Happy birthday, Randall Jarrell!

Portrait of Randall Jarrell taken during his first year at Woman's College, 1947-48.

To honor Randall Jarrell’s 105^th birthday, we are highlighting his life and career. One of UNC Greensboro's most famous faculty members, Jarrell was a renowned poet, author, critic, and instructor.

Jarrell was born on May 6, 1914, in Nashville, Tennessee. Jarrell’s parents, Owen and Anna Campbell Jarrell, divorced early in Jarrell’s life. His childhood was split between California and Nashville, Tennessee. Jarrell showed an interest in writing and the arts early in his life – while at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville, he was active in drama and journalism.

L to R: Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, and
Peter Hillsman Taylor, lifelong friends.

Jarrell enrolled in Vanderbilt University in 1932. Continuing his interest in writing at Vanderbilt, he wrote for and later edited the Vanderbilt Masquerader, a campus humor magazine. Jarrell graduated from Vanderbilt University with a B.S. in psychology in 1935 and an M.A. in 1938.

Both his undergraduate and graduate life were punctuated by major American literary figures, specifically poets. While an undergraduate student, Jarrell took courses from John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren, major American poets. As a graduate student, Jarrell befriended two more future acclaimed authors, Peter Hillsman Taylor and Robert Lowell. Jarrell was also beginning to distinguish himself as an emerging literary figure – in 1936, he received the Southern Review Poetry Prize.

Uniformed Jarrell posing with a cat.

After leaving Vanderbilt, Jarrell served as an English instructor at Kenyon College from 1937-1939. In 1942, Jarrell joined the U.S. Army Air Force. Initially, he served as a flying cadet, but washed out of being a pilot and became a celestial navigation tower operator until his discharge in 1946. Jarrell’s poetry was often influenced by World War II and his experiences in the armed forces.

Two books of Jarrell’s poetry were published during his time in the military. Blood for a Stranger, Jarrell’s first book of poetry was published in 1942. Jarrell’s second book of poetry, Little Friend, Little Friend, was published in 1945. Once discharged from the army in 1946, Jarrell served as the temporary editor of The Nation in New York City, taking over for Margaret Marshall.

After his stint at The Nation concluded, Jarrell moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. Jarrell joined the English faculty of the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro (now UNC Greensboro) in 1947. He remained a permanent member of the Woman’s College faculty until his death in 1965.

Mary and Randall Jarrell dancing, ca. 1960s.

In the early 1950s, Jarrell met and married his second wife, Mary von Schrader. Jarrell took several temporary teaching positions at universities across the country during the 1950s – including Princeton University, Indiana University, and the University of Illinois. Jarrell also served as the poetry consultant for the Library of Congress for two years.

Jarrell returned to Woman’s College and resumed teaching in 1958. In 1960, while teaching at Woman’s College, Jarrell published one of his most famous books of poetry: The Woman at the Washington Zoo. The book received the National Book Award for poetry in 1961 and the University of North Carolina’s Max O. Gardner Award in 1962.

Despite being known for poetry, Jarrell also published a novel and a number of children’s books during the 1950s and 1960s. A lifelong lover of cats, Jarrell dedicated one of his children's books, The Animal Family, to his cat Elfi. Fly by Night, another children’s book, was published posthumously in 1976.

An edited sheet from Jarrell's  poem,
"The End of the Rainbow," from his papers.

The Lost World, Jarrell’s last book of poetry, was published in 1965. At the time, Jarrell was living in Chapel Hill and teaching at UNC-Chapel Hill. While walking along a road in October, Jarrell was struck by a car and killed. Mary Jarrell never remarried after Jarrell’s death and worked tirelessly to preserve both his personal and literary memory. 

Jarrell was instrumental to the history of UNC Greensboro, particularly the creative writing and English programs, and remains a beloved figure on campus. Randall Jarrell’s papers – including manuscripts of his poetry, photographs, translations of plays, and more – are housed at the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives.

LGBTQ Pioneers on Campus: Dr. Thomas K. Fitzgerald

To kick off PRIDE! month at UNC Greensboro, Spartan Stories is highlighting Dr. Thomas K. Fitzgerald, a prominent gay faculty member in the 1970s through 2004.

Thomas (Tom) K. Fitzgerald was born in Lexington, North Carolina. He attended UNC-Chapel Hill, graduating with an A.B. in Anthropology in 1962. Although he originally intended to study Latin and Greek at UNC-Chapel Hill, he was fascinated by anthropology after taking a class early in his college career.

After his time at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Fitzgerald studied in Paris and Stanford before returning to North Carolina. He received a Fulbright Certificate from the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Paris in 1963, and an M.A. in Anthropology from Stanford University in 1964. 

Dr. Fitzgerald’s time spent in France was particularly formative, as recalled in his oral history interview. Being among other LGBTQ individuals in France and California helped him understand his identity and feel more comfortable coming out. After his studies internationally and nationally, Dr. Fitzgerald received his doctorate from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1969.

Dr. Thomas K. Fitzgerald, ca. 1970s.

Dr. Fitzgerald’s research initially focused on cultural anthropology and shifted to psychological anthropology. He often focused on questions surrounding identity: he introduced many interdisciplinary courses meant to examine identity. 

Chief among those identities, and controversial at the time, was the LGBTQ identity and communities. Early in his career, Dr. Fitzgerald was publishing pieces on homosexuality. As an undergraduate student, Dr. Fitzgerald completed a study of homosexuality as an honors thesis – the most read thesis at the library. The paper posited that anthropology had insight into the human condition and experience of different sexualities. 

Dr. Fitzgerald first came to UNC Greensboro as an assistant professor 1970. In 1974, he transitioned to an associate professor. Upon coming to the university. Dr. Fitzgerald recalls the closeted nature of the campus faculty, despite a fair number of faculty in the anthropology department identifying as such. Although the campus as a whole remained closeted, Dr. Fitzgerald was out upon his arrival at the university.

