After Five Years: An Interview

Wake Forest Magazine, September 1972

President James Ralph Scales' Annual Report to the Trustees and Alumni
of Wake Forest University

In the past, President Scales has issued a more formal report of the events of the year. The report for 1971-72, however, takes the form of an interview, with the questions posed by Bill Joiner '66, director of alumni affairs. Dr. Scales, who came to Wake Forest in the summer of 1967, has now completed five years as President.

Q. As we come to the end of your first five years, how do you assess the year just closed in comparison with the other four years of your administration?

A. Wake Forest in 1971-72 reflected the national climate. It was a quiet year and, I think, productive. The apparent indifference to political issues was perhaps deceptive. Only a few students answered the calls to mass action on any public issue. Campus issues aroused a bit more interest. Old Gold and Black was an accurate mirror of the concerns of young people robbed of the certainties of the past. The Book Store reports that The Greening of America and the Whole Earth Catalog continued as best sellers, but the robust visions of revolutionary change in "the System" seemed to be lost in the private reflections and economic anxieties of a graduating class that found few glamorous jobs waiting and sometimes no job at all.

The familiar routines of the college campus make it difficult sometimes to distinguish one year from another. Sorting out the moods, programs, and events of the year to discover what was truly memorable is an exercise for the diarist, and each person's recollections will be determined by his special tastes

I recall it as the year in which the completion of an eight-year campaign for a $43,000,000 Medical Center was finally assured; when the first class appeared for a new kind of management education in the Babcock School; when Wake Forest granted twice as many degrees as ever before in its history – thanks to a special November convocation when the majority of living law alumni elected to add the newly standard J.D. to the LL.B. degrees earned before 1967; and I remember the powerful convocation address of Vernon Jordan, Whitney Young's successor in the Urban League; the closely reasoned Commencement address of Congressman Gerald Ford; and two remarkable speeches by alumni, George Williamson's at Founder's Day and Walt Friedenberg's at reunion.

It was the first year in the New Dorm, as yet unnamed, not just an experiment but a showcase of the idea that the residence hall can be at the center of the educational experience. Many classes and seminars, as well as the traditional after-hours discussions, have convened there around the fountain in the courtyard or the three levels converging on the central fireplace. It was a happy house, and some features of the experiment can be adapted to the residence halls built in an earlier era.

It was the first year for the Venice House. John Andronica of the classics department directed the program, and under his leadership Wake Forest became identified with the cultural life of a unique European city. It was the first trial for the new 4-1-4 calendar and the revised curriculum for undergraduates. The first Winter Term found 15 per cent of the students pursuing off-campus projects, nine groups overseas. The semester at Poona in India produced the expected culture shock and fresh understandings of an ancient civilization.

Among the memories that crowd for expression are of a golden autumn day in which Arnold Palmer and Jack Lewis teamed to win the exhibition benefit match open of the new Bermuda Run course and adding $15,000 to Buddy Worsham Scholarship Fund; an elegant dinner honoring trustees of the Reynolds Foundation and marking the 25th anniversary of the contractual relationship between Convention, Foundation, and College; a cold New Year's Day when we rushed from a new indoor tennis court made available to our team and said Godspeed to a planeload of 250 headed for various programs in Europe. In the spring was a triumphant Reynolda House reception for the Vienna Symphony, the centerpiece of the fine arts symposium which relieved the tedium of March and excited new hopes for the long-deferred facilities for music, art, and speech.

In years to come I may also recall waiting my turn at the New York alumni dinner while Frank Mankiewicz confidently outlined the strategy of George McGovern for the presidential nomination. Perhaps the sophisticated New Yorkers present did not share my skepticism or my impatience to get on with some earnest talk about the need of an arts complex at Wake Forest.

It was the first season without Charlie Davis in Memorial Coliseum. It was the first season without Lanny Wadkins in golf, and the last for Jim Simons, Eddie Pearce, and Slate Tuttle. It was the last also for the two Larrys, Hopkins and Russell, who will be remembered for such masterpieces as the victories over Duke, Tulsa, and William and Mary.

