Additional Webb interviews ...

[Transcript continued from November 18, 1974]

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Sweeney: Today we’re continuing with the interview with former President Lewis Webb. First question, President Webb, could you assess for me the contribution that John S. Alfriend made to the university during his years of service to it and, in particular, his role in the book drive for the new library?

Webb: Mr. Alfriend was a great help to the university. Back in the days when we had very little buildings, grounds, students or any other assets, you might say. He was interested in the students and the ability of us to serve the local students. We had him on our advisory board because he was president of the largest bank in the area, and as his interest increased, which it did with meetings —— the advisory committee would meet three and four times a year and discuss the problems of the college and ways to meet these problems —— he became a greater and greater asset, not only in giving advice but in actually raising funds. As a member of the educational foundation, the task in the beginning was a small one. We were raising a few thousand dollars to take care of needs that the state would not provide, but then we went into trying to get some scholarship money for the faculty to go away and study to improve their degree situations and to even supplement, very slightly, a few salaries to keep the faculty encouraged.

His role was, he knew most everyone in the community, having been a life-long resident of this community, and in his position as a banker, he also knew the people of wealth and the people who could contribute. And they knew him and respected him. He could raise the budget for the foundation simply by getting on the phone and calling and saying, "Jack, we need some money at the college, and we’re counting on you for five hundred dollars," or a thousand dollars —- whatever it might be. Jack would send his check.

In the case of the library drive, the same thing. We were faced with the possibility of losing accreditation unless the library was properly staffed with books...stocked with books, and so he was instrumental in getting a group of men

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together to raise approximately $75,000 for that drive. This, again, was due to the strength of John Alfriend in knowing the people, and for them respecting him. They were mainly giving to John Alfriend rather than to the college, which was not known too well by some of the people that he was actually able to get funds from. And so I think John Alfriend’s contribution was quite large, and that’s the reason I was able to persuade the Board to name the chemistry building for him. This was quite...he felt this was quite an honor to him. He was very pleased to have the building named for him. I feel, too, that it was a small token to give for what he contributed to this university.

Sweeney: Did issues which were important at the Williamsburg campus, say in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, extend to the Norfolk campus?

Webb: Not too often. There was very, very little interlocking between the two campuses. Practically none in the faculty level and practically none in the student level. I wouldn’t say that their problems reflected, in any way, unless it was a problem common to all colleges. But, on the whole, these were two separate entities, and the only connection was the administrative connection between the two —— the Williamsburg campus naturally wanted to see that nothing was done in Norfolk which would reduce their role or discredit them in any way. But as far as sharing in common problems, we did not.

Sweeney: In making your budget request in the 1950’s, did you employ any particular strategy to acquire more funds?

Webb: The strategy we employed was to focus the attention of the legislators on the inequities which existed, and, back in those days, I secured the appropriations to each state institution and the number of fulltime equivalent students that they said they would serve, and this was when we started the measurement process of focusing attention on the actual value to the state and the cost to the state of educating students on this campus compared to the other campuses. And, as you can imagine, the comparison was quite drastic. Some of the universities were receiving $1,500. We were receiving $150 for a fulltime equivalent student. A ten to one ratio was a little hard to explain, and we were giving education at a tenth of what it was costing other institutions.

In the beginning they would answer this by saying, "Well, you see, you don’t have any resident students. You don’t have dormitories, you don’t have to feed the students and house

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them, and provide other activities that the resident colleges provide. Well, of course, until you dig into that, you couldn’t answer it. But I dug into it and found, in almost every case, the dormitories were self—sufficient and that costs that they were receiving from the students for room and board--for room and board was equal to the cost to operate. So there was no reason to think that the state was subsidizing the room and board. In fact, I pointed out this, and a very obvious thing, that there’s no reason to subsidize room and board for the students. This just removed one other argument against our inequalities, but it didn’t overcome it. I mean, they still didn’t jump right in and say, "Oh, go ahead, we’ll raise you by ten to one."

