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Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University
Carl Laughner Interview
June 26, 2008
Bailey Library, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania
Interviewed by Brady Crytzer
Transcribed by Annamae Mayer
Proofread and edited by Mark O‘Connor and Judy Silva
Reviewed and approved by Carl Laughner
BC: The date is June 26 [2008], it is 9:20, I‘m Brady Crytzer and I‘m here with Mr. Carl Laughner.
Okay Mr. Laughner, what is your affiliation with Slippery Rock University?
CL: I first went to school here for a Baccalaureate degree then I came back about six and a half
years later as an assistant professor of English and speech.
BC: Do you remember what year you came back?
CL: I came back in 1955.
BC: What [SRU] era were you here?
CL: I was here the whole way, until it was a university. At that time I was the director of Alumni
Affairs.
BC: Do you remember anything that was different in each era of the time, when thinking back?
CL: Yes actually, one of the things I noted, I‘m going to give you a little sheet after this is over.
[Pause] people were derogatory about the teachers‘ college. The only thing that was bad about the
teachers college was that we were underpaid and that we taught longer than anybody even thought
of teaching today. That‘s one of the reasons there was less [pause] professional writing. However, I
think that the kids that went here at that time got a good education. Obviously, I went as a veteran
so that it was a little different for me it than it was for the people who were the right age to go to
college. I think they got a good education, if you take [note] of what I‘m going to leave for you it‘s
surprising how close to sixty hours of it was what would be called a liberal education or maybe an
ordinary degree from college. It just matched it because frequently, and this is still true, this is a
place where students come with nobody educated in the family. It was the same way then. They
gave us a broad background, which was very advantageous and which was [pause]—well it was
advantageous to your career. For example, I had a history minor and I was hired instead of a Pitt
[University of Pittsburgh] graduate in the Pittsburgh public schools. Because in this college I had
six hours of geography in my history. They all had none. The Pittsburgh schools combined the
geography and history.
BC: It sounds like you are saying that before we were officially a college, we really were a college.
Can you think of any reason why the transition wasn‘t made any sooner?
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CL: Well, I understand that it makes a difference who was president. That would be the time of [J.
Linwood] Eisenberg. I didn‘t know Eisenberg, but I understand that he pushed the academic; I
think he was pushed to push the academic.
BC: We are going to talk about presidents a little later down the line, but the department that you
were hired into; did it change while you were there?
CL: Yes, it did. I came here half speech and half English as I got the job. I could teach in two
fields. [Pause] The Speech Department was a speech department and nothing else. Then it became
part of the Communication Department. And quite frankly, the people in speech today aren‘t as
well prepared as we were. They are prepared, many times, in a, in a narrow way. Whereas, we were
forced to be prepared—like a clinic. I had nothing to do, I never had hoped to be qualified, but it
was required of me to take. So if you were to speak through your nose I know its rhinolalia. They
have no background like that today. That sounds derogatory but I don‘t mean it to be; today
everybody is highly specialized. Everybody in the English Department had to teach the
fundamentals course. Not just the ―new weather‖ boys, everyone taught them, right through to the
department chair.
BC: Do you remember what building your department was in?
CL: Most everything was in Old Main for English and stayed there. The Speech Department was
moved to . . . our offices were moved to the Headland house. That‘s now the Lowry House I think
and, at that time . . . . Then we moved to the West Gym and had both our classes and offices there.
BC: From other interview, it seems like everything was in Old Main including administrative
offices. What was that like having everything so close like that?
CL: It was. I think before I came, even the offices were in there. Well the offices, [inaudible] a
permanent part of the building. There were offices built on the second floor—yes the second floor.
They were removed, in that make-more-classrooms situation.
BC: Okay, first of all, since you came to Slippery Rock as a student, what initially brought you
here?
CL: Well I knew about Slippery Rock, I visited here when I was a teenager. And I knew about it; I
didn‘t know about any of the rest. I intended . . . I worked, and when I was working, I intended to
go to night school. I finally got a job where I could say I could go Wednesday night. Then the army
came and after three and a half years, I thought if I‘m going to go I might as well go and so I went.
BC: Did you grow up locally?
CL: Pittsburgh.
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BC: Okay, what changes did you witness while you were here? Were they for the better or worse?
Is there anything you remember off the top of your head, that we would take for granted today,
about the campus?
