Oral history interview with Dr. Terence Nile, 2016

Brittany H.: My name is Brittany Hedrick and today is Wednesday, December 14th, 2016. I am in Parish Library with Dr. Terry Nile to conduct an oral history interview for the UNCG Institutional Memory Collection.

Brittany H.: Thank you Dr. Nile for participating in this project and sharing your experiences with me. I'd like to start the interview by asking you about your childhood. Could you tell me when and where you were born?

Dr. Terry Nile: I was born on February the 26th, 1947. And I was born in a town call Redruth, (Red-Ruth) in Cornwall which is in the United Kingdom.

Brittany H.: Oh, okay. Could you tell me about your family and -

Dr. Terry Nile: I was an only child. My father was an engineer and my mother was a housewife.

Brittany H.: Okay. And did you have any brothers and sisters?

Dr. Terry Nile: No, I was an only child.

Brittany H.: That's right, yes. Okay. And where did you go to high school.

Dr. Terry Nile: I went to high school at Redruth County Grammar School in Cornwall.

Brittany H.: Okay. And did you enjoy school?

Dr. Terry Nile: Yes and no. Yeah, no. Some bits I enjoyed and other bits I didn't enjoy. I think like most people's high school.

Brittany H.: Well, what were your favorite subjects?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well believe it or not, early high school I really enjoyed French, geography, and history. But then towards the end of my high school days I made a switch to chemistry, physics, and math because I really missed chemistry.

Brittany H.: Okay. And when did you graduate from high school?

Dr. Terry Nile: 1966.

Brittany H.: Okay. Could you tell me a little bit about your education after high school?

Dr. Terry Nile: After high school I went to the University of Sussex. Excuse me, let me clear my throat here. University of Sussex which is in Brighton, about 300 miles from my home. And I got a Bachelor's in Science in 1969, and a 00:02:00Master's in Science in 1970. Then I came to the US to UNCG, went back to the UK in 1972, and got my PhD, my DPhil in fact, in 1975.

Brittany H.: And what made you decide to go into higher education?

Dr. Terry Nile: I came to UNCG in 1970 as an instructor. It was a position arranged by the English-Speaking Union, the Commonwealth in conjunction with the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. And UNCG offered me a job through that program as an instructor with a Master's. And I came here with the intention of teaching, staying for one year. I really wanted to see the United States with my wife. That's the main reason I came to be honest. And the reason I came to Greensboro is because they offered me a job and nowhere else did.

Dr. Terry Nile: But it's very fortuitous because as soon as I started teaching at UNCG, I realized that that's what I really wanted to do in my life. I really found my niche in vocation. But in order to teach in the university I really needed a PhD and so I went back to the UK and finished my PhD, or Dphil as it was at Sussex. In about two years, two and a half years, and came back as an assistant professor at UNCG in 1975.

Brittany H.: Okay. In the chemistry department?

Dr. Terry Nile: It was the Department of Chemistry then and subsequently became the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. But that's much further down the line.

Brittany H.: All right. So could you tell me about your first days on campus? Or what about your first days in the United States? Was it what you expected?

Dr. Terry Nile: Yes. I think it was. It was 1970 when we came over and 00:04:00international travel wasn't anywhere near as popular or easy as it is now. And we got a charter flight from the UK to New York. And landing in New York was a real surprise and everything we'd expected it to be. And then we caught a Greyhound bus to Greensboro which was an experience which was unusual. It was also in August and we had packed all our winter clothes because in the UK August starts to get chilly and of course we arrived in Greensboro it was extremely hot. And we were unpacked, put up, in the Alumni House for the first two nights we were here. And it was ... Yes, it was quite an experience. It was very exciting. It was very novel. Very new. And very interesting.

Dr. Terry Nile: The Petty Science Building was being renovated. Nobody told me that and my wife and I wandered over there the night we arrived on campus to 00:05:00find that the whole building was a construction site which was interesting. But we stayed and adapted to the culture.

Dr. Terry Nile: So yes, it was a really an adventure, an exciting adventure.

Brittany H.: And so your first few days on campus?

Dr. Terry Nile: Yeah, that was interesting too because I think we arrived maybe on a Sunday and then the next day it was Labor Day. Is that right? The one that's the end of the summer? I can't remember which one that is now. National holiday.

Brittany H.: I think so.

Dr. Terry Nile: And we were supposed to get breakfast but of course, it was Labor Day so there wasn't ... The whole university was shut. And so we really had to explore Greensboro and find somewhere to eat on Labor Day which in those days was much more quiet than any day these days. And so that was an interesting experience. The culture shock, of course, was incredible. We had no money. And 00:06:00then I think on my Department Head, Pete Puterbaugh had us over for dinner and it was really very welcoming and I really fell in love with the department. It was really a nice experience to have that.

