1
Years Ago in Alumnae News.
The day was June 5, 1937. The site was the portico of the newly con- structed Alumnae House.
"And now comes the dramatic moment of this ceremony. Dr.
Foust, will you please come forward?"
May Lovelace Tomlinson '07, chairman of the Alumnae House Building Committee was joined by retired Woman's College President Julius I. Foust before an audience of alumnae, faculty, students, and friends.
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"As the faithful, efficient guide and counselor," Mrs. Tomlinson said to Dr. Foust, "as the business representative of this Building Committee, and as the loyal friend of the alumnae of this College, I ask you to strike a match and hold it to this note for $1,200.00, which was paid at the bank two hours ago, thus clearing all indebtedness on this House."
Dr. Foust held the lighted match to the note, and so it was that the Alumnae House was presented to the alumnae debt free at the Service of Dedication. The complete ceremony was recorded in the July 1937 issue of Alumnae
Neips.
Alumnae Secretary Clara Booth Byrd spoke at the dedication service of what she would later term "the moment of the flaming match":
"... we shall say to one another that this is no ordinary moment, but a turning point in history. This is no mere house of brick and mortar and marble that we commemorate; it is built of ourselves. All that we know of beauty has gone into its making. Whatever there is in us of vision, courage, faith, and determination have been builded into its walls."
Fifty years later we celebrate the sacrifice of our earlier sisters and thank them for the use of their Alumni House, a place with "... an open door and a hospitable hearth to which all alumnae of all times may return to renew their allegiance to their Alma Mater and to go forth refreshed."
MCB '74
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UNCG
ALUMNI NEWS
SPRING»1988
WINTER 1988
VOL. 76, NO. 2
INSIDE
Our Alumni House
Symbol of Perseverance
by H. Elizabeth "Lib" Winston Sunmiell '45, '51 MS Homewood and the Baltimore Scene.
by jane Webb Smith It Happened in the Alumni House . . .
Roots of Southern Architecture
by Charles Richard Gantt '76 MFA Historic Preservation in
North Carolina
by John Edward Tyler II Colonial Revival Architecture
in Virginia
by Mark R. WetJger 18th Century Influence on Today's Architecture and Decorative Arts. . . . by Dr. Jean Gordon
From Dream to Reality
by Dr. Richard Bardolph
Book Review
The Musician
On Campus
Spartan Sports
by Ty Biichier '85
The Way We Are
Association Network
Letters to the Editor
10
12
14
16
21
22 24
26 28 30
Alumni Business 31
Slate of Candidates for Officers and Trustees of the Alumni Association.
Members of the Association must return ballots to the Alumni Office by April 15, 1988.
COVER
Our Alumni House
THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
OFFICERS
Cathy Stewart Vaughn '49, Montreat
Prffhlt-nt
Betty Crawford Ervin '50, Morganton
PrffiJnil-Elect
Betty Lou Mitchell Cuigou '51, Valdese
Firi^t Vice President Janie Crumpton Reece '47, Greensboro
Second Vice President Susan Broussard Nolan '71, Greensboro
Recording Secretary
Barbara Parrish '48, Greensboro
Executive Secretary-Treasurer TRUSTEES
Inza Abemathy '51, Southern Pines Christine Freeze Brown '55C, Statesville Rose Holden Cole '53, Holden Beach Minnie Lou Parker Creech '39, Tarboro Ashley Holland Dozier '54 Winston-Salem Martha Smith Ferrell '57, Greenville Ada Fisher '70, Oak Ridge, IN Blanche Woolard Haggard '42, Asheville Carol Furey Matney '63, Asheboro Jennifer Cornell Monges '86, Greensboro Carol S. Myers '78, San Francisco, CA ■ Kathryn Cobb Preyer '47, Charlotte Catherine Scott '87, Baltimore, MD Evelyn Easley Smith '43, Houston, TX Davis H. Swaim, Jr. '85, Concord Anne Hayes Tate '68, Smithfield Eugenia Ware '46, Kings Mountain Susan Whittington '72, Wilkesboro Gregory S. Greer '80, Davidson
Alumni Annual Giving Council Chair,
e.x officio Bronna Willis '62, Lynchburg, VA
Fimince Committee Chair, ex officio Debbie Dixon '82, Greensboro
Black Alumni Council Co-chair, ex officio Marvin Watkins '84, Greensboro
Black Alumni Council Co-chair, ex officio THE EDITORIAL BOARD Christine Freeze Brown '55C, Statesville, Chair Maura Canoles '80, Greensboro John E. Dubel '72, Greensboro Mary Beth Ferrell Granger '84, Greensboro Carolyn Nelson Messick '67, Elon College Jeanette Houser Mitchell '54, Greensboro Walter M. Pritchett, Jr. '83, Greensboro Marion Polk Ross '72 MM, Greensboro Cathy Brewer Stembergh '70, Greensboro Richard T. Wells '77 MLS, Asheboro Jim Clark '78 MFA, Faculty Representative Cathy Stewart Vaughn '49
President of the Association, ex officio Betsy Suitt Oakley '69
Immediate Past Cliair, ex officio Miriam Com Barkley '74
Editor of .Alumni Publications, ex officio Barbara Parrish '48
Executive Secretary-Treasurer, ex officio
PUBLICATION STAFF
Editor. Miriam C. Barkley '74
Editorial Assistant: Susan Manchester
Staff Writer Charles Wheeler
Graphic Designers: Toni Brown, Jane Vondy
Photographer: Bob Cavin
The University of North Carolina GREENSBORO
ALUMNI NEWS is published three times a year by the Alumni Association of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1000 Spring Gar- den Street, Greensboro, NC 27412. Contributors to the Annual Giving Program receive Alumni Neu'S.
50 Years of Elegance
Our Alumni House
She is dressed for company every day. Her Corinthian columns, her beaded pediment with its tympanum window, her uncompromising symmetry, and espe- cially, her grand marble stairs, daily greet her visitors with unchanged dignity. Her welcome is bid faithfully, but bends to the disposition of her guests — ardently to graduates at Reunion, exuberantly to revel- ers at Homecoming, hospitably to distin- guished university guests, and solemnly to those on academic quests. Her beauty, enhanced by the parade of seasons re- flected in her face, prompts even the casual passer-by to sense the admiration held by those who claim her.
She commands a certain reverence — borne not just of her heritage, but of her elegance, her style. Gracefully she fulfills her mission.
Writing in Alumnae Neius in 1937, Alumni Secretary Clara Booth Byrd '13 described what the Alumni House must be : "...this House should represent certain great ide- als: beauty and usefulness, neither exclud- ing the other; culture and adaptability; dig- nity and spirituality. These were the quahties... which our House must embody; qualities which, blended together, might truly interpret the College Motto, Service. Moreover, we would build a House, a home, of simple elegance — not an institu- tional structure. .. It would be the part of the architect to express these ideals in brick and mortar and marble — as the composer translates moonlight into sound, into a sonata, for the keyboard."
At fifty, the Alumni House has recap- tured the attention of alumni and kindled an interest in Southern architecture.
Vol . lb no. Z
Alumni News
Spring • 1988
II
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Symbol of Perseverance
by H. Elizabeth "Lib" Winston Swindell '45, '51 MS
This article originally appeared in the Greensboro Daily News on Sunday, October 25,1987.
Noble in conception, beauti- ful in design, lovely in setting, handsome in construction and in furnishings."
This was Dr. W.C. Jackson's assessment of the Alumnae House on the campus of the Woman's College of The University of North Carolina.
As dean of administration, Jackson spoke those words on June 5, 1937, at the dedication of the structure designed to serve as a social and student activity build- ing and headquarters for gradu- ates. At the time, the college had its largest enrollment — 1,937 female students.
Much has changed in the 50 years since the colonial building on tree-lined College Avenue was opened formally and dedicated. WCUNC is now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Alumnae House is now Alumni House, the spelling reflecting the University's coeducational status; and enrollment is at an all-time high — 10,688.
Few can dispute Jackson's description of the building that brings meaning to the university's motto, "Service."
The stately and elegant building is more than the hub of alumni
The portrait of Clara Booth Byrd '13 hangs i the Parlor of the Alumni House.
functions. It is the site of university faculty meetings, lectures, dinners, luncheons, and receptions.
Guests of the University use its bedrooms. Civic and professional organizations use it for meetings and programs. Alumni and students find it appropriate for weddings and receptions.
The Alumni House is unlike the 67 other buildings on the 169-acre campus.
The beauty of line and exquisite detail of workmanship makes it a home of simple elegance, not an institutional structure. Alumni Secretary Barbara Parrish '48 says, "Students see it as being different, and it is different from anything on the campus."
Alumni House is the result of the work and determination of many. It stands as a symbol of persever- ance.
The dream began in 1914 when a committee was appointed to arrange for a permanent home for the alumnae of the institution then known as the North Carolina College for Women. Louise Alexander, whom students through the years affectionately called "Miss Alex," signed a contract "to do her best to raise the money by whatever method may seem best."
The necessary funding was amassed through the efforts of Alexander, a subscription cam- paign by alumnae and friends of the institution. The effort was led by a nine-member building committee. Dr. Julius I. Foust,
college president, and Alumnae Secretary Clara Booth Byrd '13. A grant from the Public Works Administration provided about a fifth of the funding.
After much research, it was determined the building was to be an enlarged version of Home- wood, a circa 1800 house. Home- wood now stands on the campus of Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, and is considered to be the most nearly perfect example of colonial architecture in America.
The bids were opened Nov. 20,
1934. Price: $117,400, not including electric fixtures, Venetian blinds, furnishings, equipment, and the garden. Penrose V. Stout was architect.
The groundbreaking was April 2,
1935. As the dirt was turned, the building committee breathed a sigh of relief; they had faced many obstacles, including the great Depression, bank closings, and Stout's death. (William H. Deitrick, a Raleigh architect, was hired to complete the building.)
Minutes and reports from building committee meetings reveal interesting details as construction of Alumnae House progressed.
H. Elizabeth "Lib" Szi'indell is a staff writer at the Greensboro Daily News. Site is a former faculty member in UNCG's School of Home Economics.
Alumni News
Spring • 1988
13
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The Public Works Administra- tion decreed skilled labor would be paid $1.10 an hour and un- skilled labor would draw 45 cents per hour. It was said a representa- tive of the Secret Service in Wash- ington was on hand at all times. No one knows why.
Upon completion, the Alumni House was one of seven such alumni buildings in the country. It was the only one built from funds raised by the widespread efforts of female graduates.
At the 1937 formal opening and dedication, a $3,500 bank note that was satisfied two hours before the dedication was burned. The building, completed and furnished at a cost of $150,000, was delivered to the University debt-free.
The charred scraps of the bank note have been preserved among the permanent treasures of the Alumni Association.
In her dedicatory prayer, building committee member Lillie Boney Wilhams '98 said, "This is no mere house of brick and mortar that we commemorate; it is built of ourselves. All we know of beauty has gone into its making. We have put our egg money into it. We have all but taken the clothes off our backs for the rummage sales that have gone into it. We have put our amazing teacher salaries into it. The dimes and the quarters of the maids and janitors have gone into it."
Built of handcrafted brick laid in Flemish bond, the co- lumned central portion of the Alumni House is joined at the two ends by identical recessed wings.
Georgia marble steps lead to a portico with columns crowned
Julius I. Foust's portrait is the central feature in the Library.
with the capital known as the Temple of the Winds. The great oak door, guarded on each side by a marble plaque of Minerva, the college seal, opens into a vaulted entrance hall adjoined by the lounge, or living room.
The $1,200 for the steps, portico and door were given by the late Louise Clinard Wrenn '05x of High Point, an alumna and mem- ber of the building committee.
Delicate detail of beading, reeding, dentils, and modillions, typically Corinthian, add to the exterior.