CL: Better utilization of the facilities. That Old Main was just too crowded. And once we got over a
thousand students, it just didn‘t do it anymore. Of course there was . . . what is it? It was our
science building; now it‘s . . . I think the – right across the street from West Gym.
BC: The Behavioral Science Building?
CL: Behavioral Science, yeah, that was the science building and that began to help take a lot of
people out of Old Main. Before I came here it was a teachers college and very little enrollment.
That was in Old Main too.
BC: All the classes were?
CL: Yes, they had everything in Old Main at the beginning.
BC: It‘s so hard to believe with the way that everything has grown and a building just for
education.
CL: It seems hard for me to believe too.
BC: What campus activities where you a part of here?
CL: Well I was a part of—let me approach that in a different way. We were all mostly older; there
were only a select few young men here. Because the old veterans came back, and some of us came
in as new veterans. [Pause] I would say that we went to everything. Now, we were affiliated with
certain organizations. I was in the speech organizations and English, and so-on, but if there was a
concert we all went. ―I don‘t like concerts,‖ someone says. We went anyhow. Whatever there was,
we went to. Because we were enjoying the riches of always being around after being three and half
years or more in the army.
BC: After the war you said that you got a job and went straight to college. Was that a common
thing among war veterans?
CL: Yes, A great many did. It was considered to be one of the most advantageous uses of tax
money that was ever done. The figures of your relative income would have been . . . your relative
income and then [inaudible] was your income because we had [a] college education. Tremendous
contribution to us and to the government.
BC: What were your accomplishments at the college/university?
CL: While I was here, when it was a state teachers college, we belonged to the educational
association. That was our faculty combined, and I was president of the faculty then, that‘s nothing.
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What else? Oh, I coached debate here. Your letter of—contract letter—said that you will teach in
two departments and pick a duty. They gave me a choice of the newspaper or the debate team. I
took the debate team. I guess I was pretty pleased that [pause] for 19—I don‘t know the years—in
the ‗50s, I was the best judge in the state of Pennsylvania. Not because of popularity: statistically. It
is interesting, you find [that] in the Debate Association of Pennsylvania College [Pennsylvania
Speech and Debate Association] publication and where else?
Oh, in the, I can‘t name the book anymore, but some professor that was a debate man and an
English professor put it in his book to show a way to approach a problem. He took the statistical
median—I can‘t tell you exactly anymore—but it was the record the team achieved during the year.
That became the figure that you tried to match. You didn‘t know what it was but if you matched it
you got as close as you can get. And you were—I was first. In one year I would never go over third.
And that‘s not just the fourteen, that‘s Pitt, Penn State [University], anyone—any college that was
in the association.
BC: Do you remember what your favorite class was to teach?
CL: I had a lot of Korean War veterans and I got along with them. I also—the reason I was
teaching here was, the facilities did not provide a locker room that would allow men and woman to
swim together. Because they had to do some—just what they are doing now to the campus. So for
over a year I taught every male health [education student], and many of them were veterans. It was
a real good experience. All men. Now, I taught women too, but not in those classes. They were
almost all men. Occasionally they were mixed, one [class] for me, but they couldn‘t mix them in
gym.
BC: [Were] there a lot more men than women because it was a teachers college or was it the
opposite?
CL: There were more women, I think; yes.
BC: What were the best and worst teaching moments that you can recall?
CL: Nothing particularly bad here. I suppose one of the things that was difficult was sometimes we
taught faculty wives, and a lot of people [that] came back to school. When I was here, they had two
year certificates if they [pause]—achieved a baccalaureate degree. They went up a considerable
step in the public schools. So I taught a ton of them, and they were good people to teach in the
summer. They weren‘t good to teach when they were working but they were good in the summer. I
think those two groups were the best groups I ever had. Incidentally, I taught that same group just
once, as a substitute to a teacher that had them in the winter at night and I had to leave. I taught that
same group again and they weren‘t nearly as good then as they were in the summer. In the summer
they worked like dogs.
BC: When you taught here, did you move closer to campus or did you live down in Pittsburgh?
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CL: Oh no, I didn‘t stay there. You couldn‘t—young people could do that, but people who were
doing visitations to see student teachers – they sometimes lived outside.
BC: Do you remember what the price of gas was during your commute from Pittsburgh to Slippery
Rock?
