"SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY
INTERVIEWEE:

IN THE SIXTIES"

DR. WILLIAM MCKAY

INTERVIEWERS:

DR. JOSEPH RIGGS AND LEAH M. BROWN

03 SEPTEMBER 1992

R:

What we're doing is, we're going to make it available as a public
document. So when yours gets in print we'll send it to you for
any editing you want to do and then ask you to sign a release so
that we can it available.

M:

That's great. You've been doing this a good while.

R:

We've been at for a couple of years. Thirty years.

M:

You've been doing Slippery Rock, Butler County?

R:

Well, we did a lot of Slippery Rock stuff early on.

M:

Town, area, or school?

R:

No. Mainly it was conferences and classroom lectures and special
things. We did Macoskey's entire course. We did an entire course
on constitutional law. We did a lot of special speakers who came
and lectures, but not much about people or about the institution.
So that's what this is all about.

M:

I had one rather bad experience. I had been asked, I guess there
were new freshmen on campus and there was a pile of them. I don't
know how many, and I don't even remember where we were. Certainly
not the union, but a big room somewhere.

R:

She has this thing on. You don't want this recorded? Or does
it matter?

M:

It doesn't matter.

R:

All right.

(2)

M:

Bob Watson had also been asked to talk to these people about
what Slippery Rock was like way back. Bob Watson may have
been speaking when I went in, and he went on and on and on,
and of course he had his book. Well, I should have gotten
up and walked out, but that would have been crude and rude and
everything else, and so I didn't do that. So we ended up, I
probably had five minutes, I'm not kidding at all, and it just
ticked me off. I helped raise Bob Watson. His Dad and Mom are
close friends of mine, and, oh, I have been civil, let's say it
that way, to him ever since. I cannot get warmed up to him again.
Of course, he knew I was to speak. He knew very well I was on the
program, but I got to talk five minutes and of course, by that
time, well after he quit that was quitting time. They were out of
here quick.

R:

The bell rang and off they went.

M:

Rabble rousers about a union in the first place. They obviously
were AFL people and Al Fondy. They were beaten soundly, and I
haven't understood that yet, and I don't ask any questions
because I helped start this one. George West and I went to all
the meetings. We were delegates hardly, but we were chosen by
the faculty to go where there would be one or two from all
state colleges. Mostly to rabble rouse the legislators more
than anything else. I liked it. Enjoyed it, and I was glad to see
it get started and everything, but later on I think it got, as
most unions do, ambitious. A handful of people. Power hungry
people in my mind, and I dropped my membership. My wife dropped

(3)

M:

hers. She's now a PSEA member. Of course, the union is
collecting from her now, and I guess that's as it should be if
you're going to get benefits you probably should pay. I don't
object to that too much, but they asked me to be the rep for
part-time faculty. I said, no, thanks. I don't really want any
part of that, but the faculty at large there, the full-time
faculty, I think they're well paid. I don't think they have big
complaints. They want a hand in the government as most faculties
do these days, and that part of it I have never been interested
in. But part-time people are poorly paid, really poorly, and my
biggest present gripe, I voice it every fall because that is when
I'm asked to go to Ford City to teach. Have you been to Ford
City? Ever?

R:

Yes, unfortunately.

M:

There was a time when there was a thriving community and a very
busy one, an industrial one. I don't think it's dead now. I think
it's buried, but I go walk around downtown when I have a half
hour or so before class just to look at, visualize what used to
be, and I did manage to purchase in an old time Florsheim shoe
store a pair of priceless snow boots. I had had a pair before and
and I still have them. They never wear out, and they are fairly
dressy so that you can wear them to school if you want to, but
they are absolutely waterproof. They do not leak a drop. And I
walked into the store and there's this little old fellow there.
I said, my favorite Florsheim store in Butler refused flatly to
order me a paid of boots out of the catalog which I know they

(4)

M:

have. I do quite a bit of business in that store and it made me
angry. So I said, the heck with you, and I started looking
around. I never expected to find a Florsheim store in Ford City,
but it was there. He said, sure. He got the catalog out. I said,
those are the ones, and he ordered them, and I'm still wearing
them. I always have nice people in class over there, but they do
not pay mileage to part-time people. They pay full-time people to
go down to Cranberry to teach. They pay full-time people to go
everywhere but they won't pay part-time people. The first three
or four years they did, and maybe the fourth year they pushed an
edict through somehow or other, but no. I was teaching at that
time and paid no attention. I didn't even know of it's existence ,
and the end of the year about 900 miles I guess, and I put the
bill in, and the girl said very sweetly, oh, we don't pay this
anymore. You what? You don't pay it anymore? I said well, if I'd
known that, I wouldn't have gone. She looked at me like I was
strange, but she paid me. I didn't try that same thing. I decided
once was enough. I better not wear out a good thing, but that
irritates me. I voiced my opinion to the chairperson the other
day. This place (Butler County Community College) is the cheapest
college I think I've ever been in contact with. I said, everybody
pays mileage when you go off campus to teach especially most of
them pay mileage for much more than that, but I don't understand
how you can reconcile paying full-time people to go teach and not
paying part-time people to go teach. Like I said, the pay is low
enough to begin with. I do it to stay out of the mall so I won't

(5)

M:

talk social security to all the old goats who sit there. The same
guys are there everyday. That's just about what they talk about
as near as I can figure out. But I like to teach there. It's a
different kind of teaching from here, and it was new to me.
Teachers growl here about the caliber of students. They always
have, and they probably always will because it is generally on
the upward trend, but nobody is ever satisfied, I guess. Well,
ours are not on that level. Many of them are, but the biggest
portion of them are not. So back to Slippery Rock.

R:

So you are a 1947 arrival.

M:

1947 arrival on somewhat of an emergency call. My aunt was
registrar, and I would have to admit as I remember her that she
did more than register people for courses. Most people have
heard of her reputation, I'm sure. She did every kid's schedule
individually. Took it home at night and did it. I watched her
through the hour. I'm sure there are hundreds of people who
would never have graduated had it not been for her. She'd
get on their cases when they started to get D's and so on.
Call them in and ream them royally as only she could do. Having
been a victim of that reaming I know whereof I speak. Dr.
Nichols who was head of the English Department had been gassed
in World War I, and periodically had terrible flare-ups, sickness. His wife was a lovely lady, and a figure about campus
for a long, long time after he departed. But he was ill this
semester, and I got a call from Slippery Rock. Could you come
up and teach a semester? I had left public school teaching

(6)

M:

because I wasn't making money enough to please me. One hundred
and thirty dollars a month when I started. My mom always
reminded me that she taught for forty. One room school with
eight grades in it. But hundred and thirty bucks. Went to
the army from there, and when I came back, this is a real joke,
I was making twelve hundred and forty-five dollars three years
later. So they had really gone to bat for the servicemen it
seemed. So my college coach was in charge of a bureau or
department of the Veterans' Administration in Pittsburgh which
was the regional office, and I decided I'd go down and talk to
them. I wanted to be in personnel work anyway, at least I thought
I did. So he said, sure Bill, no problem, put you on right away.
And my job was that of registration officer who went around to
visit on the job training trainees which included people in
college as well. So I visited several campuses. Got acquainted
again with the college business, and at the end of that I left
that and when the call came from Slippery Rock, and I said, I
never taught college. I taught high school. Go ahead. Go do it.
You can do it. There's no problem. Well, I came. I just loved it.
I really did. I think Dr. Fred Vincent's wife was teaching. She
had been a speech major I think some place or other, and they had
her teaching English which she didn't want to teach. Substitutes
were scarce apparently in that time, and I had a couple of
sections of freshmen comp, and a class in English Lit. or two
possibly. I don't know, 15 hours, must have been 18 hours. I
haven't told you the full schedule because I can't remember it
but in those days everybody took six hours of freshman comp.

