Oral History Interview
with
DR. DOROTHY EVELYN STANLEY

Norfolk, Virginia
November 5, 1975

Listen to Interview

Answer: Well, I was born in Germany, in Nuremberg, Germany, and my early education took place in Germany, France and England. Early career background I can't say because I studied after I graduated from what would be the equivalent of high school and then married. So, I really didn't have an early career.

Q: Could you tell me about your life in Alsace-Lorraine before World War I?

A: Well, you see when we left the Alsace-Lorraine, I was a little bit over five years old, so, I can't tell very much about the life there except I went to kindergarten there and I remember very well that when the war broke out, World War I, that there were very divided factions in the kindergarten. Suddenly children were not allowed to play with other children because one was French and the other was German. And I remember the hostility of neighbors towards us who had been our friends because suddenly we were Germans and the others were French. But up to that time, and this is about just all the childish impressions that I could have.

Q: Was your being reared even for such a short time in Alsace-Lorraine, a key to your linguistic ability?

A: Well, my family has various backgrounds of English and French and, of course, German as my native language and as it is in Europe, we traveled very extensively spending the summer in Italy or in Spain or in France, and you know, I was exposed at a very young age to so many different languages which happens to most Europeans. And I have a great knack for languages and learn them every quickly, so, this is definitely, maybe, the beginning of it.

Q: Could you tell me about your experiences during World War I?

A: Well, I don't remember again too much except that we did move to Munich, where I saw the revolution really in 1918 after the Emperor had to abdicate after Germany lost the war and I remember that there were very heated discussions everywhere, what was going to happen after the Emperor would've been gone and what kind of system we would have. I also remember a hunger situation; we- -we had absolutely nothing to eat. My mother had a cookbook called "How to Cook Turnips: 200 Different Ways" and we had them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I can't even stand the smell of turnips now because I think I've had all the turnips for the rest of my life. But I remember that we received packages from America. We received packages through the Quakers, but the situation of eating was absolutely terrible. And if you say during World War I, I can't tell you too much about that but right after the end of World War I, of course, then Germany ___ into the inflation in 1921. Everybody lost everything and there was a great turmoil in Germany which I well remember. I also remember that we had an uncle, a brother of my grandfather's, who lived in America, who sent us five dollars, a five-dollar bill during the inflation. And my brother put it in the bank and I bought a whole beautiful, new bicycle with those five dollars. This is what- -what the inflation had come to.

Q: Mm-mm.

A: And after the inflation was over and the Mark was stabilized again, my brother had five dollars and I had a brand new bike.

Q: Mm. During this trying time in post-war Munich, did your experiences then condition your outlook on life?

A: Yes, very much so. I mean, this was perhaps the second time after we left the Alsace-Lorraine, it was the first time in Munich, that was perhaps the second time that I came eye-to-eye with brute force and I have been very much aware of dictatorships and anything that does not allow you to live freely. And I am very conscious of dangers when I see them lurk anywhere on the horizon.

Q: Can--you have already mentioned the inflation, 'course that was one of the primary problems of the Weimar Republic. Can you recall any other memories of life under the Weimar Republic?

A: I think the Weimar Republic as far as the general citizenship of, or citizenry of Germany's concern has had a very short life. Also had very little chance to really become anything because there was so much turmoil that something that seemed a rather weak regime was not something that impressed anybody that it could cure the loss of jobs, the great amou--number of unemployed people and the starvation and the loss of property and all this. It just didn't--it faced too many problems and as far as Germany's history was concerned, it was a weak link.

Q: Mm-mm.

A: It didn't--never really get a chance to do anything. People talked about the Weimar republic and I was a teenager then, but it was not anything that anybody had great faith in.

Q: Why did you attend high school and undergraduate college in London?

A: Well, that was a very common thing to do because children of wealthy families were often sent to England or to France. Girls that didn't go into academic work usually took a year of finishing school in France. This was the thing to do. The English system of education was very highly regarded. I personally suffered from the regimentation in the German school considerably and since I wanted to go to the university in the town where I lived, there was no girls' gymnasium. "Gymnasium," not meaning gymnasium, but the high school, the academic preparation for the university. So I had to go to a boys' school and there being the only girl having to maintain a very high average, which I did, but was not exactly very popular with the boys that way. And many teachers who believed girls should learn to sew and cook, of the old German idea, and not be in the academic field in those days. So, I was very unhappy in the school there and since my maternal grandmother's side was English, this was the logical thing for me to do. We had spent summers in England and I loved it and I wanted very much to go.

