Oral history interview with Mereb Mossman, 1989

WL: This is William Link, and the date is October 4, 1898. I'm with Mereb Mossman in her home, and I'd like to begin by discussing your early career at this institution, at what was then Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina]. And I wonder if you'd - just to begin, tell me a little bit about your background briefly, how you arrived here, where you were born, what your education was -

MM: Why I came?

WL: Why you came, things like that, what brought you here.

MM: I came September of 1937. I had just spent six teaching years in a woman's college [Ginling College] in China. I had just returned to America in June of 00:01:001937 and gotten to my folks' little summer cottage in Colorado. And the dean from the University of Chicago School of Social Work called me, and Dean Abbott said, "Professor [Glen] Johnson from the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina is here, and he would like to interview you," - she had told him about me - "for a position at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina." I said, "Oh, Dean Abbott, why another woman's college?" I'd been in a women's college and had thought I was just going back to the University of Chicago, and be there and do a little teaching, as I had done before I left, in the department and School of Social Work and finish my degree. And she said, "They need someone with your background." And she said, "Frank [Porter] Graham is the president of The University of North Carolina. That's why you should go 00:02:00to Woman's College. Think about it." So I went to Kansas City immediately and talked with Professor Johnson. And he was very convincing about this is a very fine liberal arts college for women with a great future. And I had no real reason in 1937 not to take a job, it was just that I hadn't planned to do it. But I came, and I stayed for thirty-six years until I retired. But I came because - primarily because - in sociology they were looking for someone to work in the applied area, and that's where my strengths lay.

WL: So they were trying to expand the department and the whole area of applied sociology?

MM: Right, right. Sociology had just separated from economics and [inaudible] 00:03:00was head of economics. And sociology was building, and they brought Dr. [Lyda Gordon] Shivers in from Chapel Hill who had just finished her degree there to teach in the area of criminology and family. And they were hunting for someone in the applied area to teach primarily community, social statistics and sociology. And all of us taught introductory sociology, and I was to do social problems. And that was really the reason I came to the university - to Woman's College. But the Woman's College, at that time, had just become a part of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, which was a three institution, [North 00:04:00Carolina] State [University], [The University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill and us. So we were called the Woman's College of The University of North Carolina. This had connotations that no one really knew at that time might develop very interestingly. But we were still a women's college within the system. And at that time, women were not admitted to undergraduate work at Chapel Hill and State, so that we were the women's institution. And we drew from all over the state and the region and had a percentage of out-of-state students for women who wanted a college degree.

WL: So that this institution had a kind of a monopoly or had a monopoly on the women in North Carolina.

MM: Within the state system and the university system. Not in colleges - other 00:05:00state colleges - but in the university system.

WL: What kind of a reputation did it have, coming in 1937? What kinds of things had you heard about it?

MM: It had the reputation for being a very fine and good liberal arts college. At that time, actually, we were educating - a large proportion of our women went into teaching. But they always went through a liberal arts core of work before they took certification courses in education in their - largely their junior and senior years - to teach in either primary, secondary schools, mostly in the 00:06:00state of North Carolina.

WL: So what was part of the core curriculum, basic kind of history and - ?

MM: History, social science, science, language requirements, primarily. And we, through the years, in the next ten to fifteen years, the curriculum committee was always at work on the basic curriculum. And the schools - well, there were no schools, they were all departments at that time that had - that were preparing students for teaching - were really committed to the core in the liberal arts and then developed into majors, largely in their junior and senior years. And they went out with strong majors in their department. And the minimum of education requirements, which varied, from time to time, anywhere from 00:07:00fifteen to twenty-one hours. I think in all of our teacher education programs they did supervised teaching. And then we established - and I've forgotten the year - a practice school on campus, Curry School, and that went through high school, so that students had a good portion of their experience on the campus, actually practice teaching, and then would go out into the community for some portion of their supervised teaching experience. But the departments that now we think of as professional and not in the College of Arts and Sciences, like home 00:08:00economics. That was a field, a very strong, open field for women - business education, teaching - preparing for secretarial work and teaching business education. Physical education - we had a very strong physical education, women's physical education, department. A fine department of music - it's hard for me to say department now, we've said school and college for so long - department of music. And again, music education was the field that was open, but we also had fine - we did not prepare professional musicians, but we had a very fine program in which we did prepare persons to, well, practice for work in voice and piano teaching.