CL: Oh, I didn‘t even think of that—driving back and forth. In fact [as students] we were still
hitchhiking. Most of us came, and had been in the service for three and half years. We weren‘t
making a fortune and many of us had no cars. And if we did they were old and we still hitchhiked.
BC: So you hitchhiked on your way to teach the classes?
CL: Oh no, no, as a student I mean. Sorry.
BC: Do you remember what presidents you were here for and anything special about them?
CL: I was here from [President Dale] Houk through [President Herb] Reinhart. They were a mixed
bag, just as you [might] expect. Some of them very good, some of them mediocre. I would say at
the time, it was a different thing, presidents were more political. I don‘t know if you know this, but
back before Dr. Houk, when the [legislature] changed from Democrat to Republican, all of the
Democrats disappeared from the upper three levels: the deans, the president, and the buildings and
grounds men. Then when it changed back to the Democrats the Republicans disappeared the same
way.
There is one exception to that, you can find it by looking yourself, I can‘t remember his name now
[Eisenberg]. I didn‘t know him and it was way before my time. He was an excellent man. He was
popular here: in the school, in the town. And when they finally – he must have been a Republican
because the Democrats got rid of him. He was so good that they moved him to another state
college. It was just unheard of. They used to want to beat him, Dr. Houk beat him. He was
criticized and there were some problems, as you are probably aware of. But he left here and became
the head of WQED.
BC: Do you remember any reasons why presidents left office?
CL: [Pause] [Have] you heard [about] McMasters? I didn‘t know him, but my friends were in
college at that time, before the war. I had two friends here and they were told as freshman that he
had acromeglia. That‘s [a disease where] the bone structure expands, and it‘s very painful. And he
shot himself. You can‘t find that anywhere else. It was definitely told that way but [pause] it was
generally considered overworking. They used [that] as an excuse. I have no idea, but that was the
kind of thing that . . . it happened once in the history of the college.
There were other presidents that were exceptional. I can‘t think of anybody that I would have—
there were some that were political appointees. At the beginning when I came here they were more
likely to be a superintendent of a school or something like that, and then become president. They
were always of the party that was prevailing in [Harrisburg] even afterwards.
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BC: So the president was always an appointee from somewhere else?
CL: No, [pause] in my time it was only one, Dr. [James] Roberts. Roberts was considered and then
not appointed. He was a dean at the time. I guess that was after Watrel or Houk, I can‘t remember.
It began to be that they ran searches, which is the way it should have been.
BC: Do you remember any movers and shakers of your time that offered guidance, that everyone
liked? Do you remember anyone like that, or were you like that [laughs]?
CL: I already told you Miss [Jeanette] Burns was very popular with both her majors – actually she
had no majors. You couldn‘t have a major in speech at that time. She was very popular with the
speech people and also with other people. And very kind and good and wouldn‘t hurt anybody. And
yet she wasn‘t just a good fellow, that‘s not what I‘m saying. She was brilliant. Dr. [Carle G.]
Spotts was also very good for—you wouldn‘t have guessed that, but he was very good to counsel
people.
BC: Do you remember what his position was on campus?
CL: He was the head of the English Department. He also wrote the second bestselling English
workbook in the country. He was [inaudible]; that was very unusual. Usually a bestseller is written
in a place like Penn State, where they take thousands of freshmen in. Then when it‘s required by
the head of the department or who wrote it, the department requires that you sell a lot of them. That
doesn‘t happen here when you have a thousand students. But after he published it here, the second
edition was immediately wanted by Henry Holt & Company.
BC: Is Spotts World Culture Building named after him?
CL: That‘s right.
BC: Who were a few people that influenced you here as a student and [as] an educator?
CL: Well I said Miss Burns, Dr. Spotts; I liked Dr. Nichols. He was our Harvard Ph.D. in English. I
was an English major when I was here. They were all good for me, and that‘s the three I remember.
BC: What were some of the major events or activities while you were here?
CL: Obviously the [Korean] War. That was a biggie. A lot of trouble then and broke up lots of lives
in this place. For example, a man named McGregor who went to school here—was called ―Mac.‖
He had a wife and two children. He was the first lieutenant in the Marine Corps and a [Navy]
SEAL. He never even got [one] letter from home; he was killed before that. That‘s the kind of thing
that happened in those days. His family stayed at the school and the two children that he left were
educated here—their degrees are from here. And the grandchild received—and we didn‘t know it—
no politics or anything like that. The grandchild received the Carl and Norma Laughner Scholarship
here—received our scholarship—which we didn‘t know [about] until afterwards.