But, of course, we have gradually moved upward. The pressure of being discredited or losing our discreditation if we didn’t get more per pupil than we were receiving. This was reflected as we would gain a little, and greater faculty salaries would be the main place where we put the money. The administrative costs were kept at a very low figure as were the maintenance and operation costs. We were interested in getting every dollar into instruction, and so we had a very abnormally high percentage of our budget devoted to instruction.

Sweeney: You experienced great difficulties in acquiring funds to finish the bookstore—cafeteria wing of the new science building, and you said that, if Gov. Stanley could not get the money, you would have to use other means. What did you mean by that comment?

Webb: Other means, and we did use other means in a number of ways, would be assistance from the locality itself, adding additional fees on the students to obtain the funds in the way of a segregated fee for buildings, which at one time we had, or in using local fund money, that is, profits from the bookstores, coca cola machines, and things of that type, to finish the structure. It was an essential need, and I simply said it must be done some way.

Sweeney: In 1956, you defended the school’s lenient admissions policy, the policy of not relying on class standing but aptitude tests and work done in the latter part of high school. You said you could thereby salvage talent that would otherwise be undeveloped. I wonder if you ever changed this admissions policy and if you can relate this to the more modern concept of what is called "open admissions"?

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Webb: I am not in favor of open admissions in any case. I am in favor of admitting students that are capable of doing the work required of the institution.

I was not in favor of using the high schools and their percentage ranking as the sole means of judging this. Back in those days, and even today, you’ll find a considerable difference between high schools. When we had the county system, some of the county high schools had small enrollments and very lax instructional methods, and those students couldn’t stand up to even an average student in one of the larger city high schools where the instruction was more rigorous. Our admissions personnel knew from the examination of our students and how well they did and what high schools they attended. They could predict weak high schools, bad grading, and things of that type. And so we felt that college board examinations or our own local examinations would be better to judge the talents of the people. Another thing which we have always maintained is that the boys in the school system mature at a much later time than the girls. And so the first three years of a high school student’s record may not mean too much as to his ability. When he matures and begins to do work, and it shows in his last year of high school, that would be a better judge than the average of all four years of high school.

So I was simply saying, "Don’t simply take the high school average and put him as below average and not accept him, but give a chance and try to by examination determine that he has the ability to do college work."

Sweeney: In 1956, you were named executive salesman of the year by the Hampton Roads Executive Club. To what extent did you consider your job to be a selling job?

Webb: My job as a salesman, I guess, is at least 50% of my duties. Of course, I devoted lots of time to the physical development of the campus and the academic development of the campus, but at the same time I realized that the fate of this institution would be in the hands of the local citizens, and, unless we could convince them that this was needed, we were wasting our time trying to convince the state of the need in the area. That was why I spent a great deal of time working with local citizens to get them fired up as to the real potential of this institution. And so, I joined every club I was eligible to join, I guess, and attended the meetings —— I didn’t just put my name down but attended and took part in committee meetings

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and in their activities —— with a constant reminder that I was a part of this institution and of its potential, whenever I could. We also encouraged the faculty to do the same, and one time I had a policy of paying half of the membership fees of any faculty member joining the Rotary, Kiwanis, Cosmo, or whatever it was. The college picked up half of his membership dues, not his meals, but his membership dues. And this was an incentive for many of them to join. We tried not to get them all into one club, but to spread through as many clubs as possible. I think this was successful because these people that--these faculty members that joined these clubs had associated with them every week hundreds of their club members, and they were my righthand salesmen through the community.

Sweeney: In early 1957, Sheppard College of West Virginia terminated its basketball relationship with the Norfolk Division because the Norfolk Division would not permit Sheppard to use black players. Could you comment on this?

