Sweeney: Today, I am pleased to be interviewing former president Lewis W. Webb, Jr., of Old Dominion University.

The first question, President Webb, that I would like to ask is about your background. Could you give me some information on your early interests and your college preparation?

Webb: Well, I'm a native of Norfolk, Virginia, and my first interest was in engineering, as my father was an electrical engineer, and I guess I absorbed a great deal of his interest in things. And so, I elected to go to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. This was back in the days just prior to the depression. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1931.

In 1931, there were no job openings for electrical engineers--or any engineer. And so, I decided to go back to graduate school. After getting my master's degree, I still didn't have any job and was ready to leave the VPI campus when the dean of engineering called me and asked me if I wanted a job. I said, very positively, I'd take it. He said, "But you don't know what it is," and I said, "That doesn't make any difference; I'll take the job." He said to report tomorrow morning to Norfolk. I said, "But that's my home," and he said, "Well, that's all right. We want you to work with Mr. Harrington, who is there now at the Extension of William and Mary." I said, "Doing what?" He said, "Teaching." I said, "teaching what?" He said, "physics." I said, "Well, that's fine because I've been working for two years as an assistant in the physics department, so I've got a pretty good background in physics. I would enjoy doing that, I think."

So I reported to what was then the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, and they started this institution in 1930. And in 1931 VPI was invited to join with the William

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and Mary Division in offering certain courses in engineering. So, they wanted me and Mr. Eddie White, who has also just retired from the school of engineering, to come down to form the engineering faculty with Mr. Harrington. So this was 1932, and the three of us represented the VPI Division under the William and Mary Division...

My interest in teaching was not very strong at that time because I had never considered going into teaching and in fact, I had deliberately said no. My father had wanted me to be a teacher, but I wanted to be an engineer, and I said no. "The last thing I'll do is to teach." And I guess that will last thing I'll do. Teach.

So, we came and started the summer program in June of 1932. It was a dismal year for most people, as jobs were practically unattainable, and this little Division, which was being formed in Norfolk, survived simply because people didn't have enough money to send their children to VPI or send them to William and Mary. This was the reason for the formation of this Division. It was twofold. The one I'm talking about now is that the total tuition for a student coming here was $90 a year. So, if the parents could afford to keep him fed, they could send their child to college, whereas they couldn't afford to send him to William and Mary or VPI and pay their room and board along with the tuition. The second reason for the starting of this Division, and probably the most fundamental one, was that a college was being formed at Virginia Beach. And at this time, if you will examine the enrollment at William and Mary, you'll find that William and Mary was a very small institution, and losing enrollment due to the depression. And, with the college being formed at Virginia Beach, which would be a very attractive location for a college, they were afraid that it would siphon off from William and Mary enough students to cause William and Mary to fail. And so, really, this Division was put here to prevent a collapse of William and Mary. And it caused the collapse of Atlantic University, which was the name of the one being formed at Virginia Beach. The starting of this Division took away enough students from Atlantic University so that it could not survive.

Sweeney: I wondered if you could give me any information on the first director, Mr. Timmerman, and his successor, Mr. Gwathmy, who served very briefly in 1932?

Webb: I'm not too familiar with Mr. Timmerman's background. He was quite a character. He was rather a heavy-set fellow, not too tall. He seemed to have a love for the girls and showed quite

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a bit of attention to the little lady that we had on campus. He only stayed a short time with me here because he soon left and Mr. Gwathmy came in.

Ed Gwathmy was a much larger man in terms of his educational philosophies and background. He didn't stay long either because he received an offer to be a dean--a president of a college in North Carolina and soon left. But he had a great deal more academic background than Timmerman. Timmerman is now a lawyer in the state of New York, and did come back to the. . .one of the reunions we had a few years back. He came down to see what had happened to his Division since he had left. So, I think you'd have to dig elsewhere to find out something about Mr. Timmerman. And Mr. Gwathmy's tenure was very, very short, as you know.

Sweeney: How about three areas of academic interest? The courses that you first taught, the students in the classes, and the physical facilities that you used on the very limited campus at that time?

