Oral history interview with Philip Koch, 2017

Brittany H.: My name is Brittany Hedrick and today is Monday, August 28, 2017.

Brittany H.: I am in the Parrish Library with Philip Kosh to conduct an oral history interview for the UNCG Institutional Memory Collection. Thank you, Phil, 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?

Philip K.: I was born in New York City in February 1935.

Brittany H.: Okay, could you tell me about your family and your home life?

Philip K.: Well, we came home to an east side tenement house in East 56 Street between First Avenue and Sutton place. That's a very prestigious neighborhood now but then it was a cold water flat tenement house. Cold water flat meant we got no heat but we got hot water. So we had to provide our own heat with standing kerosene stoves or whatever. But we had a great view of the East River 00:01:00from our back window. And we had an extended family upstairs. We lived on the fourth floor my grandmother and some unmarried children lived in the fifth floor.

Philip K.: The church and the school was a block away and that was a big part of my life going to the Catholic School and then the church right connected to it. And right a little long on East 56 Street, there was a lot of other families like ourselves and other tenement houses. There's plenty of kids on the block that to play street games with and I lived there until I was 13. In 1948, after the World War Two was over a couple of years, they were renovating lots of Manhattan, so they tore down our tenement house and we moved to Queens, New York.

Philip K.: The tenement house that we lived in, was replaced by some high priced River View Apartments. They found out those poor people had too good a view of 00:02:00the river that somebody want to pay for, and we couldn't afford it, So we moved out to Queens. But it was a very joyous life and I have no regrets.

Brittany H.: What did your parents do?

Philip K.: My mother was a registered nurse when she worked, but I had two younger brothers, six and seven a half years younger than I. So she only worked a couple of years when I was first born. And then she didn't work again until after my brothers were in high school. But she was a registered nurse. My father was a New York City fireman for 25 years as a New York City fireman.

Brittany H.: Where did you go to high school?

Philip K.: I went to a Catholic all boys school in New York City called La Salle Academy. It's down in the lower part of Manhattan on Second Avenue. It was Second Avenue and Second Street, It's now moved up to Sixth Street, but It's 00:03:00still functioning. And it was a very, very good high intensity academic education. But I commuted about an hour and a half each way from Queens to go to school by bus and subway each direction. So I spent a lot of my time as a student studying, reading books on buses and subways. I like school. The elementary school came easy to me but high school got a little bit harder. I had to work a little bit at it. And then college was harder yet. But my favorite subjects were in math and science really.

Brittany H.: What year did you graduate from high school?

Philip K.: I graduated high school in June of 1952. And I went to Fordham University School of Business, the following fall in September. And I spent a year at Fordham University was a downtown campus near City Hall in New York. And 00:04:00I was going to become an accountant, but I found I didn't like being coming an accountant. I got credit for the year, but I kind of run out of money anyway so I quit school for a year and wanted to look around for something else I'll like better and same time earn enough money to go back to college. And it worked out well because I ... at least for the last six months, the first six months I had a hard time getting a job that would keep me, that is to say, I worked in the fall as a shipping clerk and after the Christmas rush was over, they let me go.

Philip K.: But the last six months in February of 1954, I found a job working as an ambulance attendant on the west side of New York in a hospital at an 00:05:00ambulance service that provided city ambulance service. So I learned a lot about the first day ambulance, West Side crime and everything else that went along with it. It was also a bonus, they had a nursing school with a lot of pretty young nurses there and one of them is home waiting for me right now as we speak. 58 years after we got married.

Philip K.: But I stayed working in the ambulance until fall of 1954. And at which time I had discovered a two year program at Farmingdale, New York. Was part of the now, the State University System of New York. And I wound up majoring in an Ornamental Horticulture with a specialty of Agricultural Chemicals, insect disease, weed control, and I loved it because it kind of combined favorite activities of outdoor life and the science that I always had 00:06:00an affection for. So it provided the basis for a career that I enjoyed later on.