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BC: Do you remember anything that the students were doing during the Vietnam War in terms of
meetings or gatherings?
CL: Yeah, we just remembered the mass meeting that they had. It was probably during the [Robert]
Carter administration, I don‘t remember exactly, [just it] being the ‗60s someplace. Remember that
was the usual things in the ‗60s. There was occasional marijuana, [pause] some drinking, I don‘t
think as much as now. Maybe there was just as much, but it was a little better handled. During the
GI time, we handled each other. If a guy got a little too much to drink we took care of him; didn‘t
let him loose on the campus. And if he did it a couple times we told him to knock it off. It was a
different role then.
BC: Do you remember buildings being built during your time at this campus?
CL: I remember [pause] I thought the Student Union that is now going to be replaced—I thought
that was a wonderful building, and it was in its time. The gym, the two gyms were the East and
West Gym when I came here. When they built the new field house we thought that was wonderful
and that‘s inadequate too I‘m sure. ‗Course in those days it was not as inadequate as it would be
had this school stayed the same. But that‘s when we had a predominance of health and physical
education majors. That was our specialty. Each of the fourteen had a specialty supposedly. I don‘t
know how we became that, but we did.
BC: Do you remember any national events that had local impacts on people in the campus – things
like when Kennedy was shot, things like that?
CL: Yes, I do remember that one. I already said the Vietnam War which was the biggest one during
the time I was here. That was terrific. Because many of us [veterans] were called back, and many of
those were killed. That‘s hard because your students disappear, and you have new ones that had
gone to Vietnam and came to get an education like the WWII students had done. I don‘t know if
they had a good Bill of Rights [GI Bill] or not. I hope they did, but I‘m not sure.
BC: Do you have any other memorable events or memories besides big things that happened?
CL: Well, two students came to me one time—James Wentz, who was the leader of that group,
came to ask me if I would be the leader of the [pause] the faculty leader for WNFT, the student
radio station which was illegally broadcasting. They had what was called a gas piper. They had a
transmitter that they put into the radiator system in the men‘s dormitory. That put it all over the
dormitory. Unfortunately, that also put it outside at some points. And that‘s called a gas piper. They
don‘t call it that anymore, but that‘s what it was called then. And I agreed with that and had very
pleasant relationships with them. We had their station in a little room in North Hall that was a
library at one time. The main building and the little room there—that was very interesting. And
they knew more than I did about radio by far. One had been a [inaudible] operator from the time he
was twelve years old.
BC: Is there anything that you miss about being at Slippery Rock?
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CL: I miss the teaching. I missed it when I became the Alumni Director. Teaching is—if you like it
and you do well at it—it‘s something you become attached to just as if it was your wife, and you
miss it.
BC: Do you have any words of wisdom for other Rock community members and how would you
like to be remembered?
CL: I‘d like to be remembered as a good teacher. I also did good work at the Alumni Association. It
was about to go bad, financially, when I got it and I left [it] with about a hundred and . . .
somewhere close to $200,000. Not all my doing, by any means, and I enjoyed working with those
people.
I think it would be nice if it doesn‘t get too big—the school. I think that‘s the current thinking
anyhow, at least that‘s what the president has said in my hearing. I think that this is a good size and
it could become more like a family again. When you get to be 25,000 [students], forget it. I went to
Pitt and Penn State; you didn‘t know anybody except those in your major. Here we—it‘s getting
that way when you get to 8,000 [laughs], but there‘s still a possibility of interlocking in different
activities.
BC: Did you ever think that the campus would‘ve grown the way it has?
CL: No [laughs]! I‘d never thought of that at all. As you know, it upsets you that everything was in
Old Main once. It just angers me—when I just saw the Physical Therapy Building when I came up
here – it‘s a beautiful building—you don‘t need to hear my remarks about that, but it‘s a good
building. I‘ve never expected to see a special building, but like a science building, yes, that‘s
customary. But Physical Therapy? That‘s only one thing, and it staggers you to see things like that
in a little school.
BC: Do you have anything else you would like to add?
CL: I‘d like to explain my black eye, but you don‘t need that! [Laughs] [Mr. Laughner had been
inadvertently tripped and had fallen the day before the interview. He had a terrific black eye].