Webb: Of course, the first year we recorded, there was only one building, which was the abandoned elementary school building, called the Larchmont Elementary School. It was built back in 1912, and the wing was added on a little later, I think about l918--l916 or 1918, along in there. But the main building was built in 1912. And it was abandoned because the area had grown and needed a larger elementary school. And the school was in pretty bad shape, so they gave it to William and Mary to develop this Division. And they brought in chairs and blackboards, a few other things to get it started. But everything was in the one building. Which was the front of the building had six classrooms and a few offices, which the offices at that time were the former cloak rooms. The elementary school had a cloak room in the back of each room, and we divided those into two pieces and had the faculty offices in the cloak rooms. So it wasn't quite plush. And, in the back of the building, we had the main laboratories. We had two chemistry labs, a biology lab, and a physics lab, and then several other classrooms. Even in the beginning the physical education had a place in the building for the students to dress (of course, nowhere for phys. ed. [physical education; they did that outdoors)-- they had dressing rooms and showers for the physical education department all in the same building.

So it was quite cozy, and everyone knew each other. In the beginning, when I first came, there was ten faculty members, about two hundred students. Some of the faculty members were commuting from William and Mary, and so they were part time; I think we had six full-time and four part-time faculty members. We were assigned to teach most anything that came up. I remember my first assignment when I came; Mr. Harrington gave me a

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schedule, and he said, "here's your schedule," and I looked at it, and it said physics, two lectures, three physics labs. That was fine. It said engineering statics; that's fine. Engineering dynamics; that's fine. And then it said calculus. I said, "Calculus? I remember I took that when I was a sophomore, and that's a long time ago." He said, "Well, tomorrow morning you start teaching calculus. So, you'd better prepare yourself." But that's one way you can learn a subject is to teach it. And I hesitate to think what happened to my students that year, but I learned calculus and enjoyed it very much.

Those students were very good students, and I see them from time to time now. They are top engineers in the city, in the state, and in the country. This, although it was a poor man's school; there were many, many poor people at that time. And these boys and girls had a lot on the ball. It was a small group, naturally, because even those that could afford the $90, it was still a very selective process. After two years, they'd go either to VPI or to the university--to William and Mary. But those were excellent students, and I can show you the names of... because I kept the rolls, from the first roll to the last one I had last spring of the students, and you recognize doctors on there, because you see, teaching physics, they had to have--the pre-meds all had to have physics. I've got doctors, dentists, engineers, and businessmen, all that are still serving the community that were in that first class.

Sweeney: The cooperative arrangement began before you came, but I wondered how it came about that Virginia Polytechnic Institute and William and Mary would work together in the Norfolk Division and if there were any frictions in that relationship?

Webb: They worked very well together. VPI had only an interest in getting good engineering students to them. William and Mary had no engineering program, so they weren't particularly interested in the engineering students, and VPI paid our salaries for these three men, although we taught many--I taught physics--I taught for the William and Mary group as well as the engineering group. Mr. White taught drawing and graphics and some mathematics, and he also taught...but there seemed to be no quibbling. Our salaries they paid us weren't enough, I guess, to worry about who was paying them. They got along very well for several years until finally, the place started growing. They realized that they needed to have one person responsible for finances. One institution rather than the two. We, in the beginning, got our checks directly from VPI and were accountable to VPI for producing courses and students with the proper background to fit into the VPI program. But, at the same time, we were under the direction of the Dean of the Norfolk Division, and we accounted to both.

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Sweeney: I was wondering how, in the early days, the Norfolk community received the Division, whether the relationship of town and gown was a close one.

Webb: No. Not at all. In fact, it took a long time for the community to accept this as anything other than a temporary educational program. Because, in the beginning, the students would go to William and Mary, VPI, the University of Virginia, some other institution to finish. And, when they got their degree, they felt a loyalty to that institution rather than to the Division.

The change probably came--community change came in the fifties and sixties, when we finally were able to break loose from William and Mary and establish a separate identity. We're not a Division. We're not a step-child of William and Mary or VPI. We are an independent institution. That took a long time, and the people in the community--if they had a lot of money--wouldn't send their children here because they felt well, this is just a little step-child and we can afford William and Mary or we can afford VPI. The fact that our educational standards were, in every case, higher than those of William and Mary and VPI never sifted down to that level. Because they looked at the physical plant and said, "You don't have it." We checked every student that left here and went to William and Mary or VPI, and, almost without exception, the grades improved when they got to those institutions. Which meant that we were giving them good background and grading harder than they were at those institutions.

We had a great number of Tau Beta Pi's at VPI, and Phi Beta Kappas at William and Mary.

Sweeney: Dr. William T. Hodges, who became the Dean in 1932 and served for many years in that capacity, was a very controversial educator. I was wondering if you could recall your relationship with him and the impressions that he made on the community and students.