Brittany H.: Tell me about the journey to UNCG.

Philip K.: Well, after I finished Farmingdale and graduated in June of 1956, cause everybody in those days had a military obligation, a draft obligation and I was no different. And our draft board in Queens had the bad habit of waiting until you were just about 25 and almost ineligible before they call you up. And that's even worse time to go in to spend two years of your life in the service. So I pushed my number up, long story short, I pushed my number up, and I went it in about two months after graduating from Farmingdale, that was from September 00:07:001956 until September 1958.

Philip K.: When I got finished with my army service, and I spent about 10 months up in New England in New York State, in the Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team. Then I also went over with state transfer to Hawaii for the last 14 months of my service and was with the 25th Infantry Division and I was sure I was going to become an infantry man there, but instead, they put me in a post office and it turned out to be a pretty good job because I volunteered to be a clerk typist, and I spent the last 14 months in the army post office in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and then also when I found out I was pretty good with the numbers. They let me do all the accounting and financial parts of the post 00:08:00office work and so it was enough to keep me challenged and motivated.

Philip K.: Anyway, I came out in September 1958 and married a gal that I've been dating and corresponding with for a couple of years. Brought home an engagement ring I bought in a PX before I left Hawaii, and I gave it to her the night I came home and we were married a couple months later. That was in November of 1958 and we had four children in the next five and a half years.

Philip K.: We lived in New Jersey and in beginning of 1963 I started work for Geigy Chemical Company. And that was the biggest break that I ever had in my life really because it was a big multinational chemical company and it gave me the opportunity to advance, depending on my talents and how hard I was willing 00:09:00to work and gave me a lot of opportunities which I was able to capitalize on.

Philip K.: I stayed with Geigy Chemical Company, who eventually became Ciba Geigy, and is now known as Syngenta Agricultural Division from 1963 until I'm retired in 1994. My career with Geigy now Syngenta, started in sales and I moved up into higher ranks of the sales management, and then product management and communications director and finally as a liaison with the industrial relations portion working with a lot of former organizations and including doing some lobbying.

Philip K.: I retired from 1994 until the present and got a little tired of 00:10:00retirement. I enjoyed all the travel and the books and going back to doing a lot of theater work, which I always favored. But in August of 2012, I decided to go back to ... I was 77 by that time, but I'd never gotten that final leg of my bachelor's degree. So I enrolled in UNCG, as a history major, and I've been doing it not too awfully heavy load between now and ever since.

Philip K.: When I first started the first two years I took nine credits each semester. And after two years it kind of wore me out especially having to take some language. I did great in all my subjects but the language requirement was kind of burden to me and about discouraged me. So in 2014, I decided to give up 00:11:00this crazy idea of getting a bachelor degree. So I quit for a year. But I found out after a couple of months that I missed it so much that I turned around and came back the following year. So I've been at it ever since, and I'm getting ready to graduate this coming December.

Brittany H.: So why UNCG?

Philip K.: Well, a couple of things influence ... Well, number one we moved here in 1975, so we're very familiar with the Greensboro area and been retired here for 20 years at the time that I came back to school. My wife had been a 00:12:00registered nurse and she decided at the age of 60 to go back to college. In fact, she had a long way to go than I because she hadn't had that many college credits to transfer. But she took about nine years and ultimately graduated about 10 years ago in 2006, with a double major in history and English made Phi Beta Kappa she did a great job, and I'm very proud of her.

Philip K.: So that gave me a lot of experience and some inspiration. I was very much involved in her work because I did all of her typing and all of her computer work while she was going to school. And then also my children had all gone to the state universities, couple in NC State, Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Appalachian, etc. So I was familiar with the schools in the state and in the 00:13:00city. I went to a number of the schools in the city including NC A&T, Greensboro, Guildford and GTCC in order to inquire about path to getting my bachelor's degree. But I didn't get as much encouragement as I got out of UNCG, and they were both cooperative and very encouraging, and that's what I was looking for. So there's a very comfortable fit, and it was a good school and I was impressed with it, excited as heck to come on back to school.