It was the year of our return to the old Wake Forest, 700 strong. On a Saturday afternoon in October, we marched behind the band to the old chapel and heard the Provost reminisce about his undergraduate days a generation ago. The Southeastern Seminary under Olin T. Binkley '28, welcomed the contemporary Wake Forest student to an unfamiliar but unforgettable scene. The town could not have been more hospitable. Mrs. George Mackie, trustee, and the local committee were hosts to a nostalgic picnic at the old Groves Stadium. Ours is a successful transplant, but a new and healthy organism occupies the space we quit.

It was a year of quiet satisfactions, cataloguing the rare volumes of English history and literature from the library of the late Chief Justice Hunt Parker, and the 5,000 volumes from the shelves of Edwin Stringham, professor emeritus of music at Chapel Hill. It was another year when WFDD maintained its unique reputation as North Carolina's good music station – for all 366 days.

Q. In these five years have you made any decisions as to the limits of growth? In the undergraduate College? in law? medicine? the new professional School of Business?

A. If there is a single topic on which the University has reached consensus, it is satisfaction with Wake Forest's present size. These limits are not rigid, and in fact, there has been moderate growth in registration for years. We are coming close to attaining the outer limits established for the Ford Foundation Self-Study of 1965.

At that time no one could have foreseen the pressures for legal education, to which we have responded by enlarging the law building (now called the Guy Carswell Building), and doubling the size of the entering class. But we must be careful not to over-build; the prospects are for a surfeit of lawyers by 1975.

The difficulties of getting into medical school have long been accepted. Orderly expansion has occurred in these five years, from 56 to 89 members in the first-year class in the M.D. program, and greater increases in the allied health services, leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. in medical science as well. The Babcock School of Management has been from its inception a specialized school, not attempting to teach every business skill, but to educate leaders who are themselves devoted to liberal learning and committed to the businessman's role as civic man, patron of the arts, and model employer. That is not an elitist concept, but because of the lofty expectations we have for the Babcock School, a self-selection process limits the numbers who apply. There is a ceiling of 200 for the two-year Master of Management program.

The State of North Carolina has provided a strong incentive for increasing the enrollment of its citizens in medical school, and the Law School has its own built-in attraction for residents who wish to practice here. In these years when many private colleges have suffered for want of qualified applicants, the Wake Forest problem is a good one. Completed applications for the undergraduate College increased by 21 per cent this year, but even so, 76 per cent of the applications, most of them from outside the state, could not be accommodated. In the law school, where the entering class has been increased by almost 50 per cent, only one in ten of the completed applications was successful. The burdened office of the medical school winnowed 84 first-year students from 3,769 completed applications. That works out to a little over two per cent, or stated another way, 98 per cent disappointment.

The fall 1971 enrollment of 3,738 (2,583 men and 1,155 women) was served by a faculty of 558, of whom 407 were full-time, and almost half of these were at the Medical Center. The University's extensive research activities account for many of these appointments, but research is by no means exclusively a concern of the medical school.

I have just made a rough calculation that, if the College and all the professional schools and graduate school admitted all who have applied, the Wake Forest enrollment would rise from 3,738 to something over 12,000 this fall. In a few years -- assuming that instruction and libraries and housing and food could be found for these multitudes -- we could be a contender with Minnesota at 68,000, Illinois 57,000, Ohio State 50,000 and Maryland of our own ACC with 36,000 — if in some aberration the Trustees opted for the giant's role. No constituency from the official governing board, the Alumni Council, present student or past, wants Wake Forest to compete.

Q. Is student power here to stay?

A. Yes. Students sit on the Board of Trustees, two with voices and one with votes. They sit on University committees. Two are planning the long-range development of the University as members of the "1984 Committee," or Sesquicentennial Commission, which is the long-range planning agency for the institution. It must always be remembered that the normal student tenure is four years, that because of the distractions of many competing causes, attention to many questions is likely to be sporadic; and that sustained involvement in administrative work over a long period cannot reasonably be expected.

Q. Is the blurring of traditional roles of trustees, faculty, and administration frustrating?

A. It is frustrating at times. A commitment once given cannot easily be withdrawn. Authority once exerted becomes a precedent that is not lightly overthrown.