BC: That was great. Thank you for coming.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Carl Laughner Interview
June 26, 2008
Bailey Library, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania
Interviewed by Brady Crytzer
Transcribed by Annamae Mayer
Proofread and edited by Mark O‘Connor and Judy Silva
Reviewed and approved by Carl Laughner
BC: The date is June 26 [2008], it is 9:20, I‘m Brady Crytzer and I‘m here with Mr. Carl Laughner.
Okay Mr. Laughner, what is your affiliation with Slippery Rock University?
CL: I first went to school here for a Baccalaureate degree then I came back about six and a half
years later as an assistant professor of English and speech.
BC: Do you remember what year you came back?
CL: I came back in 1955.
BC: What [SRU] era were you here?
CL: I was here the whole way, until it was a university. At that time I was the director of Alumni
Affairs.
BC: Do you remember anything that was different in each era of the time, when thinking back?
CL: Yes actually, one of the things I noted, I‘m going to give you a little sheet after this is over.
[Pause] people were derogatory about the teachers‘ college. The only thing that was bad about the
teachers college was that we were underpaid and that we taught longer than anybody even thought
of teaching today. That‘s one of the reasons there was less [pause] professional writing. However, I
think that the kids that went here at that time got a good education. Obviously, I went as a veteran
so that it was a little different for me it than it was for the people who were the right age to go to
college. I think they got a good education, if you take [note] of what I‘m going to leave for you it‘s
surprising how close to sixty hours of it was what would be called a liberal education or maybe an
ordinary degree from college. It just matched it because frequently, and this is still true, this is a
place where students come with nobody educated in the family. It was the same way then. They
gave us a broad background, which was very advantageous and which was [pause]—well it was
advantageous to your career. For example, I had a history minor and I was hired instead of a Pitt
[University of Pittsburgh] graduate in the Pittsburgh public schools. Because in this college I had
six hours of geography in my history. They all had none. The Pittsburgh schools combined the
geography and history.
BC: It sounds like you are saying that before we were officially a college, we really were a college.
Can you think of any reason why the transition wasn‘t made any sooner?
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CL: Well, I understand that it makes a difference who was president. That would be the time of [J.
Linwood] Eisenberg. I didn‘t know Eisenberg, but I understand that he pushed the academic; I
think he was pushed to push the academic.
BC: We are going to talk about presidents a little later down the line, but the department that you
were hired into; did it change while you were there?
CL: Yes, it did. I came here half speech and half English as I got the job. I could teach in two
fields. [Pause] The Speech Department was a speech department and nothing else. Then it became
part of the Communication Department. And quite frankly, the people in speech today aren‘t as
well prepared as we were. They are prepared, many times, in a, in a narrow way. Whereas, we were
forced to be prepared—like a clinic. I had nothing to do, I never had hoped to be qualified, but it
was required of me to take. So if you were to speak through your nose I know its rhinolalia. They
have no background like that today. That sounds derogatory but I don‘t mean it to be; today
everybody is highly specialized. Everybody in the English Department had to teach the
fundamentals course. Not just the ―new weather‖ boys, everyone taught them, right through to the
department chair.
BC: Do you remember what building your department was in?
CL: Most everything was in Old Main for English and stayed there. The Speech Department was
moved to . . . our offices were moved to the Headland house. That‘s now the Lowry House I think
and, at that time . . . . Then we moved to the West Gym and had both our classes and offices there.
BC: From other interview, it seems like everything was in Old Main including administrative
offices. What was that like having everything so close like that?
CL: It was. I think before I came, even the offices were in there. Well the offices, [inaudible] a
permanent part of the building. There were offices built on the second floor—yes the second floor.
They were removed, in that make-more-classrooms situation.
BC: Okay, first of all, since you came to Slippery Rock as a student, what initially brought you
here?
CL: Well I knew about Slippery Rock, I visited here when I was a teenager. And I knew about it; I
didn‘t know about any of the rest. I intended . . . I worked, and when I was working, I intended to
go to night school. I finally got a job where I could say I could go Wednesday night. Then the army
came and after three and a half years, I thought if I‘m going to go I might as well go and so I went.
BC: Did you grow up locally?
CL: Pittsburgh.
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BC: Okay, what changes did you witness while you were here? Were they for the better or worse?
Is there anything you remember off the top of your head, that we would take for granted today,
about the campus?