The pineapple, symbol of Southern hospitality, is carved in molding above the entrance hall's double doors. Those doors open into the spacious Virginia Dare Room, which takes its name from murals that hang above fireplaces at each end. The fireplace hearths and mantel are of black and gold Italian marble. Worked into the design of the mantel is the daisy, the college flower.
The room is made more spectacular by the thirty-two pilasters around the walls, large crystal chandeliers and French doors opening onto the balcony that overlooks the garden.
The right wing of the house contains a catering kitchen, living room, and four bedrooms with baths. On the lower floor are the university's development and publications offices.
Alumni offices, a library, and other university-related operations occupy the left wing of the main floor. The home-style library contains the written work of alumni as well as other significant books. Rose Kennedy, who visited the Alumni House, donated a copy of Profiles in Courage, written by her son, John F. Kennedy.
On the lower floor of the right wing is the Pecky Cypress Room,
noted for its unusual wood walls, and now the office of the vice chancellor for development and university relations.
The rear of the house is two full stories and is accessible from the front, inside, or the flagstone terrace.
Originally, the lower floor was headquarters for the Student Government Association, offices for student publications, and a combined committee room and class headquarters (known to alumni as the Judy Board or Horseshoe Room). These activities moved to Elliott University Center in 1953.
Although the Alumni House is owned by the University, a stand- ing five-member house committee of the Alumni Association over- sees its operation and manage- ment.
The dream and challenge that took more than a decade to materi- alize is, says Barbara Parrish, a "link, actual and sentimental, between the present and the beginnings of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro."
Alumni News Spring • 1988
15
Homewood and the Baltimore Scene
Above, a black and white patterned floor and moss green walls decorate the front reception hall of Homeicood (below), now on the campus of Johns Hopkiris University. Photos by David E. Tripp.
by Jane Webb Smith
The twentieth century Colo- nial Revival architecture of the Alumni House was modeled on Homewood, the Federal period Baltimore country home that Charles Carroll of Carrollton gave his son for a wedding present in the first decade of the nineteenth century. At the time, Carroll was the wealthiest man in the country.
Johns Hopkins University, on whose campus Homewood stands, has owned the house since 1902. An extensive restoration has just been completed. The house is now as it might have been from 1806- 1816, the ten years the Carrolls lived there as a couple.
Daniel Carroll emigrated to Maryland in the 1750s from Ireland. Because they were Catho- lic, he and his descendants were barred from political office. They put their energies into amassing one of the largest fortunes in the colonies. Charles Carroll of Car- rollton, the signer of the Declara- tion of Independence, was the father of Charles Carroll of Home- wood.
In 1800 young Charles Carroll
went to the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania state court, Benjamin Chew, and asked to marry his daughter, Harriet. Though Charles had a reputation for idleness, he assured Chew that his father "would give us the money for whatever we need." For a wedding present, Charles Carroll Sr. gave the newly weds 130 acres about a mile outside Baltimore.
Construction of the house began in 1801. Charles Jr.'s reluctance to keep accurate accounts, his indecisiveness, and the expensive tastes of the young couple brought the cost of Homewood by 1808 to $40,000 — over four times what the elder Carroll intended to spend.
But with the departure of the workmen from Homewood young Charles began to get depressed. What would seem to be the begin- ning of a happy life turned into tragedy as Charles Carroll of Homewood turned to the wine cellar for consolation.
Charles, Harriet, their son, and four daughters first used Home- wood as a summer home from May to October. By 1811, however, they were spending most of their time there. Letters from Charles Sr. to his son at this time had these recurring themes: "Stop spending so much money; improve your mind and keep up with your accounts; and keep away from spicy foods and wine, take a bath in the morning, work from 9 to 5 and you will have a fine life."
All this was ignored by Charles of Homewood. By 1813, Charles Sr. was worried about the welfare of Harriet and the children. In 1814 Harriet took the children to Phila- delphia for a year. By 1816 Harriet
61 Alumni News I Spring • 1988
and the girls moved to Philadel- phia permanently and their son, Charles, went to Europe to school. She needed to move to "escape the afflicting scene that she had witnessed daily."
A Captain Craig and his wife came to live at Homewood to care for Charles. They didn't stay long. From 1816 until his death in 1825 at the age of 50 in an institution in Annapolis, Charles Carroll of Homewood, alienated from his family, moved from Homewood to Annapolis and back again.
His son, Charles — now 24, moved into Homewood, refur- nished it, and lived there until 1832 when his grandfather died. He then moved to Doughoregan Manor and took the name Charles Carroll of Doughoregan. Home- wood was sold in 1839 to the William Wyman family, who lived there until 1850 when they built another house on the property. Homewood was closed until the 1890s when the Gilman School, a boys boarding school, rented it and put a cupola on the roof. In 1902 they gave it to Johns Hopkins and the "Homewood" campus was built around the house, which was used as university offices from 1930 to 1980.
Not a very happy story for such a lovely house.
In spite of the $40,000 Charles Carroll sunk into the palace for his son, Homewood is not the master- piece of Federal architecture one might assume. It is a typical, rather conservative adaptation of the neoclassical style and completely in the vernacular of the Georgian symmetry style that was occurring in Baltimore at the time. Again there is inconsistency in the fact that Charles Carroll demanded the finest Europe had to offer in decorative arts, dress, rugs, and fabric, but after great expense and indecision he ended up with a
conservative Baltimore country house. It was, of course, these inconsistencies and instabilities that brought the son of the signer of the Declaration of Independence to such a ruinous end. This inner turmoil was reflected in the house which obsessed him for so long.
In 1983 formal restoration efforts began with archaeological excavation which turned up lots of wine bottles. It is assumed that what Harriet didn't take to Phila- delphia in 1816, Charles Carroll of Doughoregan took with him when he left the house in 1832. The restoration was completely paid for by the late Robert Merrick, a local philanthropist who had been at Gilman and lived at Homewood as a boy in boarding school. The curators have put nothing into the house that didn't have design precedence or documentation as having been in a contemporary Baltimore house.
There are about a dozen Home- wood replicas in all, including the American embassy in Nicaragua and the music building at South- ern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky.
The restored Homewood opened as a museum on September 15, 1987.
]ane Webb Smith is an exhibition curator and, currently, a resident of Baltimore while studying for a master's degree in American Studies at the University of Maryland- College Park. An alumna of Hollins College, she has also studied at Boston University. She is the daughter of Bootsie Webb Smith '47.
The fine architectural detad m the home built (m/ Charles Carroll is evident in this doorway.
Alumni News Spring • 1988
Pack Your Bags — We're Off to Baltimore
To continue celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Alumni House, the Alumni Association will offer a trip to Baltimore featuring a tour of Homewood, the colonial mansion after which the Alumni House was patterned.
Chartered bus service will depart on April 6 from Greens- boro; alumni in the Richmond area may board in that city. A box lunch is planned in Historic Halifax, VA, at Tarover, the country home of Virginia Ford Zenke '46.
Four nights accommodations are booked at the newly restored Lord Baltimore Clarion Hotel. Guided tours of Homewood, Carroll Mansion, Peabody Library and National Aquarium, and a visit to the Baltimore Museum of Art, home of the Cone Collection, are included. Alumni will enjoy, too, a city tour of Baltimore, featuring the Federal Hill and Otterbien neighborhoods; lunch that day will be at the Engineering Society. On another day, alumni will take a trip to Anna- polis to the Paca Mansion and the Hammond Harwood Mansion; lunch will be at The Maryland Inn.
Even with all that's sched- uled, there'll be some free time in Baltimore to shop and enjoy The Inner Harbor (Harbor- place), Antique Row, and the Walters Art Gallery and in Annapolis to shop or to tour the Naval Academy.
The whole package, includ- ing transportation, hotel ac- commodations, site tour ad- missions, and the lunch stops mentioned above, is reasonably priced: $275 per person/ double or $375 per person/ single occupancy. A package is also available without trans- portation. Additional informa- tion about the trip may be ob- tained from the Alumni Office.
It Happened in the Alumni House
Etude in BVD
Bill Welder '86, now a second year medical student at Johns Hopkins, had a unique experience in the Alumni House even before he entered UNCG as a freshman. Bill sought one of our prestigious Competitive Scholarships, and for the weekend of his interview, was assigned a bedroom in the Alumni House. It seems that Bill, unable to sleep, decided to while away the wee hours by playing the baby grand piano in the Virginia Dare Room — dressed only in his underwear!
Incidentally, now that Bill has moved to Baltimore he passes by Homewood every day. "It's really eerie," he told us recently. "It's so strange to see our Alumni House on a different site."
Sneaking Out of the House
The story can be told, now. After forty-five years, Evon Welch Dean '42 no longer feels the apprehension that she'll be chastised for bending the rules during the first year she worked in the Alumni House. Evon was secretary to Alumnae Secretary Clara Booth Byrd '13. During times when the Alumnae Board met, Evon was required to spend the weekend in the Alumnae House to tend to the needs of the board members and take responsibility for the House.
Sequestered one such weekend, the board members felt sorry for young Evon because she wouldn't be able to honor a date with future husband Willard on Saturday night. Every minute with Willard was precious because he was to leave for service in the Army within a few weeks. "In Miss Byrd's absence," Evon recalls, "those darling board members conspired to send me out anyway. They promised to 'cover' for me."
When Willard came to call on his bride-to-be, he got the once- over from the elder board members. And when the couple returned from their date, the alumnae were waiting up for them. Fortunately, the experi-
ence didn't scare Willard away.
So far as we know, no one ever tattled, but Evon confesses to many a frightful thought as to the severity of the reprimand Miss Byrd would have tendered.
Vital Statistics
The Annual Report for Alumni Affairs, always cleverly crafted by Director Barbara Parrish '48, contains a section about the use of the Alumni House. The 1986-87 edition reports that activity in the Alumni House was brisk and assorted: There were 21 group breakfasts, 59 luncheons, and 39 dinners. There were 200-1- meetings, lectures, and special programs; 28 university-related recep- tions; 4 piano recitals; and 4 seminars. There were 5 weddings and 38 wedding receptions. And the seven beds were made 575 times during the year.
A Rose from Miss America
This photograph ran on the cover of Alumnae News in the fall of 1961. The cover note explains:
"Kendall Single- tary is the three-year-old daughter of Chancellor and Mrs. Singletary. Her friend is, of course, Maria Beale Fletcher of Asheville, who was Miss North Carolina when this photograph was made and who is now Miss America. It happened this way: Kendall was visiting in the Alumnae House on the morning that Lelah Nell Masters '38, assistant public relations director for Cone Mills Corporation, brought Maria Beale over to make the 'official' photographs of her presenta- tion gown. Kendall watched the goings-on with wide eyes, but she kept her distance. Finally when Maria Beale offered her the rose which she had been holding for the picture- making, the two were in lens-distance of each other. Mrs. Pat Alspaugh of the College News Bureau made this photograph."
8
Alumni News Spring • 1988
Roots of Southern Architecture
by Charles Richard Gantt 76 MFA
Our Alumni House design is a fulcrum in the change from the colonial architecture of the young republic to southern architecture, which has its back- grounds and origins in the seven- teenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth century. It represents American taste and temperament.
Southern architecture reflects much variety because we are a nation of immigrants. The vagaries of the climate also play an impor- tant role.
Appearing in the Charlestown, SC, Gazette in May 1751 was this advertisement:
"DUDLEY INMAN, CARPENTER and Joyner, lately arrived from London, in Capt. Crosthwaite, who now lives next to Mrs. Finlay's in Church-street, Charles-Town, undertakes all sorts of carpenters and joyners work, particu- larly buildings of all kinds, with more convenience, strength and beauty than those commonly erected in this province, in which he will closely adhere to either of the orders of architecture : He likewise gives designs of houses, according to themodern taste in building, and estimates of the charge: And hangs bells, in the best, neatest and least expensive manner. — A good taste in building is a talent (as all others) brought into the world with a man, and must be cultivated and improved with the same care and industry as such others: But a structure, tho' ever so beautiful, cannot yet be perfect, unless supplied with all the conveniences nec- essary to remove the disadvantages proceeding from great heat or cold, or, the country wherein it is built: Of such there are but few in or near this town, tho' put up and finished at a greater charge than if they had all the conven- iences and beautiful proportions of architecture.
