry Ferguson told me too often that I couldn't do that because they told him at Raleigh he
couldn't do it. [laughs] But basically Henry Ferguson and I had a good working relationship.
That's all you ask.
PM: Any other members of the administration that stand out in your mind over the years?
[End Tape 1, Side B—Begin Tape 2, Side A]
SJ: You asked me about other administrative officers. I feel—felt at the time I was at the
university—that I had an especially good group of deans with whom to work. They, as a
group, were very supportive of me, of the office, of the university. They worked very
effectively with each other. Among those deans, there was no backbiting.
One of the great things for me every week was to have a meeting, a morning meeting
with the deans. The dean's council, it was called, where we would all get together and let our
hair down and if necessary, go at each other but come out of it. Out of those dean's councils
came lots of cooperative actions that they very much appreciated, I'm certain, and which
were tremendously helpful to the university in keeping things together and moving things
ahead.
[laughs] At—after I retired—at the end of my service when I'd retired—had not yet
left the office—the deans did a wonderful thing. They took Adele and me up to Roanoke for
a weekend, and we had a dean's council party. [laughs]. And they began the big dinner.
We had there [David] Dave Reilly, the dean of education, began with a little
comment, and at the end of the comment said, "I think, I think we've reached a consensus on
this," and everybody burst out laughing, because in these dean's meetings I very rarely took a
vote. [laughs] We, we would talk through, and there’d be lots of discussion pro and con, and
then at a particular moment I would say, "I think we've reached a consensus on this," and I
would summarize where I thought we would go. [laughs]
And I gathered from Dave Reilly's comment that he didn't—that the deans didn't—it
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was a joke about the deans. They didn't always see [laughs] that they had arrived at a
consensus.
But they were significant personalities, and they made their contributions in major
ways. While I was there—certainly if anyone is going to talk about this period, going to talk
into a tape, at this period of the university, they should talk with the deans, those who are still
alive.
Unfortunately, you know, some of the central characters, the people I found who
advised me most strenuously and whom I found most helpful, like Naomi Albanese [dean of
the School of Home Economics], is no longer there. And Ethel Lawther, who—when, who
was sitting in when I was there, when I began, when I took over for [Mereb] Mossman [vice
chancellor for academic affairs]—was sitting in as the Department of Physical Education,
sort of equivalent dean. But her school—and it was early in my stay there that the school
became—that the department became the School [of Health, Physical Education, Recreation
and Dance], the school that it is.
But Ethel Lawther was a very distinct, very determined. The first quality of a dean,
of course, that you must respect is that they fight for their school. You can't—I have never
been comfortable with a department head or a dean who wouldn't fight for his school.
But the other quality—once you've had your chance to fight it out—that then you
accept the decision. You know you've had a fair chance to express your point of view, and
then the decision, of course, has to be explained carefully, too, which we could do in that
dean's council. Everybody could share, could see, could know what was happening. And that
helped me immensely. I owe more to the deans, certainly, than I gave.
And they were, Naomi Albanese [Human Environmental Sciences], Ethel Lawther,
Lawrence Hart [School of Music]. At first Robert O'Kane [School of Education] and then
replacing him, David Reilly. Dave Shelton in [School of] Business and Economics. And of
course, Robert Miller, who had the largest portion of the school of the university, who was
dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, you know, and who played, of course, a very
significant role. And there has, I gather, developed a feeling in the university now, in the
school—it's a college, it's a college, college—in the College that somehow the prerogatives
of the college are being diminished, that its role is being invaded in various ways by the
schools. Is that right?
PM: I think that was a feeling for a long while. I think it's less so maybe now than it was a few
years back.
SJ: Well, in the dean's council, you know, Robert Miller was a significant, major voice. His
leadership and—and particularly in the area of the all-university general education
requirements—were significant in all other areas. The role that the arts and sciences plays in
the building of the programs elsewhere, that's what really impressed me.
One of the strengths of the university when I came there was the degree to which all
the rest of the other schools looked to the arts and sciences for significant leadership. But,
no, it just wasn't something that they mouthed. It was something that they really believed in.
Some of them, for example, wanted to—like physical education, wanted to keep a language
requirement [laughs], when the arts and sciences were willing to give it up, I believe.
PM: More relevancy?
13
SJ: That’s right. I suppose some people would see it as old fashioned, but what many of the
older deans saw was this old tradition, a strong liberal arts component in professional
education.
The fact that within the arts and science areas, the way in which teacher education
occurs, is, you know, a significantly different way from the way in which that happens
across much of the country, in which all of that has been concentrated in the School of
Education. I believe in history you still play a major role, right?
PM: Yes.
SJ: Well, that was the way I knew it to be at Illinois and the way I had helped build it at Illinois,
and I felt very comfortable about it. In fact, you know, it was quite surprising, the degree to
which I found what was happening at Greensboro comparable to what was—what happened
in the major mid-western universities that I knew in terms of faculty governance, in terms of
the way education, teacher, teacher preparation, teacher education .