(7)

Everybody took British Lit . for three semester hours. American
Lit. for three semester hours, and after a few years of that I
guess they reduced to a general lit. course which was two credits .
So everybody took ten instead of twelve, and I made my wife
last night produce the latest edict on required courses and
they are back again required, but there's a choice. They don't
have to take twelve. They have to take something less than
that but they may choose from a semester of British and American .
So much for that. I dearly loved the kids. I really had a good
time with that, and I was a basketball fanatic to start with.
I knew the coaches already, and I went over and helped at the
slightest provocation. Traveled with them most of the time. I had
played here at Slippery Rock four years while I was in college.
I knew the coaches that way, and the athletic director who was A.
P. Vincent at the time. We were friends. At the end of the
semester I was called down to the president's office who was Dale
Houk at that time. I was told that they liked what I had done,
and they wanted me back, but currently, this is routine,
currently we don't have any openings here. But why don't you go
to Pitt and get your master's degree and come back. Dr. Leonard
Duncan who was dean of instruction personally took me to Pitt,
introduced me to the dean of graduate school and I arranged a
schedule. This would have been in February. This semester ended
in late January, I guess, and the second semester began in the
middle of February. So I went down and took my thirty credits. I
had my master's that September. I went full-time. I stayed in a
little shack, sleeping room with very little else, and came back

(8)

M:

in the fall. That's the fall when Lois Harner was asked to become
dean of women. She left the Lab School. English job. So it was
open. Dr. Weisenfluh was director of the Lab School. I lived next
door to him. I knew his kids and the rest of his family. So he
took me around to the board members and introduced me. Old time
style. This is the way I got my first teaching job, only there
were 22 school board members then on that particular board, and
you could not get twelve votes and be elected. There were four
boards. One was seven members. The other three with five each,
and you had to get a majority in each township to be elected. I
don't know how I ever got that job. That was so thick with
politics. They didn't know me. I had gone around to see everyone
of them, but they didn't know me from Adam. They called me in and
said, what can you do? So I took the job in the Lab School. I had
student government sponsorship, plus basketball. I helped put
out the yearbook. I taught full load, and suddenly Pop Storer,
football and basketball coach here, had ulcers that were acting
up. He had to go to the hospital, and old Coach Thompson, my
dear friend who was coaching when I was playing here said he
would take the job if I would help him. Oh, I could hardly wait.
So we went through a season, and had a pretty good season come to
think of it. We had a few vets on the team by that time mixed
with a few pretty good players from high school. We had a pretty
good team. But that season wasn't long and drawn out as it is
now. So I came back and stayed a long time. Much longer
than I intended, I guess, but I really enjoyed teaching here
with the exception that I guess most people would voice that

( 9)

M:

politics gets in the way and meetings get in the way. I love
to teach. I love to be with young people, and work with
them, and I often wonder how we ever teach them anything.
Meeting in the afternoon, meeting tomorrow morning. You know
the rigamarole. But I had a full schedule, and later on when
I got my advanced degree I branched off into reading some, and
that added to my schedule because the state had mandated a
course which I think I largely wrote, come to think of it. I
never got credit for it but the content of it was mine, and
they took much of it, and made it theirs. I enjoyed that
because I was working with English majors anyhow, many of
whom were not expert readers. And so we started to certify
people to teach secondary reading if they were English majors
and had taken the required six hours of reading. I don't

think
that still stands.

I think there's something got in

the way of that somewhere.
B:

When you came back after your master's, you came back into the
Lab

M:

School, and then continued in education?

That would have been 1948 that I started. Then in 1952 I
came back over here. Dr. Spott was head of the English
Department, and he and I were friends, and I asked him point
blank, I would like to come back and teach. Finally made it.
Later on I changed when the liberal arts thing came into vogue.
I asked to be changed to secondary education. I put a year or
two in with Gamberoni and Wayne Walker, and eventually became
chairman. I think I had eleven or twelve years as chairperson
before I departed at the request, I think, of Dr. Reinhard.

(10)

M:

Do you recall by any chance, you don't have to answer this, he
sent a public relations thing around to all faculty in which
you had to designate your department, your beginning date at
Slippery Rock, and a whole host of other rather nebulous
information? I told the truth on mine, and I obviously made a
mistake. One of the questions was, it dealt with the success or
lack of it of the new president. And I said, I put it this way, I
thought he had done a tremendous public relations job, and that
he had mended a lot of fences that needed to be mended because
there was bad feeling on campus, and I give him full credit for
that, but academically, no. I'm not sure. I couldn't prove this
if I had to, but I've always had the feeling. It wasn't very long
until Wayne Walker called me one morning, Bill Elliott's coming
over. He'd like to speak with you. And I said, well, I have a
class at 10 o'clock. Well, he'll be here before that. I knew
Bill Elliott since he was this high. I had his sisters in
high school, and he was in high school at the same time, though
I never had him in class. He very diplomatically told me that
my time was up, and that I would be leaving at the end of the
sememster. Now I was of retirement age, but there were other
people who hadn't been disturbed at retirement age, and so I
guess I felt I was entitled to that too. Actually I wasn't. So
I wasn't surprised. But he and Walker, and Strombakis and
somebody else all sat in on this. I didn't understand why. But
he wanted me to hear it first hand rather than receive it in a
letter. Now Bill's that kind of a guy. Would be to me because
I'd known him for so long. So they talked more to each other

(11)

M:

than they talked to me, and I finally said, if you gentlemen
will excuse me, I have to go to class. And I got up and went
to class. And so I guess later Walker came and said, well, we
want you to teach the second semester. So that would have been
the first semester. We want you to finish the year out. I said,
fine. Later on he said, we can use you in the pre-session of
summer school if you'd like to teach. So I said, I do not want
your charity at all. Now I knew, and you would have known too, at
the time at the first of July the law extending the 65 thing to
70 went into effect. Well, that pre-session went right up to the
last week in June. So I knew, I

just figured that's what they

were doing. So I said, no, thanks. And that was it. That was a
disappointment all right. I didn't think that was quite the way
to handle it. I had not missed classes. I had not strayed from
from the straight and narrow. I had been teacher laureate which
was a privilege only a few got before they abolished it because
of favoritism or some other excuse. I was very proud of that and
very happy to make the speech at the next Honors Convocation
because it kind of vindicated me a little bit, in my own mind not
anybody else's. And I was almost not there when the award was
made. I had decided earlier that I wouldn't go, and I didn't have
my robe, cap and gown, but I got hold of one some place or other
and went. Not knowing at all about it. So I was glad it all
turned out all right. Disappointments? Not too many except my
wife stayed bitter about that a long, long time. She's over it
now, but it took a long time. She thought that wasn't quite the
ethical way to handle it either. But I'd better watch my

(12)

M:

language. Of course varsity basketball with Coach Thompson who
was one of the greatest individuals I have ever known. And to sit
beside him on the bench during a basketball game, you should
have had a suit of armor because he'd body beat you and he wasn't
doing it with malice. Mad at the officials or mad at the way the
kids were performing and that kind of thing. A great guy. Wonderful man, I thought, and his wife. I dearly loved her. But I got
credit for coaching the tennis team when I didn't, and I don't
know how that ever came about. I played with the kids on the
tennis team all the time, but I don't know who gave them my name
as the coach. I wasn't the coach. There was a woman tennis player
by the name of Toni Valentine, Antoinette. I believe she was from
Monessen. I used to play with her a lot. She was a very good
wasn't

a

player, and of course, there wa-s-flOt girls' team then. We used to
go at it hammer and tongs, and we were very fond of each other.
She later went back to Monessen to teach and coach, and coached
a state championship team. A doubles team and singles champion as
well. So that stuck in my mind. There was another girl, Becky,
she ended up at Muskingham as phys. ed. director.
R:

When you started coaching with Coach Thompson were you also
working in the Lab School?

M:

Yes, much to the chagrin of the principal, John Beer, who
bitterly opposed my participating at all, and he came to me
in person and said, Bill, I don't want you to do that. I said,
John, I'm going to do that. I've been waiting for the chance to
do this forever. I said, that's not going to affect my work.
I'll still meet my classes. I'll still do everything else you've

(13)

M:

given me to do here. We'll work it in somehow.