"All these shall be done to the entire satisfaction of all gentlemen that shall be pleased to employ Their most humble Servant,
Dudley Inman"
This newly-arrived architect
promises that he will build in a modern style yet use the architec- tural resources of the classical past. He will take the climate into consideration as well as the nature of the architectural taste and styles of the South.
The White House, built in 1752 and then again in 1815, showed such a blend of European influence and American taste.
Drayton Hall, built near Char- leston in 1740, is an example of Palladian design inspired by the Villa Rotunda in Vienna, circa 1550. It is, however, highly adapted in plan and material so that it is a practical interpretation of the Palladian ideal. Drayton is a functioning domicile rather than a tribute to artistic theory. This style was spread throughout the English world, and thus the South by the publication of Pallidio's works in English by Lord Burlington. Burlington and William Kent were crucial in the firm establishment of the new style through their own architectural works.
The Nathaniel Russell House in Charleston (circa 1809) is an urban adaptation of a Palladian-style double house. Its end was to the street with the facade oriented toward the garden. The house announced one thing to the viewer but had an element of surprise inside.
Thomas Jefferson's Monticello (completed in 1809, the year that Homewood, the inspiration for our own Alumni House, was finished) is a combination of geometric shapes that are interesting, unusual, and demonstrate both his individuality and his debt to tradition. The building sits as an extension of nature. It is an ideal- ized landscape in the manner of Claude Lorraine's seventeenth
century paintings as well as a func- tioning farm. Both principles have a classical origin in The Georgics by the Roman poet, Virgil.
This is also true of the University of Virginia campus. The university has been called a "city of temples within a landscaped environment."
Then, beginning in the 1820s, prominent architecture by Robert Mills (Washington Monument, 1836, and the Treasury Building) showed a rise of monumentality, the role of the state, and the death of picturesque landscape. The Records Office in Charleston was a fireproof building with emphatic, severe classical detail and columns.
By 1865 Greek Revival had replaced Palladianism and Jefferson's monu- mental classicism. This became our "notion of Southernness."
Thomas Jefferson 's Monticello, near Charlotttesville, Virginia.
§ Richard Gantt, a lecturer in UNCG's Department of Art, is an alumnus of UNCG. He earned an MFA degree in studio arts here in 1976. He is presently completing master's study in art history ^^ ^ .^ at UNC-Chapel Hill,
^^^^ Ki^ , where he plans to continue as a doctoral student. He illustrated the late Dr. Louise Robbins' book. Footprints: Collection, Analysis and Interpretation.
Alumni News Spring • 1988
19
by John Edward Tyler II
Beginning with Sir Walter Raleigh's attempt to plant a settlement of thatched, wattle and daub cottages. North Carolina's history can be traced through its architecture. The preservation of this architecture is a link to our past.
The earliest documentation for a particular dwelling is found on a map published in 1657. The Nathaniel Batts House, located in Bertie County, contained one room and a buttery. The earliest existing residence in North Carolina is the Newbold-White House in Per- quimans County, built in the 1680s. It is of a "hall and parlor" plan and was restored under the guidance of the Perquimans County Historical Association. It is the cornerstone to any survey of the history of our state's architec- ture.
In the eastern part of North CaroUna the "hall and parlor" plan used by Virginians was prevalent. Central European styling can be found at Old Salem and other Piedmont areas settled by the Moravians. The Quaker floor plan (three rooms, one slightly larger than each of the other two) was used in Perquimans and later in Guilford counties.
An enigma exists in North Caro- lina architecture, however. Many structures seem incongruous to their location. Mulberry Hill, on a plantation in Chowan County, looks as if it had been lifted from Front Street in New Bern, where there are several identical townhouses. And in the western part of the state, both the Carson House at Marion and the Smith-McDowell House in
Historic Preservation in North Carolina
Asheville have a tropical influence common to the coastal areas of the region.
Though North Carolina is termed a "valley of humility between two mountains of con- ceit" in architectural circles, some of our gems are the rarest. Tryon Palace in New Bern, designed by English architect John Hawks, is acclaimed as the most handsome of all eighteenth century buildings ever erected in the American colonies. And George Vanderbilt's "Biltmore" near Asheville is one of the grandest private residences ever built in the United States.
Historic preservation began in North Carolina perhaps as early as 1904 when the Colonial Dames rescued the birthplace of President Andrew Johnson. In the 1950s the State Division of Archives and History began its Historic Sites Program with projects such as the Alamance Batfleground, the Governor Aycock birthplace, Bentonville Battleground, and the Ireland and Barker Houses in Edenton. Today this program is greatly expanded and part of the NC Department of Cultural Resources.
One cannot survey the historic preservation movement in North Carolina without paying special attention to the restoration at Old Salem. Though on a smaller scale, it is of the same fine quality as that found at Williamsburg. The Museum of Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem is invalu- able in preserving this phase of our heritage.
Every day countless historic buildings are lost to fire, vandal- ism, indifference, and neglect, to
say nothing of the bulldozer. The Historic Preservation Fund of North Carolina financially sup- ports efforts to save structures
important to our heritage. Historic preservation is vital to our educa- tional, economic, and cultural growth.
The Newbold-White House (above) is the earliest existing residence in North Carolina. Below is the birthplace of President Andrew Johnson, saved by the Colonial Dames perhaps as early as 1904. Photos are by the North Carolina Division of Archives and History.
Jolui Tyler is chairman of the board and former president of the Historic Hope Foundation, which is responsible for acquir- ing, preserving, and maintaining the Hope Mansion near Windsor, NC. He is past president of the Historic Preservation Society of NC and served as chairman of the acquisitions commit- tee of the Tryon Palace Commission.
Alumni News Spring • 1988
111
^M.Uh '
I I
"^F=^
by Mark R. Wenger
By exploring how America's architectural past inspired Virginia building during 1840- 1940, the cultural forces which shaped Alumni House will be easier to understand.
Since John Smith produced his chronicles of the Jamestown settlement, Virginians have consistently displayed a concern for recording, preserving, and memorializing their past. These sentiments notwithstanding, antiquarian interest in Virginia's past exerted little influence on the development of local architecture until after the Civil War.
In the meantime, Virginia's colonial architecture remained largely unappreciated apart from association with famous people or events. Mount Vernon was one of the first buildings to command widespread attention. 1854 marked the beginning of success- ful efforts to save the home of George Washington as a shrine for the nation.
There did exist a widespread interest in Virginia's historical and architectural past on the eve of the Civil War. However, with the coming of hostilities, this interest was eclipsed by more pressing concerns about war and its devas- tating consequences. Not until the end of Reconstruction would the South again build on a grand scale. And not until then would South- erners again look to the past for inspiration.
Ironically, it was the northern popular press which showed the
Thirty-two pnlasten grace the walls of the Virginia Dare Room.
Colonial Revival Architecture in Virginia
way. After the War, northern curiosity about the vanquished foe spawned an outpouring of litera- ture treating all the distinctive aspects of Southern culture. Architecture figured prominently in these popular writings. The war, of course, had destroyed much of that legacy. But it also introduced many people to the remains of Virginia's colonial landscape — the homes of great planters, the sites of momentous historical events.
In spite of its devastating effects, then, the Civil War was an impor- tant factor in promoting an aware- ness of Virginia's historical and architectural treasures. Within a few years of the war's end, travel accounts and illustrated articles began to appear in popular journals. The pace of these publica- tions accelerated noticeably as the hundredth anniversary of Amer- ican independence drew near.
The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and the Yorktown centennial received extensive coverage in periodicals of the day. An explosion of popular literature about the South ensued with interiors of Virginia houses depicted with increasing fre- quency. Both the dramatic and decorative stairway and the tall grandfather's clock were recurring bits of Colonial Revival imagery.
The restoration of Virginia's old plantation mansions were another aspect of the Colonial Revival. The restoration of Carter's Grove typified what was happen- ing over much of the state during the period 1900-40. Numerous old homes were acquired, modernized and "restored" by affluent north-
erners. The resuscitation of Virginia's old estates was tied to the emergence of a new rural elite, with its taste for the pleasures of country life and its cultural identi- fication with England.
First laid out in 1925, the Wind- sor Farms suburb in Richmond was envisioned as an old English village on the banks of the James. In fact, two homes were purchased and dismantled in England and erected in Windsor Farms. In its completed form, Windsor Farms was an idyllic evocation of old Virginia and its English roots — with "Anglo-Saxon home feeling." For Americans, this quality was best embodied in the domestic architecture of the colonial era and a sense of ethnic and cultural identity with England.
Historians also suggest that the Colonial Revival was a reaction to the social and political upheaval in the last half of the nineteenth century. In the face of these problems, it represented a reassur- ing affirmation of traditional values.
Our Alumni House, then, shows us a very proper copying of a colonial exterior with a mixture of periods and locations inside — mostly eighteenth century with a seventeenth century staircase.
Most of us think of the Wil- liamsburg restoration as a beginning — a first step in modern methods for the preservation, interpretation, and recreation of our past. It is also possible to see Williamsburg as a conclusion, a culminating event of the Colonial Revival's "Golden Age" in Vir- ginia.
The Colonial Revival has never
really gone away. A drive through just about any recent neighborhood in this part of the country will confirm that it's alive and well. Each generation returns to the past for its own reasons.
Carter's Grove, the River Front, located m James City County, Virginia, ivas restored hetiveen 1928 and 1932.
Mark Wenger is a research architect with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He holds a bachelor of design degree
L.. -vT*^ ' from NCSU, a bachelor ^^^r < of architecture degree
•m ^ • from UNCC, and a ■ w ^^-. ! master's degree in architectural history from the University of Virginia. His book, England in 1701: The Travels of Sir John Perceval and William Byrd of Virginia, is being published by the University of Missouri Press.
Alumni News Spring • 1988
113
by Dr. Jean Gordon
A room from Haivrhill, Massachusetts, whose furnishings typify an early nineteenth century New England seaport home.
The furniture in this drawing room of a Baltimore house built before 1S12 shows a strong Sheraton itjfluence.
The rooms pictured on this page were once reconstructed in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Why do twentieth century Americans have such affection for eighteenth century houses and furniture? Considering the differences in Hving patterns of two hundred years ago compared with those of today, the enduring popularity of eighteenth century styles might seem paradoxical.
Even the affluent are over- whelmingly informal. We call hew acquaintances by their first names and lounge about in designer jeans. The eighteenth century person who aspired to gentility spoke in polite formulas, dressed in tight, uncomfortable clothes, and moved with studied grace. Eighteenth century houses were classically symmetrical and, because hand-made objects and textiles were expensive, rooms were sparsely furnished. What furniture there was was designed to exemplify the taste and status of the owner rather than to provide comfort.
In the early decades of the nineteenth century new-rich Americans were only too happy to relegate their stiff Queen Anne chairs and high chests to the maid's room and acquire whole ensembles of elaborate French furnishings for their spacious eclectically-styled homes. Only in the more traditional parts of the country — in New England and the Old South — was there nostal- gia for the colonial era. Harriet Beecher Stowe used her novels to celebrate the domestic virtues of the New England kitchen, and Prudence Crandall organized the Mount Vernon Ladies Association to save George Washington's home as a national shrine. Every-
"1 /% I Alumni News -1-^ I Spring '
1988
18th Century Influence on Today's Architecture and Decorative Arts
one else concentrated on keeping up with the Europeans.