WL: Art? What about art?

MM: Well, art started - I've forgotten the year they started - and we developed a strong art department. And then creative writing was started, later in the English department. But all this was in the departmental structure and in applied work in sociology. Development in public welfare opened up a field of work for social workers, and so we developed a pre-professional program in social work which was certified at the state level. And our students went out in the counties all over the state in the public welfare as social workers, and that was a new field. Now we did not have nursing; we had a pre-nursing program. But Chapel Hill had the nursing program and preempted that. Through the years we 00:10:00tried to get a program, but it wasn't until much later that we were able to develop that.

WL: You've suggested something about the - well, we've been talking, I guess, about the curriculum. What about the faculty that you found in your early years here? How would you characterize the faculty? What were they like; what were their interests?

MM: Well, to tell you the truth, they were very much like the liberal arts faculty in the college in which I taught in China. It was a women's college, a sister college to Smith College, and a very fine liberal arts college there. The - well, there were two women's colleges in China, but it was in Nanking. And it [Woman's College] had devoted - predominantly women faculty who - most of whom had their master's, some of whom had their PhDs - who were devoted teachers. And 00:11:00they were - now you might say that sounds like a high school teacher, but they were fine college teachers at that time for the women who came with the kind of background they came from - from high school. And it was a life on campus that was a very community-minded life with an integration of the academic and the social life of the campus brought together. And the whole notion of educating a woman - Dr. McIver's "Educate a woman, you educate a family." But it was you 00:12:00were getting a woman ready for a job because at that time - bear in mind there were many women went out into teaching, secretarial or social work positions but they anticipated marriage. And, by and large, they anticipated stopping work and having their family. This was the model at that time so -

WL: Marriage was incompatible with work?

MM: No. At that time, it just wasn't done as much as it came to be. There weren't daycare centers and so forth, and women hadn't moved into careers where they continued work as they did later in the fifties and sixties and moved into a new way of thinking. So at that time - you asked when I came what was it like 00:13:00- these were well-qualified, undergraduate teachers who were committed to seeing that their students had learning opportunities and did all kinds of extracurricular things to bring them into new kinds of learning experiences. These were faculty that were devoted faculty, but they were not a research - what I would call a scholarly faculty. But in many ways, many of them were scholarly teachers. They kept studying all the time and working, but they did not do independent study. The teaching loads were twelve hours, - by and large that was the pattern. That was four courses and often four different courses - a 00:14:00couple of sections of introductory and then a couple of advanced sections.

WL: Four different preparations. On what basis were the faculty advanced? Was it exclusively based on teaching?

MM: Teaching and community service, interestingly enough. And when I say community service, that was community and professional service, activities related to - for example, participation in sociology, I'll use as an illustration participation in the Southern Sociological Society and then helping form a state society of sociologists. Scholarly in that way so that I often, when people say, "Well, you didn't have any scholars," "Well, we didn't have very many persons with strong research backgrounds." Dr. [Benjamin Burks] 00:15:00Kendrick, who was head of the history department, had done some American histories, I guess, that were widely used. And he had made a fine reputation for himself. I believe Dr. [Albert] Keister had done that in economics. But these were the exceptions. In fact, it was interesting that almost all of our faculty - we didn't call them professors. If they had their doctorate they were called Doctor, otherwise you were Miss or Mister.

WL: Was there a hierarchy between them, or not?

MM: Not really, because many of the older persons had been here a great many years, and they were - they thought of themselves as scholarly women. They were predominantly women; a heavy proportion of our faculty at that time were women.

WL: Who would have been some of the prominent faculty leaders in the late thirties and forties?