PM: Maybe you could say a word about recruitment. That was one of your, obviously, major
functions, recruiting faculty and faculty development.
SJ: Well, I think a lot of people felt that I [laughs] insisted on interviewing more people than I
should have—that I should not continue any longer to interview people at the—who are
coming in at the assistant professor level, for example. For me, well, I've already expressed
the significance for me in the university of having a strong faculty.
And, for me, that was—has been particularly important both at Illinois and at
Greensboro and in the school where a considerable amount of building and development of
advanced program structure is going on. So I see the interview as yes the first, the beginning
of that very significant process. It's the first step.
And what you want then, when you are making an appointment, is to make certain
that you are appointing someone who is strong, who has strong evidence of a capacity to
grow as a teacher and research specialist. And then I believe firmly that if you have
persuaded such a person to join the faculty, that you have a major responsibility to support
him or her in the development of his career. You just don't bring that person in and throw
him to the elements.
And then I believe further that you do—that you screen very carefully—that in the
first probationary period, whatever that may be, three or five years, whatever it is—and I
don't, you know, I don't believe that a probationary period should be—. Yeah, it should be a
fixed time, but promotions should be possible or even should be able to let somebody go
before that if the signals are very clear.
But I don't think a department or a school should take a casual view about giving
tenure. You should have chosen carefully, you should have provided the resources, the
support for development. If that development has occurred, then you would expect to then
give tenure, and if it doesn't, then you do not. And so I believe that it should send some sense
of this rigor and a sense of support.
Now the next logical question might be: and so then what, what attitude did you have
toward the development of faculty? I had a lot of pressure, particularly at the end of the
14
seventies or early eighties, to support special development programs. I resisted them pretty
strongly because I believed that mainly that would be a misuse of funds and a misuse of
faculty time.
I believe that development should take place within the faculty. I believe that when
the faculty hires somebody of the nature that I've described, it's their responsibility to work.
No one else in my judgment can do it. It's they who should inquire about it. It's they who
should provide opportunities to read papers. It's they who, you know—and if special kinds of
support are needed, then the department head should be rounding it up out of the
administration. Is there any extra departmental development program now?
PM: Not that I know of. I think it still works in that way, at least most of it. Was there a
significant change here between the time that you started and the time you left, in terms of
the recruitment and development process? Do you think you left an imprint on that?
SJ: I think so. But I think Mereb Mossman had followed a much similar process and principle. I
think the university has a strong faculty. I think—my impression is [Vice Chancellor
Elizabeth] Zinser followed the same pattern.
PM: You are sensitive—. One of the things people notice when they come is that quality. Could
you say something about—shift just a little bit—about curriculum and curriculum changes
while you were, your tenure—any major changes in curriculum?
SJ: In the course of this discussion I've said quite a bit about curriculum.
PM: Yeah. Is there anything you would like to add? I take it from what you've said already, you
felt that there were significant changes during your time, although there was already a thrust
in one direction. [pause].
SJ: [laughs] I just thought about Eisenhower, when asked what Nixon did when he was vice
president. He said, "If you give me a week, I might think of something." [laughs]
Undoubtedly there would be many things I would like to think of. [pause]
PM: Well, we can come back to that.
SJ: Yeah. [laughs] There's a gap in the tape. Well, nothing that anyone would want to type out.
PM: Well, you've already talked about the graduate program and plans for expansion and so forth
and the role of minorities. Maybe you could say something about the—well you talked a
little bit too about the tension between the College of Arts and Sciences and the professional
schools, although you put it more in the context of mutual respect and cooperation. But
obviously there were some tensions as well. How were they handled?
SJ: Well, they were handled usually within my office and within the dean's council in terms of
open discussion and resolution. And the result would often be cooperative, the development
of cooperative relationships—but not as many as I advocated. But, yeah.
15
PM: This also plays into the next question. What were one of the—one of the emphases of your
leadership at UNCG was to make it into an urban-regional university. To what extent do you
feel that you've succeeded in doing that?
SJ: By the way, in talking about the deans, I did not mention one of the most significant deans:
And that's the Dean of the School of Nursing, Eloise Lewis, who taught me a lot—taught me
a lot about nursing. [laughs] She is a real—and her presence in the dean's council was—her
ability to think things through, to talk things through and to move towards cooperative
relationship was very important. What am I supposed to be talking about?
PM: Your plan for an urban-regional—movement in the direction of an urban-regional university,
and to what extent you felt that succeeded.
SJ: I don’t—I wouldn't say that it succeeded in any major way. I believe when I came to the
university there was probably a lot of discussion of that, but it's clear that a distinct program
with a special kind of urban orientation did not materialize. And I think maybe it's unlikely
that it will materialize.