During his time at UNC Greensboro, Dr. Fitzgerald frequently introduced homosexuality as a topic of study in his courses. Initially, he began by showing films with LGBTQ themes for discussion. The films and topics were well-received by students, but Dr. Fitzgerald was anxious about the overall campus reception to this taboo subject. 

UNC Greensboro promoted Dr. Fitzgerald to full faculty member with tenure in 1980. Although not without contention and some pushback from administrators, Dr. Fitzgerald became the youngest full professor at UNC Greensboro at that time.

In the mid-1970s, Dr. Fitzgerald made history by introducing the first approved college course focused on homosexuality in North Carolina. The course made UNC Greensboro a destination for scholars interested in homosexuality as a topic of study, and individuals traveled from across the state to take the course. The reception was not entirely positive, as Dr. Fitzgerald notes. Any advertisements for the course were ripped down, religious tracts would be left in his mailbox, and he felt pressure from some university administrators.

Dr. Fitzgerald was also crucial in the formation of the Gay Academic Union (GAU) in the 1970s, a community group intended to educated others about homosexuality and provide a safe space for LGBTQ individuals in the Triad community. Initially, the group met in private homes and churches, and later on campus. Dr. Fitzgerald noted that the student population on campus, and in North Carolina, was very receptive to discussing sexuality in an honest and forthright manner, even if administrations were not.

In addition to his work surrounding LGBTQ issues and identities, Dr. Fitzgerald also worked extensively to explore issues of race, both within America and worldwide. He spent two years studying the Maori culture and race relations in New Zealand. Based on his work with the Maori, he proposed that genealogical research and a better understanding of your family and culture’s past were an effective means to overcome racism. 

Dr. Thomas Fitzgerald (left) and Bill Johnston (right).

 Dr. Fitzgerald retired from UNC Greensboro in the 2003-2004 academic year, with 30.5 years of service to the university. He currently lives in Greensboro with his partner, ceramic artist Bill Johnston. If you are interested in learning more, you can view/listen to the oral history with Dr. Fitzgerald and Bill Johnston here.

Cornelia Strong: An "Unforgettable Individual"

For 43 years, Cornelia Strong served as a professor of mathematics at the school now known as UNC Greensboro. During her time on campus, the school changed from State Normal to the North Carolina College for Women to the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. She saw tremendous growth in the physical campus as well as the educational offerings for students. And when she passed away in 1955, she left behind a legacy that continues on the UNCG campus today.

A native of South Carolina, Strong joined the State Normal (now UNCG) faculty in 1905, and worked diligently to prepare the women under her tutelage for a variety of careers. While most alumni entered into teaching, many mathematics majors found roles as "human computers" in the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) and later the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (see this story about 1930 graduate Virginia Tucker, who served as the "head computer" at Langley in the late 1940s).

Strong received her educational training at Cornell University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1903 and was elected to membership in Sigma Xi, the national honorary society for distinction in science. Soon after, she arrived in Greensboro to begin teaching at the State Normal. But she continued her education through summer schools at a number of universities, including California, Colorado, and Wisconsin. In 1931, she completed her Master of Arts degree in Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Michigan.

That same year, she began teaching the first courses in Astronomy at the North Carolina College for Women (now UNCG). Dorothy Yarbrough Zimmerman (Class of 1935) was one of six students in Strong's astromony class in 1934. She noted, "visions come to mind now of the frail but dynamic body of Miss Strong, ever clad in her characteristic shoe top length skirts and plain black lace shoes, meeting us on campus at 4 am, lugging and setting up the telescope in order that we might feel the thrill of observing Saturn's rings, Jupiter's moons, and craters of our own moon."

In addition to teaching, Strong served on a number of critical campus committees. Perhaps the most significant was her role as chairman of the Committee on Advanced Standing, a position she held from 1913 through 1937. This committee was tasked with evaluating the academic records of alumnae from the earliest years of the school (before accreditation) to determine how much work would be needed to meet current degree requirements. As noted in one tribute to her after her death, this leadership position was particularly difficult as "it required good judgement, patience, and tact to maintain the standards of the college and at the same time preserve happy relations with these older alumnae."

Strong was also known across campus as someone who would go out of her way to help or cheer up her students and colleagues. She was frequently known to pick flowers from her own yard and deliver a small bouquet to new faculty members. Barbara Mangum Bowland (Class of 1951) recalled that, upon learning about her upcoming wedding, Strong made a special heel for Bowland's wedding slipper - a blue satin heel with a four-leaf clover pressed into it. Strong also enclosed a note that read "a bride must have something old - and something new - and a four-leaf clover in the heel of her shoe."

Upon her retirement in 1948, Strong was recognized by students and fellow faculty members as an "unforgettable individual," a "resolute and brilliant woman," and "a truly remarkable person." On June 3, 1955, at the age of 78, she passed away at Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro. In a tribute to Strong read before the Faculty Council in November 1955, three members of the mathematics department noted, "in the hearts of her many students and friends, in the Mathematics Department and in the entire college community, Miss Strong will live for many years to come, an inspiring and gracious influence."

Moore-Strong Residence Hall

In 1960, a new residence hall opened on the Woman's College campus and was named in memory of Strong (as well as Mary Taylor Moore, a member of the Class of 1903 who served as registrar from 1909 to 1948). The building was renovated in 1994, and Strong College was officially established by the University's College of Arts and Sciences. Strong Colleges continues today (although it has been relocated to Guilford Hall) with a focus on "sustainability through hands-on research and fieldwork."

Lettie Hamlett Rogers - An Alumna, Author, and Instructor with International Roots

Lettie Hamlett Rogers writing, 1946.

Lettie Hamlett Rogers, who both attended and taught at Woman’s College (now UNC Greensboro), led an extraordinary and varied life, often using her experiences to fuel her writings. Rogers was born in Suzhou (or Soochow), China, on September 16, 1917, to the missionaries Reverend P.W. Hamlett and Mrs. Lettie Hamlett.