MM: Well, Harriet Elliott, interestingly enough, who was the dean of students, was very much interested in the area of applied politics. And she was active in political organizations. And she got the students interested in political organizations. And Miss [Louise] Alexander, that she brought in, who had a law degree and was at one time - oh, I've forgotten what she was, maybe she was clerk of the court or maybe she was here in the city. But anyway, she came into the department full time, and she was a beloved political science teacher, all in the applied areas. And Miss Elliott got me interested. I went with her to the 00:17:001940 White House Conference for Children. She got me in on that and I started - . She was very much interested in everything that related to the well being of women, children - was into politics, very active in that way. Others, oh, let me see who some of the ones that were here when I came. Dr. Keister, of course, in economics, Dr. [James] Highsmith in psychology. Now the psychology department was really a department that prepared and taught introductory and educational psychology predominantly, and then they had a few other courses. But their students were the students who were preparing to be teachers.

WL: So they were kind of a service department for teachers?

MM: Dr. [Mary] Coleman, head of physical education, was a national figure in women's physical education - and really a national figure.

WL: That has always been a strong department here.

MM: Yes, it has. We had a good department of home economics, but it developed greater strengths later. But Ms. [Margaret] Edwards was looked on as one of the senior faculty - very strong. And then we had a number of people like - in history - Vera Largent, Ms. [Bernice] Draper - people who had devoted their lives to this university and who were long-time friends of other historians like 00:19:00Frank [Porter] Graham [president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina] himself, you know, and that generation of scholarly women who were interested in developing graduates who would be effective in their communities. The course I taught in community had students from all over various departments in that class, and it was a study of, really, the kinds of services that were set up in the community to meet the needs of the people.

WL: What you've described suggests that there was a real sense of mission on the part of the - ?

MM: There was, there was. And the graduates came out of the college with a great sense of loyalty to the things that the college had meant to them. And I again speak of it from the point of view of our own majors who came back. Every 00:20:00year we'd see them at the state conferences, for example, the State Conference for Social Services. Always our graduates stood out. They were people who were in their local communities taking positions of responsibility and very active in a variety of kinds of community services. And I think our teachers stood out in communities as persons who were well-qualified persons in not only the school system, but in a sense of making contributions to community life.

WL: How did the faculty interact with administration here or what kind of - ?

MM: We didn't have much administration. [laughs] There were department heads, and the department heads were for life as far as, you know, unless they didn't 00:21:00want to be department heads. (I was going to make us some sausage, by the way.) Department heads were persons who helped recruit faculty. And when I came, the dean of administration, Dean [Walter Clinton] Jackson that later became chancellor, but at that time in '34, when we went into the university system, it was dean of administration. Prior to that, of course, it was the President of the college.

WL: The dean of administration was effectively the head of the institution instead of the -

MM: And the dean of students. The dean of students was a very strong person, Miss Elliott. And he and she worked together with the department heads, and it was -

WL: That was it. That was it - they had the dean of students and dean of administration?

MM: There wasn't this extensive administration.

WL: The heads, I gather then, had a great deal of power or had a great deal of day-to-day -

MM: Well, the senior faculty. Well, there was always a strong sense of faculty, and the faculty acted on things that related to faculty to academic matters.

WL: Such as curriculum?

MM: All curriculum, curriculum committee, I'm not sure we had a promotions committee. I really don't know enough about that to tell you until 1951 when I went into administration because I was the first administrative officer in the academic area. From that time on, every one of the areas that were related to 00:23:00academic - admissions, registrar, summer school - all fell within academic.

WL: That fell within the area of faculty, or would that be under Jackson?

MM: That was under Jackson until I came. Well, under Jackson and then we changed to chancellor, and Chancellor [Edward Kidder] Graham [Jr.] came in and in '51 he appointed me.

WL: You mentioned Walter Clinton Jackson. What kind of a person was he? What kind of an educator?