Webb: This was back in the days of the beginning of integration. The College of William and Mary, the Board, took a very firm stand against not only the admitting the blacks, but of having any athletic contact sport with the blacks. And we simply were told not to schedule any team that had blacks on it. We actually played Sheppard there, but we couldn’t invite them to come to Norfolk and play on our campus under the rules which were set down formally by the College of William and Mary. Though, I simply felt this was extremely bad, as I did about the integration, but I was hired by the College of William and Mary and I certainly couldn’t violate the regulations which they specifically gave to me.

Sweeney: Did you think that was a Board of Visitors policy or was it Alvin Chandler, or could you locate who was responsible for that?

Webb: There was no question —— it was a Board of Visitors policy. The thing may never have been put in writing, but at the same time Mr. Duke, who was our representative with the Board, and the President, Alvin Duke Chandler, both got the message very clearly, as did I, that the College of William and Mary would not tolerate integration.

Sweeney: In the late 1950’s did you find that the Division was losing out in the competition for professor services because of the low pay scale here?

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Webb: We were always aware that our scale was low, and we attempted to do something about that either through getting the state to increase our own budget or to raising funds locally to supplement these salaries. We never received enough to do across the board salary increase, and there’s no question that I arbitrarily applied funds where they... the critical areas. In other words, if I felt this institution needed a department of physics, I devoted my time and effort to getting funds for the faculty members of that department. Not for one which we could hire. We could hire English professors or history professors at half the going salary. And, I did not subsidize those. I subsidize engineering because we were developing an engineering school. I subsidized sciences, chemistry, wherever we had an acute need and where we were lacking funds to meet the common market for those faculty members. So there’s no question that I discriminated. I did it with malice and forethought. I hope what I did was justified. I certainly feel that without very specific tailoring of our needs... with those small funds that we had, we wouldn’t have been able to attract anyone at all in those very critical areas.

Sweeney: You’ve already talked about the civic organizations, so we’ll pass then to the next question. To what extent were you successful in getting endowed chairs established to ease the burden of faculty salaries?

Webb: Not a great deal. We did get some chairs for oceanography established, some chairs for engineering established. The actual establishment of a chair is very difficult to do because it takes lots of money. We were more interested in obtaining annual giving——in other words, instead of giving a hundred thousand dollars as an endowment to a chair, to give five thousand dollars a year to endow the chair, which of course meant that the person giving this fund would see an immediate result, but it was not necessary that they continue it. We persuaded the Rotary Club to do this for the case of engineering, and, of course, we have some ten chairs that were endowed by the Norfolk Foundation and others for the oceanography group. Also, we had several of the women’s clubs that would give annually to supplement the salary of faculty members in specific areas, such as Dr. Zaneveld in his research in oceanography and his work in the south polar area. The women’s club...let’s see. I’m not sure, get the right name on this...let’s see, well, I’d rather not say, but one of the local women’s clubs, and we can look that up and

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find out the name of the specific club.. . gave $500 a year to help him with his research. There were other similar cases in which the groups subsidized faculty salaries, but the actual endowment of a chair, in which we would get a total sum and use the interest, was not forthcoming.

Sweeney: Could you explain the disagreement with the Veterans Administration in 1957 over the policy of no rebates to veteran students attending the technical institute while non-vets were receiving rebates from funds from the State Board of Education. Wasn’t this unfair to the veterans?

Webb: Not to the veteran himself because he wasn’t gaining or losing by this refund. The veterans fee...for example, if the veterans fee was $100 and it was paid not by the veteran himself but by the federal government. Yet, when we received funds from the State Department of Education, of Vocational Education, they were the ones that said this money goes for non—veterans. And so we did for a long time rebate tuition to those students who were non-veterans simply because the money was coming from the State Department of Vocational Education, Industrial Education, or whatever source it was coming from, to us. We were receiving, say, $15,000. This would allow us to rebate non—veteran students maybe 25% or 30% of their tuition as a result of getting this money from another source. But we were not at all discriminating against the veterans. The state simply said, "This money is coming from the federal government and the other money’s coming from the federal government. We see no point in duplicating it. We, therefore, want you to give only rebates to the non—veterans," which we did. But I’m not sure...I don’t remember right now whether we had to stop that or whether the state simply resolved it by not giving us in the nature of funds that could be earmarked and thus apply against tuition. I just can’t remember the details of that.