B:

He thought that it would take time away from your classes?

M:

He never said that.

R:

Was he anti-athletics?

M:

It would appear. It did appear to me at the time that it was a
kind of little empire unto itself, and they didn't want a mixed
marriage. Now there were a few teachers who taught there. Jan
Burns, who taught speech here for years, taught speech to seniors
over there in the high school. Phys. ed. people taught phys. ed.
classes. Bob Smiley, I guess he finally succeeded Pop Storer as
basketball coach because he was a phys. ed. graduate of here, and
he took that job. I still traveled with the basketball team
because I couldn't resist that. That was something that was in
the blood, I guess. There must have been another one or two
that had been here awhile who occasionally were scheduled
into classes, but John didn't like it. I later coached his son on
the high school team, and I'm not sure that even changed his
mind. We got to a sectional playoff at the junior high school in
Butler. You're not gymnasium people. Old time gyms at Youngstown.
Youngstown Y.M.C.A. college it was, had a track around the
basketball court upstairs just like East Gym had. And junior high
school still has, and my kids have played down there. I have a
boy just entering seventh grade and I'm hoping he's going to make
it and play, but you can't shoot from the corners. You have to
take it underneath and get hammered or else shoot it from out,
and John Beers' boy threw a one-hander up just at the buzzer, and
would have won the game, but they wouldn't allow it. We fussed

(14)
M:

and fought and brawled around for a while. I wanted that victory
most awfully bad. We had split with that team during the season,
and that was it. Now this kid was very blind, but he knew where
the hoop was. He didn't play with his glasses on, but he could
not read or do anything else. He was a bright kid, but he threw
it up and it went in and I must have jumped ten feet in the air,
but they wouldn't allow it. I guess the kids didn't get bitter. I
certainly didn't, but I certainly would have liked to have had
that. Student government. I loved doing that in the high school.
Yearbooks, I had been on the yearbook staff in high school myself
and college as well, and so I was at home with that. I also had
done that at the high school where I was first hired which was
Trinity in Washington, Pa. I helped with the newspaper. They
kept me busy. We had student teachers galore in each class
then. I'd get as high as four student teachers in a class for
a semester, and some how I was supposeed to teach two-thirds of
the time, and four of them had to divide a third, and it became
a pain. It was really not a very successful adventure, but
they didn't go off campus at all then. Everybody went to the
Lab School to teach, but it was a lot of fun. I met a lot of
nice kids. I was advisor of Sigma Tau Delta, honorary English
fraternity for two or three years. I did have my hand in another
thing. The credit union. I was its first treasurer which was
really a position of honor that you would handle the faculty's
money, and that got off the ground pretty well. I think it's
still fairly successful. There are a few things that need work.

(15)

B:

You talked about politics and the fact that the dean sat in when
they retired you. What was your impression of the political
environment in that area? Who assigned people's schedules? And
promotions? Tell us a little about that.

M:

Leah, that's a dirty era.

B:

It's the kind of history somebody ought to know about.

M:

It definitely was an influence. I don't think there's any doubt
about that. People were shuffled in and out of chairmanships.

B:

By the dean?

M:

Yes. Some of them left immediately. Some of them stayed and did
their thing with the dean until the promotion came through.
That's still being done everywhere that I know about. I don't
think that has changed much, but yes, it made an impact. Now
we've all been at it long enough to know that there are people
who come to teach. There are people who are really like that.
I'm one of them. I do not like politics at all and my son is
in college taking poli. sci. and he can't wait to get into
politics. So he must have gotten that from his mother. He
certainly didn't get it from me. I don't like that kind of
thing. I served on oodles of committees that seemed to be
dominated by the people whom the deans had appointed, and you
could speak up once in awhile, but you can only do it tactfully
a time or two until you become persona non grata, and I didn't
want that at all. I served on the evaluation committee when I
was first here. That's one of the highlights. I really enjoyed
that. I was chosen to be on a committee at Schenley High School,

(16)
M:

and I had spent almost no time in a city school ever, and it
really was an eyeopener to me. I learned an awful lot in that
week that I was there, and met some great educators, especially
the head man who was from Buffalo, city superintendent. I have
a letter from him that I treasure. I still have it. That was
early, probably as soon as I came back from Pitt. I thought
about this a lot as soon as you asked me. There are loads of
things that are political that I simply tried to avoid, and
Joe or somebody wrote down here the Watrel years and that brings
to mind one of these pieces. There was a secondary education
person when I was chairperson and for sometime before and had
always taught the safety education courses. That was an
endorsement on the certificate. It was not a major area of
certification. So if you were a secondary teacher and you wanted
to teach driver ed. or thought it would help you to get a job or
whatever, you could take whatever hours, six or something like
that, maybe 12, which Asa Wiley taught. Asa Wiley happened to be
an old friend of mine from Waynesburg. He played football for
Waynesburg, and so did his three brothers. All four of them
played for Waynesburg. So Asa was in the department and did a
good job. If you'll remember where I left off just now, I must
tell you one that occurred. I was teaching in a room in the Lab
School, and Asa taught in the same room. Mostly, I guess, I
taught teaching of English, methods course, in there. They had
the simulators in that room. There must have been four of them
so there wasn't a whole lot of room to teach English but we
managed somehow. I walked in one morning and looked up on the

(17)
chalkboard and here was a poster, bright colors and every-

M:

thing, of a nasty, bloody accident on the highway with a body in
the road and a few people standing around. The victim was
stretched out so his pant legs were pulled up. It was a he.
His shoes, one might have been removed. That frequently happens.
But his feet were sticking out and his socks were very prominent.
They were white. A college student wrote underneath that poster.
He deserved to die. He wore white socks. White socks were taboo.
If you were hip, you didn't wear white socks unless you were
participating in athletics or something like that. I'll never
forget that.
Where was I now?
R:

You were talking about the safety education program.

M:

We interviewed several people for the job because Asa retired.
We had a little dinner for him and so on, and we interviewed four
or five people, none of whom pleased us very much. One of whom
was a former Slippery Rocker. Con man. I won't name him. But
"they", the mysterious they, wanted Larry Lowing to have that
job. He was in Health Science. Larry came over and interviewed
for the job and he was a motorcycle man as I recall. I had
n

nothing against Larry .

We were friends and had been, but my

thing was as chairperson that's going to take safety education
and put it in that department. This is turf stuff that you have
here, and I thought that's not fair. Our money bought the
simulators. Our money buys all the equipment for driver education. Why should we just turn around and hand it over to some
other department.

One thing led to another and I finally sat

(18)
M:

down and wrote the letter directly to Dr. Watrel because I knew
that he was pushing this a little bit, and I called a spade a
spade. I expected to hear from him, but not quite in the manner
that it happened. I walked into the faculty dining room, and he
was just corning in with Kathy Gwinn. Do you remember Kathy?

B:

Yes.

M:

I remember Kathy. She was a friend of my wife's somehow or
another. Seton Hill, I think. Anyway, he walked over to me and
with a half grin on his face said, so keep your goddarnrned equipment. I said, I intend to. And that's all there ever was to
it. Larry got the job. I don't know. I guess they finally moved
.

that
stuff out and put it over? But I got my two cents worth in,

and he got his in. So we were both happy, I guess, tentatively.
I didn't argue with him anymore about it. It was done. I
couldn't move the stuff myself. He didn't want it in secondary
ed. It seemed odd to me what connection between driver education
and health science. I would still argue that with him because
we were trying to certify people who were secondaries and therefore would be where the course was being taught. It made some
sense to me, but it obviously didn't to him. There were other
motives. There were other things that must have moved in some
place or other.
R:

So the change of administrations where we went from president to
president or Democrats were in Harrisburg or Republicans were in,
kind of had a fairly profound effect on what was going on here.

M:

I would say yes. I can't remember dates but I'll tell you a
story. Either one of you remember the showdown meeting when

(19)
M:

Carter was asked to leave?