There was a time when all the relationships of the University were thoroughly understood. We were governed by a kind of common law. Now we must write down everything, not only for ourselves but for all our constituencies, including the government and especially the courts. People want certainty: Who decides the curriculum? Who admits? Who expels? Who runs the school? These questions could be answered more promptly in an authoritarian day. Now when more people are asserting their right to a voice in these decisions, the answers are much more complex. I am persuaded that in the constant changes that have marked these five years, Wake Forest is working out these problems reasonably well.

Q. Your last Student Body president was one of the most colorful and vocal in recent history. Did all of his clamor fall on deaf ears?

A. You refer to Mr. H. William deWeese of Waynesville, Pa. He was my friend, and I shall miss him. He never made a "non-negotiable demand" upon me, although I must say he pressed his claims with a vigorous vocabulary.

Q. Are women being accepted or only admitted at Wake Forest?

A. They were admitted 30 years ago, in 1942. I should say that in 1972, their acceptance is total, pervasive, inescapable. In those sectors of the University where women have not been conspicuous, they are suddenly in the forefront. The first woman to be elected student body president, Miss Marylou Cooper, has attended her first meeting of the Board of Trustees and the first meeting of the Sesquicentennial Planning Commission: she serves on the Central Committee. The first Kenan Professor has been named. We sought a scholar of international distinction, and chose Germaine Bree, whose field is 20th century French literature. The Administrative Council has added a second woman member, Mrs. Margaret Perry, who succeeded Grady Patterson as registrar on July 1. The medical and law schools have quadrupled their female registration in these five years. We have made no attempts to meet quotas; it is not the coercion of government that has controlled our appointments. Long established departments in the College, except in the foreign languages, do not in fact have many women professors on their registers. No reformer has suggested that tenured men should be relieved of their duties to make way for women. In Wake Forest College, just now reaching a 60/ 40 male/female ratio, the women regularly capture 65 to 70 per cent of elections to Phi Beta Kappa. When, if ever, strict quotas are imposed, the undergraduate males may seek redress of grievances and demand a 60/40 allocation for all intellectual honors.

Q. As Alumni Director I have more questions about admissions policies than any other subject. Is Wake Forest interested only in out-of-state students with high College Board scores?

A. This is also my most vexing question. I can answer it simply: No. The figures dispute the mistaken, but evidently widespread, belief that, in some calculated reach for regional or national recognition, Wake Forest has neglected its traditional constituency. I can state categorically that, in every branch of the University, more North Carolinians have been accepted each year than in each of the previous five years. That is true in absolute numbers; the ratios for undergraduates have remained almost constant at 50/50, North Carolinians vis-a-vis out-of-staters.

To achieve a truly cosmopolitan mix, we need more foreign students. The bona fide overseas registration has seldom exceeded one per cent. Since our founding, Virginia has been second, and this historic position has been maintained. Maryland is now third, followed by New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Q. At the Wake County alumni meeting recently, you used the Biblical phrase, "Giants in the Earth," referring to the faculty of the old campus. Have any intellectual giants appeared on the new campus to replace those you praised?

A. I am certain of it. The deans and the departmental chairmen know who they are. The students know. The Greensboro First Baptist Church awards for excellence in teaching, announced at the formal opening of each school year, went this year to John Moorhouse in economics and Peter Weigl in biology. These young men in their thirties are only the latest to be publicly recognized for the kind of teaching that has always distinguished Wake Forest. Great teachers come in many molds. Some are quiet and analytical. Others have the gifts of style, and their rhetoric is impressive. A lecture under such a master is an instant rebuke to critics who scorn that much maligned method of teaching. Other professors achieve as much with the magic symbols of mathematics, musical notation, and the inductive demonstration. Administrators should select the best, then leave them alone.

Q. Wake Forest lost two head coaches this year to higher paying jobs. Is this an indication of a de-emphasis on athletics?