Sweeney: How did it come about that a drive headed by Henry Clay Hofheimer to increase teachers’ salaries was started? Was this a special drive, and what were the results of it?

Webb: This was the result. Henry Clay was on the advisory board, a member of the advisory board, and he simply took over the duties to raise some funds for the faculty just as Mr. Alfriend took on the duty to raise funds for the library. Henry Clay’s job was to try to raise funds to supplement faculty salaries or to make it so that there were funds other than state money that could be used to assist faculty over tight spots.

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Sweeney: We’ve already talked to some extent about this, but a couple of more questions on the case of Amos Leroy Willis, who was an 18—year old Booker T. Washington graduate who won a $7,000 scholarship but still was refused admission to the co—op engineering program in 1957. I was wondering if you found out--if you believed that the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary and President Chandler were reluctant to take the first step toward integration because of the question of funding? I also wondered if the VPI administration played any role in the refusal to admit Willis, since it was the cooperative engineering program, and what your feelings were at this time?

Webb: The directive not to accept the student came, of course, from the College of William and Mary, and VPI did not enter this in any way. That is, they did not insist that we take the student or that we reject him, even though the program was a part of the VPI program. VPI has always taken the attitude that the local administration —— their rules and regulations would apply. And if a student was acceptable to us, it was acceptable to them. But they did not enter in this case to say yes, take him, or no, reject him. I’m sure that if he had had funds to go to VPI they would have accepted him there, but I don’t remember what had happened to that boy —— where he did go.

Sweeney: I think Georgetown.

Webb: Georgetown University? But he was capable, no question of that. But, again, it’s easy to look back and judge these policies, but when they were developing, it was quite an emotional thing, and you couldn’t say right was right and wrong was wrong. Emotions were still involved, and the William and Mary group were among the last to give up and start accepting the blacks as well as the whites.

Sweeney: In 1957 Ted Dalton, campaigning on the Republican ticket for governor, called for doubling the funds to the Norfolk Division and making it a fully fledged, four year school. Allman, his opponent on the Democratic side, also supported the four year status, but did you feel that Dalton’s promises were simply political rhetoric, or did you feel that perhaps a change of administration in Richmond at that time might well have helped the college?

Webb: Yes, I think it would have. I’ve talked to Mr. Dalton considerably before this decision, on his part, to support us.

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And so did many of the local citizens in this area —— talk to Mr. Dalton to convince him. And he was convinced that we were not properly sharing in the revenues of the colleges and that something should be done. And he was also convinced that this area, the largest group in the state, was receiving the least amount of support for higher education. Mr. Dalton was quite an active person, and I’m confident that, if he had been elected, we would have seen an abrupt change in the support to this institution. Governors back in those days had a great deal of influence on the legislature, as we’ve seen when Governor Harrison decided to go for separation of Richmond and Norfolk from William and Mary. Before that time, before he cast his lot with the separation, the legislature was about 75% lined up to hold the group together under William and Mary, and as soon as the Governor decided that was not the proper direction, the legislature almost 100% backed Harrison. And, of course, the results were separation, which is why I’m here today, I guess. But,...again, I say that Dalton was very sincere, and he had studied the situation. It wasn’t a political thing with him. He was actually convinced that this was needed.

Sweeney: In those years of the 1950’s, I wonder, in view of the size of the administration that we have on campus today, how did you ever operate the chief administrative office of the school with only one secretary as your entire staff?