Brittany H.: So it had been a very long time since you had set foot on a campus as a student. So could you tell us about those first days on campus as a student and what was it like? Was it what you had expected?

Philip K.: Well, there was the whole reflecting on the couple of years that I've been back to school. There was some things that surprised me pleasantly, some little disappointment here and there, but it was very different. And it was a tremendous generational gap because here I am in my late 70s and sharing classrooms, with a lot of 20 year olds. But I was looking forward to that, being able to communicate and speak their language and for sure, give them the benefit of all my experience and opinions. But I had to be careful about that I realized.

Brittany H.: So I guess that leads me to my next question. What is it like being a non-traditional student?

Philip K.: Well, we talked about the generation gap, but it's been mostly positive. I've got along great with my classmates, if they see me as an oddity, I guess when we first get into class, but I really have a sincere desire to help them as much as I can. And I share as much as I can possibly share whenever we have the opportunity. I was taking a lighter load, admittedly, and I put pressure on me to make sure I did all of the work and did well because I wouldn't have any excuses if I didn't. But it also made me appreciate what they were going through. If I came away with anything for over these last number years its tremendous respect for the students, that knocking themselves out taking 15, 18 credits, maybe working part-time commuting or whatever. They've 00:16:00got a quite a load, and I know what it took for me to take six or nine credits in a semester and for them to be taking that much more, I have a lot of respect for the work that they have to put in.

Philip K.: I found out that it was a lot more physically challenged and that's one of the reasons I guess, young people go to college because old people couldn't handle those hours and everything that's required of them I couldn't, these all night sessions are not for me. But it worked out well and if I had a disappointment, I suppose that maybe I dreamed that going back to college and have all of these intellectual discussions and debates with bright young students all over. Bright and young all right, but most of them spend all of their time texting or listening to iTunes or something like that or being on the cell phone. There was very little discussion about any controversial subjects or 00:17:00debatable subjects or anything like that. So that's probably one bit of big disappointment and it's only disappointment and being able to communicate with in this intergenerational opportunity that I had.

Philip K.: But by and large I found the teachers, the institution, is good institution, I have a lot of respect for the teachers are dedicated, they work hard at it and appreciation for the students. Not only the students here but it's also giving me an appreciation for my own. I've got a bunch of grandchildren, I got 10 grandchildren and all but two of them are now either in college or graduated from college and of then of course I had my own four children. I have a better appreciation why it took some of them more than four years to graduate. And not as critical as, if they take four and a half or five 00:18:00years, 'cause I might have been out of place because I know what kind of work they have put in. Especially if they shift majors.

Brittany H.: You were talking about professors, you mentioned professors. Are there any that really stick out in your mind, that had an impact on you?

Philip K.: Well, yeah, a number of them are very good ... All give you a lot of work. And that's good because ... that's all part of the stimulation of it all, and I know when I leave here, I'm going to miss it. It put discipline in my life, more discipline than probably anybody my age deserves or has a right to expect, but I respect that, and it came from the work and the organization that 00:19:00the professors have to put into it.

Philip K.: If you want names there's been a couple that standout and one in particular Eric Oakley, who's just recently got his PhD, great professor, gosh. Today he epitomize what a history professor should be because his stories about whatever we were studying, and I took two courses with him, one on a history of China and India and another one on the American Revolution. He always left us kind of hanging and waiting for the next part of the chapter to unfold. After the 45 minutes and I'm building off you'd be sitting there said and then what happened? "Well, I'm sorry, you got to wait till Wednesday or you got to wait for Friday to find out." So he embodied a lot of, to me the epitome of what a 00:20:00history professor might be. And I was very pleased to see that he finally got his PhD last spring, and he's still teaching here. It'll be a shame if UNCG lost him.

