[Transcript continued from November 4, 1974]

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Sweeney: Today I’m continuing the interview with former President Lewis W. Webb, Jr., of Old Dominion University.

The next question, President Webb, has to do with the financial affairs of the college. During the early period, was William and Mary able to aid the Division at all financially?

Webb: No. The Division was completely self supporting until probably-—I’m not real sure of the date——but I would say 1945. The budget William and Mary had was inadequate for William and Mary itself. And, they had no desire to let any part of it come to the Norfolk Division. Even the two buildings which we——the one building which is the Old Administration Building and the gym, and the stadium—-none of those funds came from William and Mary. They came from WPA[Works Progress Administration]...PWA[Public Works Administration] and a student fee which was earmarked for construction of buildings, and the operation of the plant was self supporting in that all the fees from the students were the budget. Nothing came from the state. A very small appropriation came, I think, about 1944 or 1945, which was five thousand dollars——the first support the state gave to the operating budget of the Division. We did get an appropriation of $175,000, back in 1939, for the construction of what is now called the old science building. But Mr. Duke, who was in charge, felt that with a war coming on, we couldn’t get materials to build it, and we were forced to postpone the building. After the war I asked again to have that money allocated for the building and he said no. "We’re in the period of inflation. Things are very high——they’ll go down." And, of course, they never did. That building was finally built in about 1955, at the cost of $500,000 rather than $175,000, which would have taken care of the building in the beginning.

Sweeney: I’ve already asked you, and you’ve talked about the question of Dean Hodges’ resignation, so unless you have anything else you wanted to say on that, I guess we could...

Webb: Let’s just let that go.

Sweeney: I wanted to ask you... we’ve already made some comments about Charles Duke’s administration of the college. I wanted to know if this appointment signified the imposition of a tighter rein upon the Norfolk Division by William and Mary?

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Webb: If tighter rein, you mean someone at William and Mary was looking at the Norfolk Division, the answer would be yes because Mr. Duke was certainly given the responsibility to look after it carefully. The academic part of the institution was not under any more scrutiny than ever. Of course, the whole question was an academic one, but they never sent anyone down to really examine the academic role of the institution. The faculty here were still permitted to select their text and outline their courses and proceed as usual.

Sweeney: In 1941, you were appointed the director of the summer school. I was wondering about the enrollment——what kinds of courses were offered and whether the summer school was self sustaining financially? And at this time also you were chosen assistant dean of the college. I was wondering how that came about.

Webb: The summer school was run, for many, many years, strictly by the VPI faculty. Because the courses that were taught there were mathematics, physics, chemistry, and engineering, for students at VPI and other engineering schools, although we did bring in English courses and history courses as the demand was obvious. So, I just automatically assumed the role as head of summer session when Mr. Harrington elected to go into the Navy.

The assistant director of the college was a little different because that was an appointment made by Mr. Duke to help him when he wasn’t on campus. Of course, he was not full time on this campus. He only came three days a week, and each month that seemed to be a few times less, until finally he realized that he should have someone full time here to do the job. That’s when they appointed me——but that was in 1946. In the meantime, he was a part—time resident of this area——lived at Virginia Beach and commuted back and forth to Williamsburg.

Sweeney: You have spoken about the education which took place here during World War II and how this related to the defense program. I was wondering what the initials ESMWT stood for as designating one program, and I wondered what role did the training of women to perform jobs usually handled by men play in these wartime programs?

Webb: The first program was called EDT, Engineering Defense Training, and then it went into ESMDT, Engineering Science Management Defense Training, and finally, of course, the war came and they changed the "D" to a "W" and made it ESMWT; I’ve forgotten, it’s been so long, but the initials were strictly for Engineering Science Management War Training Program. The attempt to get more of the women to take part in the activities of the Naval Operating Base and the Naval Air Station and the Norfolk Naval

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Shipyard and other defense industries was made very strongly, and we did have a number of women that took courses, even such courses as welding——aircraft welding, aircraft instruments, many in drafting and photographic mapping... oh, management courses, of course, many of those went into the safety engineering, and courses of that type.

I have a booklet, by the way, I’ll find to give you, showing a list of those courses, if you don’t have it in the file.

Sweeney: Could you give me the impression that you have--had at the time of the students who returned to the campus after the World War? And what special preparations did you make for their arrival?