B:

We heard about it, but neither of us was here at the time.

M:

We had a meeting in the afternoon, five or six of us. I don't
know why I was asked to be there. Probably because I disliked
him intensely, but I wouldn't have said anything at the meeting.
I'm not into that kind of stuff. Gamberoni was there. Bob Crayne
was there. Irv Kuhr was there. He must have been president of the
union at the time. We were about five, and we were all doled
out certain things to do at that meeting. I never had to do mine.
I would have been glad to do it, but it never reached that point.
But Gamberoni had been given a role, and if you remember Gamby at
all, there was a real politician. I didn't say successful one,
but a real operator. He sat still in his seat. He never got up.
He was afraid. I told him that it's not sacrilegious or heresy
or anything. The motion was made for a vote of no confidence in
the administration, and was seconded immediately. That was all
planned. With that Carter got up out of his seat, mad, furious,
screaming mad. out of the auditorium. I'm going to get the roll,
we'll have voice vote. While he was gone, the motion was made for
a secret ballot, seconded, and adopted. So when he came back, he
was madder than ever. We found that out. But it was an
overwhelming rejection. I had a personal run-in with him about
teaching off campus which I had done a number of times with
presidential permission because it was good P.R. with Armco.
Harold Wieand and I had taught at Armco for twelve or fourteen
years. He maybe longer than that. We got a flag pole out of it,
and numerous other things. Dr. Carter wouldn't permit me after I

(20)

M:

had done it a semester or two with Dr. Weisenfluh, his
predecessor. It was all right with the previous president,
actually with his blessing. The course I was to teach was very
similar to the course I was teaching here already in secondary
reading because I was in the reading language arts department.
I walked over to ask his permission. He wrote me a letter
refusing, and I went over to appeal. He knew I was coming. I made
the appointment and everything. Jim Roberts was in there. I'll
never forget that. He started to scream, no, at the top of his
lungs as soon as I walked into the office. Now we were not close
friends or buddies or anything like that. Yelling, really
yelling. I thought, maybe he's finally flipped. I always thought
he was ready to. He said, no, you cannot do that. The reasons
are, and he later put this in writing, that it will detract from
your teaching at Slippery Rock. That's the year I got the teacher
laureate award, and it made me blistering mad. Jim Roberts sat
there like a mummy. There's another letter that would replace him
which I won't use. He never said boo. He knew the situation
because I had talked to him about it. I said, it's strange to me
that this had been going on for several years and it hasn't had

{-(

any impact on my teaching here. I

don't understand because carter

from Dennison is here that I will suddenly disintegrate and no
longer be able to teach. I walked out, and he said we'll let the
committee decide. It already decided, but the promotion
committee, just off the cuff, sorry, that's another incident, but
it's with the same president. \ r applied for a promotion after
receiving the award. It was customary for a teacher laureate to

(21)

M:

receive

an increment. It had

been given every previous one. I did

not get one. I didn't have contact with this man. I didn't deal
with him at all. I stayed my distance. He got up on the cashier's
checkout counter at the store downtown, and screamed bloody
murder at someone, I saw that. I had his daughter in class, and
soon transferred her. He did or somebody did had her drop the
class which was all right with me, I didn't need her.
R:

What was the checkout incident all about? We haven't heard
that story.

M:

I don't know what it was about, but he was yelling at clerks for
incompetency which he was wont to do. His wife was in the store
with him, and he was up there raving like a maniac. But he said
that the promotion that he had turned it down, but that he would
turn it over to the committee. Well, Joe Frazier was on the
committee. Ray Miller was on the committee, and I can't think of
who the third one was, but I went to both of them and asked them
point blank. We're friends, tell me the truth, that's all I want
to know. I don't care which way it is just say yes or no. Did
the committee vote down my promotion? No. It was unanimous? Yes.
So Carter lied in his teeth and I did not get the promotion.
Jerry Chesin, who was still messing around coming to school

once

in a while to teach his classes, kept asking me

boiling

me, and he knew it, did you get your increment. He knew I didn't.
I didn't cross swords with him much as I would like to have.
Oh, I see you've got your wife on the faculty now. This kind
of stuff. He's the chairman who finally, Walker put in, and
then had to have him abdicate because there was absolutely

(22)

M:

no cooperation between him and that department, but then he
was a different type. He was difficult to get along with at
best.

B:

You said that Jim Roberts was sitting in the office with
Carter. Did he have some official capacity?

M:

Yes. I don't know that he had anything particular to do with that
incident. I mean there was no special reason for him to be
there. My appointment was with the President, but he didn't
do anything except go do what Carter told him. Get this record
or get that. I resented that because, well, he knew I could
teach. He'd seen some evidence, and he never said a word. He
wouldn't even speak up and explain that I had been teaching
there for several years with the President's blessing. So that
one went by the wayside. There was another one. There was a
faculty meeting in the classroom just off the gym upstairs used
by Phys. Ed. as a conference room probably, and a faculty meeting
was called and we were all sitting in there. The tables were
circular all the way around the perimeter of the room, and Carter
was in the middle, and one thing led to another. It was budget
time, and people were asking if this were permissible, could we
have money to do this or that or the other thing, and one of them
was the fellow sitting right next to me, and I can't remember who
now, asked if he could bring so and so speaker to campus. Carter
went up in smoke, and he came over right to the table, right
here, and we're sitting here. He said, I'll wrestle you on the
mat for the right or the lack of right to bring that man to this
campus. I thought, college president, psychologist, all these

(23)

M:

wonderful things, oh my. I'd better shut up while I'm ahead, but
I don't think I'm ahead. I better leave him alone. There were
plenty

of politics duringEmma Guffey Miller's, Dr. Weisenfluh' s ,

Dr. Wieand's regime, and they took good care of Emma Guffey most
of

the time. They chauffeurred her back and forth to meetings and

to events here which is I guess cricket. That's not a horrible
thing.

I used to kid Harold when he and I rode back and forth to

Armco when we taught together, and he was tempted, I think, to
get into the presidential arena at that time. But he's another
one. I knew him a little bit because I had played ball against
his brother in college. Nice kid. And when the time came for
Harold to retire or when he thought it was time to retire, you
have to picture this little German fellow with a completely bald
head, shining, with a starched white shirt and a tie and suit
always, and I always gave him credit for that. I admire that. You
ought to hear what I put up with at BC3 [Butler County Community
College] because I go dressed to teach. I'm not flaunting
anything. I was brought up that way. I modeled myself after a
high school teacher of mine whom I greatly admired, and who
didn't have a cent. He went to school on a ministerial
scholarship, and immediately forsook the ministry for a teaching
job. So he wasn't maybe the most honorable model I might have
chosen, but he started to buy clothes almost immediately because
he had none. He bought nice suits, expensive suits. He bought
expensive shoes. He bought beautiful shirts and ties, and always
a pocket handkerchief to match. That really got to me. I dressed

(24)

M:

that way for a long, long time when I taught. And I only
recently, I still do it sometimes, but I wear a suit or a sport
jacket with slacks because I happen to believe that you are a
model whether you want to be one or not. Not a fashion model, but
a model of how a teacher or professor should represent himself in
front of a group of malleable minds, and I still think that.
People ask me on the campus at BC3, you're always dressed up.
We had a penny ante group that were outstanding. Meise, Dwight
Baker, Bob Lowry, Al Schmittlein, George West, and the only one who
couldn't understand the wild card bit was Al Schmittlein. Every
time we played certain games, and everybody has a favorite that
he thinks he can win, we had to explain the game to Al every
meeting. We met once a month, he never learned it. We had a lot
of fun with him over that.

R:

Did you ever play with Ray Biswanger? Was he a member of your
group? That was a later poker club.

M:

No, I didn't belong to that. I probably wouldn't have been
able to handle that.

R:

Who was George West?