Webb: Well, of course, it wasn’t easy, but I felt that the educational processes were more vital than administrative processes, and I had to make a great number of decisions which were sometimes made without full access to all the facts and all the consultation which goes on today. Maybe ten people making a decision make a better one than one person does, and I’m sure that’s so, but when you don’t have but one person, you have to rely on him to make those decisions. And many of the decisions were simply made over the telephone, the red tape was kept to a minimum, the correspondence which we had was kept to a very small volume. The secretary’s work was chiefly answering phones and taking down notes for me to pick up at the end of the day, and to return calls and take care of immediate situations which had to be answered. Many of the decisions were made by walking around campus, for example, if I’d walk into the biology department and talk to the head of the biology department, and he’ll say, "We need five barrels of crabs for next week, and we’re out of money. What can we do?" The decision was made. "Yes, you can do with four barrels. Get them, and we’ll

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raise your budget in order to accommodate it." If a section of sidewalk was sinking and dangerous, the maintenance man walking with me was told, "Fix the sidewalk tomorrow morning." These had to be done, and we couldn’t wait for committees to act to keep up with things going on on the campus. It was a long day’s work, and of course evening’s work, too. But when you felt something was being accomplished, you could see changes taking place, you didn’t mind putting in the time and energy. But, as I say, many, many decisions had to be made by simply the feel of it. But you hope it was the right decision, and we made wrong ones. There’s no question of that. But we made lots of good ones I can look back on. The main thing we made were decisions which would get action done and get this university moving ahead and growing.

Sweeney: Is it true, then, that in your off—hours you often attended to maintenance problems yourself on the campus?

Webb: Well, it was pretty hard to avoid. People identified me with the college, and when things went wrong I was the one that got the phone call. Christmas Eve was a favorite time to get phone calls. The head of maintenance would call and say, "The boiler’s out and everything is freezing up. What are we going to do?" I would come down with him and help get the furnace back on the line and circulating again to prevent the freezing. One night the night watchman called and said, "The administration building is being flooded." I said, "How is it being flooded?" He said, "The swimming pool is overflowing —— it’s running down the steps into the gyms. It’s a regular Niagara Falls pouring down the steps and running into the gymnasiums." So, I had to go over and cut off the water, open some drains to let the--to stop Niagara Falls. But they were generally things that I was familiar with because as the buildings were built I inspected them daily after working hours. I’d go through the buildings to see what had been accomplished and if we were meeting specifications. We didn’t have a large number of architects in those days of our own, maintenance supervisors of our own to see that we were getting what we paid for——and what we were designed for, and so I was familiar with many things on campus that today the campus is too large for anyone to know. But when you’re interested in the building and have obtained the funds for the building then you can see it start from the piling up to the finished construction, then you know pretty well about the maintenance needs and you can assist in them. For example, yesterday a student called me at home. Now, I’ve been away from the

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administration for four years, and he asked me who was the man that was in charge of the security on campus. I said, "Well, what’s the matter with going right over to the security office and asking if you’re on campus." He said, "Well, we’re having a little disagreement with a man that’s in the office now. I want to know the name of the head man." Of course, he should have called Dr. Bugg, not me. But he called me to ask what to do about this particular problem. And I’ve been here so long, you see, that when you’re here 42 years, people get to know your name, and problems come up —— "Why can’t my son be admitted? Why wasn’t his transcript sent to Podunk University? He finished a course there," which I got last week. And the week before that, "Why isn’t my nephew given a scholarship?" They remember you for those things, when problems come up...but that kept the job interesting, I think.

Sweeney: During the 1950’s, did you personally play any role in mobilizing sentiment in the city of Norfolk behind the move to make the Division a four year school?

Webb: Oh, yes. That was part of the plan for the development of the university, and I did everything possible to excite others in town to the needs and to get them to go to the proper sources to get this done. Lewis Webb couldn’t do that. He couldn't--he didn’t have the influence to do it, but Mr. Kaufman, Mr. Alfriend, Mr. Hofheimer, and Mr. Wood and all the rest of those fine men we had on our advisory committee could and did obtain these things for us.