She spent her childhood in both China and Japan, learning to speak Chinese before she learned to speak English. From early in her life, Rogers experienced hardship and strife. Rogers experienced the Chinese civil wars during 1925 and 1927 as a refugee in Japan. She was separated from her father, who stayed in China as one of the few remaining missionaries.

Rogers attended Shanghai American School before moving to the United States to attend Woman’s College. Rogers graduated from Woman’s College in 1940 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. Like her parents, Rogers spent some time in China teaching and was classified as a missionary. She then joined the faculty of the University as an assistant professor in the Sociology Department in 1941.

During her time teaching in the Sociology Department, Rogers became increasingly dedicated to her writing. After suffering a bout of influenza in 1942, she spent her lengthy recovery reading numerous mystery novels. Rogers declared she could produce better stories and tried her hand at writing mysteries. In additional to her battle with influenza, Rogers was also affected by World War II. Rogers' parents and other missionaries were imprisoned in Japan, but were exchanged for Japanese prisoners in the United States in 1942.

Despite all of the hardships she faced in 1942, she kept working on her mystery story. Her first mystery was unpublished, but she enrolled in a writing course with Hiram Hayden at Woman’s College in 1943. That same year, she left her position at Woman’s College to dedicate herself full-time to her writing.

Rogers was a published writer throughout most of her adulthood, beginning her writing career with an article on China in Asia magazine in 1944. Rogers went on to publish prolifically, producing four novels, including South of Heaven, The Storm Cloud, Landscape of the Heart, and Birthright.

Typescript and corrections for "The Storm Cloud," 1951.

During her literary career, Rogers returned to Woman’s College, joining the English faculty in 1948. Rogers was instrumental in developing a strong writing program at Woman’s College.

However, Rogers resigned from her position in 1955 due to the controversial censure of the staff of the Coraddi, the art and literary magazine of Woman’s College, over a Fall 1954 issue. Rogers, along with several other faculty/staff, resigned in protest of the censure of the Coraddi staff for publishing a pen and ink drawing of a nude man. (To read more about the controversy, read our Spartan Stories post here.)

Rogers's letter of resignation sent to Chancellor Graham, 1955.

Despite leaving the English department at Woman’s College, Rogers continued writing. Many of her novels drew from her own life experience, perhaps none more so than her debut novel, South of Heaven. The novel focused on familiar territory for Rogers – a child of Western heritage who was living in China, struggling to find her place in the world. Other novels focused on China between 1925-1927, American mental hospitals, and a Southern town much like her residence in Morganton, N.C.

All of Rogers’ novels were met with some acclaim. Her last novel, Birthright, was issued as the April book by the Literary Guild and was well-received critically.

Rogers had been sick of several years, undergoing treatments for cancer in New York City at Mount Sinai Hospital when Birthright was published. Rogers passed away in 1957 at the age of 39, after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was buried in Morganton, N.C.

Although Rogers died at a tragically early age, she accomplished a great deal as a student, educator, missionary, and author. Her impact on UNC Greensboro and North Carolina literature are pronounced.

The Lettie Hamlett Rogers Papers are housed in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA). Rogers donated her papers the the University in the 1950s. If you would like to learn more about Rogers or the collection, visit the finding aid for the collection here. 

Lettie Hamlett Rogers, undated.

Josephine Hege: Expressing the Spirit of Woman's College

In 1972, Josephine "Jo" Hege retired as an associate professor of history at UNC Greensboro. On the occasion of her retirement, history department head Richard Bardolph wrote of her as "a highly popular teacher, as well known for her sparkling wit, her ebullience, and her razor-sharp intelligence as for the rigorous standards she required of her students." He noted that she "waged relentless assault upon sham and shoddy worksmanship," but added that "four decades of unswerving dedication to classroom excellence only deepened and strengthened her inner kindliness, her unfailing sense of the comic and absurd, her allegiance to the highest intellectual virtues."

Young Josephine Hege

Elma Josephine Hege was born October 18, 1904, in Salem, NC, to Frederick Christian and Augusta Sitterson Hege. The Hege family's roots could be traced back to the earliest years of the Moravian settlement in Salem. When Josephine was six years old, her family moved to Roanoke Rapids, where her father worked at Rosemary Mills.

After graduating from high school in Roanoke Rapids in 1923, Hege enrolled in the North Carolina College for Women (now UNC Greensboro) to study to become a teacher. She was a very active student, serving as the Literary Editor of the Pine Needles in her junior year and as President of the Student Government Association in her senior year. In the 1927 yearbook, Hege was described as "exact and correct about what she does, but she expects others to have the same standards. This means that she makes an inspiring teacher, although she is a difficult person to please."

Hege's high standards led her to graduate with honors as a history student at NCCW. She was also awarded the Weil Fellowship, which provided a year of graduate study at Yale University. After teaching in public schools for a few years, Hege returned to her alma mater to serve as a counselor in Shaw Residence Hall and part-time instructor from 1934 to 1938. She spent one year away from Greensboro to complete her master of arts degree in history at the University of Virginia. Then, in 1939, she was named an assistant professor in the history department.

Hege, 1927 Pine Needles yearbook

Throughout her time at the school now known as UNCG, Hege wrote poems, litanies, and scripts for numerous services held on campus. Perhaps her proudest achievement, however, was writing the Litany of Commemoration for Founders Day, which was first performed at the university's 50th anniversary celebration on October 5, 1942.

Hege's contributions to the development and growth her alma mater, however, continued in other avenues. When the institution became a university in 1963, Hege took on an unofficial role of mentor to the new faculty members hired. She drew on her background to provide them with instruction in the art of teaching, helping them adjust to the role of professor. Converse D. Clowse, a history department professor, wrote that "she supported young, green faculty members as well as her students. I know that she gave me sound advice on numerous occasions and saved me from a number of errors. She guided others in the same way ... I think that she saw this as a part of her functions as an experienced teacher, to make the next generation of teachers better."