Q: Could you describe your academic preparation at the University of Heidelberg as well as your life there?

A: The one nightmare I can still have to this day is that I have to come before the group of professors who gave me my oral for my doctorate because that seems to be something I can still break out in a--in a--realm of--in a realm of perspira--perspiration because this was really something that I don't think has any equivalent here. But, of course, the preparation in any German university is very different from here. You select a field and you go after your own studies. Nobody chases after you. You hardly know anybody except your leading professor because the auditorium is filled with two, three, four thousand students and you don't have any personal relationship for this reason. Then you apply for these interim exams when you feel that you are ready and you have this particular group of courses established. And you can--you could in those days, today it's a little different, but you could stay two--twenty years in the university, nobody cared.

Q: Mm-mm.

A: You just finished when you were ready and there were a certain number of courses, let's say in a group of courses, that were required for a certain degree but when you took them and how you took them was entirely up to you. And that's why it was possible if you really stuck to your guns, to become a Ph.D. at a very, very young age. You could be twenty-one years old when you had a Ph.D. and you know, you don't even get through college here at that time.

Q: No. Could you tell me about your first reactions to the emergence of Adolf Hitler as a power in Germany?

A: Well this--the first thing I remember, 'course Hitler came to power in January 1933 as Chancellor of Germany, and the first thing I remember was that people discussed the possibility of him being elected and people who were really intelligent and who were leading citizens of Germany said, "As long as he's in the opposition, he is going to make trouble. Let's put him in power and see that in four weeks, nobody will ever talk about him again. He'll be such a flop and so let's vote for him." And people who were very opposed to him voted for him because they wanted to see him gone. And, of course, you know this kind of argument didn't hold water because, you know, once he was in power that was it. But the thing that I most vividly remember was the 1st of April, 1933, when in every single town they smashed, during the night, windows of Jewish stores and put big signs of the Jewish star and swastikas across and beat up people and we walked through the town where I lived in Stuttgart to where I had married and it was just a nightmare. And I felt that if this kind of thing can happen in a civilized nation, in a nation that had produced Bach and Beethoven, Schiller and Goethe, that anything could happen.

Q: This was the first instance that you saw the true meaning of Nazism or did you find--feel that when he was in the opposition that this wo--would happen?

A: Well, this had, of course, a few things that pointed in that direction. It didn't just suddenly come. Anti-Semitism prevailed to a great degree in German schools even before Hitler came to power. But it was instigated by little groups, little storm-trooping groups or youth organizations that banded up and did that kind of thing, similar to the bund that I found when I came here in this country. And it just needed the necessary brutal force support for these people to go haywire.

Q: Why did you have to leave the University of Heidelberg?

A: Because the Germans went all the way back on Jewish background and it turned out that one of my great-grandparents was Jewish and that made me one-sixteenth Jewish. And that was the reason I was expelled from the university after I had finished everything else and all my records were neatly stacked on the desk and destroyed at the same time, every single bursar's receipt, everything. There was no trace of it. Later on, I found out that the law was one-eighth and they really had no right to do that to me, legally. But I had no leg to stand on because there was nothing that could ever be proven because nothing was there, academically speaking. We have tried and other people have tried but there just is nothing to be done about it. And you see the argument I have heard at the University of, "Well, but why can't you bring any academic testimony?" It is impossible because in the first place, to be a professor at a university in Germany, you have a chair. The Ph.D. is not important, the professorship is important. And so you're already well in your fifties perhaps before you get a chair at a university. Now you can well imagine if somebody was between fifty and sixty forty-five years ago, he's not there anymore.

Q: No.

A: And you can't also speak of any fellow students because since I explained to you earlier, everybody pursues their own studies and there's nobody that really knows what you are doing. So, I brought affidavits from a friend and from my own mother and it didn't do any good because university never gave me academic credit for it because they said it had to be academic and it's impossible.

Q: Mm-mm.

A: But when I--when I applied later in the Jewish organizations for completing my studies and for interrupted education, I got nowhere because they said, "Well, you are not Jewish. One sixteenth, we can't do anything." So I never got any restitution and I was always in the wrong camp.

Q: Right. Just a second ... could you elaborate upon your experiences in Germany in the 1930s prior to coming to the United States?

A: Well, there were, of course, all kinds of experiences. As far as I'm personally concerned, I still turn off the TV when this era is mentioned in any movie or show because, you know, I have really made a deliberate and conscien--conscious effort to eliminate everything from my memory that had any personal bearing on this period because it was just too terrible. And it's over forty years back and I just hope I never come in contact with it again.