CL: Better utilization of the facilities. That Old Main was just too crowded. And once we got over a
thousand students, it just didn‘t do it anymore. Of course there was . . . what is it? It was our
science building; now it‘s . . . I think the – right across the street from West Gym.
BC: The Behavioral Science Building?
CL: Behavioral Science, yeah, that was the science building and that began to help take a lot of
people out of Old Main. Before I came here it was a teachers college and very little enrollment.
That was in Old Main too.
BC: All the classes were?
CL: Yes, they had everything in Old Main at the beginning.
BC: It‘s so hard to believe with the way that everything has grown and a building just for
education.
CL: It seems hard for me to believe too.
BC: What campus activities where you a part of here?
CL: Well I was a part of—let me approach that in a different way. We were all mostly older; there
were only a select few young men here. Because the old veterans came back, and some of us came
in as new veterans. [Pause] I would say that we went to everything. Now, we were affiliated with
certain organizations. I was in the speech organizations and English, and so-on, but if there was a
concert we all went. ―I don‘t like concerts,‖ someone says. We went anyhow. Whatever there was,
we went to. Because we were enjoying the riches of always being around after being three and half
years or more in the army.
BC: After the war you said that you got a job and went straight to college. Was that a common
thing among war veterans?
CL: Yes, A great many did. It was considered to be one of the most advantageous uses of tax
money that was ever done. The figures of your relative income would have been . . . your relative
income and then [inaudible] was your income because we had [a] college education. Tremendous
contribution to us and to the government.
BC: What were your accomplishments at the college/university?
CL: While I was here, when it was a state teachers college, we belonged to the educational
association. That was our faculty combined, and I was president of the faculty then, that‘s nothing.
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What else? Oh, I coached debate here. Your letter of—contract letter—said that you will teach in
two departments and pick a duty. They gave me a choice of the newspaper or the debate team. I
took the debate team. I guess I was pretty pleased that [pause] for 19—I don‘t know the years—in
the ‗50s, I was the best judge in the state of Pennsylvania. Not because of popularity: statistically. It
is interesting, you find [that] in the Debate Association of Pennsylvania College [Pennsylvania
Speech and Debate Association] publication and where else?
Oh, in the, I can‘t name the book anymore, but some professor that was a debate man and an
English professor put it in his book to show a way to approach a problem. He took the statistical
median—I can‘t tell you exactly anymore—but it was the record the team achieved during the year.
That became the figure that you tried to match. You didn‘t know what it was but if you matched it
you got as close as you can get. And you were—I was first. In one year I would never go over third.
And that‘s not just the fourteen, that‘s Pitt, Penn State [University], anyone—any college that was
in the association.
BC: Do you remember what your favorite class was to teach?
CL: I had a lot of Korean War veterans and I got along with them. I also—the reason I was
teaching here was, the facilities did not provide a locker room that would allow men and woman to
swim together. Because they had to do some—just what they are doing now to the campus. So for
over a year I taught every male health [education student], and many of them were veterans. It was
a real good experience. All men. Now, I taught women too, but not in those classes. They were
almost all men. Occasionally they were mixed, one [class] for me, but they couldn‘t mix them in
gym.
BC: [Were] there a lot more men than women because it was a teachers college or was it the
opposite?
CL: There were more women, I think; yes.
BC: What were the best and worst teaching moments that you can recall?
CL: Nothing particularly bad here. I suppose one of the things that was difficult was sometimes we
taught faculty wives, and a lot of people [that] came back to school. When I was here, they had two
year certificates if they [pause]—achieved a baccalaureate degree. They went up a considerable
step in the public schools. So I taught a ton of them, and they were good people to teach in the
summer. They weren‘t good to teach when they were working but they were good in the summer. I
think those two groups were the best groups I ever had. Incidentally, I taught that same group just
once, as a substitute to a teacher that had them in the winter at night and I had to leave. I taught that
same group again and they weren‘t nearly as good then as they were in the summer. In the summer
they worked like dogs.
BC: When you taught here, did you move closer to campus or did you live down in Pittsburgh?
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Laughner, Carl 5
CL: Oh no, I didn‘t stay there. You couldn‘t—young people could do that, but people who were
doing visitations to see student teachers – they sometimes lived outside.
BC: Do you remember what the price of gas was during your commute from Pittsburgh to Slippery
Rock?
CL: Oh, I didn‘t even think of that—driving back and forth. In fact [as students] we were still
hitchhiking. Most of us came, and had been in the service for three and half years. We weren‘t
making a fortune and many of us had no cars. And if we did they were old and we still hitchhiked.