Philip K.: But there's been others Dr. Jones, Dr. Ruzicka, Dr. ... They stand ... Dr. Masday. I had a couple of courses with him and I never did learn how to pronounce his name, but he was a good teacher. Very hard marker but he was good teacher. You want me to keep naming names?

Brittany H.: You can if you would like or ? You don't have to.

Philip K.: No, no, no, that's a ... I hate to leave out anybody, but I'll let it 00:21:00go with that I guess.

Brittany H.: We all have our favorites.

Philip K.: Oh yeah, right.

Brittany H.: What about this? Were there any classes in particular that you really thoroughly enjoyed?

Philip K.: I can honestly say I enjoyed every class. Maybe I checked myself into enjoying or getting interested and excited about even the ones that I had no right to do so. But I like the all history anyway, that's why I'm here. So everything is fascinating to me, more interesting. I've done a lot of reading about history over as an avocation, but now this fills in a lot of the gaps and it gives me a more academic approach towards studying history. Certainly learn 00:22:00much more about research, how to find more information about history.

Philip K.: And even the non history courses, I found something to get excited about. The only thing I didn't like was German. And they wanted me to take two years of a language. So I picked German for no particular reason, except that I have a German surname and I've got some German ancestors somewhere along the way. But I thought it would come easy to me and it didn't. So when I quit school, and I found out that I threw myself at the mercy of some of the higher academics and said, "do I really I think that second year of German?" And in view of everything my age and everything they got me to waive it so long as I 00:23:00took some other German related history courses, which I did.

Philip K.: And in fact, one of my favorite courses turned out to be a course in German literature, which I took. It was an online course, But I had to do a lot of different variety of reading of German literature through the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th centuries. And I found it very interesting, very fascinating, and I did very well in the course. So that was one of the more enjoyable courses ironically, where with some of my horrible experiences were trying to get through the first year of German language, where no matter how much time I put into it, I wasn't getting a return on my investment of time. Certainly didn't show up in the grades or in the tests. And if I got lousy grades, it was more than I deserved.

Philip K.: Anyway, let's see where were we?

Brittany H.: We were just talking about some of your-

Philip K.: Favorite courses? Yeah. But every aspect of history I liked very much. Really, and then I took a couple of political science courses, those were interesting too. Both with Dr. Crowder, who's the head of the department over there, and he's a good teacher too. He was one of my favorite, nice man, good teacher. And if I weren't a History major, I'd probably become a Political Science major. And certainly this era that we live in right now is right for Political Science studies.

Philip K.: Even most of the other things, the non history courses I'd gotten 00:25:00waived because of prior courses. I've had English courses and Science courses and other things, but I had to take Math and I had to take ... I took a course in anthropology I know. But most everything else has been history one form or another. Right now I'm taking the last three credits of my semesters. I'm taking the course in Creative Writing, in my curriculum, I should say. It's the only English course I've taken it and It's enjoyable because I've done a lot of writing as a hobby. I spent a lot of time in theaters, so I've written a lot of short plays, and was a member of the playwright's forum in Greensboro for a long time and I've written some stories on my own. But this first course I have had any kind of Creative Writing and so I'm looking forward to my postgraduate 00:26:00career will be ... Here's what I've learned in Creative Writing to do a little bit more.

Philip K.: I guess that's about it.

Brittany H.: Well you were in the military, so I wanted to ask , have you been able to get any benefits from being in the military as far as school goes?

Philip K.: No, I was not eligible for the GI Bill. My term in the military was 1956 to 58. So it was right smack in the middle of in between the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. And For a long time none of the benefits applied to people 00:27:00in that period of time. So by the time I came back to school if there was anything left, I didn't see it and I doubt there would have been and not that I deserve it as much as the other guys did, because I thank God all my life that I wasn't in during Korea or Vietnam. But I did not receive any government benefits, I inquired just to see if there was any but there was not.