Dr. Terry Nile: We had no money. We expected to be able to get an advance in my salary but we couldn't do that and so we had exactly ... I think I had $300 to get from New York to here and live for a month. But fortuitously, my Department Head overheard an Englishman in the queue at the bank, in a line at the bank, and he was going back to the UK. His family had gone so he had an empty house so we stayed with him for the first month until we could actually afford to rent something. So it was quite an interesting experience.

Brittany H.: Okay. Were there any social or academic events that stand out in 00:07:00your mind during your time here at UNCG?

Dr. Terry Nile: Oh, a lot. I think the early days, the department had a very vibrant social life. There were parties at any available opportunity. Halloween, Christmas, anything you name we'd have a party. And they were very social, very friendly, very precarious. It was a great feeling of being part of a family, I think, in those days. And so there was a really vibrant.

Dr. Terry Nile: And then they used to have faculty dinner clubs, gourmet clubs, which we joined and there was a lot of social activity. So we really felt very welcome in the initial years.

Dr. Terry Nile: Going on from there, it's just been a lot of really interesting social interactions. It's hard to think of anything that really stands out. I 00:08:00think when we got the new science building, the Sullivan Building, as it's now called, that was an amazing event for the department and for the university which really stands out in my mind.

Dr. Terry Nile: Lots of graduations, lots of commencements, lots of students. The usual excitement about promotions, awards, and those kind of things that came along as I progressed through the ranks.

Brittany H.: And how are universities here different than in the UK?

Dr. Terry Nile: I think when we came in 1970, they were really large differences but those have narrowed over the years, and I think UK universities have become more like American. The major difference is when we came were that only a small 00:09:00percentage of people went to university. I think when we went in the mid 60's, then I think about 9% of the population went. It was very competitive to get in. When Julie and I went to the University of Sussex, there were 25 applications for each spot they had and so competition to get in was very fierce. The idea of selecting courses was not really an option for us in those days. We were pretty much told what courses we had to take. We had no real options. So it was prescribed and you went through. You had to do it in three years, that was the time frame for a Bachelor's Degree. Straight through.

Dr. Terry Nile: The other thing, the education was sponsored by the government and so I got a grant to go to university. It wasn't a lot of money but it was 00:10:00enough to eek out an existence without having to work. So that was a big difference. And that went through all the way to the end of a PhD so you could get grants to do your doctoral studies, graduate studies, as well. And so that was I think a really big difference.

Dr. Terry Nile: Another big difference is the fact that after three years of study, there were finals, final finals and those were the only things that counted towards your final grade for your degree. The rest of the exams you took could be used as a tie-breaker but the main thing was how you performed on finals. But that's a lot different to the US system.

Dr. Terry Nile: Well also you specialized at university. I did nothing but chemistry with a little bit of physics and a little bit of math. Just enough to support the chemistry courses I was taking and that was about it. So no general 00:11:00education requirements. That was all taken care of in high school. In high school we worked incredibly hard and I think I worked harder academically in high school than I did any other time in my career, ever.

Dr. Terry Nile: So there were a lot of differences. But since then, the two systems have drifted closer together. More people go to the university in the UK now. And they do have courses, course credits, selection of courses just as they do here now. So it's become a little more free, I think, than it was in my day.

Brittany H.: So you had to do more with students than you originally anticipated?

Dr. Terry Nile: What here?

Brittany H.: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Terry Nile: Yes, oh yeah. Yes, it was amazing. I mean at a British university, the thought that you could actually talk to a professor was almost foreign. I mean there were very few professors who would engage you in conversation as an undergraduate. And even as a graduate student, outside your own mentor. So the idea that students would come and talk to me was really 00:12:00shocking. But wonderful. I mean I found ... I thought it was a fresh breath of air into the academic system. And I thought that the system where students could go at their own pace if they wanted to and could also have some choice about which courses they took was liberating, too. The downside is, you lose that concentration of the subject matter in your major so it's a trade-off I think.

Dr. Terry Nile: By the end of my Bachelor's in the UK, I'd probably done chemistry equivalent to a Master's at least, maybe more. Just because that was my sole focus. So again, it's a trade-off. But the freedom of choice and speed in which you progress I think is a wonderful attribute of the US system.

Brittany H.: And what were your areas of focus in teaching, practice, and scholarship?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well I came first as an instructor. It was really just to teach labs. So it was very basic and I didn't do any research. And then when I came back as an Assistant Professor in 1975, then I think the nice thing about UNCG was that and it has been even today I think, I look at it as a big-small school or a small-big school. And what I enjoyed was the importance of teaching in the department. We didn't have hundreds and thousands of majors so we got to know them very well and interact with them which was very pleasant.