BC: So you hitchhiked on your way to teach the classes?
CL: Oh no, no, as a student I mean. Sorry.
BC: Do you remember what presidents you were here for and anything special about them?
CL: I was here from [President Dale] Houk through [President Herb] Reinhart. They were a mixed
bag, just as you [might] expect. Some of them very good, some of them mediocre. I would say at
the time, it was a different thing, presidents were more political. I don‘t know if you know this, but
back before Dr. Houk, when the [legislature] changed from Democrat to Republican, all of the
Democrats disappeared from the upper three levels: the deans, the president, and the buildings and
grounds men. Then when it changed back to the Democrats the Republicans disappeared the same
way.
There is one exception to that, you can find it by looking yourself, I can‘t remember his name now
[Eisenberg]. I didn‘t know him and it was way before my time. He was an excellent man. He was
popular here: in the school, in the town. And when they finally – he must have been a Republican
because the Democrats got rid of him. He was so good that they moved him to another state
college. It was just unheard of. They used to want to beat him, Dr. Houk beat him. He was
criticized and there were some problems, as you are probably aware of. But he left here and became
the head of WQED.
BC: Do you remember any reasons why presidents left office?
CL: [Pause] [Have] you heard [about] McMasters? I didn‘t know him, but my friends were in
college at that time, before the war. I had two friends here and they were told as freshman that he
had acromeglia. That‘s [a disease where] the bone structure expands, and it‘s very painful. And he
shot himself. You can‘t find that anywhere else. It was definitely told that way but [pause] it was
generally considered overworking. They used [that] as an excuse. I have no idea, but that was the
kind of thing that . . . it happened once in the history of the college.
There were other presidents that were exceptional. I can‘t think of anybody that I would have—
there were some that were political appointees. At the beginning when I came here they were more
likely to be a superintendent of a school or something like that, and then become president. They
were always of the party that was prevailing in [Harrisburg] even afterwards.
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Laughner, Carl 6
BC: So the president was always an appointee from somewhere else?
CL: No, [pause] in my time it was only one, Dr. [James] Roberts. Roberts was considered and then
not appointed. He was a dean at the time. I guess that was after Watrel or Houk, I can‘t remember.
It began to be that they ran searches, which is the way it should have been.
BC: Do you remember any movers and shakers of your time that offered guidance, that everyone
liked? Do you remember anyone like that, or were you like that [laughs]?
CL: I already told you Miss [Jeanette] Burns was very popular with both her majors – actually she
had no majors. You couldn‘t have a major in speech at that time. She was very popular with the
speech people and also with other people. And very kind and good and wouldn‘t hurt anybody. And
yet she wasn‘t just a good fellow, that‘s not what I‘m saying. She was brilliant. Dr. [Carle G.]
Spotts was also very good for—you wouldn‘t have guessed that, but he was very good to counsel
people.
BC: Do you remember what his position was on campus?
CL: He was the head of the English Department. He also wrote the second bestselling English
workbook in the country. He was [inaudible]; that was very unusual. Usually a bestseller is written
in a place like Penn State, where they take thousands of freshmen in. Then when it‘s required by
the head of the department or who wrote it, the department requires that you sell a lot of them. That
doesn‘t happen here when you have a thousand students. But after he published it here, the second
edition was immediately wanted by Henry Holt & Company.
BC: Is Spotts World Culture Building named after him?
CL: That‘s right.
BC: Who were a few people that influenced you here as a student and [as] an educator?
CL: Well I said Miss Burns, Dr. Spotts; I liked Dr. Nichols. He was our Harvard Ph.D. in English. I
was an English major when I was here. They were all good for me, and that‘s the three I remember.
BC: What were some of the major events or activities while you were here?
CL: Obviously the [Korean] War. That was a biggie. A lot of trouble then and broke up lots of lives
in this place. For example, a man named McGregor who went to school here—was called ―Mac.‖
He had a wife and two children. He was the first lieutenant in the Marine Corps and a [Navy]
SEAL. He never even got [one] letter from home; he was killed before that. That‘s the kind of thing
that happened in those days. His family stayed at the school and the two children that he left were
educated here—their degrees are from here. And the grandchild received—and we didn‘t know it—
no politics or anything like that. The grandchild received the Carl and Norma Laughner Scholarship
here—received our scholarship—which we didn‘t know [about] until afterwards.