Webb: Dean Hodges, I don't know where you are getting this tag "controversial figure." He was only controversial for a very short length of time. He was quite well-loved by all the students and the faculty here, with very few exceptions, and the community. If you look back, you'll find that Dean Hodges took part in the community. He was a member of the Rotary Club, he worked for the civic groups, and he worked for the students. He knew all the students by name. He was an old-time Dean that took an interest in what's going on. I don't think he was real strong academically at all. But he knew enough to handle people,

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and he seemed to love students, which, of course, was his downfall. We were training a large number of students for other institutions, and they would come here a year, two years and go on to other institutions. In particular, we had a large number of students that would take a year of preparation for Webb Institute, for the Naval Academy, for some special course in another institution--to get their background built up. And this is the thing that led to his undoing. He found that certain students were trying to get into the Naval Academy, and it happened to be related to me, I didn't realize it at the time, but I had given a student a C in physics, and he knew that student would never be accepted at the Naval Academy with just a C in physics, or ant of the mathematics and quantitative sciences. So he altered the grade from a C to a B, in order to get that boy into the Naval Academy. The boy was quite a competent boy, but he wasn't working, and I don't give grades just because they have the ability. I give them when they earn them. So, all I put down was a C. The person who was working as registrar... really was a clerk, registrar, and bursar all in one because onegirl--one woman took in the money, recorded the grades, sent their transcripts, and did everything else. It was a one-woman operation. She reported this switch of grades to one of the faculty members in the English Department, and he never thought much of Dean Hodges in the first place, and used it as an opportunity to get rid of him. He immediately reported it to William and Mary and to the President there. It was quite a to-do. They came down, checked the records to find out that he had altered grades for students. And I was involved, unknowingly, at that time. But the community was quite behind Dean Hodges. They felt he had real human interest in students and was an honest man, despite his changing of the grades. They stood behind him right down the line and they finally--the Board of Visitors compromised the situation rather than to... well, I'm not going to go into that part because it's all written history and you can get it as to the action of the Board. But I remember very distinctly at the time that VPI became quite concerned because the William and Mary Board was in the mood to close this Division. When all this controversy comes up, it's reported to the Southern Association of Colleges, which is the accrediting body. They'll discredit William and Mary. "So we'll get rid of the Norfolk Division." That was the feeling of the Board. "What does it do for us? Nothing--so let's chop it right off. And get rid of it." And they were just about to do it. Dean Williams from VPI, Dean of Arts and Letters at VPI, came down to the--on the William and Mary campus to learn if William and Mary was going to give it up, because VPI did not want to give it up. Not their part. And they were going to pick it up right away if the Board at William and Mary had said, "We are discontinuing the Division at Norfolk." And VPI would have said, "We are going to operate it." And then the

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Board found that Dean Williams was on campus and ready to pick it up. They were afraid that if he did, he would have to change it into more than just an engineering division and, again, that would put William and Mary in the light of having a competing institution right in its backyard. So, they decided to keep it--the Division. It was quite a lot of fun in those days.

Sweeney: What I meant by controversial--I wondered that before this time, he was... well, I know he was well liked by the students and by the community, but was he respected by the faculty prior to the--this development?

Webb: I think he was, with the exception of one or two, and those are the one or two that jumped in and caused his downfall. But most of the faculty felt very highly of the Dean. He only taught one or two courses, I think a course in philosophy, maybe a course in psychology. During those days, you were just as I told you, assigned. You were a college graduate, you'd had courses in history, so okay, you teach a course in history. Undoubtedly, we were not prepared as you look at the preparation today. We wouldn't allow a person to come in unless he had a Ph.D. to teach. But we also didn't mind working, and, if a man's got a little sense, he can get in and make a good job of teaching a course, even though he's never taught it. But today we wouldn't hire such a person.

But I think Dean Hodges was liked by, I'd say, 90% of the faculty, and thought of very highly, because he was a very fair man, he did his best to develop the Division, he tried to get money for it, which he was not successful in getting. But he certainly picked faculty as carefully as he was able to with the funds that he had, and we had some good men. I think back to those beginning days in biology--we had two Ph.D.'s in biology, both top-flight men. Dr. Ruffin Jones, who was recently retired from the University of Florida, and Dr. Fred Ferguson, who was... started me on research. Dr. Fred had a tendency that he didn't like people sitting around, and he'd always get into research. He'd pull in just as many people as he could into his research. And I served--worked with him in the physics end of his biological research, which was my first really research activity.

And we had good men in mathematics, good men in English, Dr. Ernest Gray in English. We had, in languages, Dr. Akers, of course. Dr. Akers was here in 1930... or maybe 1931. He was here before I came. And so, we had some good faculty members. Of course, in those days, you could get good faculty members for very little money.