Webb: We made several preparations, of course, in the academic line. We had refresher courses which were for the purpose of getting the returning veteran back into the study habits. These refresher courses were in English--refresher in English, refresher in mathematics, and I think even some of the others which were non—credit but were for the purpose of getting the veteran back to campus life. In addition to the academic side, we tried to prepare for the coming of the veterans by purchasing a number of buildings. We bought ten buildings which were 20 feet by 100 feet, and they were very temporary type buildings. But at that time you couldn’t get materials to do anything else. And so, we moved these from one of the local camps——army camps——to the campus. And they were called the shacks. The shacks were divided into two parts. And so, we had a classroom which was roughly 50 by 20 or maybe 25 feet wide. Each one heated by a coal stove or a pot—bellied stove which sat in one corner, and the faculty, in order to keep warm, would stir it up occasionally and see that it was fired. But these courses--these classrooms were used for all of our courses. English, history, we had one building devoted to art, one building devoted entirely to auto mechanics, which was a continuation of the war training program, and one devoted to aircraft, overhaul of aircraft engines, and so on.

And these ten, now, have all disappeared. Several were demolished after a fire that burned two, and others were just in the way of future construction. Also, after those shacks, we got into a little more elaborate buildings which were two larger buildings, "H"—shaped buildings. They were temporary, but they were two story buildings. And they were originally dispensaries over at St. Helena, and we secured funds to bring those to the campus, and they served for many years, one known as the technology building and the other was known as the social studies building. These played a big role because they gave us something in the neighborhood of 30 new classrooms and laboratories, which we badly needed for a large enrollment which poured in on us.

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Sweeney: Did you feel that the students were better students than the ones you had in pre—war years?

Webb: Yes. In a way they were more serious minded than the pre—war students. We’ve had good students all along. But these students that came back definitely had a more serious objective and it reflected all the way back to a high school group as well, ‘cause they were both put in the same classrooms, and the high school students were suddenly faced with a quicker maturity and producing to stay in pace with the veterans. The veterans definitely had a very good influence on our academic side of the institution.

Sweeney: How were you approached about becoming the director in 1946, and what were your feelings about taking on this new responsibility?

Webb: They came rather slowly, I guess, because with Mr. Duke taking off more and more time, I was assuming more and more of the responsibilities, and at the time he finally asked me to take over, I was doing everything except the financial part of it. In other words, he still did the budget, wrote the checks and things of that nature. But I was doing the entire academic program. So, I enjoyed it because I was in a building situation, which the college was growing, and we had, I felt, a great deal of potential here. And so, I welcomed the opportunity to go into administrative work. The only restrictions I put on it was that I wanted a free hand to try to develop it in the eyes of the community. And that’s when I told them I would do it if they allowed me to appoint an advisory group of the Norfolk citizens, not Norfolk, because we had some Portsmouth, too. But area citizens that could work with us to point out community needs.

In the beginning, I felt that this should be a community college--college devoted to the urban situation. We’ve always been. The new emphasis put on the urban approach, is a rather strange one because we’ve had it ever since 1946, that we served the urban area. Courses were tailored specifically to the needs of the area. We determined these needs by consulting with the people in the community and this advisory board. The advisory board was 15 outstanding people. They had such people as Mr. Crawford Rogers, who was head of the Norfolk Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., a very strong person in the community, respected by everyone, and Mr. Nick Wright. Mr. Nick Wright was an automobile dealer, A Chrysler—Plymouth automobile dealer, and he was a very aggressive type... and he would go to the legislature with me to help work out problems to get recognition for this institution.

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Of course, we had Mr. E. T. Gresham, who still is very active in the community. He was an industrial contractor that was well liked and respected here. He was on it. And Mr. Charles Kaufman, of course, who has done so much for this. He’s a lawyer——an outstanding lawyer in town and active in practically all the life of the city. He was on the board. And we had a person from the Norfolk newspaper. At first it was not Mr. Batten. Mr. Batten came on later. In the beginning, it was another one of the newspaper men that served, and, when he retired, we sought Mr. Batten. And, of course, Mr. Batten has done a tremendous job for this institution.

We had others on it; Mr. S. C. Lampert was one on the board. And I’ll give you a list of the men. But each of these men made a significant contribution in his own right. Mr. J. W. Wood. So many. Well, all--every one of those 15 men were carefully selected and really carried the message of the college to the community to give us more self respect and also more community respect in the relationship.