Q: You were aware, of course, of the concentration camps and that experience. What kind of people came or were brought to the concentration camps?

A: Well, any kind of people really. Of course, in the first place, the people of Jewish descent, but not only that, there were a lot of people in the concentration camps that were not Jewish. People who helped people that were on the black list to escape and there were many of them. There was no organized underground but there were many people who helped others to get out who were in danger. And well, whole churches, cloisters, ministers, all kinds of leaders of organizations. Actually, if a kid came home from school and wanted a new bicycle and the father said no, and the kid would say to him, "Well, I'll tell my teacher that you don't like Hitler." That would've been enough without any trial, without any hearing, to get his father into the concentration camp and boy, the boy got his bike.

Q: They did also persecute Catholics and some Protestants, didn't they?

A: Oh, yes. Everybody who was--who was not in line with the Nazi organization, who wouldn't want to become a member, who wouldn't want to fly the swastika from their factory building, anybody. It's a--very often a mistaken idea that only the Jews went to the concentration camp. They did as a whole group but everybody else did also.

Q: When did you come then to the United States?

A: I arrived in the United States in December 1937 on a very cold winter night and I arrived at the pier in New York and often people ask me, "What was the first thing you did in the United States?" and I say, "I played the accordion." And people think that is a very flippant answer but that's really the first thing I did in the United States because I brought with me a Hohner accordion and people brought these and Leica cameras in order to sell them here and get some money. And I really had no intentions. I had this little accordion and I still have it and the custom official told me it would cost too much duty unless I could play it and he made me play it right there at the pier and I did. So, the very first thing I ever did in the United States was to play the accordion.

Q: Could you describe your first reactions to life in the United States and to the American people?

A: Well, my first reaction was that I was very much relieved that I was in a free country and that I was here, where in safety as well as my family, and so there was a great feeling of gratitude about it and my reaction to life in the United States was, you know, everything was just beautiful because I was here. But then, in order to maintain myself, I had to work in households and I did that because I had room and board and I learned a great deal about American life and how American families ate and behaved and entertained and so forth, much more. It was really an education in itself until I knew enough English to fall on my feet and then began to have jobs on my own.

Q: Now I'm under the impression that you were not able to complete the doctorate degree because of the destruction of your records at the University of Heidelberg. Why did you enroll in a Masters degree program at Hunter College in New York City?

A: You see, I had actually completed my doctorate. The only thing was missing was this important piece of paper. I was to come and receive my diploma, I have had everything finished. And so I really have the doctorate except I don't have the piece of paper. But since I had absolutely no papers, proving my education except what's in my head or what I could prove by my personal knowledge, was absolutely nothing in my hand, so I felt that the best thing was that I would take a graduate record examination, which I passed very highly, and take a Masters degree out and then go from there, possibly again for a doctorate here. I never got to that but I took the Masters degree at Hunter College and by golly, it saved my life, you know, I had a Masters degree. And--but there again I ran into a snag because I started to major in German and that was abandoned because after the war nobody in the world wanted to study German in this country. So, that had to change my major into Master of Arts. It's still a Master of Arts but in education with a concentration in German, which is what we had at ODU before we had a major. It's the same thing but I was very glad because with this Masters degree I could work and I could teach. And with no papers, you know what it is.

Q: Nothing. How did you come to be appointed assistant head of the Monitoring Section of the Overseas Radio Division for the Department of State during World War II?

A: Mainly because of my knowledge of languages. The minimum requirement for that was that you had to have the command of four languages outside of English and it was very difficult to find American citizens who could do that. As a matter of fact, I was still an enemy alien when I was there because I wasn't long enough in this country to have become a citizen and I had to wait until I had my citizenship before I could become assistant head.

Q: What were your duties in this government post?

A: I was in the editorial department. I wrote articles that were broadcast and I also interviewed--we had what was called a special events division, I interviewed important or prominent people who were going to send some messages that way. I was on the overseas radio as an announcer for a while and I was also then, later, became assistant head in the monitoring section which monitored all incoming and outgoing foreign language broadcasts.

Q: After World War II, why did you decide to go into teaching foreign languages?

A: Oh, I always had a great wish to teach, and I had been doing some teaching in England in my student days and I wanted very much to teach and foreign languages seem to be the right thing for me to do.

Q: Why did you then leave teaching in 1952 and accept a position as translator and interpreter with the First Na-First National City Bank of New York?