Hege in her office, 1956

In 1972, Hege retired from UNCG. Six years later, a group of faculty and alumni nominated Hege for an honorary doctorate degree for her commitment to UNCG and to excellence in teaching. The degree was awarded in 1979. In a note informing Hege of this decision, Chancellor James Ferguson wrote "you have made fine contributions to this institution, to the consolidated University, and to higher education throughout the state. For many years your litany has expressed the spirit of the Woman's College and the University, and of course your teaching has had a special meaning for those students whose good fortune it was to be in your classes."

Hege saw the institution transform from the North Carolina College for Women to the Woman's College to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her high standards for excellence and her personal emphasis on passing along knowledge to the next generation of students and faculty members ensured that the spirit of the university's founders carries on today.

Brain Videos, IV Bags, and Deadheads: The Most Interesting Teaching Experience Contest

Today's Spartan Stories post was written by Arlen Hansen, a PhD student in History. Arlen worked in Special Collections and University Archives during Summer 2017, assisting with research related to the University's 125th anniversary celebration.

Michael McIntosh

One day in 1998, sitting in the UNCG Dining Services facilities, Michael McIntosh, an Associate Professor of Nutrition at UNCG, would recall the exact moment—on a day twenty-four years earlier, that he knew he wanted to be a teacher. It was the day the new English teacher arrived at the mission school in the small village in Cameroon, West Africa, where McIntosh was a Peace Corps volunteer. A few months earlier, the previous English teacher had had to leave the country suddenly because of a serious illness, and McIntosh, who had been training local farmers in fish farming (to enhance local production and consumption of protein-rich foods), was pressed into service as an interim English teacher at the mission school. The next day he found himself out of the field and in front of sixty French-speaking junior high school students. McIntosh would soon discover that their level of comprehension in English was about the same as his own comprehension in French. Over several weeks, McIntosh and the students learned to communicate with each other by use of hand signals, demonstrations, models of all sorts, and blackboards full of chalk. It was difficult, but at last McIntosh felt that he was making real progress. McIntosh described the following three months of teaching those Cameroonian middle schoolers as some of the most fulfilling of his life. And then the new English teacher arrived, and McIntosh sadly went back to the fields. It was at that moment, he knew he wanted to be a teacher. McIntosh told this story as a part of the “Most Interesting Teaching Experience” Contest held by the UNCG Dining Services in 1998.

McIntosh’s story is inspirational, and thus perhaps fitting for a teacher from a university that started its life as the “State Normal and Industrial School.” A “normal” school was a college with the specific mission of training teachers. While McIntosh’s story was inspirational, many other entries in the contest were mostly humorous, if a little frightening on occasion. William Purkey’s class in Counseling asked him to describe what “encounter group activities” were like in the 1960s. Purkey wrote, “To demonstrate…I asked for 10 volunteers to form a very tight circle in the middle of the classroom, then I asked for a single volunteer to “break” into the circle. In the 1960s the one being excluded would run around the closed circle, looking for an opening. But I forgot [to mention] this…. The excluded volunteer suddenly started from one side of the classroom, ran to the circle. Then vaulted completely over the 10 circled student and landed head first…inside the circle.” Purkey concluded his story by saying that he has never since described that activity again. He did not say if the vaulting student sustained any injuries.

An even more disturbing experience was described by Psychology Professor Kathy Bell. While teaching about electrical impulses in the brain, Bell showed a video segment on how electrical impulses in the brain fire during a seizure. In the video, areas of the brain firing were illustrated with flashing lights. While this “seizure” was being demonstrated on screen, a student in the class had an actual seizure. Wrote Bell, “After depressing the student’s tongue to avoid her choking, I sent another student to call an ambulance. The student was fine by the time the ambulance arrived….” Later in the semester, Bell would discuss a study of children in Japan who were having seizure in reaction to flashing lights. She observed that this “provided a possible explanation for what we had observed in class. Needless to say, I do not intend to show the brain video again.”

But the Grand Prize winner of the contest takes the cake for being both hilarious and disturbing, in nearly equal portions. Bill Tullar remembered a professor from his college days whose name was Hailey. Professor Hailey had a reputation for giving the most difficult tests anyone had ever seen or experienced. Hailey hated giving make-up exams, and made them absolutely impossible if he had to give them. Consequently, students would do anything to avoid missing a regularly scheduled exam. One night during finals, Tullar remembers walking past Professor Hailey’s classroom and seeing a most astonishing sight through the open door. Tullar wrote, “In the front row of the class was a young man. He had his IV stand, a full IV bag hung on the stand, and the IV needle was firmly stuck in his left arm. He was writing furiously. This young man had gotten out of Moses Cone hospital, come to school to take the exam, and as soon as he was done, he went right back to Moses Cone, IV bag and all.”

Adams teaching on the bus in the summer of 1989

UNCG is, of course, no longer strictly a “teacher’s college,” but is classified as a “research university.” Yet, teaching, and the student-teacher interaction, as either transformative or frightening, as the anecdotes above illustrate, remains central to the task of education, here at UNCG, and everywhere that there are students and teachers. “Research and teaching are…inseparable,” wrote Sociology Professor Rebecca Adams in her response to the contest’s question. The entries were mostly hand written on a half-page size entry card that could be picked up at the Dining Services locations. For her entry, Adams submitted an article she had published in which she described teaching a summer class on Field research and Methods and Applied Social Theory to twenty-one undergraduates and then taking them on the Grateful Dead’s 1989 Summer Tour to research the subculture surrounding the band. In the article, Adams describes the close bonds that formed among the students from the experience of class on the road, and how, she wrote, “The students became a part of my life.” Long after that summer tour, Adams and the students she came to call “my deadheads” would meet up again over the years at Grateful Dead concerts. Adams husband and toddler daughter had accompanied the class on the tour, and wrote Adams,

At the urging of the students, my daughter spoke her first sentence: “Go Bus!” They held her, talked to her, and played with her. They sided with my husband when we bickered. The intensity of emotion I felt towards “my deadheads” both surprised and scared me; I had always kept a proper distance from students. Then I realized the benefits of this closeness. Because the students knew me, really knew me, they were more likely to come to me with problems, questions, and ideas. They knew I would respond as a friend, not just to the limits of my bureaucratic responsibility. They respected me more, not less. I now have more insight into the lives students lead. I am a much more effective teacher.