Dr. Terry Nile: But also we had the facilities to be able to do research and offer the undergraduates and graduate students a wider range of options in terms of doing undergraduate research, which has been one of my passions here. My 00:14:00actual area is ... I research is between inorganic and organic chemistry. It's kind of the interface of those two. But I taught almost always exclusively inorganic courses as well as general courses. And so over the years, I think I've worked with about 300 undergraduate researchers in my labs. More than half of whom have gone onto graduate school or to professional schools to complete their education. Several, probably five or six, are now professors at other universities and colleges.

Dr. Terry Nile: And I really enjoyed working with the students in a lab setting almost one-on-one which is great for the students and also for the professors who learn a lot and you keep current with pop culture or modern culture. So your 00:15:00students keep you young I think, which is wonderful. And so that's been one of the big foci of my life here at UNCG. I won a couple of teaching awards of which I'm very proud. And I really enjoy being in the classroom whether it be a large section of general chemistry. I think up to 220 students in one lecture. All the way to the one-on-one interaction and undergraduate research which I found really, as I said before, really rewarding.

Dr. Terry Nile: So I think that's ... forgot your question. Just get off on attention.

Brittany H.: No, you're fine. What were the awards that you won?

Dr. Terry Nile: I won the UNCG Excellence Award for Junior Faculty Member very 00:16:00early on, 1978 or 1979 I think. And then I won the UNC system wide award. The UNC Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. So I won that, sometime later. I think I was the first one to get it at UNCG. Only because that was when the program started. I mean I wasn't the -

Brittany H.: Well that's really cool.

Dr. Terry Nile: Yeah, it was. It was a nice recognition and yeah.

Brittany H.: Okay. Are there any professors, fellow coworkers, in your department who made an impression on you?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well yeah. I think the one person who really influenced me here was Pete Puterbaugh, Walter Puterbaugh who was Head of the department when I came. And I think he was one of the reasons I came back to UNCG. He was a wonderful man, inspirational, great personality, great teacher. Just a wonderful 00:17:00man. And he was a wonderful mentor to me and to other people in the department sort of guiding our careers with an almost unseen hand but a rather firm one. So he would really help further your career and just had this incredible enthusiasm for life which makes it even more surprising that he committed suicide in 1981 which is ... You can't explain things like that.

Dr. Terry Nile: So he was really the biggest influence of my academic career here. And in the faculty at the same time, when I came, it was really interesting. The faculty was changing over from the women's college which UNCG had been until the mid 60's, to UNC and they hired a lot of very good young 00:18:00people in our department, and I think campus-wide as the university had grown very quickly. And there was a lot of really good people in the department. Just [inaudible 00:18:16] shows up the change hadn't really gone too far. When I first got here in 1970, the student body was probably 95% female. And my first Friday morning in class, the whole class was in curls because there were no men on campus. They were getting ready for Friday night and so they were dressed casually and with their hair ready to go out in the evenings.

Dr. Terry Nile: Another interesting fact, I found, was that because it had been a women's college, it was sort of the finishing school for gentle ladies of North Carolina and other states around, but North Carolina. And so the quality 00:19:00of the students were really good. These are the people who these days who would probably go to Chapel Hill or Duke. But because of the culture, they came to UNCG. And likewise, the faculty was astounding because in those days, women academics had very, very few outlets available to then. And so women's colleges attracted the best female minds of UNCG or WC, attracted the best female minds in the country. And I was really astounded by the quality of the faculty. And it blew up my stereotypes and I think it changed my life forever because I was a minority and I knew a little bit how that felt. It was a very female-dominated society and I really appreciated that because it's given me the understanding of what it feels like. And I've always been a champion of women and minority aspirations ever since, since that time.

Dr. Terry Nile: But yes, I remember I going to faculty meetings and there would be ... If you want to caricaturize them as little old ladies in blue rinses and you think, knitting, and you'd think ... All your stereotypes would say this is someone of not very much importance. But when they spoke and when you saw their academic records, you realized they were some of the brightest people in the country, probably. So it was really kind of an elite outpost at that time. So that was a mind change.

Dr. Terry Nile: So I think Pete Puterbaugh is the main one. There's been just so many other people. Lots and lots of great colleagues across campus and a lot of great administrators, too.

Dr. Terry Nile: So the only other one I think I would say that was Pat Sullivan, the Chancellor. I felt she was the best chancellor that I'd seen here at UNCG in 00:21:00that she had a good personality. She was an academic, which a lot of administrators are not. And she had great personal skills and she had great political skills. She was the first chancellor I'd seen who really took the politics down at UNC general administration and in rally, seriously, and actually worked them very well. And I'm not sure I've seen that in chancellors after her. So I think she was a ... She really made this university something better.