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When I look back at the pay scales for those days, we were hiring Ph.D.'s for $1500.

I don't think we could quite go back to that. Are you ready?

Sweeney: I was wondering, as the 1930's progressed, when the school had another building and had developed a little, did you find a sense of loyalty developing among the students and the faculty to the Norfolk Division?

Webb: Yes. When we--you see, the building that we got after the old Larchmont School building was one that came during the WPA, Work Progress Administration, and the PWA, Public Works Administration, eras, 1935-1936. That's when the stadium came as well. The Old Administration Building and the stadium. This enabled us to have room for the Library, which we didn't have before, rooms for the administration, and a gym. And, of course, Foreman Field. And at that time Foreman Field was quite a thing in itself -- why this little fledgling college should have a stadium which would seat 25,000 people, at that time the largest stadium in the state. It was pretty hard to understand, except that if you look into it carefully, you'll find that the reason that this college got it was the way the law was written. The city itself wanted the stadium, but they didn't qualify. But an educational institution could, and they used our qualifications to get the stadium. The city actually bought about five acres of land to enable us to build that stadium. The money came entirely from federal funds and student fees. We had a student fee of $5.00 a semester for buildings. And we borrowed $150,000, I believe, to put up as our share of the stadium and the administration building. This was paid back through the student-earmarked fees.

But that enabled us really t0--all right, now we got a little more identity. The community sees something more than an abandoned elementary school building. And we even had a football team. But this was 1935-36--you see, we're getting near the war years.

The War came on -- the boys were pulled out, and the football team was sacrificed. And, thank goodness, it's never been revived. That's a bad thing to say for history, but there's nothing better that's happened to this institution than the lack of that football team. I'll go into it someday when you've got time to tell you why it was a good thing for this institution not to have football.

Sweeney: Well, could you just briefly say why?

Webb: Well, when we stopped the football, we had a debt of about $10,000, which doesn't sound to be much nowadays, but in those days that was a pretty good sized debt. What happened was that,

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being a small institution like this, and a Division, the boys that couldn't get football scholarships at other institutions would come here because they wanted to play football. And so, we got a pretty crummy lot of people that wanted to play football. Trouble developed with cutting classes--which we were strict on people going to class, you know. They were generally the football crowd. Or, cheating occurred. Someone would steal the examination from the professor. It was the football crowd. And it wasn't bringing us any great glory because who would play us, a little Podunk college, somebody like that? And who's going to come here to see Podunk college play in the Norfolk Division? We didn't draw enough at the gate to pay the referees. And they were too expensive. Today, for example, you give a football player a full scholarship--room, board, tuition, and $25 a week. Now at this institution, that would amount to around $2,500 a year for one player. If we were to put on a football team, the least number of players we would have on our team would be 75--probably a hundred. Well, now, we're talking about money. Big money. $250,000 just to hire the players. And I use the words "hire the players" very carefully because that's what's being done... So, in addition to buying your players, you've got to pay a head coach, and a line coach, a backfield coach, a couple of trainers, you've got equipment, you've got travel, all this, and you're into sums of money which would exceed even the operation of the college at that time. You just couldn't afford it. And also, as you know, the William and Mary scandals in football, the VPI troubles, the University of Virginia's troubles with football. They were not something we could afford. We simply cannot afford a football team. I think we can get along without it. MIT seems to get along very well without it, and they have pretty good academic standards. The other institutions are the same way. I'm for sports, but I'm for sports that the students can participate in. Not for spectator sports. What do you do when you hire in 75 boys to play, to exhibit themselves for the rest of the student body? Is that something the student body is taking part in? Nothing except shouting, and going to the games, and drinking beer. I just don't see putting in five or six hundred thousand dollars for a spectator sport. Track, wrestling, tennis, swimming, all those things.. .that's fine, 'cause your own students take part in that. But you're going out and bringing in students that have no interest in this college except to play football. And I dont'--I hope we never get it. What I really hope is that these other institutions come to their senses and stop doing what they're doing, which is putting on professional teams. There's nothing unprofessional about a hired player. That's all they are.

Sweeney: Do you find in the early years that the faculty was a particularly close-knit group? You've mentioned some personalities from that

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era, and you might want to mention certain others, but it would seem that a small faculty like that, there might have been quite a bit of both academic and social contact.