Sounds like a true education, for teacher and student alike.

Gregory Ivy: The Legacy of a Non-Conformist

Today's Spartan Stories post was written by Arlen Hansen, a PhD student in History. Arlen worked in Special Collections and University Archives during Summer 2017, assisting with research related to the University's 125th anniversary celebration.

To the extent that UNCG is known as an “arts school” in North Carolina, much of the credit for that reputation can go to Gregory Ivy (1904-1985). “Consider,” wrote his student Lee Hall, “what the world and North Carolina were like in the Great Depression, what the Woman’s College was about…when Gregory Ivy arrived in his super-modern space craft and -- seeming to barely speak the language of the country he had invaded -- urged the female natives to seek and value freedom, to question what they had been taught was unquestionable, and to notice that most authority figures were swaggering about as buck naked as the emperors they imagined themselves to be.”1  According to Lee Hall, “Ivy might as well have been an alien when he arrived in North Carolina” in 1935, to found the art department of the Woman’s College (later UNCG).2

Ivy was a Columbia University-educated artist, a modernist influenced by surrealism and the Cubists. As such, according to Hall, Ivy was always advancing challenges to the status quo, and he made the newly minted art department at the Woman’s College into “a mini-cosmos of the humanistic world he envisioned.”3  With this guiding philosophy, Ivy influenced generations of students, and shaped art education at the Woman’s College. In 1938, Ivy established a summer art colony held at the Beaufort Summer School through the mid-1950s, which focused on landscape painting. In 1941, with the help and support of community members, Ivy established an art gallery, now known as the Weatherspoon Art Museum. Ivy’s connections to the wider art world meant that he could bring nationally known artists to the Woman’s College. This is how the sculptor Maurice Glickman, for instance, anchored the inaugural exhibit at the new Woman’s College Art Gallery in 1941. In subsequent decades, under Ivy leadership, the Weatherspoon Gallery became nationally known in the art world as a leading showcase of modernist art. His legacy is still felt in the Arts at UNCG, and in the Weatherspoon Art Museum.

Ivy's watercolor Dead End, Beaufort (1940)

Lee Hall met Gregory Ivy as an art student at the Woman’s College.4  Hall would later recall that in 1950s “McCarthyism” America, Ivy “did not fit in, he did not conform.”5  Ivy had built the UNC system’s first department to award a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in fine arts, and assembled an art department of very talented colleagues. According to Lee Hall, “these “liberal” or “arty” or “pinko” faculty…kept the gossips and scolds stoked, and caused among the keepers of the status quo near-terminally raised eyebrows and pursed mouths.” Lee Hall recalled that students seemed to either love or hate Ivy, and recalled the gossip of her fellow students about him. From students who liked him: “He’s hip.” “He has Negro friends.” From students who hated him: “He’s an atheist and communist.” “He believes in sex before marriage.” “He’s going to be fired.”6

Gregory Ivy left the Woman’s College in 1961, after twenty-six years, to work as design coordinator for an architectural firm in Greensboro. He resigned with an angry letter to acting-Chancellor W.W. Pierson bemoaning the lack of funding for the art department, and the apparent disinterest of the College to fund it. “The Art Department,” he wrote, “is the only department here which is not housed, and yet, it is the best known nationally of all the departments.”7  His resignation letter detailed all of his grievances with the administration, and continued, “I feel that I can no longer assume the responsibility for maintaining decent standards under these conditions. The quality of the work done under these really outrageous and scandalous conditions suffers.”8

 In 1965, Ivy left Greensboro to head the art department at California State College in Fullerton. Over the course of his long career, Ivy participated in exhibitions with major artists such as Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollack, and Marc Chagall, and at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The Weatherspoon Art Museum houses a major collection of Ivy’s work.


1 Lee Hall. Lecture delivered November 13, 2005 at Weatherspoon Art Museum on the occasion of the public reception for the exhibition, “Gregory D. Ivy: Making North Carolina Modern.” Gregory Ivy Bio Files, Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG Libraries. 
2 Ibid. 
3 Ibid. 
4 Lee Hall was the student artist who drew the male nude which graced the cover of the Fall 1954 issue of the Coraddi. In the ensuing controversy, The Coraddi staff was censured by Chancellor Edward Kidder Graham, resulting in the resignation of the magazine's staff. 
5  Lee Hall. Lecture delivered November 13, 2005 at Weatherspoon Art Museum on the occasion of the public reception for the exhibition, “Gregory D. Ivy: Making North Carolina Modern.” Gregory Ivy Biographical File, Special Collections University Archives, UNCG Libraries.   
6 Lee Hall, e-mail to Will South, 4 March, 2004. Gregory Ivy Bio Files, Special Collections University Archives, UNCG Libraries. 
7 The Carolinian, May 12, 1961. 
8 Ibid.

Mereb Mossman: An Administrator and Leader

Today's blog post was written by Ashlie Brewer. Ashlie is a rising junior, majoring in music education. She currently works as one of the 125th Anniversary Student Researchers, helping conduct archival research in anticipation of the university's upcoming celebration.