Dr. Terry Nile: They all did I guess, but Bill Moran made the buildings beautiful and then was really responsible for a great surge in building. But yeah, so those are the people I think influenced me the most.

Brittany H.: Do you have any thoughts on the new chancellor, Gilliam?

Dr. Terry Nile: No, I really don't. I retired fully in 2012 and I'd been on 00:22:00phase before that. And I've dropped out of the circles of faculty government and administration that I moved in before. And so I don't really have any feelings for what he's doing. He seems very ... I know probably just as much as you do. He seems very pleasant. He seems very articulate. Haven't seen any great changes which is probably good. But no, I really ... I really don't move in those circles anymore, fortunately.

Brittany H.: Okay. You were talking about the Women's College. So how was the transition to co-education? What was that like?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well I think it had already begun by the time I came here. Although the numbers were still vastly, predominantly women. There was no doubt 00:23:00that the university was going to move towards being co-ed. And they were hiring faculty across the board to kind of further those goals. And it was, I think, rather gradual and rather nice. I don't remember any particular confrontations or big issues on the idea of it becoming integrated. So it was gradual it was again, speaking from a man's perspective, I guess I should always put that qualifier in.

Dr. Terry Nile: I think it changed the university very obviously. As I said, it was an elite institution and now it's just one of the seventeen UNC 00:24:00institutions. So it lost that uniqueness. But I guess it gained diversity not just in terms of sex but in terms of race as well. I mean it was lily white when I came and now it's the largest minority institution in the UNC system. And again, all those things have had their problems and you're aware of lots of them, I'd think. But I think it's progressed in a reasonable fashion. I think it's not there yet, I mean there are issues. But I think that reflects society.

Brittany H.: What was the political atmosphere like when you were here? Anything you remember in particular?

Dr. Terry Nile: You mean within UNCG or in the state?

Brittany H.: I guess both.

Dr. Terry Nile: I think, again, coming to the US in 1970, the race relationships were sort of a little bit on the front burner. I mean being the incident at North Carolina A and T where the National Guard was called in only a few years before we got here. There was a lot of prejudice at the Greensboro Sit-In. The Walgriff episode only a few years before that as well. And then there was of course the Greensboro Massacre later on with the Ku Klux Klan shot down lots of the Communist Worker's Party. And so yeah, it was a time of political unrest, I think.

Dr. Terry Nile: The campus has never struck me as being a particularly political 00:26:00one. Again, going to a UK university in the '60s, then the atmosphere was incredibly radical, it really was. And so by comparison, the student body here almost seemed apolitical in lots of senses. And so I think the political situation was one of change and unrest and I don't really think that effected the campus that much. I think in those days, again UNCG, because it had been a women's college, I think didn't have that tradition of radicalism and it never really became radical. So I saw it as a rather apolitical institution in a rather political state.

Brittany H.: Okay. Well since you have been here for so long, how do you feel about them changing the name of the Aycock Auditorium? Or you may not have any thoughts on it I was just wondering.

Dr. Terry Nile: Yes. I think it really is difficult. I'm glad we've changed it. Let me say that. That's my bottom line but how I get to that feeling is a little bit torturous I think. People like Aycock were people of their time and that came with a lot of baggage. I just wonder what I would have done in that situation, in that environment. I suspect I'd have probably would've been a racist as well. So it's hard to divorce some of his actions and the society they 00:28:00were in. But we can't condone that activity. And so I think, even though it's very traumatic, I think we have to say this person had drawbacks and problems even though he was sort of by the mores of the society an upstanding person. By our standards, by current standards, he was someone we should not be honoring.

Dr. Terry Nile: The problem is how far you go because we all have racists in our pasts. Well, even people from Africa have sort of racism, too. So it's a difficult one. I think how far do you go? Obviously you wouldn't want to name a building after Hitler. I wouldn't want to name one after Jessie Helms but some 00:29:00people might argue that would be appropriate. It's difficult.

Dr. Terry Nile: But, I think once you know that someone has that kind of history, then it's almost a qualitative judgment as to was that enough to remove their name. And I think for Aycock, it probably was. But it's a decision I'd rather not take.

Brittany H.: Are you sure you're not a history professor, too?

Dr. Terry Nile: No. No. I like politics and history, yes. Yeah.

Brittany H.: Okay. There was one question I wanted to ask you. Since you're from the UK and you left your family to come here, how have you kept in touch over the years? Do you go back often?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well I think it just shows how technology has changed because when we first got here, we used to have to communicate by airmail letters. The post office used to sell these flimsy, one page, they were blue, very 00:30:00lightweight blue airmail letters you could actually fold up into a letter and then seal little sticky strips on the ends and do that. So I would write one of those to my mom every other week, every other week, and write one to my grandmother the other week and they would write back. And so there was a seven to eight day delay in transferring news. You could phone, but that was much more difficult than it is now. You had to go through operators. And also it was very expensive. And so that's something you saved up for special occasions like Christmas or birthdays or something like that.