A. The operative phrase is "higher paying jobs." Both Coach Stoll (football) and Coach McCloskey (basketball) left amicably, Stoll to Minnesota and McCloskey to the professional Trail Blazers in Portland. Sports writers have commented that these departures represent success of sorts: the penalty of winning! We had a better football team in 1971 than in the ACC Championship year of 1970 and although we came within a few yards and a few seconds of another ACC crown, we had to be satisfied with a second successive winning season. Tom Harper, 40, who played for Kentucky and was our defensive coordinator in 1968-71, became head coach. He had a banner recruiting year. The outlook for this year is a better offense and a weaker defense and a tougher schedule.

The basketball situation was different. The team finished sixth in the Conference and won only eight games of 26. Carl Tracy, the highly successful coach who came to us from Marshall University, is said to have recruited the best talent since the days of Len Chappell.

Golf, tennis, and swimming had fine years, the golfers winning their sixth straight ACC Championship, Jim Simons ranking as the leading amateur in the U. S. Open - the second straight year, and Eddie Pearce joining Danny Wadkins, Jim Simons and Lennie Thompson in the pro ranks.

Tennis had its best year in nearly half a century, since the days of Hubert Poteat, Jasper Memory, et. al. Jim Leighton's '72 team lost the conference crown to the perennial champion Tar Heels, and the second-place finish, completing a 17-3 season, was accomplished by five dazzling players from overseas (Czechoslovakia, Australia, Jamaica), and one Floridian.

Coach Leo Ellison is building a solid tradition in swimming (8-3). Baseball under Beattie Feathers had an 8-18 record; the track team went 3-3, and the cross country, 3-7-1.

The intercollegiate athletics program was budgeted for a deficit of $212,000, but the final deficit was less than half that figure. I am impressed by the academic orientation of the Athletic Council, and by the leadership of Professor Sawyer (mathematics) among national reformers in NCAA, and by the superb management of the athletic director. Revenues of $1.6 million approached a respectable balance with expenditures ($1.7 million). In the four years we have been in Groves Stadium, football revenue increased from $287,000 to $650,000, and the Deacon Club contributions are up from $120,000 to $321,000.

The memory of Brian Piccolo grows. The highly popular book, A Short Season, and a television motion picture, "Brian's Song", were launched on Piccolo's birthday by Lou Malnotti of Chicago, who established a $15,000 a year scholarship in Piccolo's memory, contributed by his friends in the Chicago area. His widow, Joy Piccolo, spoke at the annual athletic awards program. If only a few thousand more fans would buy season tickets; if only a few score would join the 400 members of the Stadium Club and the 2,000 members of the Deacon Club; if only old campaign pledges were paid up!—intercollegiate athletics would be operating on a balanced budget, a goal reached by fewer than 10 per cent of the "major powers." The significant achievement is that a school the size of Wake Forest, with limited resources, maintains a sound athletics pace alongside much larger universities.

Q. In your annual "State of the Union" message in May you named the vital issues of the tern just closed and shared with us your vision of the long-term goals of the University. Was this for internal consumption, or are our alumni entitled to know about them?

A. It was a public address, and I am delighted to proclaim these ideas. People will help when they know what our needs are. The thrust of that address was that, however impressive the physical facilities, Wake Forest must not neglect its historic distinction as a good school with a good faculty. We must find better ways of identifying, appointing, and rewarding good teachers. Outstanding research must be encouraged, and the year just closed was one of our best, as measured by the number of scholarly books and papers produced and invitations received by faculty to address professional meetings. The sabbatical program begun by Reynolds Industries must be vastly expanded. Such faculty retreats as provided by the John Cheek Memorial Fund in Venice have done much to stimulate morale. A good library, essential to the academic man's personal development, added 48,054 volumes during the year, and by 1974, will be requiring the space now used by the theatre and other activities of the Department of Speech. The services of the library are broad, but some restrictions have been necessary in a time of inflationary budgets. A university press, another spur to faculty achievement, cannot even be considered without the prospect of sizable gifts. Many university presses have become costly appendages that must be subsidized from instructional funds. It is my earnest hope that alumni and other friends concerned to stimulate good writing and attract great teachers to Wake Forest will one day provide a university press. This campus should furnish an example of environmental concern. The restoration of Reynolda Village and Lake Katharine has reached beyond the circle of a few environmentalists and has become the business of the whole community.