Mereb Mossman was born in Winfield, Kansas on December 1, 1905. She attended Morningside College where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926, then her Master of Arts from the University of Chicago two years later in 1928. Mossman taught sociology at Ginling College in China from 1930-35, then came back to the States for a year of graduate study. She went back overseas to teach and travel in Asia and Europe. In 1936, Mossman taught at the Alabama Women’s College and then joined the Woman’s College (now UNCG) faculty in 1937 as a professor of Sociology. Mossman was quickly recognized as a critical member of the WC faculty. Her peers frequently described her as a hard-working, model administrator.

Mossman was an active member of the WC campus community, the Greensboro community, and her professional community. During her first couple of years on campus, she was asked to lecture on China to civic organizations as an aftermath of the Japanese invasion of the country. From 1946 to 1948, Mossman served as president of the Greensboro Council of Social Agencies, and in 1947 to 1951, she was a member of the National Committee on Preprofessional Education of the American Association of Schools of Social Work. In 1951 she was named WC’s Dean of Instruction. She was promoted to Dean of the College, then Dean of Faculty soon after that, then was named Greensboro’s Woman of the Year given an honorary membership to the Greensboro Junior League in 1954. Two years later, in 1956, she received the Max Oliver Gardener Award. Then in 1960, she was awarded an honorary degree of Humanities at Queen’s College and Morningside College. In 1963, Mossman was elected executive council of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of College and Schools. Finally, in 1969 she was promoted to Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Making her the first woman to ever hold this position at the university. However, she only held the title briefly before stepping down in 1971 to resume teaching full time.

As an administrator, Mossman was a woman who always got the job done. However, she worked a small team consisting of herself, an assistant and a secretary. Unwilling to delegate, there were many times that the team had to stay long hours and weekends in order to get necessary paperwork completed. She was able to master virtually every detail of the college’s operations which kept her as a pivotal member at the university. Mossman always looked to the future for the university -- from bringing in more professors, being a familiar face as chancellors rotated in and out, and bringing more education to UNCG (she was a driving force in creating masters and doctoral programs in several departments). Mossman looked at adding as many learning opportunities to the university as possible.

During her years 20+ years at WC/UNCG, Mossman held several positions but valued her time as a teacher more than any other of her titles. She viewed higher education as not only a place to develop curious minds of students and to place them into the working force, but as two continuing education programs. The first being the workshops and seminars that are being held across the country for professionals, and the second being the continuing programs for people interested in their own personal development as a human being. She pushed this idea onto her students. One of Mossman’s student’s recounted, "She held us to the highest standards and never, never relaxed that. She was one of the finest, a fascinating professor who got to you. Years after you left her class you didn’t want to let her down. She is one of the life’s very special people."


Mossman retired in 1976 with a resume listing over 10 pages of educational groups and community service work. A year after her retirement, the campus administration building was named in her honor. Mereb Mossman died in 1990 at the age of 84.

Faculty Service During World War II

On March 19, 1942, the News Bureau at Woman’s College (now UNCG) released a letter to faculty stating that the organization was “compiling information on the college’s contributions to the war effort.” The letter went on to request that faculty members respond with a list of their individual involvement in the war effort as well as the names of any relatives who were serving in the United States Military. The responses varied in their tone and complexity.

Guy Lyle

“As you know I am serving as state director of the Victory Book Campaign.” Library Professor Guy Lyle reminded crisply. “This takes up pretty much all of my leisure time.” Professor Lyle’s background as a librarian at numerous academic and public libraries made him an obvious choice for leading an organization whose mission was to boost the spirits of troops by providing them with reading materials.

Sociology Professor Mereb Mossman was even briefer in her response: “I am training chairman of the Greensboro C.D.V.O.” She was referring to the Civilian Defense Volunteer Office which was established in 1941 to keep up public morale and involve ordinary citizens in defense planning.


Mereb Mossman

Hygiene Professor Victoria Carlson wrote a long, detailed response to Nell Craig, director of the News Bureau. She explained that her brother was in the service and that she lectured to eight sections of her Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick classes. This class was modified to reflect wartime caveats. Many professors altered their classes during World War II in order to offer students and community members the skills that were needed for a nation at war.

In the same vein, Ruth Fitzgerald lamented that she was “physically unable to take on any extra work.” A professor of education, she joined Professor Carlson in increasing her work load on campus. These increases were sanctioned by Frank Porter Graham, President of the University of North Carolina System, who believed that heavy sacrifice was demanded of everyone in the university from the top down due to the war.

While some professors joined or led organizations and others taught additional classes, faculty contributed to the war effort in a myriad of ways. These paths to service could be as simple as knitting clothes for soldiers, planting a victory garden in the community, or as involved as joining the military themselves, something a few Woman’s College faculty actually did.

Victoria Carlson

This outpour of faculty support for the war effort, encouraged and facilitated by the university administration, is significant for two reasons. First, there is noticeable (public) unity among the faculty about the nation’s involvement in and goals for World War II, a feature that would be lacking in more recent wars, mostly noticeably the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the involvement of students and faculty alike at an all-girls college demonstrates the social effects that the War brought to the United States. Necessity would shatter glass ceilings as women raced to fill the positions left behind by drafted men. Additionally, involvement of faculty in reaching and helping laymen and women on the home front enforced the image of Woman’s College as a source of civic communitarianism. The school’s service as a bridge between the citizens of the community and a wealth of intellectual, yet practical knowledge helped ready the school for its transition into a co-ed university in 1963, and will guide the university’s future well into the twenty-first century.


This post was written by UNCG alumni Joseph Winberry (Class of 2013).

Dr. Albert Keister and the Debate over Evolution

Dr. Albert S. Keister arrived at the North Carolina College for Women (now UNCG) in 1924, halfway through completing his PhD in economics at the University of Chicago (a degree he completed in 1927). Upon his hiring, he taught courses in sociology and political science, as the school had no formal economics department. He also taught a number of extension classes around the state of North Carolina. It was in one of those extension classes in 1925 that Keister became embroiled in the debate over evolution that was sweeping the country.