M:

George West was my best buddy. He and I shared an office. He was
in geography. He was Dr. Warren Strain's first protege, I expect.
Dr. Strain was the whole geography department for decades here,
and George West, a graduate of Indiana. His wife taught at
when they moved here finally. Good man. Good geographer,
and had good following from students. Later, he was the beginning
of the enlargement of the department. Bob Davis, John Ball, who

(25)

M:

left for better things. John Ball was probably successor to
Dr. Strain when Dr. Strain died. There's a little ironic twist
that might remind some people of former times. Dr.Strain was
a very strait-laced man. A very friendly man. Walked back and
forth
at

lunchtime to home which was out

on North Main Street

Extension, and always hustling up the hill, down the hill,
didn't matter, but a very, very knowledgable geographer, and
a very, very knowledgable tester. Wonderful tests. Somebody
should have gotten hold of them and preserved them because they
were
excellent

He made them real. He put kids in situations,

geographic, and made them get out. Oh, they were great. The
ironic twist has to do with Dr. Strain's last days on campus.
They attempted, they again, to make an administrator of him. He
was a born teacher. I don't think I can think of anybody who
was more native to the profession than Warren Strain. He didn't
like it and it was obvious, but he was not the kind to hurt
anybody's feelings or anything like that. He became ill, I'm
not going to say as a result of the stress and strain, but he
never recovered. He died a rather hasty death. Not sudden or
anything like that, but after a very short time after he quit
teaching that he passed away. He lived beside Dr. Walter Albert,
who was physics and so on. Great big man who changed the oil in

.

.

.

.

his own car, not that that's a crime. I wish I had brains

enough

to do it, but frugal. And he did. He was a handy man, and he did
a lot of stuff around his house all the time. Got up in the tree.
Fell out of the tree trimming it, and he never recovered from
that.

(26)

M:

I remember Helen Cushman, a speech teacher, excellent,
A-1, and jolly and happy most of the time. When she was not
that she was a complainer of the first water. Jan Burns,
previously mentioned, was head of speech and coached the plays
and did all that stuff. This was before Milt Carless' time.
Carless was a basketball player. He came here to play
basketball, I understand, from little Evans City, who had
its own high school at one time, and golfer extraordinaire.
He's something else, but Helen Cushman did most of the other
kinds of speech activities. Speech concerts of a type, and
wide participation and successful participation.
There's another one. I can do this for hours, days.
Dr. Lawrence McVitty, art.

B:

How do you spell that? I couldn't find him in the catalogues.

M:

Really. Well, he was here for sure in 1954 because he talked
me into assisting him with yearbook, and then he ran out on me.
He never had anything to do with any future ones, but art

teacher.
Knowledgable about art. Know how to get the best out of
kids in art. He was a master. His wife was the daughter of
somebody prominent. I can't remember her name. I think Clare.
I can't remember her maiden name. Her father was in the state
department, and so there was never any doubt about Mac's being
employed, but she was a lovely lady. They had a daughter that
lost a thumb or finger or both to somebody's pet rabbit around
here someplace. I can't remember whose, but McVitty was a
huge man. He was six feet, four inches, and very stooped.

(27)

M:

So if he had straightened up, he would have been really big.
If you'll excuse the expression, he bitched from morning
till night. I don't think there was ever a day when that
wasn't the number one agenda. Now he was an excellent teacher,
but he griped about everything that happened on this campus
to everybody. He didn't pull any punches. We went to visit
him. He was in the hospital in Pittsburgh and we, some of us,
five or six traveling to Pitt to take courses, we went to the
hospital to see him, and everybody bitches in the hospital,
but Mac put the rest of us to shame. He just, oh, he just
complained something awful, but he was very, very good, and
he did his dissertation on children's art efforts, and it is a
gem. He went to Indiana and stayed till he retired which was
not so long ago. He's probably younger than I am. Wouldn't
take much. Good man. Very helpful. Kind. If you had a
graphics problem, you knew that he'd help you. He'd groan
and moan about it, but he would eventually come through for
you. And he talked me into, I never thought I was gullible
enough, but he talked me into helping doing the literary
part of the yearbook while he did the graphics. That would
have been 1954. In 1955 he didn't have time suddenly. I used
to ride him something awful, but we got by and we put it
out there again for ten or eleven years, I think, till 1964
or 1965. I did the 1965 book. I

just read last night that

colleges of all sizes are doing away with them completely
because they have become a completely non-profit affair,

(28)

M:

but they shouldn't be put out for profit. I'm not in agreement
with the motives. That's just about the only record that exists,
and while it's a warped one to be sure, an opposed one to be
sure, and there are some awful features, and some awful pictures
in it, it's still the only record there is of what goes on in the
school.

B:

I think they're doing videos now.

M:

Yes, every place.

B:

I'm a print person. I wish they wouldn't do that.

M:

Well, the price of publication is very, very high. You probably
are acquainted with that. They used to argue with me in the
bookstore because that's were the accounts were kept.
Sue Hawker, somebody should talk about Sue Hawker. She ran
the bookstore for years. Native, and a great lady. She and I
always could work things out. I don't know if they fired her
or if she retired. I don't know how it worked out, but Bill
so and so, who had owned the five and dime store downtown was
put into replace her, and he didn't know his head from a football
about the bookstore. He didn't begin to know. I suppose he sold
tablets and pencils and so on in that store, but college, he
wasn't up to it at all, and he gave me fits about the allocation
for the yearbook. Now student government did it, but they
listened to him, unfortunately. I think I got into a student
government meeting once when they were allocating money, and I
went in one afternoon, and said, Bill, the kids on the yearbook
staff work long hours, and they work diligently. They don't loaf

(29)

M:

on the job. We're going to have a banquet for them. We're going
to have a dinner someplace for them. And I said, don't be
surprised then when you get the bill. It will probably come
from the Butler Elk's Club which at the time was serving the
best dinners around. I don't think we could afford the
Tavern in New Wilmington. Anyway, I made arrangements. Oh,
he fought me all the way. What do you mean? We can't afford
to spend money for food just to feed a bunch of kids. I said,
wait, it's not just a bunch of kids. This is the yearbook
staff and these are people who have put many, many hours in.
And I said, if I have to pay for it myself, I doubt if I could
have, I will and I'll go wherever I have to go to get
reimbursed from the college. So we went ahead with the plans
and had it and gave him the bills. I didn't hear anymore about
it, but he was a tight-fisted son of a gun. I guess that came
from managing his own store, and not making a fortune because
he certainly didn't. Bushnell, that was his name. I'd better
stop. Do you have something you want to ask me?

B:

If you could go back a little more. Tell us a little more about
your
Aunt Maree. Now

there's nobody much around who'll know.

Anything we can learn about her will be new to us. Nobody else
told us much about her.
M:

Well, she was a McKay and therefore a bit on the tyrannical side,
I suppose.

B:

She was Miss McKay?

M:

Yes. And Maree always.

(30)

Maree? You pronounce that Maree? (Note: Accent on second
Syllable)
M:

Yes. Her father, my grandfather, for whom I was named, was
president at Waynesburg at one time. She taught music and
she taught business courses. Probably installed the business
courses there because I'm sure they weren't there before.
And my grandfather became, well, he was on a business trip
to Grove City from the college. He had a heart attack and
never left Grove City. He died in the hospital there. Now
there are relatives in Mercer County and so on of that clan,
and so she and my grandma lived where Bill Neely still lives.
Is he still around? Gladys, yes. That was my grandma's house.
Aunt Maree lived there, and always three or four sometimes
more faculty women roomed there because it was a big old
house. Loads of rooms in it, and made to order for somebody
with the kind of job where you could be free part of the time.
Miss Compton, who was phys. ed. big shot for a while. Kate
Metheny, who was phys. ed. from New Castle. I knew them all
well. They were great friends of Bernice Spargo who was the
school nurse for many, many years, and everybody on campus
knew Spargy. She was a great character here. Little, short
spitfire. Black hair. A really nice person. But that was home
for a lot of faculty people. I go back a long way for Slippery
Rock. I used to come when I was in grade school even. I came up
in the summer time for at least two weeks. That was my vacation
to come to vist Grandma and Aunt Maree. After I got big enough to

