Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University
Wilma J. Cavill Interview
November 6, 2008
Bailey Library, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania
Interviewed by Sarah Meleski
Transcribed by Morgan Bonekovic
Proofread and edited by Judy Silva and Jane Smith
Reviewed and approved by Wilma J. Cavill
SM: Today is September 18, 2008, and I’m Sarah Meleski. As part of the Rock Voices Oral
History Project we have Wilma Cavill here with us. Hi Wilma. How are you today?
WC: Fine, thanks.
SM: Why don’t you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself? Where were you born?
WC: I’m a teacher. I was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania. I have been teaching since 1952 and
last year celebrated fifty years here at Slippery Rock University, over which everybody made a
big fuss. I keep trying to say to people if you love teaching and you stay healthy, you get old.
[SM laughs] And it happens; it’s not something you plan.
I think that question [on the list] asked about hobbies and I didn’t answer that. My hobbies are
reading, cooking, and a little travel.
SM: What’s your favorite dish to cook?
WC: Usually I try new things; I experiment with things. I have a good friend who’s a real
gourmet chef. I learned a great deal from her and I add my own touch to the dish. It’s never quite
as good as hers, but it’s not bad.
SM: So far what’s your favorite place that you’ve traveled to?
WC: [Sigh and pause] Well, it’s hard to say. England and Scotland, but then there’s France and
then there’s Slovakia. Those are the places I’ve been, and I enjoyed each of them so very much.
SM: Well, what is your affiliation with Slippery Rock—the university?
WC: I’ve been a faculty member since 1958. [I] started in Health and Physical Education and
Recreation and that split.
I think one of the questions that you folks were interested in is: you noticed I graduated from
Slippery Rock State Teachers College. While I was here teaching we became a state college and
then a state university. And the departments split and split again. I’m currently in the Health and

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Safety Department, although we’ve been named the Health Science Department [and] the Allied
Health Department. But since 1970 I’ve been over in Health.
SM: Okay. What other buildings have you worked in?
WC: All of the old buildings [laughs]. I’ve taught in East Gym, West Gym, the Behavioral
Science Building, Spotts World Culture, Eisenberg, the Field House, McKay . . . all the older
buildings.
SM: What were your first impressions of the university when you came here, both as a student
and then when you came back as a faculty member?
WC: Well, not too much different. Living in New Castle, I was pretty familiar with Slippery
Rock. And I had visited the campus numerous times for various reasons.
Slippery Rock had a gymnastics team. It was an exhibition team; they were a real PR arm of the
school. And I was interested in that. And because I had mentors in New Castle in physical
education who knew I was interested in Slippery Rock, they made sure I got over here to see
what they call the “home show,” which was the major exhibition of the team. [That] occurred in
March at the end of their season.
So I did that my junior and senior year in high school and started to become familiar with the
university. I visited it when my mother and I were looking for a place to go to school.
You can see what my age is, so it was a long time ago and there were no scholarships available
in state schools. There was no money given. They did not have foundations such as we have
today. There were no scholarships, so my mom and I were hittin’ the streets looking for places
where scholarships might become available. I was fortunate enough to be awarded a scholarship
to Syracuse University, but it was too expensive to take advantage of. So I thought, “I could go
to Slippery Rock, which is where I want to go to school.” Excellent teacher education program
over here; it’s what I wanted to do and here’s where I came.
I was very familiar with the school, so coming back six years later—after six years of teaching in
New Castle—I was already very familiar with the school at that time.
SM: Well, obviously since you’ve been here awhile you’ve seen some changes that have
happened at the university. What are some of the major ones that really stick out in your mind?
WC: Mostly the growth. When I was a student here we had about eight hundred students.
SM: Wow [laughs].
WC: [Laughs] yeah. Now we’re at eight thousand.

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I have jokingly said to people who’ve always asked about retiring, after all I’ve been teaching
forever. [SM laughs]. And they inquire, “Why are you still working?” and I say, “I love to
teach,” and they say, “Yeah, right.” So then they say, “Why are you still teaching?” and I say, “I
love my job,” and they say, “Get a life.” So I have looked around for something to say to stop
them from continuing to question me and the conclusion that was reached was “I’ll consider
retirement about two years after they stop digging on this campus.” And that I think assures me
of some longevity. Because they’ve been digging since my junior year in college [laughs], and
they continue to dig constantly.
SM: While you were a student here what were some of your campus activities?
WC: I was a gymnast on the gymnastics team; captain of that team in my junior year. The way
things were developed at that time in the health and physical education major: in our classes we
learned theory and basic skills. But in order to practice the skills we participated in intramurals.