Keister, from the 1945 Pine Needles yearbook

On January 25, 1925 in Charlotte, Keister taught an extension class in sociology. At one point during the class, according to a letter written by Keister in 1963 after being asked about the incident, a student asked Keister "what a belief in evolution did to one who believed in the Bible?" Keister responded that accepting evolution "forced the person to hold that account of creation in the Book of Genesis was not literally true but only the attempt of a people to explain a mystery of life in a pre-scientific age, hence a form of mythology." He also expressed that he "admired a teacher who was brave enough to speak plainly on both sides of the question."

In a January 19, 1925, NCCW vice president Walter Clinton Jackson wrote a report on his understanding of the "incident" for president Julius Foust. In it, he highlights another point of controversy related to Keister's class. In addition to being asked about evolution, Keister was asked his opinion on "the Negro." He elicited further disdain from members of his class by stating that 'he would have considered it an honor to have had Booker Washington dine with his family in his home." This statement is rarely mentioned in contemporary newspaper accounts about Keister.

But there were many editorials and articles written about Keister and his statements on evolution. President Foust received letters from citizens throughout North Carolina, some supporting Keister and others demanding for his immediate dismissal. On February 6, 1925, the Parent-Teachers' Association of Laurinburg (NC) issued a formal petition calling for Keister's firing. They also called for the immediate halt to "teaching that evolutionary hypothesis or any other unproven theory is a settled fact, and especially using such unproven theories as a criterion to establish the correctness or falsity of the truths of the Scripture and thus undermine the faith of our girls, yet too immature to properly think through these matters themselves." The Presbyterian Ministers' Association of Charlotte followed suit on February 16, charging Keister with "having made attack upon foundation principles of the security of our social and moral welfare and highly repugnant to the Anglo-Saxon people that compose this Commonwealth."

The beginning of one of the editorials calling for Keister's firing. This is from
the January 14, 1925, issue of the Charlotte Observer. This editorial was
written by Al Fairbrother of Greensboro. 

The uproar continued and on March 10, Keister broke his silence with an official statement sent to Foust. Keister wrote, "it has come to my attention that various person throughout the state charge me with being an atheist, an infidel, and an unbeliever in the Bible." He asked Foust to "interview any of my students regarding the spirit of my instruction," stating that he leads his students (as well as his own children) "to think what Jesus' way of life points to." He concluded, "if I were an atheist and a destroyer of the faith, is it likely that I would be serving as a teacher for the Men's Bible Class of the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant?"

Ultimately, Foust worked behind the scenes to convince the College's Board of Directors that, in spite of the challenges, Keister should remain. In an April 1 letter to Judge J.D. Murphy of Asheville, Foust wrote that he considered Keister "one of the best men fundamentally whom I have ever met." He added, "I know the phrase 'academic freedom' has been much overworked, but the board of directors might discharge almost every member of the faculty and attempt to reorganize the college to meet what some people in the state are demanding ... The only solution to this whole matter from the standpoint of some people is to abolish all colleges and schools in North Carolina and have an educated clergy who would do all the thinking for the people. We can not build at this place a great college based on fear, nor can we grow a great democracy in North Carolina based on timidity." Ultimately, the Board chose simply not to act on the calls for Keister's removal.

For his part, Keister later went on to serve on the Greensboro City Council from 1932 to 1938. During World War II, he served on the National Labor Relations Board. He also was a director of the Gate City Savings and Loan Association and the North Carolina National Band. he served as president of the Southern Economics Association. And, throughout his life, he remained an active member of the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, where he headed their Campus Christian Life Committee following his retirement from the Woman's College in 1956. This Committee was responsible for building the Presbyterian Student Center on the WC campus. Keister died in 1974 at the age of 86 after a battle with Parkinson's Disease.

O. Max Gardner Award

The O. Max Gardner Award is the highest faculty honor awarded by the North Carolina Board of Governors and has been given annually since 1949. It is named after Oliver Max Gardner (1882-1947) who was the Democratic Governor of the state from 1929-1933. One of the pinnacle achievement of his tenure as governor was the consolidation of the University of North Carolina, State College, and the North Carolina College for Women in 1931. The Consolidation Act was designed to reduce the economic costs during the Great Depression and to reduce duplication of courses and programs. At the urging of Gardner, Frank Graham was appointed the President of the newly created Consolidated University System. Along with serving as a politician, Gardner was a businessman and a lawyer.

Oliver Max Gardner

Gardner continued to be a strong supporter of the University system after his death. In his will, he stipulated that that the Board of Trustees of the Consolidated University of North Carolina “shall pay annually the net income from a trust fund to that member of the faculty of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, who during the current scholastic year, has made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race.” Each year, one nomination is submitted by the chancellors and presidents of each of the 16 schools within the UNC system to Oliver Max Gardner Award committee. Winners of the award are announced at the April meeting of the UNC Board of Governors and receive a cash prize of $20,000.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) has had several winners since the award was first given, including the first recipient Louise B. Alexander who was a professor in the Department of History and Political Science. Other notable UNCG award winners have included Mereb Mossman (1959), Randall Jarrell (1962), and Fred Chappell (1986). The Office of the Provost is responsible for managing the nomination process within the University and the selected UNCG nominee receives a $1000 award. The 2016 nominee was Dr. Deb Cassisdy who is a professor of Human Development and Family Studies. She was selected for her significant contributions to the field of early childhood education.

Celeste Ulrich: Dog Trainer and Professor of Physical Education

Dr. Celeste Ulrich, long time professor of physical education at UNCG, was also known for her dog training skills.  Several newspaper articles cited her expertise with man's best friend and her love for dogs, particularly her favorite Collie, "Rory."  But there's much more to the story of Dr. Ulrich...

Dr. Celeste Ulrich, c. 1956

Celeste Ulrich was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1924.  She came to the Woman's College (now UNCG) as a student in the Physical Education program in 1942, the height of WWII.  In an oral history interview, Dr. Ulrich recalled the effects of the war on the students at Woman's College.