A: Number one, because the life in the public schools in New York City was very undesirable and also because the position was offered to me, it took care of my languages and it was a position that was secure and interesting and widened my experience in commercial fields and I thought this was an asset.

Q: What caused you to leave New York City in 1960 and accept a teaching position at the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary?

A: You know, flattery will get me nowhere but I never took roots in New York City. I just don't like it, I didn't like it when I got there, I lived there for twenty-two years and I left it not liking it. And I've really put down roots in Norfolk since I came here. I had been vacationing in Virginia Beach several summers and I liked the area and the people and the climate and everything about it and I wanted to leave New York City and so this was just a great opportunity to come here. And I've been here ever since.

Q: How did you hear about the opening at the Norfolk Division?

A: When I first came here, I worked for a short time as personnel director in one of the commercial firms in Norfolk and in that capacity I had contact with all the employment agencies because I hired from them and one day I said to one of them at lunch, "I really don't like commercial work and I would so much like to go into teaching," and I had begun to put applications down with the public schools in the area. And this lady knew Dr. Akers who was then the head of the Language Department and Humanities Division and she said, "Why don't you talk to him?" and I went to see him and found, not only a very open ear to my plea, but also a man who had four years ahead of me graduated from Heidelberg and had all the same professors and we had a grand time meeting here. He from Ohio and me from Germany. And so I started out part-time because I came in the second semester of '60 and then taught in the summer and by the fall then got my regular contract and professorship.

Q: What were your first reactions to Norfolk and to the Division students?

A: Well, you mean, as far as students were concerned or my--

Q: No, your reactions--I thought--I was under the impression that you had come to Norfolk for this teaching position but apparently that wasn't the case. But first, your reactions to--to living in Norfolk and-- and then to working at the Division and to the Division students.

A: I see what you mean. My first reaction to Norfolk was really not very much because I lived in Virginia Beach. I am very fond of the ocean and the wide open spaces and I didn't want to get from one city into another city and lived three and a half years in Virginia Beach before I moved to Norfolk after I decided that I was going to stay at the college. Then I bought a house in Larchmont but I lived in Virginia Beach for all that time but I love Virginia Beach and I came to Norfolk very little except for my work. But I found the students … well, I guess, more or less like all other students except not the turmoil that I had experienced in New York City schools. But in comparison to, maybe Hunter College, very similar.

Q: Did you regret at any time accepting a position in the Norfolk Division?

A: No, not really. Not really ever. I had my ups and downs but I think I never really regretted being here.

Q: How did you get started in painting and have there been any exhibitions or shows in which your work has been featured?

A: Oh, yes. There have been many exhibitions in New York. I had several art galleries that exhibited my work permanently and I have received the Grand National Finalist award in painting twice from the American Artist--from the American Artist Professional League in 1956 and '57 for paintings. I have exhibited with the Tidewater Artists in Norfolk, at the museum several times in very strongly juried shows, and in private galleries. I have started in painting really on a bet with my psychology professor when I was in--working for my Masters degree at night. It was three and a half years in night school because I worked in the daytime and she asked me what I was doing when I was finished with my degree and I said I'd be so glad to be out of it and finally have time for my family and for other things that I am interested in and she said, "You're too creative. How about painting?" and I said, "Oh, I don't think I can paint." And she made a bet with me that I should try painting to express myself and I started and she said, "You don't have to hang in the galleries. Just if you have fun with it, that's all I care." But after one year, I had my first one-man show on a Fifth Avenue gallery. So, I've been painting ever since.

Q: Did you find that in Norfolk you could find sufficient outlets for your creative abilities?

A: Well, I think creative abilities, Dr. Sweeney, lie within yourself and you can get outlets, if you want them, everywhere. I have found that a lot of people that today buy my paintings just buy them right off my walls and--because they are sent to me by somebody or by contacts or they simply see them. So, I don't do much of exhibiting right now anymore but this is--I think creative ability is something that will blossom out no matter where you are, even in the desert.

Q: Over your fifteen years on the faculty at Old Dominion, could you say that there were any generalities that could be applied to Old Dominion University students and how could you compare or contrast the students of today with those of 1960?