And the intramural program for women was incredible. It had a variety of levels so that people
could pursue as much as they wanted at whatever level they enjoyed. It would start with pick-up
teams which didn’t require you to know very much at all. And then through the practice and the
opportunities you’d move on to what were called invitational teams where the juniors in the
program were identified as captains, and they went out and selected people who they had seen
play in the intramurals [who] they wanted on their teams. And they would have an invitational
tournament and out of that would come freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior class teams that
would be developed and then we would play that tournament. Then out of those competitions
would come the “green and white,” which would be like varsity. So we didn’t have varsity sports
for women except for gymnastics. I was a gymnast for four years and loved it. And I think that it
was one of the best things that the university ever did.
SM: Did you continue gymnastics after you graduated from the university?
WC: Well I taught of course, in New Castle at a junior high school; and I also had student
teachers from Slippery Rock working with me at the junior high school. And then, President
[Norman] Weisenfluh, who is more than a dining hall [SM laughs], invited me to come over and
consider working here. I really enjoyed my junior high teaching, but it was a great opportunity.
So they were looking for someone for supervision of student teachers in health and physical
education. I had that experience, and also as an aquatics specialist, in addition to other things.
While I was here, about the first or second week I was here as a teacher, I had a message that the
president wanted to see me in his office. That’s a little bit like being called to the principal’s
office. [SM laughs]. But it didn’t worry me too much because Dr. Weisenfluh had been my
ethics professor as an undergraduate. So I waltzed myself over to Old Main and then in to see
him. We had a lovely chat, and he remembered when I was on the gymnastics team and called
me “Willie,” as everybody did while I was in college and some people do today. Along the way I
began to get the impression that he was inquiring as to whether or not I would be interested in
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coaching gymnastics. I wasn’t, but I eventually figured out that he wasn’t asking, he was telling
me that I was going to coach gymnastics [laughs], that that was going to be an assignment in
addition to being student teaching supervisor and an aquatic specialist.
So I coached gymnastics for six years. I was the women’s head coach and the men’s assistant
coach. We traveled. I introduced the Olympic events to the women’s team at that point. When I
said that we were a PR arm: we went out to high schools and communities and did shows, and
most everybody—whoever saw the Slippery Rock gymnastics team remembered it for long after,
because they were really talented people.
And I had great gymnasts when I was coaching. We eventually entered into competition, and I
can remember the first major competition we had was at West Chester. I don’t remember all the
schools but there were five of them, and Slippery Rock took first place. My girls took first and
second I think in every event.
SM: Wow!
WC: Yeah, they were good; they were very good. But if you speak to a lot of the physical
education majors, they really would like to coach, and that was never a desire of mine. I did it; I
think I did it well. I had great athletes. But every year I would ask, “Do I have to coach
gymnastics next year?” and the answer would always come back, “Yes.” So, we’d do it another
year. Finally one year I asked, “Do I have to coach gymnastics next year?” and the answer was
“No.” And I thought “Alright! Hallelujah!” [Then I was told], “But you need to start another
team, you need to coach.” Actually they said “You need to coach another team,” and there
weren’t any other teams. So then the comment was, “You need to start one.” So I started the
women’s swimming team.
I put up a sign that invited anybody who had any interest in competitive swimming to come to a
meeting, and a large number of women showed up. We talked about [how] this would be the
beginning of a competitive varsity team. Then I sent around a sign up sheet and asked people to
put down how many years of experience in competitive swimming they had. I don’t think you
could get a negative number out of that [SM laughs], but we didn’t have much experience with
the whole team. In terms of average, I think we were in the negative mode. But, they became
very fine swimmers, and I coached that for thirteen years.
So I have eighteen years of coaching experience here. [Then I was] finally relieved of coaching.
The interesting thing about that: the first thirteen years, no compensation. No money, no time. It
was simply an additional assignment. That’s not very appealing. Most coaches today would not
do that.
Finally, with the advent of the union, my last five years were compensated in time. So under the
union contract our full load was a twelve credit hour load. With coaching I received a quarter
release time, so that meant I taught three classes and then the other quarter of my time was
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devoted to coaching. That doesn’t really equate to ten hours of practice, planning, travel, running
meets, and all else that goes into coaching. But it’s the same thing we have today where a certain
amount of alternate workload assignment is made. At least during those last five years there was
some compensation.
SM: What were some of your major accomplishments throughout schooling, and graduation,
teaching?
