Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University
Diana Dreyer Interview
September 22, 2008
Bailey Library, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania
Interviewed by Mark O‟Connor
Transcribed by Angela Rimmel
Proofread and edited by Morgan Bonekovic and Judy Silva
Reviewed and approved by Diana Dreyer
MO: I‟m Mark O‟Connor [and] I‟m here with Dr. Diana Dreyer. It‟s September 22, 2008; we‟re
in Bailey Library and we‟re about to do an interview with Dr. Dreyer. Thank you for coming out.
DD: You‟re welcome.
MO: All right here‟s the really boring stuff. Can you give us your name, date of birth—if you
want—where you‟re from and your education background?
DD: Okay. My full name is Diana Yvonne Dreyer. My dad called me Diana because he thought I
was going to be a moon goddess, and he liked the French language so that‟s where the Yvonne
came from.
My birthday: I‟m two weeks short of seventieth. Where I came from: I was born in Chicago,
Illinois on the north side, but my parents moved to the south side [pause] just before my second
birthday I think. And that was about a mile away from where the infamous Reverend Wright‟s
church is, which is so much in the news. [Note: Rev. Wright was then-presidential candidate
Barack Obama‟s pastor. Wright‟s controversial preaching caused a stir during the 2008
presidential race.]
MO: Do you go back to Chicago much?
DD: Yeah, I go back. Well, I used to go back just about every year but now my family is pretty
much gone; actually some of them live down in Peoria. So I have the Peoria connection there
too. And I still have a lot of friends in Chicago so I try to go back and see them at least every
other year.
MO: Nice. Your educational background; what kind of learning did you get [laughs]?
DD: [Laughs] I graduated from Illinois State Normal University in 1960 with a Bachelor of
Science degree in Education in English. You asked before about the “Normal.” No it‟s not
“Normal” anymore; they took it out in the early „60s. We also used to have, I mean the motto of
the school was “and gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche,” and they‟ve since taken out the Old
English and converted it to modern English, which I think kind of takes the charm away but you
know, what are you going to do.

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So then I taught high school and junior high English for several years, then started having babies
and didn‟t go back to school until 1982. [I] went to IUP for a master‟s there, and then eventually
a PhD also from IUP—Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Guess I should say that; can I use
abbreviations here?
MO: Sure, because we‟ll explain them in the transcript also if we need to. How did you get from
Illinois to here [Pennsylvania]?
DD: Well, as I said, I graduated in 1960, and as women did then got married right away. So I got
married and started putting my husband through master‟s degrees, and doctorate degrees and
moved around from Illinois. First taught in Atlanta, Illinois. Most people don‟t know there is an
Atlanta, Illinois, but it‟s on old Route 66 about twenty miles from Normal. Then I went to St.
Charles, Illinois and taught junior high for one year, and then moved out to Colorado for my
husband‟s terminal degree program and taught in Ault, Colorado. Then we moved back to
southern Illinois, so I taught at East Alton Wood River, while he taught at Southern Illinois
University. Then we came to Slippery Rock, because he didn‟t like his job at Southern and got
an offer here at Slippery Rock, so here‟s where we moved in 1965. And I‟ve been here ever
since; however, the husband is no longer here—well he‟s here but he‟s not with me.
MO: Oh, okay. So what did you think of Slippery Rock: the name, the idea of it and all that?
DD: Okay, this is my favorite Slippery Rock story. As I mentioned, I was from Chicago, and
while I had taught in small towns and actually lived in Normal—which was a fairly small
town—for a while, I wasn‟t exactly prepared for Slippery Rock. When we were getting
directions as to how to get here from the former chair of the Phys Ed [Physical Education]
Department who was Bill Meise—he had been here for a while, he and his wife Maggie were
quite active in Slippery Rock University, well Slippery Rock State College then—affairs.
Anyway he was on the phone giving directions to my ex-husband and my ex-husband was
writing these directions down, “Okay turn here, go here, take this route,” whatever; and Meise
said, “Okay turn at the stoplight,” and then my husband said, “Which stoplight?” And of course
Bill Meise said, “THE stoplight,” because at that time there was just the one at Main Street and
[Route] 108. So that was a jolt, and [pause] I just found a lot of jolts.
I had a baby right after we came here, and I didn‟t have a washer or dryer so I used to come to
town to do my laundry which is . . . the laundromat was where, oh, I can‟t think of what‟s in
there now. . . . Anyway, on Main Street, and I just was fascinated by the culture of the
laundromat because first of all, if I happened to go on one particular day (which I sort of think
was on a Tuesday), these very elegantly dressed local women would come in and play bridge.
They were all dressed up, I think some in my memory had hats on, and they‟d go in the back
room and play bridge in the laundromat. And I never could figure out why they were doing that
because at least one of them I knew had a very elegant home. I guess she chose not to entertain.

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The laundromat was run by a guy that they called “Sudsy,” and I later found out that Renick who
is now, you know “Renick Plumbing”? Well the original Renick guy was “Leaky” —“Leaky”
the plumber and “Sudsy” the laundromat owner, and all these guys used to hang out at Isaly‟s
which was a place where you could get chipped chopped ham which I had never heard of, so that
was a new thing for me. Do you know what chipped chopped ham is?
MO: No, what is that?
DD: You were giving me this blank look. I was trying to explain this to some friends from
Illinois. I mean you just have to have it. It‟s like a big ham loaf and when you order it, you get it
chipped chopped. I don‟t know why they call it that—it‟s sliced very, very thin. You can get
some at Giant Eagle.
MO: Is it processed?
DD: Yeah, probably. It‟s probably very unhealthy but boy, it makes a good sandwich. The old
Hotdog Shop downtown used to make chipped chopped ham—barbeque—they would fry it up . .
. another not-so-healthy thing but it sure tasted good. Anyway, Isaly‟s had all the old Slippery
Rock guard and they had their own table in the back of Isaly‟s, and woe betide to anybody who
inadvertently walked up and sat at their table because they would get removed because that table
belonged to them.
MO: Where was Isaly‟s?
DD: Isaly‟s . . . I‟m trying to think. There‟s a beauty salon downtown—hair salon. I‟m dating
myself: I almost called it a beauty parlor, but you don‟t say that anymore you say “salon.” Okay,
hair salon. [Pause] Right around Coffaro‟s Pizza along that stretch, where there also used to be a
couple of little department stores. . . .
MO: Really?
DD: Oh yeah, yeah. Bard‟s department store was near . . . well there used to be a pharmacy down
there: Ord‟s which everybody. . . . Nobody told you any of this? Good grief, Mark, you need to
know this history.
MO: I‟ve only been here five years.
DD: Yeah, anyway Ord‟s Pharmacy was where Gallery 164 was; you remember where that is?
Which is now some kind of wildlife office or something; I don‟t even know what‟s in there.
Anyway I think next door to that going north was Bard‟s department store. And it had what they

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used to call notions: threads and needles, and socks and boots and clothing and mittens and
shoes—just all kinds of things. And it had one of those—which there was a department store in
Chicago that used to have this—when you paid your money for your purchase, the cashier took
the money and put it in a container like you do at a drive-in bank and whooshed it upstairs, and
then all the money was taken care of back in the upper level of the store and it came whooshing
down with your change if you had any change. So that was kind of neat.
MO: So when did these stores start going out of business? Because now it‟s mostly pizza joints
and you know, hair cutting places. . . .
DD: Yeah, there was a nice little dress shop down there too, which is now Gray‟s Hair Salon.
They had very nice clothing—run by a couple of local women. But I would say once, you know,
Butler started to fail, the downtown . . . it was like every small town could not support or chose
not to support, I think because of the big box stores. And the students used to stay here during
the weekend and they would support [pause] all different kinds of things, businesses downtown.
But I don‟t know, they just started going away for the weekend and so there‟s not the business,
not the support for business.
In fact there used to be a nice Hallmark store downtown where the taekwondo place is now, and
that woman held out for several years. And she finally said she was going to close, and I said,
“That‟s too bad, it‟s so convenient to have a Hallmark store.” And she said “Well,” she said,
“you know Hallmark stores do,” I don‟t know what she said, like sixty or seventy percent of their
business at Christmas. She said “I have no Christmas business because everybody leaves.” So,
you know, because the population not counting the college of Slippery Rock is very small.
MO: When did you see the shift from kids sticking around to taking off?
DD: That‟s a good question. I started teaching in 1980. I would say during the „80s—I don‟t
know probably started in the „70s . . . [inaudible]. I don‟t know . . . couldn‟t tell you for sure but
definitely in the „80s. [Post interview addition: Once so many students started showing up with
their own vehicles—much less common in the „60s and „70s—this became a true “suitcase
college”—what we used to call schools that emptied out each weekend. Prior to that kids stayed
here as they had fewer ways to get away. Kids leave: businesses falter.]
MO: And whatever made them take off and . . . ?
DD: I think you know that refrain which seems to continue here, “There‟s nothing to do here.”
Well of course businesses can‟t stay in business [laughs] unless the students support them so you
know it‟s like a Catch-22.
MO: You said you started in 1980; what department?

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DD: In the English Department. I started as a quarter-time temporary; I taught one course of
College Writing. At that time the vice president for Academic Affairs, Bob Aebersold, was very
interested in getting what he called “experienced high-school teachers” who could really teach
college writing. I hadn‟t taught for fifteen years so that‟s quite debatable as to what I was doing
the first couple of years you know [laughs]. However, he hired me and Anne Dayton, whom you
may remember, and so we were the “experienced high school teachers” that started off quarter
time. I think Anne was the same way and then eventually—like the next year maybe—went to
half time, and then three-quarter. Anyway I finally got a tenure track position in 1984.
MO: Four years.
DD: Mm-hmm.
MO: So what was the department like back then?
DD: [Sighs] Can I be frank? [Laughs] I was sort of out of it my first year, I think I was housed—
Jerry O' Malley was on sabbatical. I don‟t know if you remember Jerry O‟ Malley but he was
part of the English Department. But for whatever reasons his office was in the Philosophy
Department. This was when the English Department was housed in Eisenberg [Classroom
Building], as was Philosophy. So I had Jerry‟s desk while he was on sabbatical, so I was far
removed from the English Department and the Philosophy people just pretty much—I mean I
knew them because I‟d been here for fifteen years but I was just like—“who‟s this person
coming in teaching a class?” Nobody paid too much attention so. . . .
Anyway [pause] then Bill Williams and Jim Strickland came on board: Bill in ‟81, Jim in „82 or
„83 and some other “younger” people. I mean it wasn‟t that we were kids by any means, but
there was kind of . . . there were differences of opinion as to how to teach English and
particularly how to teach writing, so there was kind of a schism between the old guard and the. . .
. I guess Ed Kopper, who was probably [pause] I think he was younger than I am. He would
always call us the “young Turks.” So anyway there were lots of interesting department
discussions about how things should be, and of course you know Bill Williams is an
extraordinary debater [laughs]. He can argue beautifully and there was lots of interesting
discussion back then.
MO: How big was the department back then?
DD: It was big because we‟ve always had that huge load of the college writing classes, so you
know it was probably in the high twenties I would say. The complement hasn‟t really changed
hugely over the years.

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MO: So did the “young Turks” win out or the old guard ultimately on the whole teaching of
writing
thing?
DD: You‟re a “young Turk” so you can sort of determine that. I think the older Turks were
literature trained. In fact one of them referred to me as an “old school marm” and an “NCTEer,”
which, the way he said it, was not a compliment because I was not part of the Modern Language
Association. so I was sort of looked down upon by some of the literature. . . .
MO: Is that like a curse word: “NCTEer”?
DD: Oh yeah.
MO: That‟s a four letter word.
DD: Yeah it was nasty.
MO: Wow.
DD: So [pause] the literature people, while they, I‟m sure, did a beautiful job at teaching
literature, had no sense of how people write. I mean they knew how they wrote but they
demanded different things of their students; so we had in place during those times the almighty
proficiency test. I don‟t know if you‟ve heard about the proficiency test: College Writing I (One)
students had to take this and they had to keep taking it until they passed it.
So one semester I had a night class that Steve Curry, who was then assistant chair and making
the schedule, and again I wasn‟t flunky: I‟d have done anything to keep my job. “Would you
mind teaching a course, a night course of twenty-five students, all of whom have failed the
proficiency at least twice?” Oh sure I can do it [laughs]. So we did it and I used Newsweek for
the first time that semester, which they seemed to enjoy. And I just remember a couple of covers
on there: there was an AIDS cover, and that‟s the first time—that would‟ve been in ‟81, I
believe, maybe „82—it‟s the first time I ever really had heard about AIDS. I guess maybe I‟d
heard about it but that was the first time I really read about it, and I always kind of associate
AIDS . . . and there was another one that was on the “American Dream” and we talked a lot
about what the “American Dream” was. Anyway the good news is all but one of those kids
passed that proficiency. I have no idea why. I mean it was just luck on my part but everybody
thought, “Oh good job” [laughs].
MO: How did it feel when you got hired full time?
DD: Oh, I was ecstatic. I had gone through a very difficult divorce from „81 to „83 and of course
was very concerned about being able to earn a living. I have three daughters and they sort of

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wanted food, clothing, shelter, all those things; lots of clothes mostly [laughs]. So I was very
happy to have what I hoped was, and what turned out to be, a very secure position.
MO: So here‟s sort of the global question: How have you seen the department changing in your
time here, because you retired just a couple of years after I came in?
DD: Mm-hmm, fall of „06.
MO: Yeah.
DD: Yeah. Well I think. . . .
MO: Or has it?
DD: You know, I don‟t really. Well in 2001 as you may know, I went over and became assistant
to the dean.
MO: Mm-hmm, the dark side.
DD: So I was teaching only one course a semester. And that was usually a night course by my
choice: young adult lit and [pause] I don‟t remember what the other one was. Anyway, so I really
wasn‟t around the department that much. And then I did my last semester [and] I did teach full
time, but again I hadn‟t taught full time for so long I found that very demanding: more
demanding than being in the dean‟s office—the assistant to the dean.
MO: Really?
DD: Oh the paper load; you know what that‟s like. I don‟t know, I can say this now, but now that
I‟m Interim [Dean of the College of Humanities, Fine and Performing Arts]: I go home at night; I
have no papers to grade. I go home on Fridays; I have no papers to grade. It‟s like, “Wow, now I
see why people go into administration.” It‟s nice.
MO: Have the class sizes changed?
DD: Class sizes, they did a good job, up to a certain point, of keeping College Writing I and II
down to twenty-five, and I think that‟s gonna be up at twenty-seven. Although I will tell you one
time I taught—I guess the administration, or maybe it was the department that decided we‟re
gonna try jumbo classes. So I had forty-five students in college writing as did, I think three other
faculty members. It was an experiment and I had an assistant [pause], Joan Force who‟s the wife
of George Force, who used to do institutional review, and he was part of the Political Science
Department as well. So she was terrific. I mean forty-five in college writing seemed terrible and

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it was terrible but still [pause] you know we muddled through it, but everybody decided it wasn‟t
a very good idea, so that was just for one semester.
However, during another period they had—and I can‟t remember exactly how this worked but—
four people, four faculty members would each get twenty-five in a class, but they would meet
those classes only once a week say, and then the other two meetings or perhaps only one meeting
they would go to a lecture, say, on the comma . . . which was fascinating, as you can well
imagine. Or sometimes we talked about the semi-colon for an hour or I guess more than an hour
if it was a Tuesday/Thursday class. And these lectures of course dramatically changed student
writing: it just became Pulitzer Prize potential. No, only kidding [laughs].
MO: In retrospect how does the hour lecture on the comma strike you?
DD: It was absurd. It struck me as absurd back then. But that was back in the day when there was
this literature group who thought that was the way to teach writing, you taught people about
mechanics and that was the whole basis of the proficiency test: you know, three comma splices
and you‟re out. Never mind what you said, it could‟ve been the most lyrical, lovely phrasing in
the world but if there‟s a comma splice or lacked a comma where there should‟ve been, and you
know, we all know how fuzzy those comma rules are, anyway. It was a joke.
MO: Wow. Horrifying. Let‟s see, what else do we have . . . so many questions here. Oh here‟s a
goofy question: what buildings did you work in? You said you had an office in Eisenberg. . . .
DD: Yeah I worked in Eisenberg, where the English Department was formerly housed. Actually
I taught a College Writing course once in the music department over in Swope [Music Hall]
because Spotts [World Culture Building] was so full by that time. The English Department
would go from Eisenberg to Spotts and not too happily, let me tell you because . . .
MO: How come?
DD: Oh, you look at the size of the width of the hallways in Eisenberg and you look at the width
of the hallways in Spotts; that was one reason. We had much nicer offices over there of course.
Now I realize that the English Department has very cushy offices comparatively speaking.
MO: Well, the new ones.
DD: The new ones, right. But back in that day we gave up a lot. We had our own little kitchen.
MO: Wow.

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DD: We had our own lounge and of course for years we didn‟t have a lounge after we moved to
Spotts. Yeah, we were not happy about that. But anyway, so I taught a class in the music
building, in Eisenberg and Spotts and also one time I taught just for a while then we moved it—I
think that was when I moved to the music building—I was over in McKay [Education Building],
which was a real hike just for one class, but I think that‟s the one that got moved back over to the
music department. And then of course I‟ve been in BSB [Strain Behavioral Science Building] as
the assistant to the dean and now as interim dean.
MO: Do you have a preference from those buildings?
DD: Hmm, I guess Eisenberg in a lot of ways. That was when I was really young and dumb and
having fun. It was good.
MO: [Laughs] A question about campus activities: did you work in any clubs, or faculty advisor
of committees [inaudible] or any of that other jazz?
DD: Oh God, I‟ve been on lots of committees you know, just about every department committee.
In terms of the university I was on the University Curriculum Committee, the University
Promotion Committee which I chaired, the University Tenure and Sabbatical [Committee]. I
served as a faculty advisor to the Co-op[erative] Activities [Advisory] Board for several years,
APSCUF department rep for many years. I wish I‟d brought my resume over, my CV, I don‟t
remember all this stuff you know.
MO: Any stand out as interesting or particularly fun or useful?
DD: Well I first served on the Curriculum Committee—University Curriculum Committee and I
thought that was really interesting. That really opened my eyes to a) how academia really works
and b) what kinds of offerings all the different colleges and departments have; that was very
interesting. And the Promotion Committee was interesting too; got into a couple of snags with
some difficult faculty member situations.
MO: Would you like to talk about a snag?
DD: I don‟t think I should.
MO: You don‟t have to mention names.
DD: No, just people trying to get around the rules and regulations, and people who yell and
scream long enough tend to do that—successfully, which is unfortunate.

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MO: Yeah. What did you say you learned about how academia works: from University
Curriculum Committee?
DD: Well, how academics work I should say.
MO: What did you not know before you worked on that committee?
DD: Oh I was really stupid. I got elected to that committee I think probably shortly after I was
tenure track. So it would have been in the early mid-„80s, and I just didn‟t know how things
worked and that‟s how I learned how a lot of things worked. How to get courses through, how to
[pause] accommodate situations where one department‟s change might impact another; either
really impact it or have a perceived impact on it, and you‟d have to go through all these gyrations
to get things through. It was interesting; a lot of faculty personalities, too. [MO checks the
recording equipment]. Are we okay?
MO: We‟re definitely okay on the video. Machinery is killing me. Okay, let‟s see what else. Oh,
the teaching stuff; all the teaching you did. Do you have a best moment or couple bests moment
you wanna talk about, or not so best moments?
DD: [Laughs] I could tell you one not so best moment and it has to do with videotaping. When I
was in graduate school at IUP, I met and developed a friendship with a professor at Clarion,
Darlyn Fink. She and I were both working on our dissertations together and she decided she
wanted to do something with English as a second language because we were both interested in
second language acquisition. So at that time I had devised with the international office to teach
my college writing classes with half international students and half native speakers of English.
And there‟s a story behind that I don‟t know how much time we have. . . .
MO: As much as you want.
DD: Okay. I had had at one point all the international students in one class, which was great. I
mean they were in a couple of classes—they had more than one class.
MO: Which countries were they from?
DD: Oh, you name it. They were all over the place: South America, all over Europe, Asia . . . we
had a very significant international population prior to 9/11. It‟s dropped off since then for a
variety of reasons which you probably know. But anyway, I had these international students all
at one point . . . and they loved it because they, that was kind of their club meeting. They all got
together and jabbered away in their various languages, and of course all I know is about that
much Spanish.

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So, but anyway it was good, but I had trouble kind of bringing them in sometimes, because they
were so happy to see each other and get caught up. And one semester, there inadvertently arrived
a native speaker in that class, Elise. Elise was a very good student; Elise was very intimidated by
those international students. But by the end of the semester she said that she had learned so much
about the world. I don‟t know what she learned about writing but she was already a pretty decent
writer which is you know, a part of becoming a writer anyway: just learning stuff.
So anyway, so I talked to Stan Kendziorski, who happened to be a neighbor of mine, who was
then head of the International Office, and said, “You know I think it would be a good idea if we
created these half and half classes, so that the international students would learn from the native
speakers more about their English, the native speakers would learn more about other lands and
other ways of other cultures and so forth.” So that worked out great.
Well, to get back to Darlyn Fink, my friend from Clarion: she asked me if I would be willing to
videotape x-number of, I don‟t know, I think we did the whole semester of classes which she was
then going to study for . . . I don‟t remember what she was going to do with those videotapes but
that was her dissertation data. I said, “Sure, no problem.” So we got the tapes going and one day
I had a new outfit on and I thought I look particularly spiffy for the camera today, so we were
taping away and everything went very well and that was a good tape for Darlyn. And afterward
[laughs], end of the class this one kind of soft-spoken young woman from Germany came up and
said, “Professor Dreyer, your trousers are open.” [Laughs] So that was probably my worst
teaching moment: here I was performing for the camera with my fly open [laughs].
MO: Do you have a couple ones on the opposite end of the spectrum?
DD: Oh gosh. You know my last semester I had three College Writing classes, and I hadn‟t
taught three sections of writing for a long time, and I was kind of dreading it and as I said, the
paper load as you well know is monumental. But at the end of the semester, the last day of class
all the students were “Oh, don‟t leave” you know, because I told them I was retiring. Anyway,
they brought in cake and refreshments and drinks and we had a party and they planned the whole
thing and I just thought, you know, that was so, so great. And that‟s—I really do miss being
around the students now. Don‟t miss the paperwork at all; and I never minded reading their
papers I just hated responding to them, you know? So that was a good moment.
MO: Did you figure out any tricks for grading? This is mostly a question I‟m asking.
DD: No. Believe me, I‟ve read every book and every article about, “Don‟t be a slave to your
papers,” and I really tried to do all that and you know, set up score sheets and every kind of thing
I could. But by and large you still have to sit down and talk to kids about their writing. I think
that‟s probably the best thing, is talking about their writing rather than writing extensive

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comments. Although you know I did a lot more here, “I don‟t see how this fits in,” and that kind
of stuff.
MO: Did you see the students change in your time here? Did they seem different?
DD: Yeah, I think the students are a lot better students.
MO: Really?
DD: I really do, yeah. And I will say that and I didn‟t even realize this year‟s freshman class is
touted as the best and the brightest and the biggest number. But I know when I first started
teaching the kids—well of course I was not a very good teacher either so that‟s probably six to
one half a dozen of the other. But I think the students as—the longer I taught, I thought the better
the quality Slippery Rock is drawing.
MO: Wow, interesting. Good to know, it‟s better than the other way?
DD: Oh, I don‟t think it‟s gone the other way.
MO: No, that‟s what I‟m saying; is it better it‟s not going the other way?
DD: Yeah, and I know a lot of people moan and groan about the kids, but I‟m telling you,
especially now that I‟m in the dean‟s office and I see what faculty do . . . I mean you ask them to
read something or do something; they don‟t read it they don‟t do what they‟re supposed to do.
It‟s like how do they expect their students [laugh] to read and do what they want them to do?
[Laughs] [It‟s] very interesting.
MO: Being on the other side.
DD: Yeah. You know, “Get something in by the eighth,” two weeks later, “Can I still get that
in?” “Oh sure, just for you.” [Laughs]
MO: That‟s interesting. Who were the presidents and the deans when you first came here? And I
guess who were the movers and shakers?
DD: Okay. When I came here as a faculty wife in 1965 Bob Carter was president. Bob Carter
included me in my ex‟s interview, which when I think about it now I think, “What‟s he doing
interviewing a prospective faculty wife?”
MO: What do you think he was doing? Why do that?

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DD: He was a very controlling kind of person. I don‟t know, I guess he just wanted to look me
over and see if I was somehow going to adversely or positively affect the university. He wasn‟t
here very long. And he had come—he was just new that year, maybe the semester before, and he
had his predecessor, and I don‟t remember his name now, but the predecessor was living in the
president‟s office and they were trying to get rid of him so I guess Bob Carter, as my
understanding at least of the story went, had all the power disconnected from the president‟s
residence. So that got him; the predecessor did leave. Carter came in, didn‟t last very long.
And then Al Watrel came in, I don‟t know if you remember him—and that was in ‟68, I think. I
looked it up and at that time there was an extremely active organization called “Faculty Wives”
and [pause] that‟s because in those days most women, most faculty wives, had no careers of their
own, and had more time on their hands thnn I guess they should have, and were looking for
excuses to get away from their children which I freely admit to doing [laughs].
So anyway we had this Faculty Wives club and, oh, we did lots of interesting things. We had a
gourmet club and [pause] oh I don‟t know, the gourmet club was the stand out. At any rate, when
President Watrel came in, I was vice president of Faculty Wives and Lois Kuhr, who was
married to Irv Kuhr, a former professor in Speech now Communication Department, she was
president. So she and I and . . . Linda Lenz, who was another officer; I don‟t remember who the
fourth one was. But we were going to call on Carol Watrel, the new president‟s wife and
welcome her to Slippery Rock, which we did wearing dresses and white gloves I want you to
know. That memory, just . . . I can still see that the four of us tromping up the sidewalk to
welcome Carol, who was very gracious.
MO: So what did that seem like to you in retrospect?
DD: Oh man, I thought that was high society you know? We used to . . . the president always had
back in those days instead of an assembly—which has been the practice for Bob Aebersold and
Bob Smith, Warren—G. Warren [Smith] and I don‟t know, before that probably too. But there
was a reception in the fall, and we wore long dresses; the women wore long dresses and the men
wore suits, no tuxes. Very formal occasion.
MO: For women faculty, were they wearing dresses as well?
DD: The women faculty?
MO: Were there any?
DD: Oh there were women faculty; in fact one woman faculty kind of had her feet in both
camps: Rhoda Taylor Myer, she was both a faculty wife and a faculty. But other faculty women

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probably weren‟t so active or weren‟t involved in faculty wives, not in my memory anyway.
That was a long time ago, Mark, you know [laughs].
MO: It‟s fascinating.
DD: Yeah.
MO: So you have Bob Carter, Al Watrel and then. . . .
DD: And then Al Watrel got in all kinds of difficulties with state situations and some—oh, the
guy who did food service—he got the axe and then Al got the axe, and oh there were exciting
times when people got the axe.
MO: You said there were difficulties with state . . . ?
DD: There was a . . . I think there was finagling. I don‟t know if it was intentional but there were
questions about budget. Watrel built that Gail Rose viewing area over the football stadium
[pause] which was for many years referred to as “Watrel‟s Folly” because he built it and then
there was some—he had it built and then there was some notion that it was kind of sliding down
the hill so it was not useable for several years. They‟ve since propped it up. . . .
And then there was something about the food service guy who—he and his wife were friends of
mine—but he managed to procure and serve lobster at some event, and everybody talked about
the lobster as being an unnecessary expense. Now everybody who went enjoyed the lobster
tremendously but then it became a bad thing. So ultimately Watrel and food service guy and
some other people left, abruptly.
I was down camping on Cape Hatteras. As you know, I go down there and I‟ve been going down
there for several years. And we were in a tent, and at one point somebody came—not that you
can knock on a tent door, but somebody came to our tent door and said we have a phone call.
(Nobody had cell phones back in those days; it was just a pay phone outside the campground
store house). So my ex-husband went out there . . . well it was the latest update on who was
president because it kept changing after Watrel left. There were different camps, as you might
well imagine who wanted—so one time this Mark Selman was in charge and then another time
for a while Jim Roberts, who was at that time the vice president for Academic Affairs—he was
in charge. It just kept changing. It was like a soap opera, “Who‟s president today? Well, we don‟t
know, let‟s walk in Old Main and see.” Very interesting. That was back in the „70s, early „70s.
MO: Wow. So was there somebody more permanent after Watrel?
DD: Well more . . . I don‟t know what you mean by more permanent.

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MO: Well you said the sort of interim folks. . . .
DD: Yeah, we had after Watrel, who did we have . . . ? Herb Reinhard came in, in the late „70s.
Herb always signed his name Herb with a period after the Herb . . . Reinhard. So mostly we
referred to him as “Herb Period.” He was not a popular character on campus. He was an
extremely [pause] demanding personality, very controlling. One evening, eleven o‟ clock my
phone rang and it was “Herb Period.” This was while I was still married.
MO: Is that home?
DD: This was at home, yeah. And I live next door to Bob Aebersold [pause] who eventually
became president. Anyway, he said, “I‟ve been trying to call Bob Aebersold for two hours and I
can‟t get him. Would you go over and knock on his door and get him for me?” I said, “No, I‟m in
bed” [Laughs]. Which, I mean this was before I was on board. I was just still a faculty wife; I
thought only husbands could get fired and God knows what‟s going to happen. Anyway, I knew
what [the] Aebersolds were doing, because Herb would call them all night long and so they‟d
take the phone off the hook at night. I mean, there was no way I was gonna walk down there
anyway in the middle of the night.
So that‟s the kind of guy he was. So he left and then there was a Larry Park who served as an
interim and then [pause] gosh I‟m drawing a blank . . . the joys of aging. Anyway, and then of
course Bob Aebersold was serving as Herb‟s . . . no Larry Park preceded Herb, and then Herb
had chosen Bob Aebersold as his vice president for Academic Affairs and Herb left, and then
Bob became president and served for several years, early „80s until I don‟t know when G.
Warren [Smith] came in [the] late „90s; „97 I wanna say. And G. Warren came in, then of course
there was hoopla with G. Warren, and then, well you‟d missed all that too. . . .
MO: Yeah. Lobsters this time?
DD: No, no. [Pause] I don‟t know, he didn‟t seem to get on too well with the people in
Harrisburg, because of course by that time we‟ve all become part of the state system. I mean
when I first came here we were as I said, we were Slippery Rock State College. They dropped
the “Teachers” but it was still pretty much a teachers college. And then of course in „83 we got
the contract uniting all fourteen of the state universities. And then, of course, increasing, I think,
amounts of control came out of Harrisburg, especially with Judy Hample.
Anyway, G. Warren apparently didn‟t get along too well with the people in Harrisburg, so he
very abruptly—he didn‟t get the power turned off on the president‟s residence, but he was told to
leave. And of course he had Bob Smith as his vice president for Academic Affairs who then
stepped in as president. And then Bob Smith asked Bill Williams, who was chair of the English
Department, and I was his assistant chair. That‟s one job I forgot to mention: I was the assistant
chair of the English Department for I don‟t know, two terms, while Bill Williams was chair of

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Dreyer, Diana 16

the English Department. But then of course he went over to the dark side and became the vice
president and provost for Academic Affairs.
MO: So you‟ve seen some amazing stuff since you‟ve been here.
DD: Oh, lots of changes, yeah. But the college still stays here and kids are still the same. You
know, being a faculty member is a nice gig.
MO: Yeah. Let‟s see: other people who influenced you or [were] significant in your time here
and why?
DD: I would say Bill Williams was a huge influence. He [pause] knew my family situation and
said, “Well you know, you just have to go get that master‟s degree.” Which is, I mean I was
hired with just a bachelor‟s [degree] at my quarter time position. Based on five and half years of
so-called successful high school teaching that was fifteen years prior to that [laughs] but anyway.
. . . So he said, “Go to IUP,” because he was at that time in the doctoral program at IUP. And I
did, I went to school and . . . “You know now you gotta get the Ph.D.,” and I don‟t know if you
know Bill enough to know that he would refer to that . . . “That‟s your ticket; that‟s your union
ticket,” he said.
MO: What does that mean, your “union ticket”?
DD: You get your Ph.D. you‟re golden. Back in those days they were hiring people without Ph.
D.s obviously, but you know you pretty much have to have one now-a-days.
MO: So when did the wind shift with that?
DD: I would say the „90s, definitely the late „90s. And of course with all these performance
indicators that have come into being in the last what, eight years I believe. You know that‟s one
of the performance indicators when the faculty have Ph.D.‟s, so it‟s crucial now. It wasn‟t back
then so much. I could‟ve stayed on forever with just a master‟s degree but I would never have
got any promotions; I would‟ve remained probably an assistant professor. I think I moved to
assistant professor without a Ph.D. but couldn‟t have gone any further.
Anyway, he was a big influence and while I was at IUP I met Jim Strickland, who also was
really helpful to me because I‟d just get all bent out of shape, “I can‟t do this, I have three kids, I
can‟t . . .” I don‟t know, “I‟m stupid.” And both Bill and Jim were just, “You‟re okay,” And Jim
in particular would, if I had a big paper and particularly with the dissertation which about
finished me because during the course I‟d flown through the coursework, got my comps out of
the way, did my orals, collected my data and then . . . my mother died, one of my kids broke her
neck it was just like a whole bunch of stuff. And I thought, “You know what? I don‟t care”

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Dreyer, Diana 17

[laughs]. But Jim kept saying, “Just free write, just free write” [laughs]. So anyway eventually I
got the dissertation, but those two guys . . . and then Jace Condravy also. She and I had many a
trip back and forth from IUP together because we took classes together, so we kind of served as
each other‟s support group.
MO: So how did you pull off that balancing act? I mean it seems like so much in retrospect: the
kids, the Ph.D., and when I did it just not having any kids it was so hard.
DD: Yeah, I don‟t know, Mark. My mother . . . my dad died very abruptly when my mother was
I don‟t know, say fifty. Right before my brother was going off to college, and he had
scholarships to Yale but not full scholarships. Anyway, money was very precarious. I was a
sophomore in high school and I just, I guess I watched my mother cope with all the stuff she
coped with and I kept thinking, “Well my mother did this” [laughs]. So, I don‟t know, it just
happened. I had a lot of, as I said, encouragement from people in the department, terrific
neighbors: very, very supportive because by that time I‟d lived here long enough that I
established a lot of really good friendships, very encouraging.
MO: So in retrospect are you glad you muscled through it?
DD: Oh absolutely. But I don‟t know what else I would have done because I sort of thought
originally maybe I‟d go back to Illinois, but by that time I didn‟t have that much family left. I
still had a lot of friends there but not the kind of network that enabled me to, I think, experience
the kind of success that I did here at Slippery Rock.
MO: Community, nice. [Pause] I guess to get to some of these wrap-up questions: were there any
major events or activities while you were here: academic or cultural, or building projects or
weather events or national events that linked up?
DD: Well, let‟s see, building projects. I think one of the saddest things that I witnessed here was
the tearing down of the Chapel. I don‟t know if anybody‟s told you about the Chapel.
MO: Where was it?
DD: Right across from BSB where the Alumni House is now. Beautiful stone building. In fact I
have a couple of the stones from there. If you ever want to see them, you can come to my house
and I‟ll show you the Chapel stones.
MO: Why did they tear it down?
DD: Well the interior was condemned and the state school had no money to build, and not a
whole lot of wealthy alumni back then, you know: they were all teachers; they didn‟t have the

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big bucks to endow. So they tore that down. They did manage to save a beautiful dogwood tree
that was kind of like in a little courtyard and the next year the dogwood died, which I always
figured was a kind of a protest, “You killed the building, I‟m gonna die too.” So I thought that
was a very sad thing. The stained glass windows in the Pennsylvania Room in North Hall are
from the Chapel.
MO: Why did a state school have a chapel?
DD: I have no idea, no idea. Well, other than, like when I was an undergraduate we had
assembly. We had to go to assembly every Wednesday and they took attendance and if you
couldn‟t show up you got in trouble. I have no idea what kind of trouble you got into but you had
to be there [and] you had to sit in your seat. So I assume it was probably something like that and
I guess that was a God-fearing group that established these state schools, I‟m sure, so a chapel
seemed important.
So that was a sad thing. When I first came here, the university stopped at Morrow Field House.
None of this part of campus was here [lower campus]. No Spotts [World Cultures Building], no
Vincent [Science Hall], no PT [Physical Therapy] Building, no Eisenberg [Classroom Building],
no residence halls; none of that stuff was here. So it was interesting. In fact Jim Roberts, one of
the guys that was academic vice president for a while, had a farm down here. Like just south of
the library, this was all farmland.
MO: What did he grow?
DD: Tomatoes, gooseberries . . . he used to give my mother gooseberries and my mother would
make gooseberry jam—pie, gooseberry pie.
MO: Nice. And I guess the farm is . . . ?
DD: Now he has a place, actually his farm is on the other side of the road but there was a
farmhouse there and I think he farmed some of this land. He‟s got a place up north of Harrisville.
Which is another favorite story of mine; it kind of dates back to one of your other questions. I
was talking to a local person, what I thought was a local person not too long after I moved here,
and he said, “Where are you from?” and I said, “I‟m from Chicago,” and he said, “That‟s pretty
far away,” and I said, “Yeah, are you from here?” and he said, “Oh no, no!” and I said, “Where
are you from?” and he said, “Harrisville.” From Slippery Rock to Harrisville: way far away.
MO: So for those who don‟t know Harrisville, how far is Harrisville by car?
DD: Harrisville is probably, I don‟t know, seven—no not even seven and a half miles away.

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MO: [Laughs]. You turned me on to Penn-Gold Ice Cream when I first got here. . . .
DD: Oh! Yes well that‟s where Harrisville is; that has the Penn-Gold Ice Cream store.
MO: Do you have a favorite flavor from there?
DD: Well my kids used to love the teaberry actually; I don‟t go in there, I haven‟t been in there
for quite a while. I like anything with chocolate in it.
MO: Good to know [pause]. Other memorable events?
DD: We had a weather event when I was . . . I think we were still in Eisenberg. We had a little
earthquake. I was in my office just by myself, and there weren‟t very many other people around
and I kind of felt this tremor and I looked and I thought the filing cabinet‟s shaking and sure
enough we had a little bit of an earthquake here. Not enough to do any damage; but it did shake
the building, so that was kind of exciting. [Pause] The other thing was 9/11.
MO: Where were you?
DD: I had just begun in the dean‟s office as assistant to former dean Bill McKinney, and we
were having our first college meeting of all the departments over at Swope. And we had ordered
pizza as we still do, and Bill McKinney had a little TV in his office and he came out of the office
and said, “Come here, you gotta watch this.” And we went in and you know watched the second
plane go into the building. And then he got a call from Old Main saying that all the
administrators were to meet there. I think that they were going to . . . I mean nobody knew what
was happening. We didn‟t know that we were going to be attacking or I guess they were going to
make a plan of what to do, though I don‟t know what you‟d do if we were all going to get
attacked anyway. He said you go ahead and conduct the . . . just have the pizza and say welcome
and blah blah blah whatever.
So [pause] I had had this student, Rick, in a couple of English classes, one where he was just an
abject failure, didn‟t care, hated the class, hated me. . . . Then I had him again in another class a
couple years later and he really did a turn around so I really got a kick out of this Rick. You
probably know him because he was, he became a graduate student.
MO: I think I do, yeah.
DD: Though I can‟t think of his last name right now. Anyway, he was delivering pizza for
Coffaro‟s so I went out to meet him at Swope, because I had the money or the check or
whatever. And he said, [laughs] I‟ll never forget this; this is like part of 9/11 what he said, “The
whole world‟s fallin' apart and here I am delivering fucking pizzas.” [Laughs] And I just thought,

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Dreyer, Diana 20

“Yeah that pretty much says it all.” So, anyway that was a very memorable thing trying to cope
with that and trying to get students—to get them through the day, get everybody through the day,
the days actually.
MO: Then we had that plane crash out here in Pennsylvania that was so close by.
DD: Yes, right, right, and of course that was even scarier because it was so close to home.
MO: I guess the second to last one: what, if anything, do you miss about being at Slippery
Rock—although you‟re back [laughs].
DD: Well obviously I did miss it [laughs]. I missed being with the students which unfortunately
in the dean‟s office you‟re not really seeing that many students and sometimes the ones you see
are not the fun ones [laughs].
But I still see some of my college writing students. In fact I saw one last night; I went to a
concert over in Swope and saw one of my students just, you know, really a pleasure to see these
kids and see how they mature. From beginning freshmen when they‟re really wide-eyed and
really cool, they become really cool and everything and do well and so that‟s exciting. And I
missed being around faculty—just the academic community I missed. So it‟s nice to be back.
MO: You like being a dean?
DD: Most days [laughs]. Yeah, it‟s good.
MO: What‟s the best part about being a dean?
DD: No papers to grade.
MO: And the throne you get to sit on and the crown you get to wear.
DD: Well you know what, I don‟t have a throne [and] I don‟t have a crown. I have terrific help
with Helen and Amy. I‟m not getting paid as much as I was getting paid as a full professor.
MO: Wow, you‟re revealing state secrets here. I didn‟t know that.
DD: So people get nasty with me and I can just say, “You know what? You‟re not paying me
enough for this job” [laughs].

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Dreyer, Diana 21

MO: Holy cow. All right the last one, the global question: anything you‟d like for current/future
Rock community members to know? How would you like to be remembered? Aside from that
zipper story.
DD: Well, it‟s too late to convert you but I really think that people—faculty, staff—should make
a point to live near the university. [Pause] now it‟s for an economic reason: I can‟t imagine what
people are paying in gas just to commute from Pittsburgh or Cranberry or Youngstown or
whatever. But I think they miss a lot by not—I mean personally I live two miles from here and I
know there are times when I think, “I‟m not driving into town for something.” And I missed a lot
of stuff by that, and if I lived twenty-five or thirty or forty miles away I know I wouldn‟t become
involved in, not only the university community but the community. I mean if I hadn‟t lived here I
would never know about Leaky and Sudsy and . . . all the stuff I learned as a faculty wife and
being involved in local church communities and activities and I was an active member of
Women‟s Club for many years. So that‟s how you know what‟s going on and learn a lot. So I
would say that would be one piece of advice I would give. The other one is: it‟s a great place to
be. Nice, small town atmosphere. Other than the fact that there‟s no big body of water here this is
the perfect place to live.
MO: That‟s great. Anything else you want to add before we close it down?
DD: Nope, not really.
MO: That was cool; I feel like I‟ve learned so much here. I wanna get some chipped ham—you
made me completely hungry!
DD: Oh, you gotta get chipped ham?

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