Dr. Terry Nile: And so over the years, it's changed tremendously. We've, I'd say, on average gone back at least once or twice a year. Both our mothers and fathers are both dead now. Joy has a brother and a sister in England right now. 00:31:00I have no other siblings of course. So we go back. I run a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation where we take undergraduates from all over the country now to go to the University of Bristol and Bath to do research for seven weeks in the summer. And so I go back and supervise that. So I'm back probably two to three months every year now. But that's unusual.

Dr. Terry Nile: But yes, we fly back fairly often to keep in touch. It's good to go back. I think living outside of your native culture is good. It allows you to reevaluate your own culture because you see things from a different perspective. And also it gives you a different perspective to view your house culture. And so I think it gives you a great insight into how cultures are sort of internally 00:32:00self-consistent but very different.

Dr. Terry Nile: And now of course with emails, things like that, it's just unbelievably easy to keep in touch. But yeah, we started with airmail letters. That was how we did it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's changed a lot.

Dr. Terry Nile: And flying back then, was really an adventure and it was ... What you've got in economy is now what you get in first class. And now it's like being in a cattle car flying economy back to the UK. So ... But it's much easier, much easier.

Brittany H.: And was your accent a lot stronger when you first arrived?

Dr. Terry Nile: Yes, I think it was. I have a regional accent anyway. I come from Cornwall and the Cornish accent's very noticeable. And here, I was mistaken for an Australian more often than not. But when I go back home, then it doesn't take long before my Cornish accent starts to come back fully, yeah.

Brittany H.: Okay. Well I do want to talk about the Chemistry Department. It's Chemistry and Biochemistry now?

Dr. Terry Nile: Now it is, yeah. And I think, yeah.

Brittany H.: So how has it changed over the time you've been here?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well I think it's changed just like the University has, I think. It was small. I think we were about 10 faculty. We had not a lot of majors. Probably about 15 a year or something like that. And very limited facilities to do research. We did and got publications and stuff like that.

Dr. Terry Nile: And it's just grown. Particularly for the sciences. Since the mid 90's, there was a science planning effort which I was part of, which kind of mapped the future for science at UNCG. And as a consequence of that, we went from having just a Bachelor's and a Master's which was very tiny, the Master's 00:34:00in chemistry. Since then, we've acquired ... Become the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. And we had Bachelor's and Master's in chemistry and biochemistry but we also have a PhD as of about 2008, I think. Something like that. And so the level of instrumentation of facilities with the new building are just vastly different to what we had in Petty. It was really pretty cruddy in Petty to do science. It was never designed to do science.

Dr. Terry Nile: And so it really has grown just as the University has, exponentially. And our department really has become one of the flagship research departments in the university. It's bringing in huge amounts of money now. We've hired some very good young faculty who are doing great research. I still go into the department every day. I work in the afternoons with undergraduates still. I have, I think five, this year doing research. And I love doing it myself as well 00:35:00because the instrumentation and the equipment is so fantastic. It's the height of the time in my life. And so it's really a nice twilight of my career.

Dr. Terry Nile: But yes, it has grown and I think it mirrors the University. It's become more professional, more oriented towards graduate programs, more oriented in research. And I think the conflict that it faces doing that, it's difficult to keep the emphasis on interactions with undergraduates which was the thing that had attracted me to UNCG in the first place. So I think we've done a good job. But it is a struggle. We still have about 50 undergraduates doing research in any semester. But the inability to hire new faculty has really 00:36:00limited the interaction between the faculty and the general chemistry students. We use a lot more lecturers and instructors than we used to. In the old days, faculty taught everything. But now, because of problems of funding ...

Dr. Terry Nile: So I think that's kind of a cloud on the horizon is the emphasis on part-time staff and I think this is a national issue. Because it's cheaper. No benefits, all those kinds of things. But I think in the end, it hurts the education. So it's been a sort of incredible ride. I've sort of gone from I think the prehistoric era in terms of science at UNCG to the 21st century. And 00:37:00it's been a lot of fun. A lot of hard work and a lot of heartaches, but it really is amazing to see where we are now.

Brittany H.: Do you ever wish that lecture classes could be smaller?

Dr. Terry Nile: Yes. I mean all the data shows that the smaller the class size, the better the experience. But again, it's that inevitable trade-off. Sort of to staff, that kind of effort, with full-time faculty, and not use graduate students or lectures and instructors to do it. Just couldn't be afforded I'm afraid. And so once you've made that conclusion, then it's a series of compromises how far do you go along the drag?