(31)

M:

play tennis, Coach Thompson every summer taught a class that they
called, get this, athletics. In it were all the neighborhood
coaches. They came here to get credit. So I knew Coach, and Coach
would tell Maree at work, send Billy, he always called me Billy
never called me Bill, send Billy up I've got a tennis player he
needs to get next to. It was Pete Collodi from Sharon, who was a
good tennis player. He played for Duquesne, and a fabulous
basketball coach. He had some state champions at Sharon. Pete was
a good tennis player. So I'd go up. Went up every morning, and
Pete and I went at each other. I was a kid, and he was a grownup,
but I had my day. I could handle the tennis. I used to play with
the ministers in town, and I mustn't mention their names because
one of them cheated, out and out. Oh, it's hard to believe, but
he did. He called balls out that were in a mile, and I went home
and told Aunt Maree. She didn't believe me at all. I said, you
know what a tennis court looks like, don't you? Then you come
tomorrow when we play, and you watch and see. He'll be glad to
see you there, and he'll greet you and everything, but he can't
can't help himself. He's one of those, and that's all there is to
it. I quit playing with him. I wouldn't play with him anymore,
but he did it all the time. But I got to know a whole bunch of
coaches that way. I don't know that it ever did me any special
good, but it was a treat to play with good tennis players, and
learn the ropes about post graduate education. What else do you
want to know about Maree? A very hard worker. A very dedicated
person. I don't suppose Slippery Rock ever had anybody more

{32)

M:

dedicated than she, and that's stepping on toes, I'm sure, but
she devoted her life to Slippery Rock. Now she stayed. Dr.
Eisenberg was president, this would have been 1921. My
grandfather died in 1921, so Dr. Eisenberg sent somebody or went ,
one or the other, to the hospital to see her. He heard that she
was there, and apparently had heard something about her. So he
hired her on the spot, and I'm sure there were people who
resented her, of course, and I guess you couldn't blame them in
a way. I think she was second in command most of the time. She
didn't let the grass grow any place. She was on top of it all the
time, and worked for the good of the college. Recruited people
and all that, and helped students financially all the time, and
I'm sure she didn't get half of it back, but true blue. I don't
think anybody would ever question anything that she did in
connection with the college. She did the alumni bulletin for
years, and finally talked me into being the editor and I edited
it for years. They had a dinner for her downtown Pittsburgh
someplace. Ray Haines, a notable Carnegie Mellon phys. ed. head,
Tuck Melman, you don't know these people, these are all former
athletes who got somewhere, okay. Tuck Melman was a red hot
insurance man in Pittsburgh for years and years and years. A
graduate of Fifth Avenue. He's very Jewish, where all you had to
do was ride past Fifth Avenue High School to know what kind of
school population was in there. It was disgrace to the city, but
apparently there was some good people came out of there as you
would expect there to be. Carl Cataio, Fifth Avenue. These were
guys who played varsity sports here at Slippery Rock. What

(33)

M:

brought them up here? Probably was Coach Thompson, I would
imagine he was the reason. But she was on the Save the Chapel
drive. She lived the Save the Chapel drive. Forced the publicity
all over the country to everybody who ever had any connection
with it at all, and it failed. I guess up to the last minute they
might have won it. They stuck to it. But they went at it several
years and weren't getting any encouragement. That was too bad,
too, because that was a beautiful building, and was Butler County
native limestone and it was hand cut and everything else. There
was every reason to change it, but it was getting to the
condemnation stage and so they had to do something. So they tore
it down. I remember seeing people help pregnant graduating
seniors up the steps on to the stage and run across and help them
down the other side, but everybody had to do that then. It was
never outside. It was always in the chapel. And there was chapel
every Sunday night. And chapel certain other nights, and, I guess
the attendance wasn't compulsory as it was in my college. They
took role in my college. I still fret with the guy who was the
monitor, in my row. I see him at reunions all the time.

R:

Which college was that?

M:

Waynesburg.

R:

Oh, I see. You were not a college student here?

M:

No.

R:

When you played here, you were playing tennis?

M:

I played for Waynesburg. I played tennis here against Jack
Denbow, who later was on the student teaching staff. He asked
me at Pitt one night, do you think you could put in a good

(34)

M:

word for me with Dr. Willkens? Oh, sure. He and I met several
places around the country to play tennis even years afterwards
we played even after he came here.

R:

Bob DiSpirito's first game in 1965 was against Waynesburg.

M:

At Waynesburg?

R:

I don't know where they played but it was 57 to 6. Waynesburg
beat them 50 points.

M:

I remember Slippery Rock getting beat seven

to nothing down

there one night when I had taken my older boy with me to the
game. You never saw anybody so mad in your life. He was bitter.
He wanted Slippery Rock to win and that was all there was to it.
He didn't understand that my allegiance was divided, and he
didn't care. He was mad as a hornet the rest of the evening.
But they soon stopped that. They stopped playing them in
basketball as well. Of course they've got all they can handle
in basketball so they don't need Waynesburg now. Waynesburg
having been at the top of the heap in the NIAAfor years. Now
no scholarships, and they get pasted most of the time. They
joined with W&J [Washington and Jefferson], Geneva, Bethany,
schools that supposedly do not offer scholarships. Westminster,
you may know, did not join. When people try to tell that that
they don't give scholarships at Westminster, they're talking
through the seat of their pants. Those athletes don't flock there
for that Presbyterian indoctrination, I'll tell you. But they had
some great teams. Great teams. What else can I tell you?
R:

Outstanding departments?

M:

In the early years of my tenure, this was phys. ed. dominated,

(35)

M:

but I suppose most other departments catered to them, but
there was strong chemistry. Individual courses because I used
to hear kids complain about how difficult they were especially
health ed. kids. Chemistry of nutrition was one that Art Vincent
taught, and oh, they just moaned and groaned, but they knew
they'd been there when they finished. He really taught them
something. The English Department I think has always held its
own. Dr. Spotts became a rather well known, successful author
of textbooks with Henry Holt and Co., and I still use things out
of them from time to time. Most low-keyed chairman I think I've
ever known. His wife and Dr. Weisenfluh's wife were sisters.
Pennsylvania Dutch. They lived on the same street. They did not
speak to each other. Now I'm telling family secrets. I
shouldn't do that.

R:

Now Martha Gault. Had you known Martha Gault for a long time?

M:

Yes. She was McVitty's nemesis. He could never be chairperson as
long as Martha was here because she was a fixture, and a good
person. She worked hard at it, and encouraged it, and made it
grow, and added people to the department including McVitty
They didn't see eye to eye. They were from different schools of
thought about the creative act, I think, and they just never.
Mac would sit there and listen, and then he'd come back out and
gripe about what she'd said, but he didn't fight her openly.
He did his job well. Martha lived right up Normal Avenue where
I believe Mohan Sharma lives. Is Sharma still here?

R:

No, he's retired.

B:

But I don't know if he's still in town.

(36)

R:

He's in town.

M:

I have reams to say about him, but I won't.

B:

I don't think anybody else has spoken about him. It would be nice
to have a little bit.