MM: He was a - as an educator, I think he was committed to meeting the needs 00:24:00of women at that time in the liberal arts college and the strengthening of work all the way along when new areas were opened up. He taught, of course, also all the way along in biography [history department], as I remember. As dean of administration, he was a warm person. Now let me just illustrate from one point of view. When I came, I had a good bit of material from China. And I had done some writing in China and had had a few things published, and I fully intended to move right into and complete some of the materials I had for publication. And 00:25:00Dean Jackson said, "Mereb, this community needs to know more about China. When you're asked to speak on China, I'd like to have you speak on China." Well, this was a lot of work, you know. I was asked to speak to [the] Rotary Club. And one Rotary Club gets you to another, and professional clubs want you as a speaker and then another literary club wanted a speaker. And it seemed to me I spent an awful lot of time doing that. And when I said that to Dean Jackson, he said, "Well, that's community service." And it was, you know; it was important, and I enjoyed it. But you can't do some of the things that you expected if you do others things. He had a real sense of using your full strength, not only within 00:26:00the college but in the state and in the community. And so I became active in the state and many organizations and professional organizations and thoroughly enjoyed it. But when you're teaching twelve hours and really putting all your effort into the classroom, it meant, from the faculty point of view, that these were the things that we were expected to do and enjoyed and did them, I think many, many faculty did them very well.

WL: Did the student life - let me change the subject a little bit. To what extent was the student life - ?

MM: Oh, we participated in the student life too. We were expected to serve as chaperones when our turn came at dances. And the dances were chaperoned. And we 00:27:00had dinners that we were expected to attend when students invited us to the dormitories, and different students would visit with you afterwards in their living areas. This was a part of -

WL: Extended contact was expected then?

MM: And we were also advisors to all kinds of organizations. I remember saying, "I don't know much about the YW[CA]." And they said, "Well, we'd like to have you advise us for us." So I asked Professor Johnson, "You think that's something I could - " "Oh," he said, "that'd be very good." So I advised and enjoyed it. There was a participation in a good many things on campus. And Miss Elliott, as long as she was dean of students this was true. She wanted full participation by the faculty in every phase of campus life. And we participated with 00:28:00satisfaction. I spent many an evening discussing issues because everybody was interested in China in the early years I came, and not many people had been there and just discussing various phases of life in china, family life, student life.

WL: Was it - I suppose there was a regular kind of schedule of campus-wide events that involved students. For example, you mentioned dances and - .

MM: Right.

WL: Were there other sort of events that involved, aside from dances - ?

MM: Oh, the departments had department organizations, like sociology had Alpha Kappa Delta. And we had meetings and programs, and the departments all did, I think. And then there were a good many student activities on campus. And we had 00:29:00- students were expected, of course, we had chapel once a week. And then we had - everybody was expected, more or less expected, to attend the music series on the campus called - I forgot what it was called then - the lecture series and the music series in the evening. And we didn't have evening classes. They said we can't have any kind of evening classes, not ever. We had nothing in the evenings because the students were expected to participate in all these things. This was a part of the richness of the college experience.

WL: Were there classes on weekends, Saturdays, for instance?

MM: Yes, we had Saturday [classes] in the beginning. In fact, when I went into administrative office I insisted that our office be open though we'd given up Saturday classes. Because I felt that parents came in on Saturdays, and they 00:30:00needed - things they wanted to know on campus, and our offices were closed. Yes, Saturday morning was -

WL: So there was a kind of access that - free access between students and faculty for this - ?

MM: Oh yes. Faculty - the students, I think, felt very free to go to the faculty for extra work. I remember in mathematics - Dr. [Helen] Barton, one of our outstanding persons heading that department, and Dr. Barton had her faculty have extra teaching sessions for students who were having difficulty in class in keeping up with the math that they were taking.

WL: Was there a kind of equal access or was there a similar kind of access among the administrators, for example Dr. Elliott and Dr. Jackson? Did students 00:31:00feel comfortable?

MM: Yes, we felt very easy. Of course, I knew Miss Elliott, well; everybody knew Miss Elliott and Dr. Jackson. I went to his office for all kinds of things. Glen [Johnson], the head of sociology, would say, "Well, ask Dean Jackson what he thinks about that."

WL: So you'd just walk over there?