Dr. Terry Nile: And historically, sciences have always had large lecture sessions. I don't really understand why. I mean English teaches English 101 with sections of 20 or 30. But if we tried to do that, all hell would break loose. So there's different cultures, again. The thing about the science courses is you may have a large lecture session which obviously is not as good. But you often have smaller lab sections, which again, allows a little bit more interaction.

Dr. Terry Nile: But again, we have very ... I think almost none of our general chemistry, lower level lab course sections are taught by faculty anymore. Again, when I first started, they all were. Of course we had very little remaining research obligations. So it's a slippery slope. It's compromise. I wish it weren't so. And I'm not sure that ... I've taught classes from 5 through as I 00:39:00said, 220 and I enjoy them all. They're very different. The upper-level small classes it's more the information that you're trying to transfer is the challenge whereas with a large class of 100, 200, it's more like being on the stage. It really is being part of the entertainment business. Hopefully with some information being transferred. So yes, I wish it could be but I don't think realistically it ever will be.

Dr. Terry Nile: Unless you want to go to a school like Guilford. You know Guilford has organic classes, 25, you know? But then you're paying $40,000, $50,000 dollars a year to go there. Here we're paying, I don't know, $8000 or something. So you get what you pay for. Given the limitations of UNCG, I can't see it happening. I'd love for it to be so. Just think about the buildings you'd 00:40:00have to have. I mean if we had to do all that teaching, we'd need a campus 10 times the size of our current one. So such is life.

Brittany H.: I remember taking biology as an undergrad and just being so claustrophobic in there. There was so many people.

Dr. Terry Nile: Yeah, I know. I know. It is hard.

Brittany H.: Well could you tell me about the type of students you've had in your department over the years? Now I remember you telling me about the curlers in the hair. I thought that was funny. But how has it changed over time? Do you think you have good students in the department?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well, yeah. I think we do have very good students in the 00:41:00department. And I think we serve the population well. We do an incredible job. I think that the teaching that we do is good. I think sort of when you get to be my age, you have opinions and you're not quite sure whether they're because you're old and old people tend to be more conservative and always look back and say it was better in the good old days. But I do think there are students, unfortunately, are less well-prepared academically for university. And that means we can do less. So it's kind of the trickle up idea. They're not getting the education they need in high school to be successful at university and that means they're not getting the education at university that enables them to be 00:42:00successful for graduate school or for the workforce.

Dr. Terry Nile: There's been, I think, an erosion of standards. Again, I'm sounding like an old fart and so I'm not sure whether that's because I am one or whether I'm saying is true. But there's been a change in the way education is viewed. There is a frightening theory with university administrators. It seems in the UK they call it "bums on seats." So you have to get the next big enrollment so you get the maximum money. And there's a weakening of standards. I'll be honest, I think there has been ... There's no doubt, over the years. I've looked back and saw my old exams and some of my old syllabi from the 70's 00:43:00and students today would all fail, I suspect. Or close to it.

Dr. Terry Nile: The students are as bright. I'm not saying that at all. They're as bright and as eager to learn. But I think we've had a great disservice to them by focusing on high enrollment and high retention. Again, this probably goes back to my British background. And again, the year I grew up in Britain where the idea was you sank or you swam, you threw 100 people into the pool and the 10 that come out are the ones that go onto the next level who are then thrown into another pool and then see the next one who is going to survive. And it's brutal. It was brutal. And here, everybody gets thrown into the pool and 00:44:00everybody gets taken out of the pool and put onto the next pool and then put onto the next pool. And there's not that ...

Dr. Terry Nile: When I was Head of the department, I'd have parents come to me and essentially say, "We paid for our son to take this course. Why didn't he get an A?" I mean really. And that's the attitude now. It's like you can ... Something you go to a shop. You pay your money, you get your A. If you don't, then it's the institution's problem. Not Johnny or Jimmy or anybody else's problem. And I felt like saying, "Well, you know I could go on the basketball court and practice 20 hours a day, give it 150%, and I still wouldn't be Michael Jordan." There has to be a level which needs to be reached. We don't all have 00:45:00the same gifts. And so I see power in the universities role against going back to my UK days as weeding out ... Well not weeding out but sort of ... Anyway, I'm beginning to sound like a fascist. I'll stop.

Brittany H.: So there's ... You're saying it's not as competitive as it should be?

Dr. Terry Nile: I think ... Yes, I think I am saying that. No, I'm saying standards should be realistic and upheld. It's not enough to want it and to try as hard as you can. There is an ultimate standard you have to achieve to move onto the next level. Again, when I was in high school, sounding like Terry 00:46:00Nile's school days ... When I was in high school, we actually used to get two sets of marks. We would get a mark on the absolute scale of how well you've done and then you'd get a mark for effort. And so you'd get a C on your exam but you might get an A for effort showing that you ... And now I think what we're doing is we're just rewarding effort rather than the ultimate standard. I am sounding like a fascist.