M:

I told you that I was delighted to make the convocation speech,
Honors Convocation. Carter had just been deposed, I think, and
Bob Lowry was serving as acting president. He presided at that
convocation because I had to address him first, I remember.
Of course, I was a little biased. I thought it was a pretty good
speech. I likened it to being a student's teacher to being a ball
player's ball player. All star kind of thing, and got away from
that quickly. But Sharma was backstage when it was over. I walked
back, and he patted my arm right away and said he wanted that
/ speech. I said, well,all right. Fortunately I had a hand written
copy which I still have, and I've asked him and asked him to
return it. He stopped at the library on his way home, he said.
The library must be all of fifty yards, the old library, from
where he lived. Must have lost it somewhere he said, and he lied
and I knew it but I didn't want to make a fuss out of it since I
had a hand written copy.
Another great lady that hasn't been mentioned, Mrs. Summerall.
White-haired lady, great big lady, served as Dean of Women in
the
summer sometimes, and taught English. Shew

riend

of Alma Ladd, who was head of French language. Marcella
Summerall. There was never a nicer lady anywhere. She was just
a doll and older and distinguished and everything and just
plain nice. I never heard her speak an ugly word, a loud word,

(37)

M:

or anything else, and she invariably asked people how's your
family? How's this? How's that? Is everything going all right?

very solicitatious
people, and they about
finally got
teach

English

because
we had an overflow

her to

of English

majors, and the two of us used to get together and drink coffee
and talk over the methods course from time to time. I just
loved her. I just thought she was great. I guess I was living in
Pittsburgh then. They had a dinner for her at Grove City. I never
heard anybody say a bad word about her. She was just a lovely
person. Maybe, I was going to say, too naive to be dean of women
because everybody was nice in her eyes, and you know you can't
run a railroad that way, but she was really something special.
Dick O'Connell. Dick O'Connell was the first liberal arts
director here. He was succeeded by David Orr as I remember, a
gentleman from the south someplace with much more pep and energy
than Dick O'Connell, but O'Connell was a very, solid, substantial
citizen, but not a mover. Not an energetic kind of guy. Very nice
man. Lois Harner, of course. We're still friends. We still see
each other occasionally or get together. I sat in my car waiting
for a babysitter from Rhoads Hall one night. Linda Rogers she
was. She was in the Queen's Court. Very attractive. Probably in
my wife's class at one time or another, and I sat right by the
front steps so that I couldn't miss her
when she came out. I told her I'd be there at such and such a
time. While I sat there two girls circled the building completely
nude. This was that time when this was the thing to do. I told
her about it when she got in the car. She almost fainted. She

said, are you kidding? I said, no, I didn't jump out and grab
them or anything like that. I just watched the passing parade. It
was the last thing I expected to see on this campus, I'll tell
you. But we've kept kids. We've kept students in our home a
number of times. We still get loads of mail from past students.
New Zealand where all the sheep are dying. Did you read that? I
have a very favorite student who still writes to me from there.
She was from Pittsburgh. Married and had a daughter, and her name
was Joan Knaves, but she married a native whose name I can't
pronounce and I have trouble spelling it even when I copy it.
It's really a hodgepodge, but she's teaching at the university in
Wellington. She sends me pictures. Very much like Pennsylvania.
She said, you ought to come over. Ten inches of snow with ten
foot drifts I read last night, I think.
R:

It's a mess.

M:

We're talking millions of dollars.

R:

I read that a million and a half. We're talking New Zealand?

M:

Yes.

(39)

R:

I read that a million and a half sheep have died.

M:

And the estimate was four million dollars plus and they haven't
found them all and they can't get food to them or anything else.
Really something.

R:

Quite a beautiful place.

M:

I'm glad I'm not there. I don't care for it.

R:

What about the changes you saw over the years as the school got

bigger and bigger.
M:

The dining hall thing was maybe the biggest change. It was a
formal time, dinner time was, and everybody dressed for dinner,
and that means coats and ties. That means dresses not skirts and
sweaters.

B:

This was in the !947 era.

M:

Yes, and for a time long gone before that. It was a pleasure
to go in there to eat. They had table waiters, students, who
knew their stuff. They really were first class and it was
like dining out really at a very nice restaurant. Faculty were
strategically placed around to watch table manners and so on,
and to work with kids who hadn't had the good experience.

B:

Part of your duty?

M:

I suppose so. Not mine. I was never on duty there. I just got
to be a guest once in a while. I guess organizations or
something. Well, we've lost it. It may never return, and I
think that's too bad. It's like dressing to go to school, but
when you go to dinner you dress. You observe the manners. You
know the old studies about dress-up days in the public schools.

(40)

M:

In all the research, there has never been an incident, a serious
disciplinary incident, in a public school during dress-up day.
And people have been researching this for years. Year after
year after year. It just doesn't happen. I tell college kids
this all the time. Has it occurred to you that the way you dress
does indeed dictate something about the way you act? The kind of

language you use? I made it an edict yesterday. One Monday, one
Wednesday in my speech classes. The habit of wearing baseball
caps is you know something else. My kid wears one all the time
but when he got ready for school yesterday morning I noticed that
it was still on his bed, and we did not mention the baseball cap
so he knew that you're not suppossed to wear them to school. Now,
of course, he's been indoctrinated. But here are six to eight
kids in every class with a ball cap on. And I like ball caps. I
used to wear them too. But I never wore them to church. I never
wore them to school. I didn't wear them in a public building. I
didn't wear them if I was going to meet my relatives or somebody
else's. And I had a kid, he teaches in the Butler schools right
now, and he came into teaching of English class with a ball cap
on. I didn't say anything, but he continued to wear it, and I
finally said, Mike, we're either going to be professional or
we're not going to be. You need to make up your mind. Professionalism does not embrace wearing of a ball cap in the classroom. I said, I'll leave it up to you. You may either quit
wearing the baseball cap or leave the class. It's up to you. That
took care of it. And he got a job. I don't think he wears
one now, but I guess he's matured enough to understand.

(41)
B:

No one objected to your imposing a dress code?

M:

I said, I know that you guys feel naked without that ball cap,
and there is something to that. I've watched my son with his.
I said, I'll make a deal with you. When you make a speech,
when you're up front, you do not wear the ball cap. If you

feel obliged to put it back on as soon as you've arrived
safely home to your seat, you can put it back on. I'm hoping
to discourage it, see. Not a word. I said, we're doing this
out of respect for the ladies in the class. Out of respect
for me, and I intend to earn it, and just out of pure common
decency. No, I didn't get a word. I have not so many this
time as last. I have a whole bunch of baseball players in there,
and they wear them all the time. They don't think anything of
it at all, but I decided we'll test it out and see how it
goes. I don't allow them to chew gum anymore than you would.
And I would not let them do anything else that would detract
from
their speech. I don't know that it detracts,
but I asked
them a question, you tell me how much you are influenced
by the way the speaker is dressed. If you can, tell me.
And we got opinions galore. Well, you're suppossed to listen
to what he has to say, not how he is dressed.

Well, of course,

you are suppossed to listen to what he has to say, but does
how he is dressed give what he has to say any more impact or

(42)

M:

less impact or what. I said, keep thinking about that because
I'm going to ask you again some time. I'm thinking now
about that one speech maybe the final one. But that's final
exam time that's not good. One before that maybe. We'll have
a dress-up speech. See what it does to the speaking mode, if
anything.

R:

What about women? Female employees over the years. We've

had people talk about discrimination. As we get more and more
women faculty they get the short end of the scheduling. That
was particularly true in athletics because they had a big
space problem.
M:

It was true also in English. I sat in the trial in the courthouse.

R:

Betsy Curry?

M:

No. It was somebody who she knew and was a close associate of.
She didn't stick around. She left. She got her money. She made
them pay, but she left immediately. I can't remember her name.
My wife was asked to testify so I went in and listened to it.
It was interesting. Does it still exist? Of course it still
exists.

R:

In what fashion? How does it exist? Are there examples of
discrimination? Are you talking about promotion and sabbaticals,
and teaching assignments?

M:

I don't think the college is any different from a business when
it comes to that. I think they run very closely parallel. I
don't see as much of it at BC3 because there are more part-time

(43)

M:

teachers than there are regular teachers and so that is
hodgepodge. You just can't account for that, but for having
taug
two
hstraight
t
semesters from three- thirty to five o'clock
myself I realize that if there is discrimination it's spread
around a little bit. It's not all to the females, but there is a
lovely lady from Moniteau and she's a librarian at Moniteau, I

think. She comes in and teaches an English comp class, and we
knew each other before, and I hadn't seen her for years and
years. I walked out in the hall and here she was waiting to get
into the room I was in. I said, what are you doing here? She
said, well, I teach a class here. I said, in this room? She said,
yes. I said, well, after many years of not seeing you, I'll see
you every other day now, and last semester exactly the same
thing. She came into the room when I finished. She's part-time.
Now if you want to talk discrimination there's no doubt in my
mind

that discrimination exists against part- time teachers unless

perhaps you are in metrology

where they boast about the

graduates and the high percentage of placement with the Bureau
of standards and that's true. If it were some other courses
I could name I'm sure it's true, but I would say it's spread
rather evenly among sexes. I don't think it's out and out
again to discriminate. Discrimination and salary? Yes.
Very noticeable.
B:

Here?