"We had, at that time, there was only one telephone to every dormitory and so that therefore the students took turns in manning the telephone and when a telephone call came in to a specific girl, you had to call over the loudspeaker and announce, “Mary Jones, you have a call down here.” And anytime that there was a phone called—phone calls were not made in that time just for fun and you knew that something terrible had happened and one of my poignant memories was the fact that as you called up over the amplifier to hear an absolute scream of horror from the girl as they say, “Mary Jones, you  3 have a telephone call.” And then to hear this shriek knowing then it probably announced the death of somebody."

In addition to her memories of WWII, Dr. Ulrich recalled all of the wonderful faculty on campus. She was especially fond of her experiences with Harriet Elliott who served as Chair of Woman's Division of the War Finance Committee.  Through Dr. Elliott, Celeste met Eleanor Roosevelt during one of the First Lady's visits to campus.  Dr. Ulrich was also a student of Mary Channing Coleman, first head of the Physical Education Department at Woman's College.  According to Dr. Ulrich, Miss Coleman "brooked no nonsense. When we first arrived she told us—she looked at us and said to us, “Three fourths of you will never graduate from my course.” She said, “If you survive, you are going be second to none.”"

Dr. Ulrich graduated from Woman's College in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education.  She received her M.A. from UNC - Chapel Hill in 1948 and a Ph.D in Physical Education from University of Southern California in 1956.

Dr. Ulrich returned to the Woman's College as faculty in 1956. She was an active member of many professional organizations, including the North Carolina Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (NCAHPER), where she served as Chairman of the Therapeutics Section and Vice President of the Health Division; The American Associations for Health, Physical Education and Recreation; The Southern and National Associations for Physical Education of College Women; and the American College of Sports Medicine.

Throughout her career, Dr. Ulrich became involved with issues dealing with women's rights and sports. She was named president of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (AAHPER) in 1976.  As president, she pursued an effort "to restore some sanity in amateur sports - particularly at the collegiate level."  She stated, "there are literally hundreds of colleges where athletics have been priced beyond where anybody can handle it, where the entertainment element in collegiate athletics has become dominant over the educational element...I would like to see sports become educational again." A point of discussion which is still raised today.

In 1977, she received the 1st distinguished alumni award presented by the UNCG School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, where she was lauded as a teacher, a speaker, a writer, and a professional leader.  In 1979, Dr. Ulrich left UNCG to become the Dean of the College of Health, Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Oregon.

Eloise Lewis: Founding Dean of UNCG's School of Nursing

Eloise Patricia Rallings Lewis was born on April 22, 1920 in Pageland, South Carolina, the fourth daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J. Monroe Rallings, a country medical practitioner and a college speech teacher. She graduated from Pageland High School in 1936. Lewis attended Winthrop College (now Winthrop University) in Rock Hill, South Carolina, for two years, and then transferred in 1938 to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated in 1941 from their hospital school program.

After her graduation from Vanderbilt, Lewis moved immediately into the world of education, serving on the faculty of the Women’s Medical College School of Nursing in Philadelphia from 1941 until 1943. From 1943 to 1945, she was an instructor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Lewis in 1945

In the Spring of 1945, however, Lewis left academia to join the Army Nurse Corps. After attending basic training at Fort Lee in Virginia, she became the assistant director of the Cadet Nurse Corps at the Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, which was a primary burn and blind center. She was discharged in December 1945 as a first lieutenant.

After leaving the Army Nurse Corps, Lewis returned to teaching, serving on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania from 1946 until 1952. She also earned her master’s degree in education from Penn in 1951. In 1953, she became a charter member of the faculty at the School of Nursing at UNC Chapel Hill. While teaching at Chapel Hill, she also earned a doctorate in education at Duke University in 1963.

At this same time, discussions began about the need for a second school of nursing in the state -- one that would be placed at UNCG. In 1964, the North Carolina legislature passed the “New Nurse Practice Act,” which laid the groundwork for the establishment of a baccalaureate in nursing degree at UNCG. The following year, on June 5, 1965, Governor Dan K. Moore, chair of the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees, pronounced the appropriation of monies for a four year program in nursing at UNCG. Eight months later on February 1, 1966, Eloise Lewis left Chapel Hill to become the first dean of the newly-created School of Nursing at UNCG.

Upon Lewis's arrival, UNCG's new School of Nursing was headquartered in the basement of the campus infirmary building – one of the least desirable campus locations. Lewis purposefully chose this spot for the School as it proved the most promising base from which to negotiate construction of a new building. Her assumptions were correct, and in 1969, the university opened the new School of Nursing building on McIver Street (now the Moore Building).

Under Lewis's leadership, the School of Nursing grew quickly. On April 27, 1970, the School of Nursing was accredited by the National League of Nursing. The following month, the first class of 18 students completes the requirements for the Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. The School was notified on July 30 that all graduates passed the State Board Examinations and were licensed to practice as registered nurses.

During her time as dean, Lewis also continued to be very active within the UNCG community and in various professional organizations. In 1976, she won the prestigious O Max Gardner award for excellence in teaching. She served as president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing from 1978 to 1980 and was the first editor of the Journal of Professional Nursing in the mid-1980s. She was also very active with hospice care in Greensboro and received numerous awards for her contributions to the nursing field, including four honorary degrees.

Lewis retired from her role as the founding dean of the School of Nursing in 1985 after holding the position for 19 years. She passed away in 1999. In 2008, she was inducted into the North Carolina Nursing Association's Hall of Fame. Upon her induction, a colleague noted, "Dean Lewis affected the lives of countless nursing students who have since graduated and become leaders in nursing not only in NC but around the world. I could go on listing hundreds of nurses that came through the University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Nursing who to this day feel a common bond and connection because they were touched by Dean Lewis."