WC: I think the major accomplishment is teaching: being well prepared for teaching as I was and
then I think doing a fairly decent job. I have been honored as the service awards [recipient] from
the union, APSCUF [Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties]. I’ve
been honored with the president’s service award from Slippery Rock.
I wrote and conducted a program in drug and alcohol prevention education. It was a federal
grant; it was one of the largest grants Slippery Rock had ever gotten. Dr. Hannam and I worked
together on that. That was quite a major accomplishment, and as a result of that I became
affiliated with the Northeast Center for Drug and Alcohol Prevention Education. [I] became a
trainer for the trainer of trainers and ran programs here at the university and elsewhere around
the northeastern part of the United States and that was a lot of fun.
SM: What are some memories you have of being a student here at the Rock?
WC: Oh, you don’t have enough time [laughs]. Because we were small, it was very, it was a very
intimate campus. Everybody knew everybody, knew their families, knew their friends. If they
had visitors on the weekend, we knew that.
And just marvelous memories, memories. Stories we can tell about being in the dormitory with
our night watchmen. I don’t know if you’ve heard this name before but “gumshoes”? I don’t
know if you’ve interviewed anybody else from this era. But we had . . . living in North Hall,
there were restrictions. [At] 8:15 p.m., everybody was in unless you had a privilege. Privilege
went until 10:30 p.m., and we had to sign out. And then as you move through the freshman to
senior [years] you got more 10:30s per week and more 12:00s.
SM: So is that how they based privileges: by your grade?
WC: By your rank. Yes, but you could lose privilege. Lights had to be out at midnight. You had
to be in your room at 11:00 p.m. [SM laughs] Quiet. I was just talking about this the other day.
After 11:00 p.m. if you were out of your room in North Hall—North Hall is built in a rectangle,
so you can get your way around. If you were out of your room after 11:00 p.m. you always had a
toothbrush, with toothpaste on it. [You would say] “I’m going to brush my teeth” because there
was the night watchman who was patrolling. “What are you doing out of your room?” “I’m
going to brush my teeth.” When in fact you were going to visit somebody or you had just come

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from visiting somebody and you were trying to get back to your room safely. But if they decided
that we were abusing the privilege of whatever, you lost privileges.
Stories from competitions and travel with the teams: just a marvelous experience. Well, we were
all well-trained, held to a high standard of performance with good teachers around.
SM: Were you involved in any activities besides gymnastics while you were a student or did that
take up [the] majority of your time?
WC: I was the women’s sports editor for The Rocket. My column was “Whirlpool by Will” [SM
laughs], and that was fun.
What else did we do? Oh, WAA took up a lot of time.
SM: What’s that?
WC: Women’s Athletic Association. Actually, this Saturday I’m being honored as a pioneer at
the Hall of Fame dinner, along with several other people as early coaches, pioneers, in women’s
sports at Slippery Rock.
SM: Congratulations.
WC: Thanks! It should be fun.
SM: Being that you’re teaching faculty, what were some of your best and worst teaching
moments?
WC: I don’t know that I’m going to be able to give you a worst teaching moment. I can think of
some times when I was challenged in class and found myself thinking, “How fast can you think
on your feet?”
I guess one of those memories is from a health class, when I was giving an overview of what we
would be talking about and I was talking about getting older: aging. Some young freshman in the
back of the room popped up and said, “Who would wanna be eighty?” and the whole class turned
to look at him. Then they turned and they looked at me like, “Okay teacher, what are you going
to say?” And I can remember standing there and my mind was just racing, because obviously
they expected me to say something intelligent [laughs]. I’m not sure I accomplished that, but I
finally said, “Probably somebody who is seventy-nine.” [SM laughs]. And the class liked that. It
was fun.
Best teaching moments happen all the time. The students are so much fun. They make me smile.
I was just teaching bandaging today in my first aid classes. And it is hard to learn skills you’re
unfamiliar with. Some people mastered it very quickly and other people, I’m sure they have a
hard time in the laundry [laughs], because they don’t handle those bandages very well.

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SM: [Laughs]. Who were some of the leaders that have been here while you’ve been here?
WC: Well some of my colleagues: Dr. Settlemire from the History Department. She’s retired
from there. Leah Brown from the library [is a] marvelous, marvelous woman, highly regarded by
the faculty.
SM: Who were some of the presidents that were here?