Webb: There definitely was. One of the other very strong members of the faculty was Dr. Jackson--Dr. P. Y. Jackson of chemistry. Head of chemistry. A top-flight teacher, tough as nails. And, he also was one of the leaders in our little parties we had--bridge parties. See, you had very little money, so you didn't go out and spend five or ten dollars on an evening. Fifty cents was about our limit at that time, so we'd invite each other to parties; we'd play bridge. The host would have very limited refreshments, cold drinks and crackers, peanuts and things like that. But we had a good time because at least once a week the faculty would get together at one of the faculty homes and play cards. Or we would have picnic cookouts on the lawn and quite a number of things. The faculty would get together and put on...well, for example, the science group would put on something for the community--free lectures in which we'd invite the community to come in to hear talks on origin of the solar system or something in the field of biology, something in the field of geology, something in the field of chemistry. And they went over very well. Which all the faculty would cooperate and take turns giving these special lectures to the community.

But it was a very close-knit faculty. Everybody knew everyone else and knew their peculiarities and they knew their strong points.

Sweeney: I was wondering about night classes in the area in the 1930's. Whether you offered classes as we are today to people from the community and from the Navy Base who cannot go to school during the daytime?

Webb: Oh, yes. That was one of the real contributions of this institution to the community. Right from the beginning, we would have night classes, and it was also a source of income to supplement the salaries of the faculty. Pay for the evening college work was very, very small, but at the same time it was necessary for the faculty to make ends meet. And we had good-sized evening classes and good-sized summer classes. The summer programs were much larger than those at William and Mary and at VPI because students would be away from school, oh, away from home for a year, would come back and want to take something in the summer at home. And so we had VPI students, University of Virginia students, Richmond students, all coming to our summer sessions. The summer sessions were arranged in this way: we got nothing in the budget for them, so whatever the students pay in, the faculty

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gets. And we charge ten dollars for a course, and if you've got ten students or more, then you're permitted to teach the course. So you made a hundred dollars for that summer. You say, "That's.. .well, I wouldn't teach for a hundred dollars for a summer?" You would, if that's all the money you had. And many times we taught for a hundred dollars. In fact, some of the faculty would, if they got up to nine students, would register an unknown and pay the ten dollars in order they got the ninety dollars for teaching the course. Things were pretty tight back in those days.

The evening college flourished until the War started, and then it was obvious that we were losing students both in the daytime and in the evening. And in order to keep the faculty busy, we started a war-training program. It was called an engineering defense training program to start with. In fact, the first courses that were taught on a vocational level were taught in the physics department. They were a series of two courses called aircraft instruments, in which students that were working at the Naval Operating Base--the Naval Air Station--would come in and learn how the various aircraft instruments functioned. They would learn to repair them, to make repairs on them. And this was the first vocational course. It was also theory taught; not just the vocational aspects of repairing but the theory behind it was included. And, as the War got closer, the federal education department--department of education--set up EDT, which was engineering defense training. These were courses conducted by schools of engineering. We qualified because we were part of VPI. So we started these EDT programs. And such things as aircraft mechanics, aircraft welding, topographic mapping, various things that were all related to engineering.

Now, this gave faculty that were qualified to teach those courses a chance to continue working. A little later they would change it to ESMDT, which was engineering science management training program; and when management came in we could offer things in accounting for workers that were working at the base and in the yard and places, to take defense jobs in management. And that enabled us to hold onto some more of our faculty--to give them some load. And from that, it developed into the engineering science management war training after the War started. This area, this program that we had, was the largest area on the east coast--the greatest number of students along the east coast--taking these programs. We had several thousand when it was in the peak. But the main purpose was to keep your faculty busy and also to serve the defense and war needs of the community.

Sweeney: You mentioned then, one way in which faculty members supplemented their salaries during the early days. Were there any other methods that faculty members used to have a more comfortable living?

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Webb: Well, of course, one of the ways, and one I think that most everyone used when they could get the job, was coaching students. Students needed to be coached in mathematics, needed to be coached in English, for special exams, if they wanted to go to the Naval Academy, if they wanted to go to West Point, they had to take an exam to get into certain institutions. And this coaching was at the rate of about $2.50 an hour. It was the going rate at that time for coaching. But that was about the only outlet they had. There wasn't much of a demand for a teacher of history such as yourself at that time. Mathematics had a little more chance because the boys had to qualify in the exams on mathematics.

Sweeney: I was wondering if the administration of VPI in Blacksburg controlled the content of the courses, the syllabus, and the books assigned, for example, in the courses that you taught?