After the Civil War, industry flooded the country with mass- produced furnishings of the most elaborate and pretentious kind. Perhaps at no time in history were so many households inundated with so much interior decoration. Even the great exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876 to celebrate the nation's first hundred years was predominately concerned with exhibiting the latest achieve- ments of industry and technology. Only a few exhibits, including that of a recreated colonial kitchen, reminded visitors of the earlier times which the Centennial celebrated.
It is true that in the 1880s and 1890s architects like Charles McKim and Stanford White studied and documented seven- teenth and eighteenth century New England houses. At the same time collectors began scouring the countryside for blue and white china and stately highboys. But what really brought the colonial style back into fashion was the discovery that the relative simplic- ity of colonial design was more compatible with the changed society of the new twentieth century than the oversized Eastlake and Renaissance revival pieces of the 1870s and 1880s. In 1900 families were smaller and maids hard to find. The woman who did her own work could easily become a slave to multi- layered drapes, wall to wall carpets, and dense thickets of furniture and knickknacks.
For those of the plain-living, high-thinking persuasion there
was the new mission style. For a time, about 1910, it seemed to be sweeping the field. But, for the average taste, mission proved to be too austere. Golden or greenish pickled oak lacked the richness of walnut, and boxy, undecorated chairs and tables could be boring. Eighteenth century tables and case pieces not only were elegant, they were small enough to fit into the smaller twentieth century rooms. And even though some eighteenth century pieces were uncomfort- able, they could be combined effectively with overstuffed sofas and lounging chairs. Designers like Elsie de Wolfe celebrated the fact that the eighteenth century style was perfectly compatible with such innovations as electricity and modern kitchens. By 1925 when the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its new American Wing, the colonial revival was in full swing.
There were, of course, other enthusiasms. Some people liked the Spanish or Mediterranean style, and eighteenth century French Provincial had a large following. During and after World War II, academics and manufactur- ers tried to convert Americans to the international style. But, as Tom Wolf has said, Americans usually preferred "our house" to "Bauhaus." Split levels and blond furniture might be more conven- ient, but people still loved the look of colonial Williamsburg. The Bicentennial merely strengthened the feeling.
So much for the past. What about the future? Will the eighteenth and early nineteenth century styles always be with us? If they are, it
will not be because of their practi- cality or their unqualified suitabil- ity to modern life. The symmetry of the Georgian house does not necessarily lend itself to the most efficient and pleasing use of space. And detached houses in the suburbs are extremely expensive in terms of fuel for heat and trans- portation. As for furniture, eight- eenth century styles require scarce, expensive woods and labor- intensive craftsmanship to avoid looking cheap and, as they say in the trade, "boraxy." Nor were the Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Federal styles designed for an informal, mobile way of life. Still, people do not live by appropriateness alone. Sentiment and nostalgia have an important role in what most of us like. In the future, what we probably can expect in terms of furniture, if not in houses, is more of what we have had in the last two genera- tions; that is, a combination of some pieces that evoke the eight- eenth century and others that are more modern and convenient. Yet Elsie de Wolfe was undoubtedly a bit naive when in 1912 she pre- dicted that the eighteenth century would always be the preferred style. Always, after all, is a long time!
Dr. Jean Gordon is an associate pirofessor in the I Department of History at UNCG. An alumna of Penn State University, she did her doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin. She is the co- director of the Graduate Summer Institute of Southern History and Decorative Arts, a joint project of the Department of History and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.
Alumni News Spring • 1988
115
From Dream to Reality
The Teagne property, "titat body of land lying betzoeen Spring Garden Street and the Southern Railway.
By Dr. Richard Bardolph
Because 1987 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the formal introduction of the Alumni House as a resplendent new addition to the campus, we decided to prepare an article on the structure's background and early develop- ment.
One hardly knows where to begin. The remotest origin of the impulse to plan an alumni home are, one suspects, forever lost from recollection. But a search through the records, particularly the minute books of the Alumni Association and the early volumes of the Association's quarterly magazine, has enabled us to trace a sequence of events proceeding from dream to reality — including, along the way, some false starts, abrupt reconsiderations, gradual retreats, and the discarding of projects and plans whose initial high expectations were prudently
abandoned under the promptings of accident, circumstance, and sobering experience.
Indeed, the pre-history of the Alumnae House proved to be more eventful than we had supposed. It is intimately inter- twined with the early history of the Alumnae Association, whose own story (which, for lack of space, we reserve for future articles) is one of changing structures and shifting concep- tions of purpose and mission: developments that had every- thing to do with the evolution of the physical structure and the functions of the Alumnae House, even before the notion of an alumni building had occurred to anyone.
We have chosen the year 1914 as the point of departure for the first of a three-part series. It carries the story to 1922; the
second to June 1937; and a third is planned as a brief history of the Alumni Association itself from 1893 to 1937 in its early, and sometimes discouraging — but never discour- aged — struggles to achieve its per- manent form and to define its role and program.
It was at the group's annual meeting on May 25, 1914 — when the Association had fewer than 200 "members in good standing" who had paid their annual dues of one dollar, and had less than a hundred dollars in its treasury — that "a committee on arranging a perma- nent home for the Alumnae when they visit the College was ap- pointed: Miss Jane Summerell, Miss Ethel Brown." It had also, however, oversight of approxi- mately $23,000 in student loan funds, which it had helped accumu- late, a small portion of which its members had themselves contrib-
1 /2 I Alumni News J.\J I Spring
1988
uted, but which it could not, of course, use for its own purposes. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that the Association's primary purpose at that time, as it would be for several more years, was the fostering of student loan funds to enable financially deprived apphcants to attend the College and become teachers. A secondary, though not unimportant, object was the rallying of support for the College, both in the general public and in the Legislature.
Beyond the brief item we have quoted from the 1914 minutes, no amplification was offered at the time, and apparently no discussion ensued. A few months later, when the secretary recorded the Found- ers' Day meeting of October 5,
1914, no mention of an alumnae home was made. At the following year's annual meeting in May of
1915, "Miss Summerell reported that the Committee on a Home for the Alumnae were encouraged to hope for some such place on the Campus as soon as it was practi- cable for the College to grant the space. The Committee continued." Then, once more, on May 22, 1916, the annual meeting heard from Miss Summerell' s committee "that they continued to stand for the idea of an Alumnae Home and hoped some day to realize that dream." Again, no discussion of the proposal was recorded. The brief report could hardly have been a surprise to the alumnae who were present, however, as we will note in a moment.
By 1914, when the Association had been in being for twenty-one years since its first tentative beginnings in 1893, it was still little more than a federation of loosely organized county chapters. Its activities were largely confined to an annual meeting on the campus during commencement weekend and another sparsely
attended session in October at Founders' Day. Otherwise its agenda reached little beyond the promoting of student loan funds and some modest exertions (in which few members participated in any visible way) to stimulate interest in the institution among legislators, the general public, and prospective students, and to keep alive the loyalties and affections of graduates and former students in the growing sisterhood.
The establishment of a quarterly magazine in 1912 provided a promising resource for promoting the Association's objectives. Its pages, as well as the official minute books, enable us to trace, step by step, the movement that led to the dedication of the Alum- nae House in 1937. Of special interest is a piece by Jane Summerell '10, '23 BA, '78 LHD (still a member in excellent stand- ing in 1987!) in the April 1916 Alumnae Nezvs. As chairman of her small Committee on the Alumnae Home, she was moved to push the cause in the Association's periodi- cal in an article that is interesting not only as the first reference in the quarterly to an Alumnae building, but also because it illustrates what that generation of alumnae thought such a building might be.
She began the piece by pointing to the need of a location on cam- pus where former students might come to visit their sisters and their college friends, or even to intro- duce their own children to the school. She was, in fact, talking about a sort of campus hostelry for overnight (or even longer) stays. Then, she continues:
About a year ago the Alumnae Association decided to look into the matter of an alumnae home here on the campus. It was not a difficult task to single out the building best adapted for that purpose; for what place on the
hill is dearer to the hearts of us all than the Old Infirmary. Since the sick among us have been transferred to the new hospital, why not let those home-sick for college away from us claim this building as their own? Here they could come for several weeks to refresh themselves mentally and spiritually, or to give, out of their experience, helpful advice to their younger sisters struggling with the increasing problems of our institution. At commencement and on Founders' Day, the home would be filled with many who feel a little timid about staying in the dormitories, or who would prefer a quieter place for the College's newest grandchild. . . Dr. Foust is much interested in our plans, and would like to give it to us; but, with the crowded condition at the College, there can be no immediate assurance. I-Jowever, if the alumnae will manifest the proper amount of enthusiasm and interest in their home, and press their claims upon the College authorities, it may be ours some day.
Three years later, when the proposal had not yet materialized, Laura Coit (at that time the College's secretary and an officer of the Alumnae Association) wrote a brief paragraph for the Alumnae News which reflects much the same conception of an alumnae home, though it does not mention the Old Infirmary. In fact, as Miss Coit may have known, the move- ment for an alumnae building was soon to take a new turn.
While the preliminaries leading to the session are only suggested in fragmentary evidence, we do know, for we have the official minutes, that a slightly flustered quorum of the Association's Board (Miss Summerell was among those present, as was Miss Coit) filed into Dr. Foust' s office on the morning of May 11, 1918, into the
Alumni News I -t ^ Spring • 1988 I J- /
presidential presence. After a few introductory explanations by Dr. Foust, the voung women were shown a set of resolutions in which the College's Board of Directors recommended to the North Carolina General Assembly that it grant to the Alumnae Board "specific authority to purchase, and also request the General Assembly to make specific provision to pay for the purchase of said property." The land referred to was the Teague prop- erty, "that body of land lying between Spring Garden Street and the Southern Railroad" (where Curry Building now stands, flanked on the east by the Fer- guson Building and on the west by the former Curry School Gymna- sium).
In a second resolution the College's Board "earnestly re- quests the Alumnae Association... to purchase and hold the property for the Institution until such time as the Board of Directors can legally acquire same, and provide funds for the payment thereof."
Accompanying documents show that the property was to be pur- chased for $50,000 by a down payment of $10,000 and then in $5,000 annual installments for eight years at 6 percent interest; the Alumnae Association would borrow the $10,000 required for the down payment. (Its own treasury at the moment held less than $100.) Further stipulations indicate that when the College "is in a position legally to assume the indebtedness," it would do so. In short, for the present, when the College's own financial resources were overstrained and its capacity to borrow was severely limited by legal constraints, the Alumnae Association would raise the funds and purchase the land so that the College could obtain it in the
future. Agreeing to the proposal, the members of the Alumnae Board thereupon signed the instrument.
Subsequent events were to disclose also that the first structure to be reared on the newly acquired Teague Field would, in fact, be an alumnae home. Meanwhile, of course, the earlier suggestions about enlist- ing the Old Infirmary for the purpose were quietly shelved. A brief item in the minutes of the May 19, 1919, annual meeting relates that "The Committee on the Alumnae Home reported that the plans for the Home would probably take a new turn soon." Later at the same session, Dr. Foust addressed the meeting, and after sounding his usual warning that the State's appropriations were seriously inadequate to supply the buildings and equip- ment that the rapidly growing institution desperately needed, he turned for a moment to the subject of an Alumnae Home. "He spoke," say the minutes, "of the need for an Alumnae Building to be used as a home of the Faculty at present. [Emphasis supplied by RB.] We look for- ward to the time when post- graduate courses will be de- manded by the Alumnae. They can use the Home then as their residential hall." Moments later Miss Womble "spoke of the need for the Alumnae Building espe- cially for use as a Faculty resi- dence. It was [then] moved and seconded that we take up in a business way the erection of an Alumnae Building and to plan if possible for ways and means to erect such a building on or near the campus."