Sweeney: In 1957, your title was changed from director to provost. Could you explain the meaning, or was this just simply a change in title but not any change in duties?

Webb: Well, I often jokingly say when it was time to give me an increase in salary they didn’t have the money, they always raised my title. This was another case. It was obvious that the institution needed a president in title, but the College of William and Mary was very jealous of the title "president" and insisted that this not be done, but in order to justify giving some distinction —- not the title of dean, which was being reserved for academic purposes —— Alvin Duke Chandler came up with "provost," which of course is an English title, and that was given to me and to Dr. George Oliver, who was head of the Richmond Professional Institute. It was simply a stop-gap method of avoiding the term "president" for these branch institutions.

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Sweeney: In your frustration at the state’s continued underfunding of the Division, did you ever consider any actions to dramatize the school’s plight? Specifically, did you ever consider resignation and a return to fulltime teaching?

Webb: I had undoubtedly thought many times of giving up and dropping back to a less irritating situation, I’m sure, but I knew that unless somebody would stick in there and fight for the institution that it would be held back and even degraded to a lower status than it had at that time. William and Mary had no interest in the development of it as such, and the local people were slow to see the value to the community of this institution, and so unless someone did stick up for the institution and push for it, it would have been lost. I had put too much time in and I saw too much possibility of the future to let that happen. If I could have been sure that the person they put in to replace me would have been one which was a stronger, more active —— more vigorous person than I to do this, and they could have found him, but the point I’m making is, they would not have found him. They would have put in a very passive individual that would have done exactly as the William and Mary Board wanted done, and this would have been a very bad situation. So, I stayed with it although many, many times, of course, I was threatened with excommunication, loss of head and a few other things for my actions. The final one came when the Board just about told me face to face that if the institution was held together, that when that passed and the legislature agreed to hold it together, I’d might as well look for another job. And, of course, I knew that at the time. To fight for the separation in face of the whole support —— the entire Board of Visitors being opposed to the separation, then I had very little future in store. But I never was too concerned about that. Because I felt that the institution was much, much more valuable than any one person or any hundred people could be. This institution will go way beyond all of us, and that’s the...really the value of working with something like this is to see that you’re taking part in the longrange development of something that will be here for many, many years to come.

Sweeney: At that particular time, did you feel that it was Albertis Harrison, Governor Harrison that turned the tide with the feeling so strong on the Board of Visitors at William and Mary against the separation?

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Webb: No question there. The legislature was being worked by every alumnus at William and Mary and the Board, of course, by Mr. Chandler, and all of them were determined to develop the William and Mary complex as a total University of Eastern Virginia, and they had pretty well sold the legislators on it. The announcement came during the day, the night of which was going to be devoted to a cocktail party to entertain those legislators to encourage them to hold the unit together. And when Governor Harrison came out publicly and declared that he felt the need to the state would be best served by the separation, it was all over. The cocktail party that night was the flattest one I’ve ever attended and the dullest.

Sweeney: Did you feel that...or did you see this change of mind come into Governor Harrison or did you personally persuade him or did it come as a surprise to you that he took this position?

Webb: It came as a surprise to me and to everyone because he would listen and, of course, I did my best to show him the advantages of separation. So did many others, members of our advisory board. We met with the Governor and pointed out things that could be done if separate that were not being done under the William and Mary development plan. We hoped, but we didn’t know it would come as quickly as it did, that Mr. Harrison would, if not support it, would have not gone for the development, which would have made it a little more difficult to keep the breakup. But when the Governor made his announcement, we were quite pleased, needless to say, and it was a great celebration on our part.

Sweeney: You’ve mentioned before that Mayor Fred Duckworth of Norfolk was a friend of the college. He served on the Board of Visitors of William and Mary, and I believe he was opposed —— somewhat strongly opposed to the separation of the Norfolk College from the parent institution. Was that your impression?