Philip K.: The one thing that my wife enjoyed while she was here, and she graduated in 2006 was that they used to have free tuition for anybody over 65 while she was here, and didn't waive the fees for the books but she got, which is same as amount of tuition she was paying. But she didn't have to pay tuition. 00:28:00But they of course, the state eliminated that. And that's fine. I've got no problem with that. I mean, fortunately, financially, I'm able to handle any anything along those lines and I'd hate to be taking money that might be otherwise used for kids, that really need it more.

Brittany H.: How has your Military experience impacted your experience here at UNCG? And maybe furthermore, how has your age impacted and shaped your experience?

Philip K.: Well one thing about being in the military and especially during the period that I was there, they instill a lot of discipline in you and kind of make you grow up fast If you haven't been up to that point. And that's one of 00:29:00the things I see missing, I guess, in some younger generation right now, I don't mean to disparage the younger generation, they would do everything that was necessary if we haven't gotten into the kind of conflict we had back during the wartime period or during the Cold War. But they could use the organization regimentation that the military gives even for a couple of months or something like that. So what I'm saying is, that benefited me and helped me organize things and of course, my business experience has probably been even more advantageous to me because it showed me how to organize my time, my writing. I did a lot of writing and when I was in business, whether it be writing annual 00:30:00reviews or writing, advertising copy or writing budget requests or speeches or whatever, so a lot of that helped.

Philip K.: But the military did nothing for me except make me even more aware of some of the impact on history. I was, like I said, I was in between '56 and '58. Just recently, I think over the last year, they finally extended what they considered the Vietnam era back to cover the mid 50s. And included the period that I was in fact, I was at a veterans' thing last May where they presented some sort of a pin and some recognition for those hadn't been part of it before, but it never applied to the GI Bill. And as far as I'm concerned it you I'm 00:31:00proud to be a veteran but I don't miss the fact that I wasn't in Vietnam or Korea.

Philip K.: So far as application to the University like I said it was probably more my life experiences and my corporate life experiences that helped me more. And my theatrical experience.

Brittany H.: Are there any social and or academic events that really stand out in your mind? Over the time you've been here?

Philip K.: Well, in fact, in this very building, we had a Moti-Vote thing last ... I guess it was last November or October, Just almost a year ago. Dr. 00:32:00Levinson, I was in a course History of Voting Rights. Was a very interesting course, she was a good professor too. And we were trying to get voting information out to all the students, I guess a lot of people were. But we brought it in a historical perspective to history voting rights, and especially try to communicate the fact that you couldn't take voting rights for granted, people have been taken away as often as they've been granted. You got to keep paying attention to it, and most important thing is to vote, to get involved and that's what we're trying to promote. And It was a very successful program. I was glad to be a part of that as a student.

Philip K.: That was one program. Some of the classroom activities we had been part of one of, Eric Oakley classes we had a mock trial of Benedict Arnold where 00:33:00I was a spokesman for the defense, we got him acquitted. But some of the things that wasn't exactly public event like the Moti-Vote one was. But I really haven't ... It was not living on campus and not being in the generation that all the rest of the students are, don't get involved in any of the social activities. Been to one or two athletic events basketball game, soccer game, but not much. And I always tell people that I've still got two years of athletic eligibility left, but they don't seem to want to take advantage of it, so that's their loss.

Brittany H.: So no real involvement in extracurricular activities? Any like 00:34:00clubs or organizations or anything like that?

Philip K.: No, I was ... When I first came in for the first year, I wanted to get into the history club, never really ... I don't know it always seemed to meet at an odd time that I wasn't around or when I did get there once or twice and so on and never really got anything to stimulate me as much as I was interested in the history part. I also thought that all my business experience and especially from a management position, might give me an opportunity to help students or help UNCG in two ways. Number one, maybe work with the placement 00:35:00services or, and help career path people by, I could conduct mock interviews or something like that helping. My business experience admittedly is 20 years old, but I can still play the role of an interviewer or something like that, but I never got any encouragement, and I did inquire once or twice and that was a little disappointing.