Then, at the 1919 Founders' Day meeting. Miss Coit
reported that the Board had met earlier in the day, had elected Ethel Bollinger '13 as secretary and treasurer of the Association and editor of its quarterly (at a salary of $1,200) and had instructed her that "her first work should be the maturing of full business plans for securing the erection of an Alumnae Home on the Campus to cost not less than $100,000. The Home desired is to be used as Alumnae guest rooms, suites and rooms for rent to Faculty members, an up-to- date cafeteria, and a club room etc., where clubs from town might hold sessions or joint meetings with Alumnae groups."
The Committee on the Home was now reconstituted to include Etta Spier '95 (chairman), Jane Summer- ell, Laura Weil Cone '13, Laura Coit, Clara Booth Byrd '13, '80 LLD (Hon.), and Mary Robinson '26.
A mere half year later Miss Bollinger's first annual report, on May 20, 1920, gave an account of her work, the concluding item of which coolly announced that "Plans for our Alumnae Building have been drawn up and accepted by the [Alumnae] Board. ..and the site for its erection, the Teague Field, has been assured us." The Building Fund had, at that moment, about $4,000, of which $3,000 was in promissory notes. After the secretary's report was read. Dr. Foust "talked to us about raising funds for our Alumnae Building, and urged us to make a drive for that money in the near future."
Although these rapid develop- ments had ended all thought of the Old Infirmary as a suitable Home, the Association still had an interest in the aging structure (which stood, by the way, where the Faculty Center is now), an interest that was to have a significant bearing on the more ambitious program now to be launched. The same session at
18
Alumni News Spring • 1988
"Our Proposed Alumnae Buihiiiig" as it appeared ih the April 1920 Alumnae News was a duplicate of the recently constructed Shaw Donuitory.
which Miss BoUinger had pre- sented the foregoing report "took up," according to the minutes, "the most important question raised," that of establishing a tea room "for the duration of the summer session and longer, if possible, in the Old Infirmary." The proposal was approved, and the experiment was just success- ful enough in the 1921 summer term to suggest that an alumnae- operated tea room, or even a cafeteria, might conceivably be one way of accumulating a fund for the proposed Home.
Within a matter of months, the building was on the drawing board, the product of discussions involving, among others. Dr. Foust, the Alumnae Board, the Committee on the Alumnae Home, and a local architect, Harry Barton. Documentary evidence of just how matters proceeded have as yet not been found by this writer, but an architect/artist's drawing, looking very much like a photograph and captioned as "Our Proposed Alumnae Building," was con- spicuously displayed on the front page of the April 1920 Alumnae News, accompanied by detailed floor plans of the projected three stories — closely mirroring the
conception that we have already encountered, as expressed by Miss Summerell, Miss Coit, and Presi- dent Foust.
One recognizes instantly that the building was — to save on architect's fees — a precise dupli- cate of the recently constructed Shaw Dormitory, except for the addition of three stories of porches (those on the second and third levels designated as sleeping porches) at either end of the building and also at the rear. The first floor was to contain "club rooms" and offices for the Associa- tion in the east wing and a kitchen and cafeteria in the west. The second and third floors, including the porches, were to be identical and to provide more than thirty bedrooms plus a guest room and baths.
The accompanying article suggested that "if each alumna will contribute twenty dollars during a period of two years' time, we would have over the entire sum to be raised which is one hundred thousand dollars."
These hopes were, of course, too optimistic. A long, hard campaign for a period of years would be required — as we will have occa- sion to relate in the third essay in this series when we take note of
the highlights of the Association's first half century. But, daunting as the fund raising promised to be, the urge to move forward at once, long before the funds could be expected, readily prevailed.
The October 1920 issue of the Association's magazine called upon the alumnae through- out the state to accept the responsi- bility for raising their county's fair share as set forth in a table headed "Suggested Apportionment of Funds by Counties for Building." The schedule listed the counties alphabetically and aggregated a grand total of $100,640 by assign- ing specific quotas to each. The largest assessment, predictably, was asked of Guilford ($6,000); Iredell, Mecklenburg, and New Hanover were asked for $3,000 each; Randolph for $2,500; ten others were requested to raise $200 each; and all the rest were called upon for amounts ranging down- ward from $1,800 to the modest $75 that Graham County might assemble.
The alumnae were urged to work through a county chairman and to give either cash or "notes covering two years' time and to be met in four payments, two payments per year," on forms already prepared and available for distribution from the Association's office. In addi- tion, alumnae were exhorted to solicit "interested men and women of wealth," in their communities and to sponsor "benefit entertain- ments or similar outside activities."
Although the immediate — and, for that matter, the longer-term — response to these appeals was disappointing, the alumnae's leadership and Dr. Foust were eager to make a speedy beginning, prompted in part by a new consid- eration that had intruded upon their calculations.
Alumni News Spring • 1988
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The story at this juncture is best told in a full-page editorial by the Alumnae President, Maud Bunn Battle '14, in the October 1921 magazine. The piece was offered to explain the surprising action at the recent (1921) Found- ers' Day meeting of the associa- tion, where, with relatively little discussion, those present voted to approve a recommendation by the Board that the erection of the proposed alumnae home com- mence at once.
Earher that morning, the Board, taking notice of the significant, if modest, success of the summer's experience with the tea room in the Old Infirmary, con- cluded that the experiment had "encouraged those interested to make investigation toward estab- lishing a cafeteria near the campus. Since the West Wing, ground floor, of our Alumnae Building was to be composed of a cafeteria and kitchen, it was thought wise to consult the architect and find out if that much of our Building could be erected without injury to the rest. Mr. Barton, after careful considera- tion, stated that this could be done for $15,000." Then, when the secre- tary reported that the cash and notes in hand would, by June 1922, amount to nearly $13,000 and sug- gested that the remaining $2,000 could be readily borrowed, a decision was reached. On motion of Mrs. Cone, the Board voted to recommend that "we begin the erection of the West ground floor wing of the Alumnae Building [on the Teague Field], which is to contain the cafeteria and kitchen."
It was this proposal from the Board that was accepted by the somewhat startled alumnae at the afternoon session, after they had heard from Dr. Foust that "he had been assured that morning by a
prominent businessman and banker of Greensboro (Mr. Vaughn) that it would be possible to borrow between four and six thousand dollars if necessary for our Alumnae Home Fund."
Miss Battle's editorial in the October Alumnae News was offered as a defense of what seemed to some to have been a hasty action.
The situation which faced the alumnae gathered at the College to celebrate Founders' Day called for immediate action of some kind. It was learned that there is a great demand for a cafeteria near the College for the use of students and faculty as the College dirving rooms are inadequate. This demand will in- evitably be greater a year hence at which time new dormitories will have been opened while no new dining hall is planned for until later. It seems that speculators, learning the situation, were at work to press the starting of a cafeteria near the College. This the alumnae felt is absolutely necessary to forestall as it would most seriously interfere with the success of our own proposed cafeteria. As a result, the architect was consulted with a view toward getting plans for the building of one wing only on the Home, this wing to contain the cafeteria and rooms necessary for its successful operation. The architect was most encouraging, reporting that the wing could be erected now without changing at all our plans for the building as a whole. [Hence] the motion was made to go ahead.... This part of the building alone will cost $15,000, and the equipment will cost around $2,000. A good part of this amount we have on hand, some we hold notes for and some we must raise. It is hoped and expected that the cafeteria will be ready to open by summer school [of 1922] as it will be greatly needed then. When once in operation, the cafeteria will be more than self-supporting, and herein will be one source of income for use in the completion of the building.
Let us then one and all resolve, in spite of the financial stress of the times to get the necessary funds so
that our building may be rushed to completion. Let us pay our twenty dollar assessments, work to make the Christmas bazaar an even greater success than last year, and do whatso- ever else we can to secure funds. We must have our Home quickly for we need it greatly.
Construction — as we plan to report more fully in our next article — was begun soon thereaf- ter, only to encounter new difficul- ties (and a new opportunity) which, thanks especially to the vision of Dr. Foust and of Clara Byrd, who became Alumnae Secretary in 1922, served to con- vince the Association that the partially constructed building on the Teague land should be di- verted to other purposes; that the alumnae should somehow recoup the money they had committed to it, and that they should gird for a mighty effort to mobilize the greater fund that a more appropri- ate edifice would demand. No one could have foreseen that fifteen years would pass between the decision to commence the ill- starred venture on Teague Field and the dedication of the Alumnae House that now graces College Avenue, on a site which in 1922 (and, indeed, from 1893 until 1935) was occupied by the original Guilford Dormitory — also known as Midway — a large wood anachronism, which, as it aged, was becoming an increasing embarrassment. ■
^ r\ I Alumni News ^vl I Spring
1988
B
O
O
K
REVIEWS
Short Story Transformation
by Fred Chappell
Eve Shelnutt has established herself as one of the most distinctive writers of short fiction now practicing in the United States. The Musician is her third collection, and follows The Love Child in 1979 and The Formal Voice in 1982; it is of a piece with the earlier volumes, but it also marks a subtle loosening of intensity and a sense of comedy beginning to mellow just a bit.
But the perspicuity of her vision and the brilliance of her technique have not lessened in the least.
Fred Chappell, a poet, novelist, and short story writer, is professor of English at UNCC.
She was always determined to transform the nature of the short story, and she has done so to large extent by choosing strange but believable situations to depict and by treating the story more and more as a plastic object. She stands in relationship to her story almost as a sculptor might stand in relation to her statue; she has abstracted experience to a minimal perdurable essence and cut its shape as much in negative space as in tangible stone. The designs of her stories tend, then, toward the abstract — yet they are composed sentence by sentence of earthy detail.
A case in point might be the story called "Purity," which tells of two sets of identical twins, "identical twin-wise and set-to- set," who were born just nine months apart. It is easy to imagine how in hands clumsier than Shelnutt's this premise would degenerate into a complicated but simple-minded sitcom of mistaken identities. "Purity" is a sentimental comic story but it is not simple-minded. The four boys are presented as a vision of supernal beauty which is given to the town of Hendersonville, North Carolina, as a sort of aesthetic apocalypse. It is a vision which finally disappears, as visions do, but it has left its mark. "The townspeople eventually forgot, except at parades they would feel unaccountably wistful, and blame it on the weather."
Other marks of Shelnutt's distinctiveness are her suppression of conventional transitions and her stringent economy. Instead of explaining, she shows, often in scenes so brief they consist of only three or four sentences. Narrative is not merely fragmented, it is pulverized; its smallest elements are enlarged and those tradition- ally regarded as necessary are sometimes disregarded entirely. The stories move forward by means of a series of emotion-laden shock cuts, and every sentence is overstuffed with information and implication. It is possible to feel about these stories as her friends feel about the enduring Claire in the story called "Setting":
We did not at first recognize her. We held our breaths and for a long time, it seemed, we thought. Then she walked toward us, this picture of love and perfect fury, which most of us will never know. M
The Musician. By Eve Shelnutt. Black Sparrow Press. 179 pages.
$15.95
Eve Shehmtt 73 MFA is
an associate professor of
English at the University
of Pittsburgh. She will
return to UNCG as the
creative writing
program 's fiction writer-
in-residence March 21-25,
1988.
Alumni News I ^ -t Spring • 1988 I A. -L
o
N
CAMPUS
At Founders' Day, the Readers Theatre Ensemble performed Alumnae House: The Child of Our Hearts.
UNCG Readers Theatre Ensemble
It was a very special gift.
One by one, eleven members of the UNCG Readers Theatre En- semble filed into the Virginia Dare Room of the Alumni House. Scripts in hand and without benefit of set or costume, the readers led the audience back to the 1920s and 1930s when the seeds were sown from which the Alumni House sprang. The chronicle of events that brought the House into service included the Dedication Ceremony on June 5, 1937.
The performance was a gift to alumni in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Alumni House.
The audience of about a hundred and fifty alumni and guests were attending Mclver Conference, a one and one-half day gathering held every year to coincide with Found- ers' Day.