A: I stay away from generalities. In general I always have warned my students not to pay attention to statistics because you can interview two students and one says yes and the other says no and you say fifty percent of those interviewed said no, you know. So, I don't like to make generalities. I think everywhere, and this is also in comparison of the students we had in 1960 and the ones we have today, I think it's all a very, very personal relationship between the professor and the students which I have always treasured as something very valuable and that you always have a few that don't like you and a few that do like you and the rest is in between. And--but I--I fi--I find that maybe the students today are a little bit more free in their expression but I also say that perhaps in the general trends, we need more scholarship and less scholarships.

Q: Could you describe the state of the teaching of foreign language at the university when you joined the faculty in 1960?

A: That was a very funny thing because I was the fourth member of the language department. There was one man for French, one for German and one lady for Spanish. We didn't have Russian then. And I was the fourth member of the group because I wa--they needed somebody that could teach fifty percent German and fifty percent French because there was no full opening for either one and I just fitted that demand.

Q: Did the college's chronically tight budget situation hinder the teaching of foreign languages?

A: Oh, yes indeed, very very much all the way to this day.

Q: Did you lack equipment that you needed or lack books or how exactly did that happen?

A: Well, it was all the way. We fought for years to get a language lab and then it wasn't as well established as it should be. And many things that really just--the expansion of our programs, I know how long it took before we could establish our language majors and how hard we fought for that. To have enough personnel, and have ___ enough courses up for them to have them go through with few students in order to begin a program, you can't always have maximum enrollment when you start something like that. So there were many handicaps that we had to face.

Q: What languages did you teach and which was your favorite?

A: I taught, as I said, fifty percent, when I first came, German and fifty percent French. I like both very much. As a matter of fact, since German is my native language, I enjoyed keeping my French alive, which is almost equivalent to it.

Q: What community activities were you associated with in the Norfolk area?

A: Over the years up to today, you name it, I've been in it. Practically, I'm well-known in the area as a lecturer. I always think I've spoken in every civic club and every church but there's still others that, to this day, are requiring me and requesting my appearances. I've been on the ODU's Speakers Bureau and gone all over the place, which is on record there. I have worked with my artwork. I have been in musical groups interested in promoting them. And there is practically no community organization, I think, in which I haven't had a hand one way or the other: Norfolk Society of Arts, American Association of University Women. And anything connected, of course, with the college. I have always been involved in and I think there is hardly any facet of the community where I haven't been involved one way or the other.

Q: Could you tell me what prompted you to write your autobiographical novel "They Call It Courage"?

A: Because so often when people ask me, "Where do you come from?" or so I always have a story. And everything in my life is a story. And you can't answer something really very fast and so people used to say to me, "Oh, you ought to write a book," or "If you could just write like you talk." And I finally started.

Q: Was there a play or a movie--well, first of all, how was the book received by the critics and how was the book received by the public?

A: The book was very well received by the public and there were four thousand copies printed and when the contract with the publisher expired two years ago, there were about four hundred copies left that were sent to me, bound, and I have only about twenty-five books left now of the whole thing. And it was very, very well received in one of the local bookstores, right away sold over six hundred copies in Norfolk alone. And as far as the critics are concerned, I had several very good reviews on it and it's been a ve--really a very successful book. It's in all the Norfolk libraries. The original manuscript was requested by the Kirn Memorial Library for their archives when they had their centennial celebration.

Q: I see. Was there a play or a movie based on the book?

A: No, I was in--in contact with Paramount Pictures at one time and then the thing fell through. But they were interested in it at the time.

Q: Could you tell me about your interest in astrology?

A: Well, I am interested very much in the universe as a whole, you know, anything that makes anything tick interests me and I have shied away from astrology for a long time because I'm a very poor mathematician. I can just about keep my checkbook going. My taxes are taken care of by my accountant because I just can't cope with things like that and I don't enjoy mathematics and I was afraid of it. But I found out that it was worth the trouble and I didn't find it as difficult but it just seemed amazing how over the years that I studied it and studied charts, how--how very accurate some of the things are that come out in it. And I--I do it now, I use it for astrological counseling. I do charts for people because I can help them in some way or other for vocational guidance, for instance. Yesterday a student was here, a former student of mine who- -on whose chart I'm working now, who just flounders from one interest to the other and would like to know where her real abilities lie in choosing a major and which career she should go after. And this is often very helpful. It's helpful to parents of newborn children when you really know nothing about how to rear the child and what the temperament is and what the make up is and, you know, one child you must spank and another if you spank it is crushed and things like that. So, I have been giving astrological advice in that sense. I stay away from anything that looks like fortune telling or predicting. That is not my field at all.

Q: What experiences at ODU would you call the highlights of your teaching career?