R:

Oh, no. At BC3. Here.

B:

That was her name. Ronnie Howard. That's the woman who had

(44)

The hearing sound right. Ronnie Howard was on the Andy
Griffith Show and is now a director. No. I don't know that
Ronnie. It doesn't sound like the right name.
B:

Well, excuse me. I didn't mean to interrupt.

M:

That's all right. Mary Agnes may know.

R:

Was that in the 1960's?

B:

No, it was in the 1970's. Well, that was a time when men
had problems also. There was a group of young men in the
English Department, I think, who were unconventional.

M:

I remember that.

B:

Had beards. Taught out under the trees. And we couldn't have
that. And we didn't after a while.

R:

They left voluntarily for the most part, but it was not a good
situation.

M:

You know the people you put down on here. Allen Allan. Were
you here when he was here?

R:

Yes.

M:

Some people might have said had he been a few years younger that
he looked like Tom Selleck. He had that heavy upper lip moustache, and a big head of hair, and he ruled the roost. He was a
really completely different type from anybody we had on campus,
and it was the beginning of the moustache, beard era so it was
fine. People liked him generally. He was a pretty sharp
character. I never was close to him, but I loved to hear him
speak. He was quite adept at convincing people of his point of
view. I forgot who else. Allen Larsen came I think while Allen
Allan was here.

(45)

R:

Yes. Did Wieand become chairman of philosophy for a while?

M:

Yes.

R:

Yes. He was an admininstrator and when he stepped down he
came over and became chairman. Allan Larsen was his first hire.

M:

That's right. And Harold Wieand was an economics person. He
taught economics of all descriptions at Armco constantly, at
Youngstown Sheet and Tube when it was flourishing. He took
economics to the mill. He told them how it was. I couldn't
finish my tale about Wieand and it doesn't need to go on
record at all. I knew him pretty well. Bob Lowry knew him
better. He got to the place where we older people all get, of
resenting kids who don't live up to the standard, however
high or low the standard is. Harold would be furious. His
shoes were shined. His head was shined. His face was closely
shaved and that stiff collar and tie with the light beige
suit. He dressed well, and very, very immaculately. Kids are
coming to class in the 1960's and so on in bare feet and clogs
or whatever you call them. They wore sweatshirts. They wore
sleeveless shirts. They did everything and if you could stand
outside the door and watch him you could just see the red go up
because he was like that. He finally, I can't prove this, but
Bob Lowry didn't deny it. Bob Lowry was just here. I just spent
an evening with him a few nights ago from Florida. Harold
complained bitterly. He swore at them in class. He did everything. Goddammit, if I can get shaved and dressed and so on to
come to class it seems to me you at least ought to be able to

(46)

M:

put on a pair of shoes to come. It began to get to him until
he finally, now I can't vouch for the legality of his ailment,
but he went to Doc Mclachlan and said, Dick, I've got to get

out of here, and Mclachlan wrote him a medical excuse, and he
left. Now I had heard that several times, and I thought I knew
Harold well enough to know he's certainly capable of doing that,
but whether he would do it or not in the heat of battle, I wasn't
sure. So one day Lowry and I were at Isaly's eating lunch. He
brought Harold's name up. He said something about not being well.
I said, hey, Bob, you're talking to Bill McKay. I've known Harold
Wieand longer than you have, not as well, not as intimately
probably, but longer. I said, you and I both know that Dick
McLachlan got him out of here. He couldn't handle it anymore.
Now Bob Lowry didn't want to hear that, and I should have saved
that last line for posterity, but I wasn't smart enough to do it.
But Bob and I are still friends so I guess it didn't hurt too
badly, but I'm almost positive that it's true. He just couldn't
handle
that.

He was, what's the word? I

said immaculate, but

it's more than that. It's an obsession to be clean. To be dressed
properly for the occasion, and so on, and he just took fits over
this. I only had one. You may have known. I can't remember the
year for this, but I was hauled into the students' human
relations committee over a guy I had in class, Claude Thomas.
R:

Yes, I knew Claude quite well.

M:

Bob Lowry was on the committee, some people that I knew. Claude
made comments about me that I couldn't believe. They were simply

(47)

M:

not true, and I went to students in the class, and I said, I
don't know if I'm going to need you or not, but I hope if you

are asked you will say what the truth is. I said, I'm not telling
you what to say. I just want you to state the truth. Well, I
finally was called to the meeting, and they asked me about his
grades. They asked me about his behavior. They asked about his
absenteeism. They asked me about comments that he had made.
Things that he had written on papers and so on, and I spilled
the beans as best I knew it, and they excused me, absolved me,
I guess is the word. I got a letter from the state Human
Relations Commission completely absolving me. So I guess I
wasn't nearly as guilty as Claude would have said. Do you
remember him?
R:

Oh, very well.

M:

You know what he looked like?
Oh, I could draw you a picture. Sure. He wore a bandana, and
he wore shorts, and he had very long hair, and he was always
starting a march. He marched on Old Main, and he marched on
city hall, and he marched on Harrisburg. Sometimes nobody
marched with him. He was out there.

M:

He wouldn't care, I don't think.

R:

No, not at all.

M:

The kids got fed up with his interrupting to inject his two
cents' worth.

R:

Well, he was upset because everyone didn't want to go in his
direction. I knew him quite well. He played guitar, and didn't
sing very well, but he was out there in front with his guitar.

(48)

M:

He was a trip. I think that's the only serious discipline thing

I ever had. I wasn't used to that kind of thing.
R:

He was really into shock. Not himself, but he wanted to shock
other people, and when you were not shockable then he faded into
the sunset. Claude didn't get anywhere unless he could get a
reaction.

you know something,

And you know something,
Joe, you probably met his wife?

R:

Oh, Carol, sure. I knew her very well. Lovely. She was a
lifeguard here two or three years ago for my grandchildren.
Over here at the pool in the apartments.

M:

I really liked her.

R:

She just remarried.

M:

Oh, thank heavens.

R:

Yes, oh, yes, and lovely youngsters.

M:

She came into my office a number of times when I was chairperson

I knew them pretty well.

and she was having difficulty with graduation requirements. I
said, well, come in and sit down and tell me about and we'll see
what we can do. And we got it worked out, and she and I were
friends from then on.
R:

Hard not to be her friend.

M:

We didn't mention his nibs at all.

R:

Marvelous youngsters.

M:

Well, I'm sorry I took so much time.

B:

No, this was great.

M:

I really admire you for doing this. I think it's a great
thing. Not just for the school, but for people who are
interested and love to look at what has happened over the
(49)

M:

years. With the disappearance of the yearbook, you're going

to become more vital than you think.
R:

One of the things I'd like to suggest to you is that when you
leave you'll think of some other things you would like to have
said and we could do one of two things. You could write them
out, and turn them into us.

M:

Dub them in?

R:

Yes, you could add an addendum when you get your transcript.
That would be lovely. That would be a very nice thing to do.
Because it's immaterial whether the print comes from your pen
or through the tape recorder.

M:

Right. I wouldn't mind.

B:

Did you announce this at some point? I don't remember. An
official what's happening today. Did we do that?

R:

I don't think so.

B:

Okay. Why don't you end it. We have a little bit of tape.

R:

Well, this is the benediction to an interview with Bill McKay on
September 3, 1992 with Leah Brown, the honorable Leah Brown
and Joe Riggs.

B:

Also honorable.

R:

And thank you so much.

M:

Well, you are certainly welcome. I'm glad to do it.