The Readers Theatre Ensemble, begun in 1986, falls in the category of chamber theatre. Their medium is the spoken word. "What is paramount is the text," said the Ensemble's founder, Sandra Hopper Forman '66, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Theatre at UNCG. "We pay minimum attention to technical aspects, letting the words speak for them- selves."
For this unique performance, the text was gleaned from reports of the Building Committee, of Alum- nae Secretary Clara Booth Byrd '13, and from other documents of the era.
The Alumni Association commissioned Ms. Forman to write and direct Alumnae House: The Child of Our Hearts.
"I chose the title from an account found among the papers preserved about the building of the Alumni House. It struck me as a fitting description for how alumni past and present feel about the House."
1987 SHEPERD Awards
The School of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance presented its SHEPERD Awards to three alumni: Patricia Elaine Barry
'64, David W. Moore '81 MEd, and Dorothy Berea Silver '80 MFA. First given in 1985, the awards recognize alumni who have made significant contributions through scholarship, leadership, or service in career and /or civic involvement.
The awards were presented at the annual Ethel Martus Lawther Lecture in November.
Patricia Barry received her bachelor's degree in physical education and her master's degree from Florida State University. Since 1976, she has served as coordinator of secondary physical education and athletics in Montgomery County, MD. In 1984, she received the NASPE's Joy of Effort Award.
Receiving his master's degree in health education, David Moore is director of health and physical education in the Moore County Schools. In 1986, his school system received one of twenty "Healthy Me" awards given nationally by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in recognition of out- standing programs. He is an EdD candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Dorothy Silver received her master's degree in dance. She retired last spring from the Univer- sity where she had been artist-in- residence. She had taught at UNCG since 1974 and has been performing for forty years with such major companies as those of Martha Graham, Merce Cunning- ham, and Pearl Lang. Her choreog- raphies have been presented at American College Dance Festivals.
22
Alumni News
Spring • 1988
Dr. Walter Beak directs the Writing Across the Curriculum p^rogram.
Writing to Learn
"There's a great difference between learning to write and writing to learn," says Walter Beale, a professor in the Depart- ment of English and chairman of the Writing Across the Curriculum planning committee.
Writing Across the Curriculum is a program on campus which is promoting the formation of "writing emphasis courses" throughout all disciplines. Gener- ally, there is a perceived need for better student writing skills. But writing, like any skill, needs continuous reinforcement or the ability will atrophy.
"Writing is not domain specific," according to Dr. Beale, "but can be used in any academic context as a learning tool. The more you write about a subject, the more you learn about it, and the better able you are to express yourself. Teaching by writing emphasis forces the instructor to get involved by acting as an editor. There is much give and take. And that's important."
The definition of "writing emphasis courses" is intentionally vague. Those who are teaching these courses vary considerably in their approach and their use of writing. Generally, they share a recognition of its importance as a
tool to enhance and measure student learning. In addition, students enrolled in writing emphasis courses have access to the consulting or tutorial services of the English Department Writing Center, under the direc- tion of Karen Larsen Meyers '75 MA.
Begun last year under the auspices of the College of Arts and Sciences and Dean Joanne Creighton, the response to the program has been excellent. About thirty instructors are teaching the courses now, and fifteen more attended information workshops last fall. A Faculty Development Grant was received. The goal of Writing Across the Curriculum is to involve the entire University.
Effective writing helps people make themselves heard.
Study for Success
The shock of those first semester grades may be lessened thanks to a new program begun last fall by the Office of Academic Advising. Karen Haley, whose official title is student retention coordinator, is helping students — especially freshmen — balance professors' expectations and study time with the independence of college life.
Her "Student Success Series" offers free workshops on such topics as note taking, efficient textbook reading, study tips and techniques, and finals survival. UNCG's Counseling and Testing Center is assisting her with sub- jects such as test anxiety and time management. For convenience, the sessions, open to all UNCG students, take place in the late afternoon or early evening. Stu-
dents can attend one or two or the whole series.
Ms. Haley, who has been with UNCG for two years, began the series last year on a limited basis. She considers this year's work- shops a success. "We've helped many people. Next year I would like to change the program to a two or three session format," she said. "Then I could reach even more students and begin some type of assessment. Ongoing contact and feedback would be very valuable."
In another capacity with Aca- demic Advising, Karen Haley is doing research on why students drop out of college and what problems they face.
Academic support for specific courses is available through the instructor, of course. And some departments offer general tutoring labs.
UNCG's "Student Success Series" workshops are a critical campus resource.
Art on Paper
Alumni artists whose works were selected in the 1987 Art on Paper exhibit in the Weatherspoon Art Gallery were:
E. Faye Canada Collins '60, '78
(BFA), '83 MFA Richard Fennell '82 MFA Judy Smith Henricks '81 MFA Patricia Marie Kiblinger '81 MFA Eric Wayne Lawing '85 MFA K. M. Mullins '85 MFA Michael W. Northuis '84 MFA Janice Burns Peeples '84, '87 MFA David Curtis Smith '80 MFA Linda Perry Tavemise '84 MFA
Alumni News Spring • 1988
123
SPARTAN
SPORTS
A Formula for Champions
by Ty Buckner '85"
Sports Information Director
Py^^^ASsi'^-* '^ p.,M rrnwd of
neSvarW^s '^f^'Xe^-^ tournament
Winning national champion- ships requires a blend of skill and luck, and most of all, the ability to perform best when it counts most.
After capturing its fifth NCAA Division III men's soccer title in November, UNCG can claim mastery of the formula for cham- pionship success.
Coach Michael Parker's team, consisting of ten freshmen and ten veteran players, won just eight of its first fourteen games, dropped from a six-year, top 10 national ranking, and failed to receive an automatic tournament bid for the first time since 1980.
But the Spartans regrouped in the playoffs, where their 26-2 record in seven years is the best in the history of NCAA men's soccer championships.
UNCG capped its title run and
^A I Alumni News ^TX I Spring
1988
, the team's top Willie LOP/^' ' iMArnericfl
departed Division III competition with a 6-1 rout of Washington University (MO) in the finals at home before nearly 3,000 cheering spectators.
It was the most lopsided final- game victory in NCAA men's soccer tournament annals and left the Spartans trailing only ten-time Division I champ St. Louis Univer- sity in the number of titles won.
"We leave Division III the way we should be remembered — as champions," boasted Parker after coaching his way to a sixth na- tional title in 12 years.
UNCG's athletic teams enter a new era of scholarship competi- tion as Division II affiliates this fall.
For now, the Spartans are enjoying their final Division III campaign and leaving a lasting impression.
^o-fPt'^ms Car! Flemmg, left' If Michael Colanmnokplay ^>l'^"''t'onalchan,f,,onsh,p trophy « a«„„//or WUUam E.Mora/ looks on proudly.
Alumni News I f^ C Spring • 1988 I AD
THE WAY WE ARE
Touring with Cats
Eight times a week last summer and fall actress/dancer Joanna Beck '75 crawled and cavorted across the stages of America as a fehne in the hottest Broadway musical of the decade — Cats. Fea- tured in the third national touring company of the hit, she played both Jellyorum (above, right), an "honest, frank, and caring" cat who sang ballads, and the soprano Griddlebone, the opera cat.
Bom and raised in Asheville, Joanna attended the Asheville Ballet School and performed with the Asheville Ballet Company and the Asheville Youth Theatre. She received a bachelor of music
rating opportunity. But perform- ing is hard physical work, and a cross-country tour can be exhaust- ing."
She has been "in the business" for ten years now. She plans a career change that will concentrate on television commercials and films. She concedes, "There's alot of competition for this lucrative work."
But Joanna Beck is a proven pro- fessional, and we know she'll succeed.
degree and was a voice perform- ance major at UNCG. She was a cast member of the University's first Summer Repertory Theatre in 1975.
After that, she headed for the bright Ughts of Broadway and never looked back. Her credits include Showboat with Donald O'Connor and "As the World Turns" on CBS TV. Off Broadway, she appeared in The Music Man, The Sound of Music, Boys from Syracuse, Old Fashioned, and Candide. She has also performed in Liberty 's Song at the Grand Old Opry House in Nashville.
Joanna has toured with Cats since September 1986. She says, "It has been a wonderful and exhila-
i
The Annals of Time
Every day J. Stephen Catlett '74
('76 MA) studies the everyday lives of everyday people — though they aren't living. For the past year and a half, he has been archivist at the Greensboro His-
26
Alumni News Spring • 1988
torical Museum. He works with letters, diaries, and public records to piece together history.
He chose the career of a "social historian" due to the influence of two UNCG history professors — Dr. Ronald Cassell and Dr. Frank Melton. Stephen's original major was journalism. He became interested in manuscript research, earned bachelor's and master's degrees in history at UNCG, and went on to UNC-CH for a master's in library science.
Upon graduation in 1977, he landed a "plum" of a job with the oldest learned society in the United States — the American Philosophical Society in Philadel- phia. It was founded in 1743. Early members included Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Alexander Hamilton. More than a third of the Nobel Prize winners have been members. For five years of Stephen's tenure there he was manuscript librarian. In 1986 he became assistant librarian.
He returned to his native Greens- boro when the job as archivist at the local museum beckoned.
As archivist, he is responsible for the records of the city's history — old documents, letters, maps, photographs, newspapers, advertisements, and diaries. Stephen is intrigued by them.
A "tremendous gift" was given to the museum this year by the descendants of Mary Watson Smith — her diaries of 1904-1923. Her husband. Dr. Jacob Henry Smith, was pastor of First Presby- terian Church from 1859 to 1890. The diaries chronicle life and life- style in Greensboro during that period. "They are an important acquisition and a most valuable addition to our collection," says
Stephen.
Stephen is also a newly pub- lished author. He recently completed the 420-page A New Guide to the Collections in the Library of the American Philosophical Society, begun during his employment there.
At the museum his major proj- ects include designing a plan for new archive space to be con- structed after 1989 and creating a computer database system for cataloging and reference.
Gold Medal Caliber
Bringing home the gold from St. Louis last summer meant just as much to Mary Henri Robinson Peterson '32 as it will to younger U.S. Olympians in Seoul in 1988. The 75-year-young alumna com- peted in the U.S. National Senior Olympics from June 27-July 2. She won two gold medals and one silver medal in three bicycling events, and placed fourth in a
breaststroke swimming contest. All her honors were won in the 75- 79 age class.
Mary Henri, a retired music teacher who lives in Orange City, FL, earned one gold medal in the half-mile dash cycle race. She earned the other gold in the 5K (3.1 miles) cycle race. Her silver medal came in the lOK (6.2 miles) race. And in swimming, she took fourth place in the 50 meter breastroke.
Once in St. Louis, Mary Henri encountered an unexpected dilemma. She understood that bicycles would be provided. That was not the case! All competitors had to furnish their own. She almost panicked. All she could find to rent was an old fashioned 3-speed bike even though she was accustomed to riding a 10-speed. It took some getting used to, but it obviously didn't slow her down.
Making the cycling competition even more difficult for the Florid- ian was the fact that she qualified on relatively flat terrain at the Golden Age Games in Sanford, FL, while the course in St. Louis was hilly.
Three generations of Mary Henri's family are graduates of UNCG. Her mother, Jennie Tatum Robinson '04, died in 1981 at the age of 99. Her sister, Matilda Robinson Sugg, is a member of the Class of 1931; her niece, Elizabeth Sugg Brand, graduated in 1959. And Nancy Henri Peterson Goettelmann '65x is her daughter.
She gives much credit for her successes to her devoted husband, Jim, who accompanied her to St. Louis. "He's my trainer, driver, and cheerleader," she said.
Alumni News I ^ ^ Spring • 1988 I ^ '
ASSOCIATION
NETWORK
New York Times Two
Want to make sure you have "something for everyone" when you plan your next alumni gather- ing? Schedule two receptions on consecutive nights and hold them in different locations within your area. Invite your guests to come to either or to both, and offer a program they won't want to miss.