Sweeney: Could you assess the strengths and the weaknesses of the faculty in the late 1940’s when you assumed the directorship?

Webb: The faculty basically, was a strong one. Of course, in the forties the market was not a particularly good one for selecting faculty, and we were a junior college, and in fact we were not accredited.

The first job I undertook was to get this college accredited——accredited as a junior college. And, we worked very hard on doing that, and we built up the faculty, built up the number of our Ph.D.’s to qualify for the junior college. And we received that accreditation within two years, which was rather unusual from the time we started to work towards it. But we always emphasized in the beginning excellent teaching. We were not at that time, we couldn’t afford to be, devoting too much time to research or to writing. Our strength was in the teaching of the students because our students would transfer, and we were determined that they would be able to hold their own no matter what institution they went to. And we had them going to MIT, to University of Virginia, to many, many very high—rate schools. They always, practically without exception, would do equal or better work there.

Sweeney: The next question I have is about your activity in 1947. In 1947, you served as the chairman of a local committee of the

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Atomic Energy and National Security Conference in Norfolk, one of ten such conferences held across Virginia under the sponsorship of the University of Virginia Extension Division. I was wondering if you could explain the nature of the meetings and your participation in them.

Webb: This was an attempt, I think, more than anything else, to have the public understand a little more about the field of atomic energy, its potentials, its mighty power, and how it undoubtedly would change the entire world in a very short period of time. We brought in scientists —- we brought in political scientists —— we brought in social scientists to all discuss their different roles and how this new form of energy would undoubtedly have a very marked effect on each person. I think it was a beginning. Nowadays, of course, people seem to be born with a knowledge of atomic energy until you ask them a few questions, and then they’re still not just sure what they’re talking about. Because it is a terrific source of power when compared with the old combustion methods we’d been using. This, undoubtedly, made a tremendous amount of change in our society, and we’ll continue to make changes as time goes on.

Sweeney: I was wondering about your relationship with the President of the college of William and Mary when you took over the directorship here —— that was President Pomfret, and whether the relationship between William and Mary and the college in Norfolk took on any new dimensions under Pomfret’s regime at Williamsburg?

Webb: Pomfret was a very fine man, a very strong academic person. He had very little interest in the Norfolk Division. I’d go to Williamsburg at least once a week, and the meetings would start with Mr. Duke and end up with Mr. Pomfret.

Chiefly, at that time, we’d discuss things such as new courses to be offered or new programs. The college was very reluctant to let us expand beyond the first two years of our program, although in trying to meet the community’s needs, especially in the field of business, it was obvious that we needed advanced courses in the field of business. And so, those were very productive with Mr. Pomfret. He was sympathetic, but I don’t think he went out of his way any to help us move ahead. But he didn’t hold us back. I will say that.

Sweeney: Could you tell me how you endeavored to obtain better funding for faculty salaries in this period of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s?

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Webb: The main effort we made, of course, was through the legislators to start getting funds, and we’d concentrated with the legislators to show them what production we had. In other words, this was a time that we’ve first focused the attention of the legislature on the full-time equivalent and the dollar that went for each full—time equivalent student. We showed that here we were receiving in the beginning something like $50 per full—time equivalent student when other institutions were receiving over a thousand for the same amount of output. And this was successful in a minor way and it has continued. Each year we’d gain slightly, but the state of Virginia didn’t work on the principle of bringing things up to an equality. They worked on a very sentimental basis, as you know. And if dear old Siewash needed the funds, dear old Siewash got it, and some new upstart like... not Old Dominion, but the Norfolk Division, needed funds, they weren’t too concerned. But we did gain, and each year we made some progress towards getting equity in the salaries.

If you look back, you’ll see that any money we got we plowed into salaries because the administration was very-- was a very small administrative staff —— very much understaffed, and even the maintenance of the plant--plants was very poorly done in order to attract as many good faculty as we could get. We just kept every bit of our money in faculty salaries. And we kept an eye on William and Mary’s salaries, VPI’s salaries, chiefly to keep ours in line. We also went into the community and through our advisory committee were able to raise funds for different purposes, such as improving our library, which would help attract faculty. And some scholarships in the way of assistance to the faculty for going away to school to get their advanced degrees. We aided many faculty members in doing that through our foundation that was raised right here locally.

SECOND INTERVIEW SESSION ENDS HERE