MM: Ask him to make an appointment. It happened that Professor Johnson himself that way. I don't know about the other departments, you know, I can only speak at that point because I was a young assistant professor. And I know the way in which Professor Johnson was very easy and comfortable and open, and we would talk about things. I really never thought of him, I guess, as a head. We met in the department; we met together; we talked everything over together; we seemed 00:32:00to get along very easily. There were only three full time and then one or two part time in the beginning.

WL: What about the students' background? What you described here is a fairly homogenous student body. Perhaps, well, maybe homogenous isn't the right word, but a coherent student body, felt as if there was an academic community, felt tied to each other. Did students coming to this institution, did students come from diverse backgrounds? Was their social composition diverse, their social class diverse, geographically presumably they were diverse?

MM: Well, of course, they came from all over the state. I suppose they came from different economic backgrounds in their communities. But by and large they 00:33:00were what I would think of as middle class, from upper middle to early middle. Not - we didn't have as many scholarships, and I am not aware of having had - of ever having taught a tenant farmer's child, for example. And we taught about the poverty in North Carolina and the South and changing conditions. I am not aware of what I would call persons from fairly limited backgrounds. I would call them 00:34:00more substantial than professional classes in North Carolinians, not the range that we get now.

WL: Right. Coming more and more from urban backgrounds than rural backgrounds generally, towns, villages?

MM: No, I think we have a good balance of rural and urban.

WL: But by definition, which is the way most colleges were in those days anyway, would have had to have some means in order to - ?

MM: Probably. And upwardly mobile, probably. By and large, persons from families where their parents had not been college people. And I suppose many of 00:35:00them from families that may not even have had high school graduates as parents, but parents with ambitions for their children and helping them go to college to move ahead. And of course, it was a real effort to send women to college when they weren't always going to be productive all their lives in the economy. They were going to be productive, but it wasn't outside the home.

WL: Was there much sense that - you mentioned earlier the effect that consolidation had - a sense that consolidation of The University of North 00:36:00Carolina in the early 1930s. Was there much sense after 1937 that things were perhaps going to change here? Or did it seem as though things were pretty much going to remain the way they were?

MM: No, I think there was a sense of change in that - well, for example, in the thirties and forties, we recruited many more faculty with their doctorates. This was an accepted part of a requirement for promising young faculty that you brought in. Now that's not true for a great many instructors who were temporary or who might have been temporary. But there was an expectation of doing more of developing of faculty that was a more scholarly teaching faculty perhaps.

WL: And there was a marked change in that area during the forties? Was there - ?

MM: Oh, I know there was in the forties, but I'm not sure in the late thirties or in the very early forties if that was true. Gradually taking place.

WL: What kind of effect, if any, did the war have, Second World War?

MM: Well, it had a real effect in many ways on our campus. Miss Elliott was on leave in Washington [DC]. She was in the consumer region of whatever it was, defense [National Advisory Defense Committee]. We had a camp here, ORD [Overseas Replacement Depot]. Of course, we had men. Now historically our students went over to Chapel Hill, and all the Chapel Hill boys would come over on the weekends, you know, they'd have dates. We had a lot of give and take and social life on the weekends. But with ORD here we had to have new and different kinds 00:38:00of regulations for life on the campus. Chaperoning was involved in affairs where ORD soldiers were involved, bringing them onto campus and participating in the community and community services.

WL: ORD is - what is ORD?

MM: Oh my, Overseas Replacement Depot.

WL: Oh, I see.

MM: I think that was it.

WL: So that there had to be - the previous regulations about - ?

MM: We had to think through a lot of things - the way in which this affected the total community, with the community absorbed these people and the way in which the college did.

WL: When the war ended, presumably that brought changes as well or not?

MM: Well, by that time the situation on campus was changing. You know, we were having different kinds of - women were moving, we were not really moving toward - yes, we were moving toward master's work in education. And then when women's role and women in society were beginning to open up a little more and there were new kinds of opportunities. For example, in mathematics, many of our women who graduated here, Dr. Barton placed in, oh, centers that had to do with events during the war, and then this had opened up other areas for women so that 00:40:00mathematics became - there was a larger group majoring in mathematics then ever had.