Sounds ambitious, but it's just what the New York Area Alumni Chapter did last October. One reception was held in the City at the Princeton Club; the other took place the following night at the home of an alumna in Essex Fells, NJ. Both gatherings featured John FitzGerald '84, assistant director of admissions at UNCG, who brought news of the campus. Associate Director of Alumni Affairs Brenda Meadows Cooper '65 was also there.
Myma Sameth '66 serves as chair of the Greater New York Alumni Chapter. Cynthia Wharton '69 secured the Princeton Club and handled the myriad details for the October 7 meeting. Ben Nita Black McAdam '57 graciously opened her home for the evening of October 8.
Pre-Game Receptions
When the men's basketball team traveled to meet two of its out-of- state competitors early in the season, UNCG alumni were there to cheer them on.
In late November the Spartans traveled to Johnson City, TN, to match up with the East Tennessee State Buccaneers. In early Decem- ber, they played the Patriots of George Mason University. Before each game, a reception was held for alumni and their guests where "shakers," Spartan Sports Sched- ules, and complimentary game tickets were given to those attend- ing.
Sharing news from the campus at both Pre-Game Receptions were Brenda Meadows Cooper '65, associate director of alumni affairs; Bob McEvoy, men's basketball coach; Nelson Bobb, athletic direc- tor; and Debbie Yow, director of the Spartan Athletic Fund and as- sociate athletic director.
At East Tennessee State, arrangements were made by Helen Russell Caines '55 of Kingsport, TN. Carol Klose Grouse '63 of Falls Church, VA, organized the Pre- Game Reception at George Mason.
Down East
Earlier last fall, Brenda Cooper was on the road again — this time with Associate Dean of Students Jim Lancaster '72 and his latest dazzling slide show. Off they went to the eastern parts of the State for gatherings of alumni held on two consecutive evenings.
The first stop was Whiteville where alumni throughout Colum- bus County were invited to the home of Charles McCurry '72. Alumni in that area hadn't met together in some time, so the evening was billed as the "First-In- A-Long-Time Gathering." Dr. Lancaster delivered a media presentation on student life at UNCG.
The "Brenda & Jim Show" was taken the next evening to Sampson County where one of the most active alumni chapters met for their annual dinner. It was held at Fussell's Restaurant in Clinton, and reservations were taken by Emily Teague Johnston '46, Eleanor Southerland Powell '42, and Faye West Warren '4L
The event in Clinton, alumni were reminded, was a repeat performance for Dr. Lancaster. In 1973, Jim was a graduate student in history at UNCG and held an assistantship in the Alumni Office. He wrote and produced a media
^ Q I Alumni News ^yJ I Spring
1988
presentation, "Charlie Mclver & Friends," which he and Brenda took on the road. They visited CUnton in the fall of that year.
Goin' to Ireland in My Mind
by Catharine Brewer '70
In the midst of last summer's lawn-scorching drought, there was a spot of green at UNCG. Alumni College '87, held June 21-25, conjured up the emerald shores of Erin for thirteen participants and staff.
Having journeyed with previous Alumni Collegians across the British timescape "In Search of Arthur" and slogged through the trenches of "World War I To End All Wars," I was delighted to abandon my husband, children, dog, cats, hamster, and fast-wilting roses for "A Terrible Beauty: Modern Ireland, History and Literature."
My knowledge of Ireland prior to this course was limited but colorful. 1 knew, according to W. B. Yeats, that it is no country for old men. I also knew that an Orange- man is a Protestant and that good Irish Catholics wear green sham- rocks on St. Patrick's Day. There- fore, not wishing to offend anyone, I tactfully attired myself in shock- ing pink for the registration recep- tion on midsummer's eve.
As with the previous Alumni Colleges, the site for "A Terrible Beauty" was the Alumni House, one of my favorite places to spend five days of intellectual and social indulgence. I find these interludes to be as refreshing as a sea cruise on a luxury liner and heartily applaud the move toward making them an annual event.
At the reception and throughout the course, Brenda Meadows Cooper '65, Alumni College Coordinator, treated us to a pervasive and whimsical Irish ambience. Our pre-course read- ings arrived in emerald envelopes; we wrote in green notebooks; shamrocks decorated our folders and we referred to class schedules printed on green paper; we drank Irish breakfast tea in the mornings, sipped Irish coffee after dinner and quaffed Guiness stout to down our potatoes. We were even provided with green TicTacs! Brenda's flair for detail transforms these mini- courses from a rewarding educa- tional experience to Zing!
Harp lager served in green souvenir mugs certainly started the week with spirit. Not that Alumni College participants need much spiriting up. Alumni College is addictive: I myself have at- tended all three of the mini- courses and confess I would sign up for any future escapade even if the topic were "Life on the Under- side of a Carpet." And I am not the only aficionado.
Alumni College has begun to generate its own alumni. Several veterans of World War I returned for this year's excursion to Ireland. Marilib Barwick Sink '44 brought her husband. Jack, along this time. And as on any college campus, romance flourishes: Ireland alumni Karen Ljung Myatt '81 (MA) and Christopher Frost were married in October appropriately enough at the Alumni House.
Even the professors are returnees. Dr. Ronald Cassell of the history department and Dr. Keith Cushman of the English de- partment, who led us across the battlefields of the Great War in 1984, unravelled some of the complexities of Ireland for us this summer. Ron and Keith aug- mented their lectures on Irish
history and literature with films, poetry readings, recordings of Yeats, vintage newsreels and en- tertainment by a true Irishman singing and piping traditional Irish music. The sparkling dialogue between our musician and another Irish visitor who spoke to us about the Irish language was as enter- taining as the music.
Mary Tom Hoffler, a retired Greensboro schoolteacher, credits this diversity of experiences so well orchestrated by professors and staff as the key to "A Terrible Beauty's" success. Ron and Keith, with Brenda's inspired assistance, certainly gave us a well-balanced look into that troubled land focusing on the last century.
Our time in Ireland ended — how else? With a wake. Ed Tweedy '78 (MEd), who lived for some time in Ireland, shared a long-hoarded bottle of Irish mead with us at this last gathering. Good food, good drink, good company, loud songs, raucous laughter, some semi-original poetry, an occasional tear, and then Ireland, farewell.
Alumni Travel in 1988
Trips are in the works for these destinations: Kenya, Mexico City, Dutch Waterways, Bermuda, Swiss Bavaria, China, and Spain/Portu- gal. Write the Alumni Office for in- formation.
On matters pwrtaining to the Alumni Association and its programs, write to the Alumni Office. To contact Alumni News, write to the University Publications Office. Both offices may be reached at this address: Alumni House, UNCG Campus, Greensboro, NC 27412-5001.
Alumni News
Spring • 1988
129
LETTERS
T O
THE
EDITOR
Dorothea Phelps Btiltnuiu 'IS. third hviii ri^hl, wa< surrounded In/ her einssiiuites one tine Suiulm/ in 1915 or 1916. The granite pillars, one of whieh may be seen just behind the students, still mark the entrance on College Avenue today.
Dear Editor:
My mother, Dorothy Phelps Bultman '18, found some pictures of the College from the years she was there. She was going to throw them away, but I told her I would send them to you.
Mother went to college at the age of fourteen but did not take a full schedule of courses the first year. She lived in North Spencer one year and worked in the office of Mrs. King who was in charge of student activities.
Mother lives in Sumter, SC, now. I'm going to ask her about other remembrances and see if she has other photographs.
Dorothea Bultman Wray '44
Gasionia, NC
Editorial note: We are grateful to have
the photographs Mrs. Bultman kept since her
days at UNCG — or, for her, the State Normal
and Industrial College. We cherish such photo- graphs, for they tell stories about our alma mater that we learn from no other source. I invite other alumni to submit photography from earlier days, too.
Dear Editor:
No other time has ever been so exciting for The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. We have a gifted faculty and top-notch students. Our graduate and undergraduate programs are growing and achieving national recognition. Work is under way on the building of a new Art Center and Physical Activities Complex and on the remodeling of the cafeteria. All of this is the result of the caring, commitment, and generosity of the entire university community.
The legacy of UNCG is not only superior teaching and academic
integrity, but also an involved and committed alumni. As alumni, we can make a particularly significant impact on the future of our Uni- versity. That is why I am urging alumni to increase their support for UNCG. As our University grows in its ability to educate, so, too, grows its spirit and resolve to prepare tomorrow's leaders for the demands of our society. These students are counting on us to build a university in which the finest faculty and equipment are readily available.
Many alumni have answered this challenge and expanded their gifts to the University, and I wish to thank them for that. Although alumni giving has increased substantially in the past few years, the University continues to have needs which remain unfulfilled. Our crucial gifts provide for student scholarships, faculty development initiatives, laboratory equipment, library materials, and campus enhancements. The needs are great, and our willingness to meet these needs will pave the way for generations of students to come. I ask once again for alumni to support UNCG — as gener- ously as circumstances allow — and truly make a difference in UNCG's tomorrow.
Gregory S. Greer '80
Davidson, NC Chairman, Annual Giving Council
Ori I Alumni News JyJ I Spring
1988
ALUMNI
BUSINESS
RECORDING SECRETARY
KAREN MCNEIL-MILLER '80, '81 MEd, Greens- boro. Director, The Piedmont School, High Point. "Young alumni perceive that their input and involve- ment is not crucial. This is an inaccurate perception and one that must be changed." Karen has been a member of the Black Alumni Council since 1985 and is pres- ently co-chair. She is a member of the interviewing committee for Competitive Scholarships. Previ- ously she was Black Alumni representative to the Alumni Board of Trustees and a member of the Alumni/Student Relations Committee. From 1983- 85 she taught at The Piedmont School, a school for students with learning disabilities. She served as assistant director from 1984-86. She is a member of both the Greensboro chapter of the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities and the North Carolina chapter of the Council for Exceptional Children. A cum laude graduate of UNCG, she was a member of Golden Chain Honor Society.
SUE ORMOND SINGLETON '59, Wilmington. Owner, The Yardage Shoppe, Greenville. "Serving on the UNCG Alumni Board would provide an opportu- nity for me to repay my debt of gratitude for the education I received." Sue was a member of the Prospectus III Committee for Beaufort County and an officer of the Beaufort County Alumni Chapter. She also served as the Alumni Scholarship Committee. After gradu- ation, she participated in the International 4-H Youth Exchange Program in Panama and worked as a 4-H agent and social worker in Washington County. A home school coordinator with Washington City Schools for two years, she taught home economics at Washington Senior High School froml969-72. From 1974-80, she was a regional nutrition program director for five counties in eastern North Carolina. She received a master of science degree from East Carolina University in 1983. An international Gideon Auxiliary member for the past ten years, she is active in the Southern Baptist Church.
TRUSTEE: DISTRICT TWO
ROZELLE ROYALL WICKS '53, Maysville. School-Community Relations Coordinator, Jones County School System. "The broad academic require- ments and opportunities for developing leadership skills are just two of the many things I appreciate about UNCG. 1 would like to serve a great institution that had such a profound influence on me." After graduation, Rozelle taught in the public schools until 1967. She was teacher/headmaster at Onslow Academy in Jacksonville from 1968-83. She is a board member and past president of the Jones County Arts Council and the Jones County Historical Society. She is a member of the Jones County Interagency Council. She serves as chairman of the county schools accreditation unit and as county chairman of the Morehead Scholarship Committee. A section leader in the Craven Community Chorus, she is organist, choir director, and chairman of her Presby- terian church women's club. She has done further study at East Carolina University. Named Teacher of the Year in her school system, she has received Governor's Volunteer Awards from the Hunt and Martin administrations.