Webb: Oh, yes. I talked to Fred quite at length many, many times of his attitude. His whole feeling was that we could do nothing with such a small institution and with such limited resources and with no name, that if we were separated from the name William and Mary that Norfolk would feel a substantial loss. I tried to point out the long range of it and that self identity, although it would not come overnight, could be obtained, and that we should try for it. But, of course, as a member of the Board of Visitors at William and Mary, he was constantly under pressure by all the other Board members to hold the

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institution together. And, we had some pretty bitter arguments back and forth on the subject. Fred was my friend and was right until the end, but we disagreed most violently on the need for self identification and separation. And he, being a Norfolk man on the Board, could have had a great deal of influence in bringing about the separation, but he did not. That is not to say that he didn’t contribute to the development of this institution because he definitely did. He...I don’t think we ever received more than a thousand dollars or so direct appropriation to this institution as he felt that it was the duty of the state of Virginia to make these funds available to the area and that the city of Norfolk should not assume an obligation which has been denied by the state. It was their responsibility. He did, as I had pointed out several times before, assist us directly in obtaining piling for the library building, in the matter of $100,000 direct appropriations, and land for the Kaufman building and the Fine Arts Building and the library building was all given. We never paid for that land. His feeling was, "Okay, you get money for the buildings and I’ll provide the land." Of course, this policy changed considerably when he left and the city manager then started adding up acquisition costs and asking us to pay for it. And we did. We made purchases from the city to encourage them to continue their purchasing more than anything else. And each time we’d put in for several hundred thousand dollars to repay the city for the land. I understand in this next biennium they’re again going to put in some to reimburse the city for their expenditures. The city has made, in doing this contribution in buying property as it became available without condemnation, they didn’t change interest on their investment or their output of funds for it, so they indirectly did help a great deal in acquiring this property, and will continue to do so, I’m sure.

Sweeney: Prior to the separation in the administration of Governor Thomas Stanley, Stanley asked that the school be raised to a four year status and then turned around and cut the budget requests substantially. How can you reconcile these contrary or contradictory positions?

Webb: I can’t reconcile it at all, of course. Governor Stanley and all the other Governors were influenced a great deal by their budget makers. They had teams to make these budgets and oftentimes the budget of the state was so complex and so large that you never noticed a change in the Governor’s thinking not being reflected in that budget. And that was the reason we would go back after the budget was printed, and we knew what this budget committee called the Governor’s

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budget, but it was basically done by members of the legislature and the staff which worked in Richmond full time to prepare these budgets. And we would go to the hearings to point out these inequities again and try to get it added and put back in the budget. There wasn’t a great deal that could be done that way, but we did succeed in having small amounts restored where they were being cut. But I’d say Governor Stanley had in mind that we should get this change, but...state budgets are very emotionally made things and very complexly made things, and just to say right is right and wrong is wrong is not the way you make a state budget. It’s a great deal of involvement of political considerations and emotional considerations as well as factual ones.

Sweeney: Did you give any thought to the possibility of the school becoming a four—year college without the proper funding and then perhaps, as you sort of hinted before, using accreditation--this was previous...when it was a two—year school, but it could have happened again, that you might have thought of using the accreditation angle as an axe to hold over the legislature —— that the school would lose accreditation if it wasn’t properly funded?

Webb: Oh, yes. I have to say I stooped to such tactics on occasion, and I would see the end I wanted to get —— if we could get the change made to a four—year college, and we’d face the facts later as to whether or not we were ready for that step. We were never ready, and you’re never ready now for the steps you make unless you’re way, way slower than you should be, and the only way to get things accomplished was to do them and then try to get your funds, get your buildings and get your other enterprises necessary to carry them out properly. And that’s the reason I never had any fear for it. We devoted our entire assets to instruction. Now they could have come here and closed us down on the maintenance operation of the buildings. They could have closed us down and discredited us on the amount of funds we were using for administration. But we always had sufficient justification for our educational programs, and we hired strong teachers and we emphasized good teaching, to the extent that the rest filled in as best we could get it done. And to wait ten years to get ready for a step wasn’t the idea. The idea was to move as rapid as you could and then point out the needs that that step required. Maybe it wasn’t good practice, but it was the only way we got here.