Philip K.: And then the other part was I never remember saying I'm sure the University must have a placement, or a speaker's bureau where they could use somebody, or they must get request from the public, to speak about the University and in particular, maybe to speak to senior citizens groups about going back to school or something and I would be a perfect spokesman because I've got a lot of public speaking experience, and here I am actually doing it. 00:36:00But I made increase it along those lines couple times, I got no encouragement at all. So it's been a little bit disappointing. I thought that University didn't make use of some of the talents that I brought with me into school. And I'm sure the same applies to some others, adult students that come back to school after some years and experiences. But the University has their own way of doing things and they'll make use of some of their challenge that's there. That's a little bit of a knock I'm sure but it's deserved.

Brittany H.: I almost forgot to ask you. What do you think of our new chancellor, Franklin Gilliam?

Philip K.: I don't know very much about him. What I've seen, I've seen in 00:37:00newspaper and local newspaper publications, seems very impressive. Certainly got the credentials, and he's got personality from what I've seen. But I've got no personal contact with him. And I'm sure the University's in good hands. I'm encouraged for the future. I know one of the things ... I know they've had a lot of growth, building growth, a lot of steel and mortar. I just hope though, that I would be concerned for my job to be concerned about that the money doesn't come out of the educational curriculum, cutting back on professors or class times or something like that. And having fewer course offerings that would be tragic and you can almost feel the pinch in that direction. But they seem to 00:38:00have the money to put up little buildings all the time.

Brittany H.: Well, I'm going to ask you another question about that in a minute. First of all, I want to ask you what you plan to do after you graduate? Do you have ... you talked about this a little bit before but elaborate a little bit on what you see yourself doing when you graduate? When you do have the bachelor's in history?

Philip K.: Well, I'm sorry to say I won't make use of it. To speak of, it's been a personal journey and a personal goal. So it maybe very selfish of me, but I got to realize that the age... I'll be 83 next February and I graduate in December. So at my age, not anybody's going to offer me a job, and I don't have enough of higher degrees to teach. I wouldn't mind teaching, lecturing or being 00:39:00a part-time teacher or something like that, but I'm certainly not interested in doing anything full time. And, or chasing any new career, I've had enough of that. And then not only that, at my age you get more health challenges that it's going to keep you from doing the same sort of things you want anyway, but long story short, I don't have any plans except to make full use of my newfound history knowledge. It was sheer pleasure and sheer enjoyment to keep reading about history and learn new areas of history, and now that I know how to research history, I can learn things that I never learned before, by knowing where to look for it.

Philip K.: So that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Hope I'm an inspiration to other people who might want to go back to school or my grandchildren or my own children and the whole idea is, it's never too late, never too late.

Brittany H.: And I know you're not alone in that. I do know, several persons who are a little older and they've already had a long career, but they come back because they just have a passion for history-

Philip K.: Oh, yes.

Brittany H.: And they just want to learn. So that is very inspiring in itself.

Philip K.: I think everybody gets more interested in history as they get older. They get more interested in genealogy, but especially history in a broader sense. And all of a sudden the things that used to be nothing but times and dates and places that you had to memorize when you were young, all of a sudden take on meaning because, you've heard history described in a lot of different ways. And to me, it's just a never ending story of people and how they confronted challenges and how they overcame challenges that came at them. And 00:41:00that's it in a nutshell really. If there was no challenges, they wouldn't have made any changes, but how they confronted those challenges is the story of history from time beginning. And it's mostly people just like us.

Brittany H.: What have been some of your proudest accomplishments during your time at UNCG? I think you touched on this a little bit, but I just wanted to ask again?