JOHN EDWIN WILEY '73, '76 MA, Greenville. Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratory, East Carolina University School of Medicine. "The future of UNCG depends upon the enthusiastic and generous support of its alumni. I would welcome the opportunity to increase my contribution to the University by serving on the Alumni Board." John received his PhD from NC State University in 1981. A biomedical research associate at St. Paul's College, Lawrenceville, VA, from 1981- 82, he was an NIH postdoctoral trainee at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin-Madison from 1982-84. A diplomate and member of the American Board of Medical Genetics, he is also a member of the Kiwanis Club.
Alumni News Spring • 1988
31
TRUSTEE: DISTRICT THREE
RUTH CROWDER McSWAlN '45, Wilmington. Self-emploved educational consultant. "As a past director of guuiaiice scn^ices at a North Carolina nigh school, I continued to see the best students selecting my braitch of the University system. I continue daily to appreciate what UNCG has meant to me, and I sincerely hope that I have transferred tlmt feeling to others. It would he an honor to serve our University as an Alumni Board Member." Ruth received an MEd in counseling in 1973 and a certification in supervision in 1980, both from UNCC. Previously, she was a member of the Reynolds Scholars Interviewing Committee. She has been a health educator with the Charlotte YWCA; a teacher in Raleigh, Bertie County, and Rocky Mount; a guidance counselor at Rowan County High School from 1969-79; and a teacher/counselor in five Piedmont counties from 1979-82. Presently, she is future issues chairman of the North Carolina School Counselors Board and special programs direc- tor of the North Carolina Association of Counseling and Develop- ment. A former president of the North Carolina School Counselors Board, she was a recipient of their professional service award, now named the Ruth C. McSwain Distinguished Service Award.
EMILY TEAGUE JOHNSTON '46, '52 MEd, Clin- ton. Retired. "Our local alumni chapter has focused on recruitment by giving a tuition scholarship for the last twenty-one years. It would be a challenge to me to serve on the Alumni Association Board to help other local chapters becotne a more viable force for UNCG." Emily is vice chairman of the Sampson County UNCG Alumni Chapter and is a member of their scholar- ship committee. Previously, she was chairman of the chapter. From 1946-52, she was a home economics «.,
teacher in Albemarle and Goldsboro; she was a home demonstration extension agent in Sampson County from 1952- 58. A guidance counselor with the Sampson County Schools from 1963-69, she was program administrator for exceptional children there from 1969-85. She is an elder and circle chairman at Graves Memorial Presbyterian Church, vice president of the Clinton Garden Club, and a member of the Clinton Woman's Club.
TRUSTEE: DISTRICT SEVEN
Studies, istrative the Year Teaching
CAROLE ANNETTE AVERS '68, Pinnacle. Teacher and Chairman of the Social Studies Department, Gentry Middle School, Mt. Airy. "The four years I was a student at UNCG were exciting, challenging, and cul- turally enriching. As a candidate for the Alumni Board, I would like for UNCG's tradition of excellence in educa- tion to contirnie to inspire students as we enter the twenty-first century." Annette has been a teacher in <mI the Mt. Airy Schools since graduation; she received her MA degree in 1975 from Appalachian State University. She holds membership in the Surry NCAE Advisory Council and the NC Council of Social Presently she serves as treasurer and member of the admin- council at Mount Zion Methodist Church. Named Teacher of at Gentry Middle School, she also received an Excellence in ; Award in 1987 for Local History.
REBECCA KASUBOSKI COOK '66, Clemmons. Mathematics teacher. West Forsyth High School, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. "UNCG alumni are busy, involved, energetic people who impres- sively manage organizations nationwide. The alumni continue to he UNCG's greatest untapped resource! Mobilizing alumni toward actively being involved in UNCG causes must be a priority goat of the Alumni Board." Becky is a member of the Century Club, of the Advocates Annual Giving Program, and the Chancellor's Focus Group at UNCG. She pre- viously served as chair of the Nominating Committee of the Alumni Board of Trustees and on the Aubrey Lee Brooks Scholarship Committee. She has taught in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools since 1970 and has studied further at Wake Forest University and UNCG. Active in her church, she is the first woman member of the Provincial Elders Conference, Moravian Church Southern Prov- ince. She is also a member of the Provincial Financial Board, the Board of Evangelism and Home Missions, the NEA, NCAE, Forsyth Association of Educators, and the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics. In 1982-83 she was named Winston-Salem/Forsyth County's Teacher of the Year and in 1983-84 the Winston-Salem/ Forsyth County Outstanding Mathematics Educator.
O ^ I Alumni News ^ ^ I Spring
1988
TRUSTEE: DISTRICT EIGHT
CAROLYN HUNTER WALKER '61, Hickory. Receptionist, Gallery of Homes, Hickory. "Many of us feel that we would welcome an occasion to give to the University something other than a check once a year. Serving as a trustee certainly affords us this opportunity. To me, being an alumni trustee would be very rewarding and challenging." Carolyn has been a member of the Nominating Committee of the Alumni Association. She was a teacher at Ravenscroft School, Raleigh, from 1960-61, and at Hampton Roads Academy, Newport News, VA, from 1961-63. From 1977-81, she was a realtor with Century 21-ChappeIl Realty, Hickory. Pres- ently, she is altar guild chairman at Ascension Episcopal Church. She served on the task force to establish the Hickory Soup Kitchen. She was a member of the Hickory Community Theater Board and the Catawba Memorial Hospital Auxiliary. A previous member of the St. Mary's College Parents' Council, she was membership chairman of both the Hickory Service League and the Hickory Community Con- cert Association.
ALICE McDowell TEMPLETON '40, Advance.
Retired. "Since the University took a chance on me in 1936 when it accepted me as a student, provided me with the opportunity for a good education, and even provided me with a job to help attain it, I would like to be a part of the future of UNCG. As a member of the Alumni Board of Trustees, I feel it would be my duty to support any program that ivould benefit the University so that it zvill continue togroivaud improve" Alice is serving on the gift committee to commemorate the 50th anniver- sary of her class. After graduation, she was a laboratory technician in Lumberton, Henderson, and Mooresville. She owned and managed an apartment complex in Asheville from 1970-86. Alice did further study at UNCA and participated in Elder- hostel in Ireland, Scotland, and England. Presently vice president of Lutheran Christian Women at her church, she was active in the Asheville Pilot Club International.
TRUSTEE: OUT-OF-STATE
JULIA ALEXANDER KAUFMAN '47, Cam- bridge, MA. Volunteer. "An important role for board metnbers is to be alert to changing conditions and needs and energetic in pursuing initiatives to meet them. As but tali one example among many (reflecting my own interest t" and involvement in continuing adult education pro- ^ grams), I believe that the Board is uniquely suited to en- courage and expand programs that reinforce our under- graduate experience and strengthen ties to the Associa- tion membership and the broader community to our mutual benefit." Julia was a secretary with Colonial Williamsburg from 1948-52 and an administrative assistant with The RAND Corporation from 1952-62. In 1979 she was acting executive director with the Flaschner Judicial Institute of Boston. Presently, she is president of the Massachusetts Council for Public Justice, a member of the Flaschner Judicial Institute Academic Board, and a member of the Supreme Judicial Court Committee on Judicial Evaluations. On the board of the American Judicature Society from 1978-86, she was a member of the Harvard Law School Visiting Committee and the Governor's Working Group on Alternative Dispute Resolution.
CATHY ELLEN KRINICK '75, Newport News, VA. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney, State of Virginia. "Although I have maintained very close ties with UNCG since my graduation, serving as an Alumni Association Board Member will enable me to strengthen those ties and do even more for the University. Having organized an alumni reunion in the Tidewater, VA, area has made me more aware of how many alumni are living outside North Carolina and that more needs to be done to include them in the Association's affairs. I feel that I have the perspective of an out-of-state alumna yet live close enough to Greensboro to actively participate in the Association's upcoming events. I look forward to serving on your Board if elected." Cathy has served as an Alumni Recruiting Advisor for UNCG. She received her law degree from Wake Forest University in 1978 and has held her present position since then. Presently she is a board member of several organizations: Child Sexual Abuse Task Force, Legal Aid Society, American Lung Association (local chapter). Peninsula Sym- phony, and the Junior League of Hampton Roads Community Advi- sory Board. She is a life member of the National Council of Jewish Women.
50
'Years Ago
in Alumnae News.
The February 1938 issue of Alumnae Nezvs was a number so rich in personal notes that it may as well have been named the Woman's College People magazine. So full is the issue, that, even though its 8 pt. tvpe runs margin to margin for 21 pages, only three short articles and a book review break through the achievements of faculty, students, and alumnae. A page and a half, interestingly, lists the names of all the recent visitors who signed the Alumnae House Guest Book. Two pages are devoted to faculty notes; nearly three fall under the heading of "The Family Tree," in which alumnae are highlighted; another page and a half are reports of alumnae chapter meetings; it took more than a page to note the whereabouts of the most recent graduating class, the Class of 1937; and seven pages are reserved for class notes and obituaries.
These nuggets were gleaned from the February 1938 number:
■ The new American Women, a sort of separate Who's Who for women, includes the names of several members of the Woman's College faculty: Dr. Helen Barton, head of the Department of Mathematics; Mary Channing Coleman, head of the Department of Physical Education; Bernice Draper, associate professor of History; Margaret Edwards, head of the Department of Home Economics; Harriet Elliott, Dean of Women; Dr. Anna M. Gove, physician and professor of Hygiene; Minnie L. Jamison, counselor; Nettie Sue Tillett, associate professor of English; Maude Williams, associate professor of Physiology; Dr. Elizabeth Duffy, professor of Psychology; Mereb Mossman, associate professor of Sociology.
■ The first issue of Chanteclere, the only French newspaper in North Carolina, published monthly by the foreign language students of Woman's College, will appear the last week in February. You are invited to send your subscription (twenty-five cents for the semester) to Miss Wilma Levine, Business Manager. Rebecca Price is Editor.
■ Janet Murphy, freshman from Montclair, New Jersey, is the one freshman, out of 534 new girls this year, who passed the four physical health tests, given by the Department of Physical Education, to be rated as "perfect." The tests are posture, feet, motor skill, and general physical condition.
■ Julia Blauvelt ['26], now Mrs. B.G. McGrane, is a poet. A decade ago, she was editor of Coraddi and one of its largest and best contributors. She was also a top Quill Clubber.... So it isn't any wonder that Julia's work is accepted regularly — in fact, about ten good publications have taken her verse in the last year. The last
four consecutive numbers of The Ladies Home Journal include her work.
MCB '74
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NEWS
5 Uvears A
in Alumnae Ni
The February 1938 issue of Alu personal notes that it may as - College People magazine. So full i type runs margin to margin for 21 book review break through the acl alumnae. A page and a half, inten visitors who signed the Alumnae 1 devoted to faculty notes; nearly th Tree," in which alumnae are highl reports of alumnae chapter meetin whereabouts of the most recent gr seven pages are reserved for class
These nuggets were gleaned from
■ The new American Women, a includes the names of several m Dr. Helen Barton, head of the Di Channing Coleman, head of the Bernice Draper, associate profes of the Department of Home Eco Dr. Anna M. Gove, physician ar Jamison, counselor; Nettie Sue 1 Maude Williams, associate prof( Duffy, professor of Psychology; Sociology.
■ The first issue of Chanteclere, t Carolina, published monthly by Woman's College, will appear t invited to send your subscriptio to Miss Wilma Levine, Business
■ Janet Murphy, freshman fro freshman, out of 534 new girls tl health tests, given by the Depar| rated as "perfect." The tests ar general physical condition.
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■ Julia Blauvelt ['26], now Mrs [OREGON RULE CO.
she was editor of Coraddi and oi
contributors. She was also a toj
wonder that Julia's work is acce
good publications have taken her verse in the last year. The last
four consecutive numbers of The Ladies Home journal include her work.
MCB 74
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