Brittany H.: No.

Dr. Terry Nile: But yeah, I think that's one of the things that worries me. I don't ... It's ... Other countries are just ... Particularly you look at the science and math performance of US students is pathetic. And it's ... You know, it was hard. I remember throwing my ink bottle at my mother in the evening 00:47:00because I was so frustrated at all the homework I had to do. And again, it wasn't sufficient to do the homework. You had to do it well. It wasn't just ... They weren't easy. I remember coming third in my class on a math exam with 29% on the exam. The top guy got 48 and the other one got 35. And we were already in the top 10% so these people. When I came to the US I couldn't believe it. People saying, "Oh, I got 95% on my exam." And I thought, "Geez, you must be absolutely genius." I mean the highest grade I ever got was 68 or 69. You know?

Brittany H.: Wow. Well I sure wish I was better at science and math. You know. I wonder your thoughts on this. Do you think it has to do with the parts of the 00:48:00brain? I think I was taught that in psychology that if you're ... One part of your brain is better at English and history and then the other half is science and math.

Dr. Terry Nile: Well I think that's probably true. But I don't think that means you can't train the other half to be decent.

Brittany H.: Yeah.

Dr. Terry Nile: One of my pet peeves here at university was we have an incredible effort for literacy. We have writing centers, we have everything like that. And that's good. I think that's great. But I felt we needed to have a numeracy center. Being illiterate is bad but being innumerate is equally bad. But there's never the same emphasis. And you look at where ... Math is everywhere.

Dr. Terry Nile: But we ... Culture values the arts and doesn't value science. And I think science is sort of to blame, or partly to blame because we use obscure jargon. We use a language which is full of jargon. And that's because we have to because it's very precise. But we're not very good at getting across the idea that science is no different to English or history. It's the manipulation of ideas and what I do in my lab is essentially cooking. I mean that's what I do. I think of myself as a molecular chef. I cook things up and I filter them. Well filtering is just like putting spaghetti in a strainer and straining out the liquid. I mean it's ... That's exactly what I do. I'm a molecular chef. But 00:50:00people think, "Well, I do something strange." But it isn't very strange. It's what everybody else does. But we call it by a different name. We put it off to one side and so ...

Brittany H.: Very interesting. Well and then I know you said that you come to the campus still. Five days a week is it?

Dr. Terry Nile: Yep.

Brittany H.: Are there any other ways that you've served beyond UNCG in professional organizations or the community?

Dr. Terry Nile: No, not really. UNCG's been my life. You know sort of the Chemistry Department has been my life. So that's really about all I've done, to be honest. I mean I was ... I enjoyed sports a lot until I became old and infirm. But again, that was sort of very low level. It was just social. So I played a lot in sports, like to travel. But in terms of being involved in ... I'm not a great joiner. I'm not a great person for organizations. I'm just not.

Brittany H.: Okay. Well how has working at UNCG impacted and affected your life and what does UNCG mean to you?

Dr. Terry Nile: Well, I think it has been my life. There's no other way to say it. I found a job which I truly love. I don't think there's hardly ever been a day where I haven't gone to work excited and happy to enjoy myself. I often work on Saturdays and Sundays just because it's fun, not because I have to.

Dr. Terry Nile: And so I was really lucky to find a job, a career, that I really loved and I was really fortunate to be at an institution which fostered the same 00:52:00ideas that I had about education. And allowed me to do that job. So I found a job and a venue to be able to fulfill myself. You always think you could have done better, you could have done more, you could have done this but all in all, I think I've been very fortunate to find a job that I really love, and an institution in a department that I really love. So I feel very fortunate.

Dr. Terry Nile: I think UNCG has been that sort of place. I think that certainly our department has been incredibly social. It's been incredibly free of backbiting, of departmental politics. For instance, we all have the same office key so we can go into everybody else's offices and their labs. And I think 00:53:00that's an affirmation that we trust one another. I mean if you've got something you want to keep secret you put in a file cabinet but I don't think anybody does. But it's been that sort of place. It's been more of a community than a department. I think it's probably that kind of thing is ephemeral. It could disappear but ... It only takes one or two bad apples to upset the apple cart. So far, we've been fortunate. So yeah, I've been very, very fortunate.

Brittany H.: We're doing these interviews as part of the 125th Anniversary of the University, which is a good time for reflection but it also helps you think about where we are heading in the future. So what do you think the future for UNCG is? Where do you see UNCG going as an institution in the next 25, 50 years?