Philip K.: I'm proud that I think I missed one class in four years that I've been here and that's because I had a doctor's appointment it got shifted, and I couldn't change it. So I made sure I got my money's worth by coming at every class. I've tried to do every piece of work that's ever been assigned to me and that's a luxury that I have, because I recognize I got a light load. So that's 00:42:00been proud I've gotten good marks, very good marks and I'm proud of that. But it's self motivating goal that I had to succeed, because I feel awful guilty if I didn't, like I said before I'm taking such a light load, I've got no excuses for not making A's. And I want to learn as much as I can and cram it all in this short period of time as I got. So it sounds kind of crazy, but it's been enjoyable. I set my own goals, set my own motivation, and demand a lot of myself maybe that I don't even need to, but if it wasn't an enjoyable subject to study, it would be different.

Philip K.: Question was about goals?

Brittany H.: Your proudest accomplishment?

Philip K.: Proudest accomplishment. Well, like I said, right, my academic record is good and I'm proud of that. Some memorable moment ... like I mentioned, some of the things we engaged in like the trial of Benedict Arnold was one and preparing for the Moti-Vote seminar was another and some of the classroom activities, some of the papers.

Philip K.: I really enjoyed the papers that I've written, a lot of the term papers, and I mentioned that to the head of the department some years ago and this is I wish I could put that on the wall. Because most people hate term papers, and I loved it. I loved term papers because I was learning a whole lot 00:44:00more by researching what I needed to find out. But also it gave me a slim chance to write a little creatively and put my own self into the writing when I wrote those papers. Lots of times you just feeding back events, but in a term paper, you've got to put a little yourself into the story and your own slant on things. So it gave me a chance to be creative. I've got a special file on my computer about all the term papers that I wrote, one is better than the other.

Brittany H.: How is attending even UNCG impacted and affected your life and what does UNCG mean to you?

Philip K.: Well we've got to have a very positive feeling for UNCG. Now both my 00:45:00wife and I are both the alumni. Also happen to have a granddaughter that graduated from the School of Music here about five years ago. But it's ... know a lot of people around town and we've been here 42 years we know a lot of people around town and went to UNCG, watched it grow and watched it succeed and watched it achieve higher acclamations in their academic standings and so on. Proud to call myself a graduate of UNCG.

Philip K.: Where my children and my grandchildren went through a lot of other schools and so on but and of course, UNCG isn't quite as well known as Chapel Hill or State or Wake Forest or Duke and so on, but it's a fine school and I 00:46:00know from experience with the curriculums and the work that the professor's put into it, what they demand of the students. It's not that easy. You can feel proud when you graduate.

Brittany H.: Well, we're doing these interviews as part of the 125th and ... I can't talk. We're doing these interviews as part of the 125th anniversary of the University, which is an excellent opportunity for reflection, but it also helps us to think about where we are heading in the future. So what do you think the future is for UNCG? And where do you see UNCG going as an institution in the next 25 to 50 years? And this kind of leads back to one of your statements earlier.

Brittany H.: I know you mentioned expansion.

Philip K.: Oh, yeah. Well like I say, I'm sure they're headed in the right 00:47:00direction I see it taking up more and more downtown Greensboro physically, but you got to grow if you keep on having more and more students. I know the enrollment this year is going to go almost over 20,000. I know a lot of commuters students but as you grow you got to have room to put them and put them all in the classroom, So physical growth is necessary I just hope that they don't... And this probably depends a lot on the state legislature, budgeting process, that they don't cut monies from the classes and teacher salaries and everything else that has to go into it.

Philip K.: Is this tape going to be just for your notes? Or it's not going to be broadcast or anything like that? It is? Okay.

Brittany H.: Well, I don't think that I had any more formal questions for you. 00:48:00But was there anything that we perhaps didn't touch on that you want to mention?