Webb: Not at all. They showed very little or no interest in that part of it. They were interested in the quality of the student when they received it. And, if we had dropped down, I'm sure that they would have taken vigorous interest. But, as far as saying, "You use Black and Dekker, or whatever it is, for your text, and you cover so much...," no one ever did it. There was practically no relationship between the William and Mary faculty and the Norfolk Division faculty. The William and Mary faculty would not come down and advise on what should be done, and our faculty was quite competent to do their own. Now, we kept pretty close tabs to VPI because twice a year, whoever was in charge of the VPI part of it would go to Blacksburg, talk with the Deans, talk with the faculty, and visit classes up there to see what was being covered, to be sure that we were covering as much as they did. But the selection of the text, they never conformed because very rarely would a student get half of a course here and the other half there. In other words, we never recommended that he do anything but a complete year's unit. So the text, syllabus, and everything was done by the local faculty. They were really autonomos.

Sweeney: I was wondering how the salaries that were paid by William and Mary to the Norfolk Division of William and Mary faculty compared to those paid by VPI to the people in engineering and physics?

Webb: That was one sore spot. The William and Mary salaries were lower than those at VPI, and those of us who were under the VPI system had our salaries limited by William and Mary. In other words, we had to conform to the William and Mary scale. That was all right because, if we hadn't, there'd have been quite a bit of friction developed if a man teaching one course

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got more in comparison than the one teaching the William and Mary course. It wouldn't have worked too well, so there was no resentment, I don't think, on the part of the engineering group. We just conformed to the William and Mary salary scale.

Sweeney: You've already answered, in part, the next question in respect to the war effort. I was wondering if you played any specific role in the organization of the defense courses and if you, at any time, feared that the college would have to close for the duration of the war?

Webb: Very definitely we would have... it would have been necessary to close unless we got more students--and the war program was put in for that purpose, as I told you. We started with the aircraft instruments, and that developed into many, many things. Electroplating, all types of diesel engineering, in fact, we had courses in actually teaching students to fly, and I taught a course in meteorology to help them with the weather part of their program, and all of this was done to keep this institution intact.. .going, until the students came back. My part in the program was the beginning of the program with the aircraft entrance course, which started in 1938 and finally developed into the war training program. Since I was not head of the institution, at that time Mr. Harrington was. He was head at the beginning of the war training program. But in 1940 he went into the Navy, and the war training program was given to me to direct from that point on. And... that led, I guess, ultimately to my getting into administration and why William and Mary let me pick up their part of the administration is a question that will probably bear some research.

You see, when Dean Hodges left, resigned under pressure, they put Mr. Charles Duke here. Mr. Duke was not an educator in any sense of the word. He was an administrator totally. He probably had an undergraduate degree. But he had no experience in education, and he was the bursar of William and Mary--the business manager. But they put him here in charge of the Division. He depended, of course, on the faculty for the academic leadership and the development of the academic programs. He didn't like the job too much, and, after the first year, his visits here were very slim. He'd come once every week. And, at that time, about 1944, I guess it was, the date's not too sharp right now. And that was about 1944. He decided to appoint me as the assistant director--the head of the institution was called a director. He appointed me as assistant director, which I served for a couple of years. Actually, I had the full job then because he

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would only come in on occasions and foul things up a little bit, and then go on back to Williamsburg or wherever he happened to be going. And then, in 1946, I had had enough of being the assistant director, and he had had enough of his momentary visitations, so he decided to appoint me as the director, which caused quite a bit of consternation because I was an engineer scientist and part of the VPI system, and there were several people in the William and Mary branch, so to speak, that felt that they should have been appointed as head of the institution. But I survived somehow.

Sweeney: Being somewhat familiar with the atmosphere on college campuses around the time of the Vietnam War, I would be interested in knowing what the atmosphere was on the campus in Norfolk as it became evident that World War II was inexorably approaching? What students' feelings were on this?

Webb: The feelings were quite different, I think, from the second war, Vietnam, Korea, and so on. At that time the students took more of a feeling of "We must fight for the country!" You know, and "This is for good ol' U.S.A., and we'll serve." It wasn't a question of "Let's have a draft deferment board set up here so we can figure out how to avoid this thing." They were figuring what is the best service to get into. "Can I qualify as an aviator? Can I qualify as a Navy man?" And these boys ______ _____ _____ these boys were not real reluctant about going into the service. In fact, many volunteered before they were called. In order to get into a particular service that they would like.

I'm going to have to cut off this interview now.

FIRST INTERVIEW SESSION ENDS HERE

Additional Webb interviews ...