Many of the programs, of course, operate within,—have for a long time before I
came—were operating within the structure that is unique to Piedmont North Carolina. That's
why I thought of my failure to mention Eloise Lewis, because her development of the School
of Nursing related very closely— related that school very closely to the special problems and
the special opportunities that lay within the urban-rural environment of the central Piedmont.
Same is true for home economics.
And you know that's an urban-rural—. There are research programs going on in
home economics which relate to the urban areas, the urban populations—I mean the rural, I
meant the rural populations. But then the structure of so much of the life structure, the
employment structure of so much of the rural population in urban—in the Piedmont is sort of
a mixture with the families living in a rural setting, but working in Greensboro or Winston-
Salem or some other urban setting. And so I—in education it's the same. In business it's the
same, but there is a logic in developing a special kind of urban program, either instructional
or research is not clear.
Of course, the most—what I found in place when I came to UNCG is one of the
healthiest aspects of its orientation to the urban community— and that is the evening
program, the fact that they have really moved their regular program schedule to evening
hours. There's not a special evening school with the whole special administrative structure
and all that. It provides opportunities for people in that urban-rural area.
Here in Chicago, for example, the University of Illinois in the center of the city has
still not developed anything like—it's only begun now. Twenty-five years old, it's only
begun to develop an evening program of any dimension. Now what there was pressure for,
and what we failed to develop, were the support resources, that is, day—childcare centers. I
was about to say daycare, but evening childcare centers and other facilities which would
make it, which would facilitate young people, well, all kinds of mature people for a more
effective use of the university.
But just, you know, a further comment on that. When I was in the process of
developing, here in Chicago, an urban-oriented program at the campus, there was much talk
that we heard about the development of the new campus at [University of North Carolina at]
16
Charlotte as a campus which would have a special urban orientation. And actually, I
remember being visited by a delegation from the campus, the new campus at Charlotte, who
came up to see what we in Chicago could tell them about the development of an urban
university.
[End Tape 2, Side A—Begin Tape 2, Side B]
SJ: It's my impression that the campus in Charlotte has not developed any major, special urban
program. They have done what Greensboro has done. They have created programs that are
more clearly oriented toward the needs of the urban community and campuses and other
kinds of setting would have done. In fact, you know, it's my experience, it's very difficult to
clearly identify conceptually something which you call urban, around which you can build
an urban studies program. I guess this has been, you know, the most—there has been a
development of a clear field of urban history but I sometimes have doubts about the
conceptualization involved there.
PM: Well, just to wrap up, are there any other comments you want to make or anything about any
other significant changes over your period at UNCG that you haven't mentioned in other
contexts that you want to say something about? We've covered all the major areas. Anything
we’ve left out that you’d—?
SJ: Perhaps I should say that when, again in reference to the dean's council, while I was there,
two deans retired. Dean O'Kane—so I had the opportunity to change the council in two
instances. Dean O'Kane retired from the School of Education, and we had what I considered
the good fortune to bring in Dave Reilly, who did a magnificent job of building that school.
And certainly someone should talk to him. In fact, in talking about new program
developments you would find it much more constructive, but you'd find much better
information if you talked to these individual deans who are closer to, have much sharper
memories.
And then Dean Albanese retired. And again, I had the very good fortune of finding
Jacqueline Voss, who has done in a comparatively short time, I think, a magnificent, major
job in building the school, in redefining, in developing the program structure of the school.
And has actually changed its name to some animal I couldn't possibly remember, but which
she feels more clearly defines the directions that home economics is taking in modern times,
and which I am certain greatly upset retired Dean Albanese, who believed that home
economics was the name that defined what home economics—do you know, was there an
interview with Dean Albanese? It would be too bad if there were no—
PM: I'm not sure. I have a copy of which people were interviewed, but I think we tried—
SJ: And you certainly should make certain that there's an interview with Eloise Lewis. [laughs]
PM: She was a major force at interrupting meetings. I remember being at—
17
SJ: One of the interesting things I had to observe—and a final comment—far from a summary,
which I will not attempt. But back in the School of Home Economics, I am reminded of one
of the most interesting things I tracked while I was there. It was the belief of the people in
various programs, but mainly in the School of Agriculture at NC State, that home
economics, certainly as a doctoral program and as a research program, should be at NC State
and not at UNCG.
And I think, perhaps, there was a certain scarcity of resource at UNCG as a result of
that feeling that I would see when there were occasionally joint meetings among,—between
the two faculties of the two schools. And the people at NC State would not be reluctant in
saying jokingly, “Yes,” to Dean Albanese, but in a way that wasn't a joke, too, that they
thought her program—and this, of course, is particularly true of the nutrition program in the
School and of the clothing and textiles programs, both of which, of course, have significant
components at NC State.
[End of Interview]