A: I think the relationship with the students all through the years has been the thing that has made me most happy and many of the highlights come from relationships with students and their reactions. The many weddings I have attended. The fact that even to this day, they come and see me and bring their children or they get engaged, they bring their other half or I had received letters from boys in Vietnam right at the front writing me about it, and I think my--the highlight of any teacher's life would be to look back on the relationship with the students.

Q: When did you finally obtain a language lab?

A: I'm not quite sure what year. I know we moved to the Fine Arts Building in the fall of 1960 and I think it must have been '61 that we finally got it established there. But it was very unsatisfactory. It was the first we had and it was next to the art studio and the sculpturing went on there and the hammering went on and we couldn't hear. And it wasn't soundproof. It was the first attempt but it wasn't really very successful.

Q: Is that ___?

A: No, that's all right. The phone rings but I told them downstairs to take the messages, not to interrupt us.

Q: Has the teaching--how has the teaching of German improved over the years at Old Dominion?

A: I don't know if it has improved. It reached an improvement at one time and then it fell very much flat and if I can be honest, I think it's not as good now as it was eight or nine years ago.

Q: Was there an increase or a decline in interest in the study of foreign languages, especially German, among the students during your years at the college?

A: I think there has been an increase for a long time, particularly in German because I think more and more --more of them realize that in the sciences, in music and other fields, psychology, oceanography even, that when they get to graduate school, they really need it and I think there has always been an increase in German, ever since I've been there. But sometimes they felt frustrated because the courses they wanted couldn't- -couldn't be offered.

Q: Could you give me your opinion of the revised curriculum requirement which went into effect in the fall of 1973, especially the dropping of the requirement that students take fourteen credits in foreign languages to obtain a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree?

A: Well, personally of course, I may be prejudiced for languages but very objectively, I think that was about the worst mistake that the Curriculum Committee has ever made in their whole life because if you go outside of Norfolk, the important graduate schools still require it and in--in graduate work or in Ph.D. requirements, it's still there and the student that does not have the languages in their undergraduate work will face great difficulties in applying to graduate schools and has to make up for it then. I also feel in a community like Norfolk, we're talking so much about urban studies in this area, where there is such a tangent population and such a large Navy contingent and Norfolk perhaps having a real international character in many ways, it is a terrific mistake to drop languages. I hear all the time from students in part-time jobs how they have gotten promotions because they knew languages and how much it has helped them. And outside of the very practical angle which is really a strong point, I think it's a cultural angle, it's learning how other people live and the background of other nations. And in this world in which we live, I just think it's adamant that the student should have to be exposed to languages as a requirement for a degree.

Q: Why did you choose to remain at Old Dominion University until your retirement?

A: Well, first of all, because I like the community and I like to live here. I like my work there and I felt I had started out on something at that point and I had fifteen years to go, so I would just as well be staying in the state of Virginia and staying where I was.

Q: Do you wish to recall any outstanding colleagues with whom you have been associated at the college?

A: Well, there's certainly been one outstanding colleague that I have, now also retired, and that was Dr. Akers. He was the head of the Language Department and also at the time, the chairman of the Humanities Division when I came and I--I just don't know what I would have done without him and his continuous encouragement.

Q: Do you wish to recall any unusual experiences at ODU that I may have overlooked?

A: Not really. I don't think we have had anything that was unusual. I think we have pretty well covered what we were out to cover.

Q: What have been your chief satisfactions and disappointments at the university?

A: My chief satisfaction has been my relationship with my students, I mentioned this earlier, I think this is the chief satisfaction. My greatest disappointment at the school has been that when I first came to ODU, I was promised and unfortunately I didn't have it in writing but I trusted the word, it was given to me, that all I lacked for being hired immediately as an Associate Professor was that I lacked two years of college teaching. And I was promised and Dr. Akers was right there with me and he knows that too, that if I had the two years of college teaching, I would then become an Associate Professor. And when the two years of college teaching were over, they required academic credentials of my doctorate and no matter how many times I explained the situation, it didn't do any good and to this day, I never become an Associate Professor. Then I was promised I would get the salary of the associate professor, even if I didn't get the degree, I didn't do that either. I was way behind in salary adjustment, behind people--even Assistant Professors who had come at the same time, my salary was never properly adjusted. I suffer from it today because it affects my retirement and I have really been very unhappy about the fact that when I retired I was not made a Professor Emeritus or an Associate Professor Emeritus and this is something that is really a great disappointment to me today.

Q: Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Stanley, for this very interesting interview.

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