WC: Oh dear [laughs]! The pictures of the presidents over in Old Main . . . I think they go from
the bottom up and I start about three from the bottom and know all of them [laughs]. Dr. [Dale]
Houk was president when I was an undergraduate; when I returned it was Dr. Weisenfluh. [Sigh]
If you counted all of the acting presidents along with all those who became president, I probably
have worked under fourteen or so different presidents. But Dr. [Albert] Watrel [was president]
when our union came into being. Dr. Warren Smith, Dr. [Robert] Aebersold, Dr. [Herb]
Reinhart, and then Dr. Bob Smith as our most recent president.
I had a working relationship with all of them, and it’s curious to me that I’ve been that fortunate
because when I speak with people who come from other campuses, they seldom know their
president personally. Here you have the opportunity to speak to your president. They come in
and talk to you; they stop you on the campus. It’s just typical Slippery Rock, but it’s atypical in
the university.
SM: Mhmm. Yeah. [Pause] I noticed that in 1974 you were the local president of the union.
What was that like?
WC: I was elected four times for a year’s term: 1974-1978. Amazing! I learned so much about
the university and about all of our fourteen universities. It was a difficult endeavor, but it’s one I
loved. I’ve been acting in the union in a variety of capacities, a lot of leadership roles within the
union.
First year was difficult . . . there were rumors of retrenchment—which means firings—around
the campuses. And I can remember Dr. Watrel, who was president at the time, say, “We’re in
good shape financially, we don’t need to retrench anybody.” But he was told he was going to
have to cut the faculty by a certain percentage, and he didn’t really want to do that.
Fortunately, we had a union. Not just Slippery Rock, but at the state level. And as the union got
wind of these potential firings that were going to happen, they went to court and an injunction
came up that stopped the firings. Now eventually there was retrenchment, but it was at
universities who had overreached themselves in terms of hiring where they had surplus faculty
and they had to get rid of some. And so that was . . . we were fine here at Slippery Rock. But it
was a difficult time in the state for many faculty and some of the faculty who [are] here now
came from some of those institutions where the institutions had to let them go. But the union

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worked to find jobs for these people and we have a retrenchment policy or article in our CBA
[collective bargaining agreement] now.
SM: So, what exactly is an Academic Forum that you were chairperson for?
WC: Well, before we had a union we had a Faculty Council, and I was secretary in Faculty
Council and [then] I was chair of Faculty Council. And then the union came in and I was chair of
the Council and president of the Union. But the council doesn’t have any legal standing. The
union, once you’re unionized, is the legal representative that exists for the faculty.
Well, the Council had lost all of its powers because they were all transferred to the Union. So
then the Council began to not really know what it was, what to do with itself. So we decided to
change the name of it to the Academic Forum. Basically we kept the same constituencies:
students, faculty, administration. And it’s just a place to talk; it has no legal authority. Things
that are done on the campus have to be done through APSCUF. But people who are involved in
the Forum seem to enjoy it, and I credit them with the push on the no smoking on the campus.
They agitated very well for that new position. Of course then it was timely, the laws changed,
and now we know we have a no smoking campus . . . not only in the buildings but externally too.
SM: Many students, including myself, are very happy about that.
WC: I am aware of that. I talk about this because we talk about smoking in health class and first
aid. And I can tell students are very supportive of “no smoking.”
SM: Yeah. [Pause] Who are some people that influenced you or were very significant to you
while you were here?
WC: I mentioned Dr. Settlemire, and Mrs. Brown. [Pause] I’m probably going to forget
somebody! My mentors before I came here were both graduates of Slippery Rock, and they
taught physical education in New Castle. Marion Westlake Patton and Margaret Dunlap were big
influences on me. Here, Mr. Eiler was my gymnastics coach.
We were so busy, prior to the union. I said that our workload is twelve credit hours. Before we
had the union, we were about . . . those of us who taught activities had about twenty-seven or
twenty-eight logged hours a week. Plus other activities and responsibilities and so [pause] I’m
not going to be able to identify any unusual person who was here. Dr. Susan Hannam, who is
now my dean, worked at our department and we worked collegially together to accomplish some
things. She is a very fine organizer and probably had some influence on me.
SM: What are some major events or activities or maybe even building projects to happen while
you were here?
WC: The entire lower campus [laughs]. When I came here we were planning the Field House, it
hadn’t been built yet. And it was interesting because it was the first time faculty had been asked
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to be involved in the planning, to be included. And there were a lot of obstacles to overcome. For
one thing, they didn’t think they were going to have women’s locker rooms in the Field House
and we said, “Yes you will.” But the most curious thing about the Field House, when we finally
moved into it, and we finally toured it, we were in great need of classroom space for physical
education. Everybody needs classroom space. People don’t think that physical education
programs need to have classrooms where you can teach and lecture and . . . .