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BC: Do you remember anything that the students were doing during the Vietnam War in terms of
meetings or gatherings?
CL: Yeah, we just remembered the mass meeting that they had. It was probably during the [Robert]
Carter administration, I don‘t remember exactly, [just it] being the ‗60s someplace. Remember that
was the usual things in the ‗60s. There was occasional marijuana, [pause] some drinking, I don‘t
think as much as now. Maybe there was just as much, but it was a little better handled. During the
GI time, we handled each other. If a guy got a little too much to drink we took care of him; didn‘t
let him loose on the campus. And if he did it a couple times we told him to knock it off. It was a
different role then.
BC: Do you remember buildings being built during your time at this campus?
CL: I remember [pause] I thought the Student Union that is now going to be replaced—I thought
that was a wonderful building, and it was in its time. The gym, the two gyms were the East and
West Gym when I came here. When they built the new field house we thought that was wonderful
and that‘s inadequate too I‘m sure. ‗Course in those days it was not as inadequate as it would be
had this school stayed the same. But that‘s when we had a predominance of health and physical
education majors. That was our specialty. Each of the fourteen had a specialty supposedly. I don‘t
know how we became that, but we did.
BC: Do you remember any national events that had local impacts on people in the campus – things
like when Kennedy was shot, things like that?
CL: Yes, I do remember that one. I already said the Vietnam War which was the biggest one during
the time I was here. That was terrific. Because many of us [veterans] were called back, and many of
those were killed. That‘s hard because your students disappear, and you have new ones that had
gone to Vietnam and came to get an education like the WWII students had done. I don‘t know if
they had a good Bill of Rights [GI Bill] or not. I hope they did, but I‘m not sure.
BC: Do you have any other memorable events or memories besides big things that happened?
CL: Well, two students came to me one time—James Wentz, who was the leader of that group,
came to ask me if I would be the leader of the [pause] the faculty leader for WNFT, the student
radio station which was illegally broadcasting. They had what was called a gas piper. They had a
transmitter that they put into the radiator system in the men‘s dormitory. That put it all over the
dormitory. Unfortunately, that also put it outside at some points. And that‘s called a gas piper. They
don‘t call it that anymore, but that‘s what it was called then. And I agreed with that and had very
pleasant relationships with them. We had their station in a little room in North Hall that was a
library at one time. The main building and the little room there—that was very interesting. And
they knew more than I did about radio by far. One had been a [inaudible] operator from the time he
was twelve years old.
BC: Is there anything that you miss about being at Slippery Rock?
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Laughner, Carl 8
CL: I miss the teaching. I missed it when I became the Alumni Director. Teaching is—if you like it
and you do well at it—it‘s something you become attached to just as if it was your wife, and you
miss it.
BC: Do you have any words of wisdom for other Rock community members and how would you
like to be remembered?
CL: I‘d like to be remembered as a good teacher. I also did good work at the Alumni Association. It
was about to go bad, financially, when I got it and I left [it] with about a hundred and . . .
somewhere close to $200,000. Not all my doing, by any means, and I enjoyed working with those
people.
I think it would be nice if it doesn‘t get too big—the school. I think that‘s the current thinking
anyhow, at least that‘s what the president has said in my hearing. I think that this is a good size and
it could become more like a family again. When you get to be 25,000 [students], forget it. I went to
Pitt and Penn State; you didn‘t know anybody except those in your major. Here we—it‘s getting
that way when you get to 8,000 [laughs], but there‘s still a possibility of interlocking in different
activities.
BC: Did you ever think that the campus would‘ve grown the way it has?
CL: No [laughs]! I‘d never thought of that at all. As you know, it upsets you that everything was in
Old Main once. It just angers me—when I just saw the Physical Therapy Building when I came up
here – it‘s a beautiful building—you don‘t need to hear my remarks about that, but it‘s a good
building. I‘ve never expected to see a special building, but like a science building, yes, that‘s
customary. But Physical Therapy? That‘s only one thing, and it staggers you to see things like that
in a little school.
BC: Do you have anything else you would like to add?
CL: I‘d like to explain my black eye, but you don‘t need that! [Laughs] [Mr. Laughner had been
inadvertently tripped and had fallen the day before the interview. He had a terrific black eye].
BC: That was great. Thank you for coming.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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