Dr. Terry Nile: That's a really interesting question. I really haven't thought 00:54:00about it because I'm no longer part of planning or politics ... University politics or visions or all those kinds of things that were so important when I was a practicing academic. And I feel fortunate not to be involved because I'm not sure where UNCG does go.

Dr. Terry Nile: I think UNCG is part of, obviously, the UNC system which is a part of the whole country's education system. And I think earlier, I voiced my concerns about universities being driven by enrollment. UNCG's budget, I found 00:55:00to my surprise when I was Head of the Department, really depends on how many students we have. No other factor other than that. So more students means more money. And so I think that this ... I always like to argue from the absurd point of view, where does it stop? I mean it has to. Fairly obviously, every university in the country can't keep on growing. How many graduates do we need? Don't we need people who have technical skills, trades, as much as we need people with degrees? And the sort of degree inflation. You used to be a Bachelor's to graduate and get a job. Now it's Master's and it's edging towards 00:56:00a PhD. Certainly in the sciences, it's probably there already. And there's this constant escalation of numbers and qualifications needed for jobs.

Dr. Terry Nile: And I worry because I don't quite see where that's going to end. Do we want to educate 100% of the population to university level? And it would be ideal, if we could, if we could afford to. And if it gave those people some particular benefit. But I wonder.

Dr. Terry Nile: So growth, to me, is an issue which is problematic. We have 17 state institutions all of which are trying to grow, all of which are trying to grow exponentially. And I don't see, frankly, where the students are going to come from to keep bums on seats, to use that expression again. And so that, if I 00:57:00was the chancellor, I would be worrying about that. And because you're more frantic to get more students, then I'm not too sure that doesn't mean quality slips somewhere along the line. We can't all play in the NBA. I wonder if there's a limit to how many people really need degrees. And if that's so, then how do we decide which institutions are going to be the ones that attract students?

Dr. Terry Nile: So I think that that is a concern I have. And I think UNCG has ... I've seen it grow from such a small women's college to where it is now. And that's been an incredible change. And the vast majority of things have been for the better but not all. And I really wonder what the next goal is. It can't 00:58:00become Chapel Hill because Chapel Hill's going to be moving on as well. We can't ... It's just hard to envisage. And it's not UNCG, envisage of university of this type which has grown exponentially has really become a very solid university, where it goes next. It can't aspire to be Chapel Hill because there's not room in the state for two Chapel Hills and an NC State, another one.

Dr. Terry Nile: But, we're often locked in a, it seems to be a battle with UNC Charlotte and ECU. When I first came, UNCG was undoubtedly the third most prestigious institution in the state. The others were nowhere to be seen. But 00:59:00now, we're floating down that pecking order. Charlotte, even Wilmington are growing almost as fast or if not faster. And it's politics. It's fascinating. A lot of the power within state resides in Eastern North Carolina and Western North Carolina and Raleigh and we're not there.

Brittany H.: I may be wrong, but I think it's pretty hard not to be accepted into UNCG. I could be wrong.

Dr. Terry Nile: Yeah.

Brittany H.: But I think if you apply and I think you get accepted, for the most part. So I definitely see what you mean. Now of course for the graduate departments it's a lot different but -

Dr. Terry Nile: Well it is. Yeah. It's quantity and quality it is. And again, I don't want to sound like I'm a fascist -

Brittany H.: No, I think -

Dr. Terry Nile: ... retrograde.

Brittany H.: ... it made perfect sense.

Dr. Terry Nile: I think UNCG's done really, really well. I think, as I said, I've been very happy to be a part of what's happened here. And I'm just not sure I know where it should go next which is sort of why I'm glad to sort of not be a part of that kind of level of discussion anymore because I don't know what Dr. Gilliam's vision is. I mean I know he has a vision statement but I'm just not sure. It'd be interesting to see, that's all I can say. Do we keep on growing or do we consolidate and get quality, more quality. Or ... Can't get smaller. It's just this all consuming growth. We're going to run out of fuel. It's like a 01:01:00fire. Sort of we're going to run out of fuel soon. It's getting bigger and bigger consuming more and more. So ...

Brittany H.: Well I don't think I have anymore formal questions for you but did you have anything that you would like to add about your time here at UNCG? Any experiences you would like to mention?

Dr. Terry Nile: I think pretty much I've covered my feelings about UNCG and about my career here. So no, I think it's ... I've had great colleagues. Some not so great, as always. It's been a great ride. And I really enjoy, despite what I say, the students are just still so much fun. And they still are just as bright as they ever have been. And we turn out a really good product our 01:02:00students ... to use a horrible word, are well-prepared, I think, for a productive life in the main. So ...

Brittany H.: Okay.

Dr. Terry Nile: Yep, that's it, I think.

Brittany H.: Well thank you for sharing all that with me.