SM: It’s not all hand on.
WC: Right, it’s not all skills. And so we struggled with all of that, and we thought we had
classrooms designed for the Field House. They call it a field house when we probably really
should not have. Because a field house in most people’s minds denotes a sports arena, and this is
really an instructional area.
But we walked in, and we were walking around, and there were no ceilings in any of the rooms.
We said [laughs], “Why aren’t there ceilings here?” and they said, “You didn’t ask for ceilings.”
And we said, “Well, we didn’t ask for floors, but they’re here! We sort of assumed there would
be ceilings.” The architects thought there was a better flow to the building if we didn’t put
ceilings on top of classrooms. So, having taught in the Field House, I’ve had arrows come into
my classroom, tennis balls come flying [SM laughs] from the arena floor up to the first, to the
balcony and into the classroom. What they finally did was they enclosed it in curtains and now I
think they all have ceilings.
But that was a curious experience working with architects. We were able to get a new
natatorium, a swimming pool. And the architects wanted us to have an all-glass wall. Well the
old swimming pool was the little one in West Gym, and it has a glass brick wall and it’s a
problem with glare; it’s a safety problem. And we said, “No, we don’t want any glass.” They
said, “Oh, but it would be much more attractive.” We said, “It looks out on a power plant. That’s
not terribly attractive.” So I think they gave us the ugliest wall they could in that swimming pool
that’s not . . . I haven’t looked at it lately but I think it’s a little less obnoxious than it was. But
architects have an idea; people who actually use the facility have a more pragmatic approach to
the facilities.
But then we built Spotts World Culture [Building]. I can recall the president saying to us—
because again we were in need of classroom space—we were told at our faculty assembly at the
beginning of the year that Harrisburg had approved another classroom building for us, and
everybody applauded and cheered and the president said, “And it will be just like Spotts,” and
everybody booed. Because, you’ve been in Spotts: narrow halls, doors that open out. Right? It’s
difficult. We needed wider hallways and doors that opened flush. So we got Eisenberg
[Classroom Building]. It became “classroom building number II”. Then it got a name: Eisenberg.
But it’s a little more convenient, a little more efficient than Spotts is.

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Oh, Vincent Science Hall. The idea of a round building was a little strange to us and I think if
you talk to the people who teach there it remains strange, because things sort of are pie shaped
[laughs], which doesn’t seem terribly efficient when most everything we have is rectangular or
square. So they’re remodeling Vincent now. There are high hopes by the people who teach there.
Eventually of course the new Union, Swope Music Hall, PT [Physical Therapy] Building,
[Advanced] Science and Technology; they’ve all been built. Plus, the stadium, the facilities, we
have what: six hundred acres here at Slippery Rock? And we take advantage of as much of that
space as we can. One year one of the governors sent out a team of businessmen to visit the
universities to see if there were things that could be discarded or gotten rid of. And they came to
Slippery Rock and they said we had excess real estate. Now most of the campuses, if you’ve ever
visited them, are landlocked; they are surrounded by residential areas. IUP [Indiana University of
Pennsylvania], Clarion [University of Pennsylvania] . . . they don’t have any place to grow. We
do. And so, we use much of our area for practice fields, or for performance fields or areas. Take
a look at that that baseball stadium out there. That is gorgeous.
SM: Yeah. Are there any words of wisdom you have for us, or anything that you want any
current or future Rock students or community members to know or [that they] need to know?
WC: Well, I am very proud to be a graduate of Slippery Rock and I’m terribly proud of my
career here. It’s been good to me. I think it’s a great place to work and I think our students . . .
our students that come here are just fabulous. They’re fun. We have our problems with some.
There are some who think they’re coming for education but they really want to come and party
and they don’t stay very long; they disappear.
But the faculty, the staff, they’re just great people and they like the job that they’re doing and so
therefore Slippery Rock—like any university—can be, either for a student or a faculty member
or a staff member, whatever they want to make out of it. All the opportunities are here.
We’re fortunate I think, we’re a collective party, faculty. It means that we can work to solve
problems and minimize personalities. And at Slippery Rock we have made it a point that faculty
leadership and administrative leadership work together. We recognize that we are in this together
and so while we can disagree, we work to solve problems in a collegial manner and that makes a
big difference in the atmosphere, the ambiance of a university. So I think we’re very fortunate
and I think the students have a great opportunity here to make out of their education experience
whatever they want. You’ll go far.
SM: [Laughs] thank you. Well I don’t have any other questions for you, so I’d like to thank you
for letting me interview you.
WC: Sure. Thank you very much.

Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania