SRU ORAL HISTORY
“SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY IN THE SIXTIES”
INTERVIEWEE:
INTERVIEWERS:

DR. JOANNE MCKEAG
DR. JOSEPH RIGGS AND LEAH M. BROWN

19 JUNE 1992
B:

You can see that this is a very informal kind of procedure, and ongoing. It can stop and
start at any time. So we want to know some of your feelings and memories and history of
Slippery Rock, starting where you wish.

L:

Well, I’ll probably start in 1963. That was the date that many Slippery Rock faculty were
hired that particular year, including myself and Joyce Murray. Probably the thing that I
remember the most about that first year was the camaraderie among the faculty. Our
particular departments of health, physical education and recreation were under a dean at
that time. The man’s name was Dr. Nettleton. His right-hand person was Martha
Haverstick, and those two in that first year will always be prominent in my mind as to the
kinds of things that were accomplished and the co-operation that existed among the three
departments, and that perhaps is the one thing that was my yardstick for measuring
anything that ever happened after that. Consequently, there were many positive things,
but it was also a disappointment to me to see how the camaraderie over the years could
indeed, in some instances was, placated and destroyed by people.

R:

By us.

M:

By us. The camaraderie among the faculty I would say was not just within our
department. It was everybody. Names that come to mind because they came around that
same time was Rhonda Taylor, Irv Kuhr, Tony Pagano. Those are people outside my
department, but yet faculty knew each other and I know that has to do with size in some
instances, but during the sixties was also the beginning of the faculty council. A forum
where once a month we met. I believe the first meeting was in World Cultures
auditorium. It was where issues were brought forward. Faculty elected their president
and vice-president, and secretary and vice-secretary. This was before the union. There
were some very good arguments, but the other thing that I think is important to remember
is an attitude where you could argue with your colleagues on some important points
concerning curriculum for instance and what was fair. But again, and you have to
remember I am an optimist and I only remember mostly positive things. The bottom line
was what was in the best interest of the students who were going to graduate from
Slippery Rock. One of the most argumentative people but the one that made you think a
lot was Norm Hawkins. I don’t know if you remember him at all. He was a gem. There
are other adjectives that would fit him better, I am sure, yet he made you think. And that

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M:

perhaps was the key. Those particular years maybe were a microcosm of the macrocosm
of the kinds of things that were happening in the sixties which was kind of an opening
from that closed society and all that control which was just kind of opening up. As the
years went on, I knew that the kinds of things that could be accomplished by the total
faculty and still have no vindictiveness, I knew that that time frame existed. I mean that
the people and the faculty did get along and you could disagree at a very high level and
still accomplish that for which you were hired at Slippery Rock State College. As I say
as the years went on things change, which they always do. Some for the better without a
doubt as far as the students were concerned. Better education. In the meantime you lose.
We also I think lost some very valuable experiences, some of the openness among the
faculty and the camaraderie.

R:

And then the size changed all that gradually?

M:

Plus, the change, I think, in the attitude of the whole scene. People began to change, not
just here in Slippery Rock but everywhere. The value system was changing and that had
an impact. I’m not sure if we had anything to do with that.

R:

But morale was great. Everybody knew everybody? The association was constant.

M:

Exactly. Oftentimes that went beyond school, because you felt you were friends at
school and therefore you could be friends outside. And the only thing in Slippery Rock,
the only kind of social life that you could create was what you did yourself because there
certainly weren’t enough places and thing to go to unless you went to Pittsburgh or to
New Castle, which again we did. But oftentimes we did that in groups. As I recall, we
used to go to New Castle with various faculty members who would go to that place that
was called the Branding Iron and have supper and talk. It was very nice.
I know your not to think of the past as being better, but there were certain aspects of the
past that I think were better.

R:

Well, it may not be so fashionable but it may be fairly accurate.

M:

Yes.

R:

For many of us, there was a good ole days that were better than these new old days.

M:

Yes.

R:

You were pre-Carter? Carter came about the time you did?

M:

After. Weisenfluh was president. What might be interesting about President Weisenfluh
we still, when Joyce and I and some of the others get together, remember his lectures up
at the Hut which is not the Art Building. I’m going to remember that there were two very
important points and I remember the one that the president being the president of the
college at that time and all the new faculty were sitting there and he was giving us the

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M:

rules, the conditions by which we were hired here at Slippery Rock as a faculty member,
and some of the things you should remember. One was to open up an account at the local
bank, and always pay your bills. That was a top priority. He talked a lot about what you
could never say now to a faculty, which was your behavior and the expectations in this
community.

B:

He was the father.

M:

Yes, an absolute father image. Of course, I had him as an ethics teacher here because I
am a graduate of Slippery Rock in 1955, and he was a revered faculty member, Dr.
Weisenfluh. Revered and feared, but a balance, and no one took his class and was able to
be non-communicative. He probably had teaching techniques that years later someone
thought they discovered.

B:

Was it a required class?

M:

Ethics was a required class. I was here when it was a teacher’s college and you either
had Dr. Weisenfluh, or the other gentleman. Dr. Wrigley was the other philosophy
teacher. The two of them were right. They were just very good faculty members, and it
really didn’t make any difference which one of those teachers that you got because, as I
recall, that one wasn’t any better than the other. So when I came back Dr. Weisenfluh
was the president. A year after, and maybe it was two and I’m not sure of the dates, but
Dr. Weisenfluh found out that he did not have a position and he was no longer president
of Slippery Rock. When he was on vacation with his wife in Florida, he got a letter
saying bye-bye. That’s how things could be done.

R:

From Judge Kiester?

M:

I believe so. At that time. As I say there were people here on campus who could give
you that, who were much closer to the situation.

R:

Now Weisenfluh’s philosophy orientation was heavily tilted towards religion?

M:

Yes. Pretty much so.

R:

It’s been mentioned that he expected people to go to church.

M:

Yes, those kinds of things. Paying your bills and maybe that was it, go to church. He
went right down the line as to that kind of behaviors.

R:

Dress codes?

M:

Yes, I think so, but being in physical education the dress code sometimes you know you
would deviate because you had uniforms of sorts that you had to wear. Speaking of the
uniforms, that was kilts where worn by physical education majors and by many of the
faculty members. I remember one time I had on one of my favorite kilts. It was red. I
could not sew very well and I always sent my things out to be hemmed, and Dr.

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M:

Haverstick said the one day when she saw me going down the hall in my red kilt,
Joannie, don’t you think that is a little short? There was over the campus, I think, a
certain dress code even for the students going into the dining halls. We won’t go back to
the fifties, because that was in loco parentis.

B:

Maybe later we can go back.

M:

You might remember some of those things from your own experiences.

R:

In the fifties were there many women teachers on the campus at all?

M:

No.

R:

No. So there was an evolution that you saw in the fifties, sixties, seventies, and the
eighties of the women’s role at this institution.

M:

Exactly.

R:

Called progress.

M:

Well, again you can talk about the need for the role models and so forth, but when you
think about the fifties that was still very much separated into man, woman, father, like
you had mentioned the father image with the president. In the fifties, I think my
particular generation was not a questioning generation, in the early fifties. But things
began to happen after that.

B:

There were women administrators, I think.

M:

Dean Harner was the only woman administrator, and the registrar, of course, Maree
McKay.

B:

But not in the classroom?

M:

Not many. There was Miss Cushman in speech and communication. Wonderful lady,
old school, and very high expectations as a teacher. Then I got to know her when I came
back as a teacher and then as a personal friend.

B:

What made you pick Slippery Rock as a student? Why did you come here?
M:

I came to a graduation at Slippery Rock when I was a junior in high school. Some
close friends of my family, and I can’t remember for what reason, but their
daughter, Beryl, was a student here graduating, and I knew her growing up. She
was two years older than I. I came here to her graduation, and there was a feeling
on the campus then very much what I’m sure that other people have said to you.
The friendliness was very, very open. You could truly, walk anywhere on the
small campus and it was a genuine thing, with the “hello” tradition at Slippery
Rock. I can remember coming up for my interview, and I parked in the circle and
I had to go for a personal interview with Dean Duncan to see if I

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M:

would be accepted. But remember again that was probably like nine hundred to a
thousand students. How many of those would be freshmen coming in? So they met
personally with every student that was going to be admitted.

R:

Was that Bob Duncan?

M:

No, that was Leonard Duncan, Dean of Instruction. To be very honest with you, I had
considered just living at home and going to Pitt. Financially it was less expensive to
come, room and board at Slippery Rock, than it was to go back and forth and commute to
Pitt at the time, credit wise. I think the credits at were $12.50 as I recall. That’s changed.
Then I came to Slippery Rock. Plus, Slippery Rock’s reputation as a teacher institution
was very, very good, as was Indiana’s, in the proximity to the Pittsburgh area.

R:

So between 1955 and 1963, you had other positions in graduate work and all that stuff?

M:

Yes.

R:

Then how did you happen to get a teaching position here?

M:

At our state convention, health, physical education and recreation state convention, and
just by talking with people I’d found out that the dance position was opening. Maureen
Winters was the dance teacher here and her husband was as I remember a physical
education teacher. They were from Utah, I believe, and he had been trying to make the
Pittsburgh Steeler football team for three or four years, and was cut at the last minute
every time and they decided that he would give up, but he had his degree, too. Maureen
Winters, very well thought of woman. I found out at the convention that there was an
opening, and I had a talk with Dr. Haverstick at the state convention, met her, and then
came out and interviewed with DR. Nettleton, and several other people that were on staff.
I did not, that was not a goal, I had no idea that I would ever come to Slippery Rock to
teach, but I was at East Stroudsburg. I had three years of teaching at East Stroudsburg,
1960 to 1963.

B:

And you got your master’s?

M:

At Pitt. In those days to get permanently certified in teacher education, you had to have
six hours above your bachelor’s. So I went to Pitt night school. Started, and then I did
go a summer at Colorado and transferred credits back to Pitt, and finished there in 1962.
But there again in the state of Pennsylvania, Slippery Rock as always, at that time their
reputation was excellent. Then to come back here and teach was an honor, I guess you
could say that. In those days, again, when you think about it, to become a college teacher
was unreal. And ironically, I had taught five years in public school in Penn Hills outside
of Pittsburgh and one of my former teachers, John Eiler, here at Slippery Rock, I met at a
state convention that was held in Pittsburgh. I had not seen him in about four years and
he came over and said, Joannie, do you think you would ever be interested in teaching at
the college level? I said, I hadn’t thought about that, Mr. Eiler. That’s how I got my

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M:

position basically at East Stroudsburg. But then I say I saw Maureen at the state
convention and she said, Joannie, why don’t you apply at Slippery Rock? So I did, and
stayed for twenty-six years or so.

B:

So dance was your specialty at the time?

M:

I had taken dance classes in Colorado and then at Pitt, but in those days again a specialty
was not like a specialty is today. In the meantime, you had to take other kinds of things.
When I began teaching in the public schools, and at that time there were not a lot of
sports for women, more on the intermural basis. In fact, I wrote papers about that, too. I
wrote a major paper at Pitt against competition for women. That they should not.

B:

Anti?

M:

Yes. Of course, that’s changed a little over the years because the information at that time
was incorrect. The research that had been done. Physiologically. You could go to a
library and just have doctor after doctor telling you that this was bad.

R:

Bad stuff.

M:

Bad stuff.

R:

Carter came right after you did.

M:

There was an interim. We had several interims as I recall. Dr. Edwards was an interim
president between when Carter came.

R:

So there was a variation from president to president in terms of how it affected
everything in your program? And sometimes your programs got a lot of support, and
then sometimes they didn’t get very much support. Sometimes the women’s programs
got nothing, and sometimes they were getting along very well.

M:

Exactly. It fluctuated depending on the attitude and the thinking of the person that was in
the leadership position. In my thinking, and I could be in error. But even with the father
image there still seemed to be a little more fairness early on than later. It became
problematic later. My recollection of it is that it was made divisive so that people were
pitted, began to be pitted, against one another for monies, for time, for space, and
consequently, then you did have what I call battles. But that had to be, I think. I mean
even at the state level on down that during that time frame, the hiring of women, as you
mentioned, it was a change. I saw some information as, I don’t think they called it a
sponsor, but I worked with student government, and the student government would get a
print-out on, for instance, merit raises. And at that time that had to be before the union
because it was not public knowledge who received the merit raises. Now why the
president of student council would have access to that, I do not know. But I can
remember going to a meeting. Let me think if I can remember. The young man who was
the student government president has been back on the campus. He is a lawyer. He

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M:

received the outstanding alumni award. I’m not going to remember his name because he
was a bright, marvelous young man. He was personal friends with Bobby Watson. I
know that he’s received that award. I believe he’s in Arizona. Sally Lennox would know
immediately. [Note: Paul Onuska, now a judge in New Mexico.] But anyhow, he said,
Miss McKeag why don’t you take a look at this, and he handed me the paper, and I was
going down through it shock and tremors go through me. What, her, him?

R:

Promotion lists did the same thing.

M:

Exactly. I’m sure. That was before the union and then after.
Let me get back. I still think what would be important, I think if you spoke with Tony
Pagano, and with Rhoda Taylor, they would remember the very beginnings. There was
another. Bob Stackman was also involved in that group for a while with faculty council.
Meeting for hours in preparation for the meetings and what’s the agenda going to be.
Rhoda Taylor was elected vice-president, I believe. Who was the first president? Tony
Pagano?

B:

We’ll look it up.

M:

All right. That might be interesting. I was an officer.

B:

So there was a faculty organization before that?

M:

I think the faculty organization before that was controlled by the administration. As it
was evolving, the administration was invited to the faculty council rather than the control
always coming from above. It was the beginning of a different kind of thinking where
faculty did indeed want to have a little more control over. I’ll bet the major thing was
curriculum. That’s what runs in my mind. Rather than having a few people making
those decisions, that more faculty wanted to have their input and there basically wasn’t
that kind of forum where you just had to stand up and be recognized and say what you
thought about something.

R:

I think that Martha [Haverstick] said at one time that when the schedule was set, that all
of the men, coaches and so forth, all got their pick of the times, and women were second
rank.

M:

She would know that because she was working at that time helping. At least when I first
came here, she and Dr. Nettleton worked hand-in-glove that first year in trying to make
schedules a little more fair, but then he left after that first year and that also then was a
change. There’s some things that I would probably have to talk about without recording
it and then make a determination whether or not it should be on.

R:

Well, when you get the tape back, this transcript, then you’re the editor.

M:

Your point is well taken because that is exactly what would happen. Dr. Haverstick was
and remains a leader. She is the person who has the facts, does not go in, like I might,

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M:

and attack a problem emotionally first and then think about it. She would have thought
of everything and did indeed. As time went on there was a situation where the women
almost had to rally in order to get something done that indeed was fair. And again, my
comparison is that I didn’t think that had to happen at first, but that as time went on it
became more of a battle. You know, how could you do this? Like the girls in sports as
far as I was concerned. We would practice at ten o’clock at night or something to that
effect because that was the only time available. And in the West Gym. But there are
others who can tell you about the coaching and things like that. I had the dance group,
Orchesis. And that was a battle. I had a dance show with 125 students in it because I had
no cuts because that’s what Orchesis was. Performance was not as great as it is today
which is wonderful, but it was different. Again, it was more intermural. If you wanted to
be in the dance show, you could, as long as you came to practice. The budget for
Orchesis might have been, when I first started, I think it was $25. So there were a lot of
inequities as to who indeed did get the monies. But that wasn’t so different from what is
going on everywhere else at that point in time. That made it imperative that you had to
begin to speak up and say things whereas, I’m going to refer back to the fifties where you
were told what to do and you just go ahead and do it and don’t say anything about it.
Well, that I think, all began to change. Then you had to suffer along. When any group,
whether it’s women, blacks, whites, whatever that happens to be, whenever you begin to
speak up, you must be prepared for the counterattack of the untruths, name calling of all
kinds because you are trying to do what you believe in or what you thought was right.
My thought is always though in all our conversations and everything is that the unfairness
was basically toward some of the faculty, both men and women, but it was really the
students who were not being treated fairly when you came right down to it. So over time,
as you well know, that has changed.

B:

So you started to wage this war before Title IX?

M:

Yes. Always, and I think in the terms of legislation being passed, because it was years
prior to that where you were still trying to get something that was fair if there is such a
word as fair. I’m not sure that’s the right word. I can tell you that the girls would get the
gymnasium, when I was a student, for three hours a week on Wednesday. That was it.
From seven to ten. That was the only time you were allowed to use the gymnasiums at
night and that was just the East and West Gyms at that time. But that kind of carried over
even in the sixties where all the practice times would be signed up first by the men
coaches, and then the girls. But you know that had to be talked about and become an
issue before some equity was achieved.

R:

You were teaching roughly fifteen hours and then had extracurricular obligations? Your
days were very long?

M:

Yes. Very long.

R:

And sometimes over the weekends as well I suppose?

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M:

Oh, you never even thought about that. See we had Saturday classes till noon also. I had
many eight o’clock Saturday classes, many, for those years.

R:

When we did get the union in 1972, just a year or so after I got here, were there
breakthroughs for women in that first collective bargaining agreement in terms of equity
and course loads and the distribution of this, that and the other?

Start Side B
M:

I would have to really look at that.

R:

Well, they started defining coaches and they started defining extracurricular as part of
your regular load. A lot of things were in that first one that Marty Morand did. It must
have made the playing field a little more level.

M:

Exactly, because now you had an instrument. You had a group that was organized that
you could go to and grieve. But I was an anti-union person mainly because of my
childhood, I mean coming up through the things that I saw. But as you gathered the facts
and as you lived through it, like in the sixties, and you saw that you did not have any
power, that you had to have another way of expressing yourselves as a group and then
you had to have a vehicle through which you had power, the union, basically, I remember
this because Marie Wheaton was also, like we were saying, how can you vote for a
union? And we were saying, how can we not? It was like going against what our fathers
or our uncles or anybody had said.

B:

You don’t want to be a teamster.

M:

You don’t want to be. And it did cause some interesting conversations at home when we
went back to visit. Here again the union opened things up and indeed in the very
beginning made things a better playing field as you alluded to. I don’t like the fact that
we need it. I’m still a very idealistic person that I think when intelligent groups or maybe
not even intelligent groups of people, but if you can sit down and you can communicate
that this struggle over the power is a demise, alas, that you cannot come up with
intelligent solutions to problems without having to go through the power struggle.

R:

When the heavy uprising against Carter, the faculty meeting and the student minirevolt,
you were here. Did you have a role in all that?

M:

Yes. I was in it. I remember all the faculty or those who wanted to, the board meeting
was in the fieldhouse and Mrs. Vincent was on the board, and Emma Guffy Miller. At
that time, she was getting quite hard of hearing. I’m trying to remember who the
representatives were that went in that day as we stood in the lobby of the fieldhouse, and
the remark, it may have been Tony Pagano. There was a representative in the conference
room at that particular point in time, and supposedly Emma Guffy Miller, because she
was hard of hearing, turned to Mrs. Vincent and said, what are all these people doing
here? It was a comical scene in a sense, but it did show that the faculty, well, what the

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M:

word now is solidarity, that’s what it was. I had a former professor, who was in the
administration when I came back to teach here, come to my office and try to dissuade me
from voting for the union. Now, he said it was for my own good, but there again you
would go back to the father image, because this professor also was a highly regarded,
economics professor here on the campus, and good. But he was in the administration,
and I was sitting in my office and he knocked on the door and came in and sat down and
was like a father figure. Now, Joannie, this is something you do not want to do. It will
follow you or hurt you for the rest of your life. I’m not quite so sure that he didn’t say,
now do I have your promise, and I looked at him and said, no, you don’t.

R:

You were in the AAUP before that?

M:

Yes, absolutely.

R:

That was one of our options when we voted originally, AAUP?

M:

Yes, and that was one of the options.

R:

Yes, exactly. What did you like most about your years at Slippery Rock? I mean what
were your greatest satisfactions?

M:

My greatest satisfaction has always been the students, and I don’t say that lightly. An
openness, the kinds of students, the variety of students that I have had, I guess as far as
intellect and culture. Slippery Rock does not get one particular kind of student. Perhaps
because it is a state school I think you get a broad spectrum of young people with various
backgrounds. I think listening has given me a more global look. That there was much to
learn from the students if you were willing to give the time, and in my kind of personality
what was good for me which was to have an open-door policy no matter what. When the
Black issues began, when the Vietnam issues were there, I wanted to hear. I really
craved wanting to know all sides and all aspects of what the students thought of those
particular issues. So I think I learned a lot. It just opened up a greater understanding than
some of my friends, and I’m not saying that’s right or wrong because some people just
choose not. They don’t want to know. It’s not that important for them, but for me it
always was.

B:

You mentioned Dr. Haverstick as somebody important. Is she the main figure you look
back on or are there others?

M:

There are others, but I would say that she was probably the role model that would be the
nearest. The nearest as a professional role model that I can think of is Dr, Haverstick.
She was a person that, for instance on an evaluation team, when she would come into
evaluate, she has an insight about her as far as teaching that was concerned that she could
look at the class and look at the professor and just know what learning was taking place
or maybe wasn’t. But she could write it in such a way. I still have mine somewhere, one
that I kept, because it was specifically the positive aspects of a particular class and then

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M:

improvement. It wasn’t a form that they use now or had used before I left and it was just
a written evaluation. Then she made you think about these things. Might this have
happened if you’d done that? Could you have done this? It was like yes, that’s right.

R:

Sure. That’s a lovely critique when the person is able to help you explore other options
of your lecture.

M:

Yes. She has that down. She had it, and she has a lot of talents. She’s courageous.
She’s everything.

B:

Unfailingly honest.

M:

Without a doubt. There was a time, and that’s what I’m not sure about as far as the tape
is concerned, but Dr. Haverstick, at one time, was attacked professionally by a group of
people on the campus, and her honesty and her integrity was so strong that the people
who tried to destroy her, and this is always my example, never won an election on this
campus when they ran for anything, whether it was dealing with faculty council or
afterward voting in the union. I don’t think Martha Haverstick has ever lost an office that
she has put her name in for, any committee, and some of the faculty members that you
could talk to they didn’t come to me because that would have brought out my fighting
instinct which I’m really a pacifist.

R:

Was the issue of personality or was there something substantive about it?

M:

I think the issue was power and the fact that Martha was respected so much, and she was
honest, she was fair. She had the attributes that other people would probably wish that
you had them as consistently as she did, and it was both a personal and a professional
attack. There were certain things that I know that other people would not, we have talked
about it, but it was as if I could get you to say something derogatory about her, you, see
then I could take that and use it over here saying that you said it, although I wanted you
to say it and I would keep asking you questions until something would come out and then
I could use it , but you see it didn’t work. It did not, and she stayed forthright and I think
the department as such almost chased her out and I’m intentionally not naming names at
this point in time. Then she chose, if she could not be a leader officially in our
department, then she went out and all these other people began to know Martha
Haverstick better which was in the sense almost a good thing because then she worked on
other committees outside our own department then people began to know how intelligent,
fair, and honest she was. Isn’t that true? People that worked with her you just know and
that in my mind was the best thing that could have happened to Dr. Haverstick at that
time.

B:

Widened her influence all over campus.

M:

Oh, my yes. And her input, you see, on these committees.

B:

She was the backbone of every committee that she ever served on.

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M:

And continued to still be the model for someone like me to applaud and look up to.
There are other people. One of my greatest experiences at Slippery Rock was the
beginning when I came back from Purdue after four years of working on that Ph.D. It is
sometimes after you finish working on a degree there is a void, and something wonderful
happened, and I joked about it with Garry Quast as being the token woman. The
beginning of Freshmen Studies, and I came back after Larry Cobb, Barry, Bob, and I
think those are the three key people, and then Carl Dresden and myself. And we joked
about it. I did not know Larry Cobb. I did not really know Bob Macoskey. I knew Carl.
But that was one of the most intellectually stimulating, no, that was the most
intellectually stimulating experience that I had at Slippery Rock.

B:

How long did you stay with that group?

M:

Four or five years. I can think about Bob Macoskey after we did get to know each other.
He didn’t say this to me then, but later on we could joke about it, but when my name was
suggested by Garry Quast, he and I had worked together and knew each other personally,
and they were saying, well, we probably ought to get a female on this somehow, and he
said, Joannie McKeag. And Macoskey said, a jock! Now the ending of that of course is
the fact that I loved Bob Macoskey and he loved me, and the love is the agape love.
When I was going for a promotion and having a very difficult time getting a promotion,
he tells that story in the letter to the committee that he wrote after I was turned down
three times. So that’s all right too, but Bob’s letter then on the growth and interchange of
ideas. So I had said to Bob, well, I must be honest with you. One of the words that I
thought about and at the first couple of our meetings I thought, boy this guy is a buffoon.
He just roared when I told him that. Far from it. Marvelous man. But that experience
and then others came into the program, but the hours and hours of planning and
preparation and reading. That’s when I first read Ghandi’s Truth and some tings that I
would not have. I know I would not have gotten it. It was little things that we would say,
well, you should read this, or you should read this, and then we would share the books
and everything in preparation to enlighten our own minds, let alone trying to enlighten
the minds of a hundred and some students. But that probably was the highlight of my
years academically speaking and really from a personal viewpoint. And the first years of
the dance shows, the students, and how hard they worked, and it didn’t make any
difference that the budget wasn’t there. We did it anyhow. I’m not quite sure how so
many times. We need some paint to finish a set before the show, and up in the theater, I
had arguments at first with Milt Carless because he was the theater and he wasn’t very
good at first in sharing the stage and the theater. And there again the relationship that
grew from Milt and Blase Scarnati and myself was another family experience. Again,
here are three different departments working together. And what’s the bottom line? The
students. That’s like in Freshman Studies, when you set your priorities, good things
happen. What is a university? Because we are not a research university. That is not one
of our major goals because we don’t have the finances. It does go on, it does go on. But

(13)
M:

we’re not the University of Pittsburgh or I. U. or Purdue. When the priorities are put into
order and that is to cause some kind of change in those human beings that come here
whether they are young or old now, causing learning. And then if you learn, then you can
cause change. Change in behavior and change in some of the things that are going on.

R:

Did you travel? Did you coach and travel?

M:

No. I did not. See, I was the coach of dance. That was the major and I had had some
experiences in coaching in public school which were at the time very terrible because it
was if you wanted to coach, you could. That was the late hours because you couldn’t get
into the gym until all the boys were finished and there were no uniforms or anything so
the girls had to buy their own bermudas. So I had already gone through that in public
school, and it was a battle that was not going to be won at that time. The timing was not
right. Whereas in the sixties as things began to happen you began to make it right. Then
I still have a problem with competition. I believe there is always going to be the element,
but I’m not real good with the emphasis, and I wouldn’t want to start on what I think of
Little League and all those things because I don’t believe in it, and I know why too. I
taught a course in children and sport and looked at tons and tons of research that nobody
looks at. But we’re reaping it. Well, you’re reaping it. You reap it. What you do with
little children when you organize their thinking and their thoughts.

R:

High school burnout’s a problem.

M:

Life burnout.

R:

Yes. The whole concept that there are winners and losers. Numero uno.

M:

Now I’m number one and what happens to the other number numero uno?

R:

The other four and a half million.

M:

I just heard that they almost pooh-pahed the fact with this advertisement for the VISA
card or something on the radio when you go to the Olympics in Barcelona, it’s like if you
don’t win the gold then what is the silver? Who are you? That’s ludicrous. Ludicrous.

B:

So destructive.

M:

Well, it’s what we’ve done. See we’ve taken the concept of competition and we’ve
destroyed it, and it’s amazing. But if I would have my druthers, it would be all that
parking space that you have for all the athletic events, all that millions of dollars that you
put into tar and lime and things like that, I’d just have it all fields. Anybody wanted to
play, come on out and play. I’m sorry, but that’s how I felt about Orchesis and that’s
why so many people were in the dance show. That, too, was such an enjoyable
experience for me and that’s when Miss Cushman did the oral narration for the shows
and we came up with all different kinds of ideas. Lillian Haskow was here then. Did

(14)
M:

either one of you ever have Lillian? Lillian was one of our outstanding students. Dancer,
physical educator, human being.

R:

Yes, I know the name.

M:

Dr. Haskow now. She’s finished her degree and she’s a Doctor of Philosophy, and is
working on a program that had been funded by the government, music, art and physical
education in the schools in Virginia, close to Washington, D. C. But those funds were
taken away and now Lillian is a physical education teacher with her doctorate degree
from Washington University, I believe, teaching elementary physical education. But I
haven’t talked to Lillian lately, but I’m sure that they’re still doing the kinds of things on
their own. I’m not sure that I’m adding anything to what other people probably have
mentioned.

B:

Yes, you are adding an important emphasis. It’s unique and it’s exactly the kind of things
we want to save.

M:

Well, it is perception, isn’t it? And we all have our own filtering system.

R:

So were there particular departments? Of course, we were a school of physical education
and a school of education. Those were the big ones until way into the seventies I’d
suspect.

M:

Yes.

R:

But there were some small departments that were pretty good?

M:

Oh, yes. The English Department had a fine reputation. I wouldn’t want to slight
anybody but I’m not quite so sure and I know I’m probably being naïve about this as I
look back on it. I do not believe that there was basically a poor department when you
consider the people that were in that department did the best they could under the
circumstances and under what they had to work with. Do you know what I mean? It was
like when you went into the science department, and again this man has retired before I
came, but even then, Carl Dresden. He was young. He’s still here. And Kearney and
Murray Shellgren. A lot of those people were here. Like we were all kind of young
together. We had Biswanger, Bobby Duncan. I mean when you say names of people.
I’ll tell you someone. Charlie Halt was still here. He hadn’t retired. He was in the
history department. I think he left Slippery Rock as chairman of the history department
and went down to West Virginia and taught another ten years or was the chair there. I
don’t know what happened to him, and he was my teacher. Dr. Charles Halt. He was
here a good many years.

R:

Was he still here in 1963, when you came?

M:

Yes. There were still quite a few of the faculty. Dr. Spotts had retired before I came
back. Miss Harner, she was still here. What a change that woman had to live through

(15)
M:

from being the Dean of Women and having that power. If you want to talk about power,
she had the power of North Hall. I can tell you that.

B:

Did you live there?

M:

Yes. Indeed. A marvelous lady.