Philip K.: I think you asked what UNCG meant to me and I was thinking about UNCG itself. I've got four children, they're all married happily. We got 10 grandchildren when we get together for the beach every week, there's 20 of us in the family, every summer. And I guess I'm the last outside of two kids that are still in high school, the last to get a degree, so it means a lot to me, and just for personal satisfaction. And the being in college have given me a lot to talk about over the last couple of years, it makes great cocktail party talk, 00:49:00and bragging rights if you will. People always, "what's it like?" "Well how can you do ..." "Oh, I would never do that," couple of them look at you like you're out of your mind why on earth would you ever want to go back and take on workloads and term papers and study in and cramming and all that reading and everything else, but for the most part, people have been very encouraged and provided inspiration, some people I know. My wife went through the same experience.

Brittany H.: You know, I did forget to ask you one thing. I'm sure that college life was a lot different the first time you went. So how have things changed since you first went to college and looking at how they are now, like technology?-

Philip K.: Oh, well, yeah, I'm glad you asked me that. It's phenomenal, the 00:50:00changes are phenomenal. My first year of college was 1952 ,'53. And then the two year college from '54 to '56. And we were still using manual typewriters to type papers, and I guess, chalk on the blackboard, buying the books and so on.

Philip K.: Nowadays the educational tools are unbelievable. Some of the courses I know, German, which I didn't care for that much, but it's a good example of where they had a workbook, totally integrated with a website. And the whole curriculum was based on that, where you could go home and you could actually on 00:51:00your computer, you could study, read your material, take practice quizzes, and actually do even oral exercises, pronunciation so on. so you have printed books integrated with technology and for me that was just ... My own experience with my desktop computer and the books and then technologically I'm very far behind all the rest of my classmates because I think I'm the only one who still has a flip phone. And I leave that in the car because I only really want to use that when I want to make an emergency phone call. And I don't have a smartphone.

Philip K.: If I had all of that it will be even more accessible, but I like the 00:52:00idea that you can buy books, rent books, buy used books, textbooks are always a bane of your financial budget, but I don't find them all that burdensome as much anymore. A lot of the professors are considering that too you know, they try to keep it down as low as possible as long as they need. What else?

Brittany H.: At this point, anything that you still wanted to talk about?

Brittany H.: Anything we forgot?

Philip K.: Yeah, I've got some notes here that ... you're not going to use this publicly, just for your own notes to write up the interview right?

Brittany H.: Like I can go in and edit it. But yeah, this is-

Philip K.: Oh, okay I won't say anything nasty then.

Brittany H.: You're doing great.

Philip K.: Okay.

Philip K.: Let's see. There was one or two things in here. Oh, yeah, I've been very impressed with UNCG for the support they have for handicapped students and for veterans. And also for racial and minority inclusiveness. So I have to compliment them on what I've seen. Frankly, I haven't been close to it and I don't want to be close, but I had enough budgeting and management. That's one of the reasons that I'm retired and I want to go back to it or didn't want to major in business. But I kind of get the sense that there's a little bit of ...There's 00:54:00an awful lot of departments within the University. And a lot of ... what should I say? I'm trying to think of the word anyway.

Philip K.: I have to compliment them on doing a lot of ... as much as they do for people who're really in need and also for veterans, they have a very, very good Veterans Program and I noticed ... I haven't had to take much advantage of it but I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for guys coming out of our present situation, guys come back from Iraq or Afghanistan and spend time in the service. And they need help in a lot of ways. And the University has got a hell of a good system here to help them out with it.

Philip K.: And just the work that the Veterans department does to help them find their way through benefits etc. Again, I always wish for a little bit more student open discussion outside class. Too often people are buried in smartphone or texting or discussing bathing suits. But if it wasn't the academic board being able to grant me my second year exemption from German I probably wouldn't have come back because they did, and they were willing to bend a little bit and consider, I'm here. Is that it?

Brittany H.: Yeah I guess so. I guess I'll go ahead and hit stop if you want.

Philip K.: Yeah, go ahead.