Sweeney: We’ve talked about John Alfriend and other members of the advisory board, but not Charles L. Kaufman. Could you evaluate Mr. Kaufman’s contribution to the college over the years?

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Webb: Kaufman was the leader. We didn’t have any member of this advisory board that wasn’t a strong individual because they were picked very carefully. But Kaufman was a leader of men, and he was chairman of the advisory committee, and these men —— although each individual were strong men in themselves, still looked up to Mr. Kaufman for advice and for support. And, I did too, of course, look to him on every occasion for encouragement, and he was always willing to give the encouragement. He contributed of his own funds, he contributed many, many hours of his own time, and he was always positive in his attitudes, which made a big difference. He knew it could be done, and he encouraged me to work to get it done. He was a leader of our leaders.

Sweeney: The last questions really run together. They’re all dealing with the closing of the public schools in 1958. I wondered what you felt the overall effect of the school closings were on the college, whether you took any part in the movement to try to get the schools reopened —— for example, the Norfolk Committee for the Public Schools. And, lastly, whether there was any criticism of the fact that the makeshift school on campus headed by Dr. Fink was limited to the faculty and staff’s children?

Webb: I’m sure there was more criticism of that than I heard —— we did hear some. Some people in the area would like to have had their children attend that school, but we simply didn’t have the resources to open it to the public, and this was an attempt, too, to keep our faculty. You can’t hire faculty to come into Norfolk, Virginia, with children, and tell them there’s no school system in Norfolk, Virginia. So this was really a faculty fringe benefit that we were trying to establish, to be able to say to the faculty, "Yes, the schools are closed in Norfolk, but we have ways of helping you with this situation. We have volunteers to teach, and we have supervision from Dr. Fink and his group, so we can give your child a good education." This was the purpose, not to try to pick up the whole load of the community. That would have been impossible, but to...at least we could support our own faculty, keep them here on campus.

And, of course, closing the schools was a terrible thing. I had children that were affected, and we had to send them to makeshift community schools, and we had a vacant store on Powhatan and 48th Street, which the owner let us have —— and us, by us, now I’m not talking about the college, I’m talking about the citizens in that Edgewater—Larchmont area. And

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the school was established there. The school had a small tuition; it was called the Greenberg School because Mr. Greenberg lent us the building. Also, certain churches would lend their facilities to meet the needs of these children, to keep them learning. I never felt that even students that could not continue in school due to that short period of closing were terribly handicapped. Children are very resilient, and they can pick up gaps, such a small one as that, that was created, because it was a bad thing, and we as the college tried to overcome that by providing tests for students to make up that deficit; we put in non—credit courses to make up lacks in English and mathematics and encourage in every way that we could students that were very near graduation to get into college and to waive our admissions policies slightly in order to let them get into the Norfolk Division. The situation, fortunately, wasn’t too long lasting. It would have been quite serious. But the schools that we had here on campus were very informal arrangements —— that is, we couldn’t afford to take state property and officially open a public school, and it was done entirely on voluntary services of members of the school of education and members of the faculty here to do that for their own children.

Sweeney: Did you play any role on that Norfolk Committee for the Public Schools?

Webb: I’m really not sure whether I formally was a member of that organization or not. I’ve been, unfortunately, in too many different things. I very actively participated in trying to encourage the city council to reopen the schools, but I’m not sure that I was a formal member of any of those committees. I really...I have to look back to my notes, and correspondences, and so on to see if I served officially or just as a matter of trying to bring a little pressure on the city fathers to open the schools again.

FOURTH INTERVIEW SESSION ENDS HERE

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