I expressed the hope also that the University would be a model employer for all of its non-academic people, as well as the faculty. Wages and salaries have not been competitive. Moreover, we must review the fringe benefits that will make academic life competitive with the most enlightened industry.

Under six successive alumni presidents, I have seen a determination that Wake Forest become the kind of school of which the alumni of every era can be proud. I want us to be a model alma mater. We have only begun to bring together the story of our institution. Bynum Shaw has been designated to write the history of Wake Forest, updating the three volumes that George W. Paschal completed 30 years ago. The growth of the Ethel Taylor Crittenden Collection in the University archives is of more than antiquarian concern. John R. Woodard, the director, has been selective in the acquisition of official records, private collections, and church publications. Some of the newly arrived papers have been promptly searched by graduate students reconstructing our history. I am particularly grateful to the heirs of Odus Mull and Irving Carlyle for the papers of these men, invaluable to North Carolina researchers.

Every alumnus, particularly at the half-century mark, is asked for three things: his reminiscences of the Wake Forest years, his biography, and his voice: I speak of Professor Aycock's work in compiling a collection of tapes. Lewis Aycock '26, now retired from teaching English and art, is devoting himself to this collection. The Alumni Office is assisting him in collecting portraits and photographs. Students need to be surrounded by reminders of the greatness of the past. We have sought from the families and friends of Wake Forest alumni formal portraits in oil, as well as newspaper photographs, water colors, and sketches. Not ruled out are acrylics, mosaics, or terra cotta!

The three fires on the old campus in the early 1930's left us with a thin archival heritage. It is urgent for us to close the gap by getting the records and memoirs, pictures and tapes of our alumni before it is too late. In the current year, we lost members of the Class of 1896, 1897, and 1902. Only Dr. J. Clyde Turner '99 remains from the last century.

Q. In your judgment has there been any depreciation in the value of a Wake Forest degree in these five years?

A. No. I was reading the other day the swan song of Logan Wilson as president of the American Council on Education. His statement, one of the most incisive analyses of recent trends, was directed against the erosion of academic standards on the American campus. Some of the doctrines he identified as cheapening the intellectual content of college work will be recognized by all readers of current literature:

(1) The fallacy of "relevance": "Only the young can truly perceive the imperfections of our era";

(2) "The fetish of educational change for its own sake";

(3) "The instant authority of the politicos, dabsters and arrivistes";

(4) "The Noah's Ark principle" of participatory democracy, i.e. who participates in decisions and actions is more important than what is decided and accomplished;

(5) The egalitarianist orthodoxy: "In our commendable zeal to eliminate snobbism in higher education, we may be inadvertently institutionalizing slobbism in its place."

(6) "The self-flagellation syndrome." Continuous institutional self-examination and criticism are undoubtedly beneficial, but unending catharsis depletes the energies of everyone concerned.

Logan Wilson would be the first to admit that he has coined some pungent phrases to dramatize his argument. This may be a case of extravagant rhetoric, of fighting the devil with his own fire. But setting the evil doctrines of his valedictory against the Wake Forest experience, I feel better about the changes that have come -- all too swiftly for traditional taste -- in these turbulent years.

It would be foolish to claim that Wake Forest has not been influenced by the pressures and anxieties that feed these theories. All of us who know the need for university reform have been touched by fashionable ideas that would seem to hasten the laudable movement to end the sterility of the college experience. But our zeal has been moderated by a higher concern to halt the corruption of standards of admission and graduation and the ultimate debasement of the credentials we give.

It would be premature to advertise as improvements all the changes we have made. What can be claimed is that the changes have been made in an orderly way according to the Charter and Bylaws of the various faculties. On major issues, faculty debate has been lengthy and reasonable. We have a new calendar, a new curriculum, revised grading procedures. But none of these has "enthroned mediocrity," nor have we compromised with spurious dogmas that would discard the merit principle.

Q. You mentioned Venice, Poona, and other centers of Wake Forest International. You visited the Venice House this summer. What is your opinion of overseas study programs?

A. The answer depends on the program, the place, and the people. Foreign study is not for everybody. Language is a critical element. Receptivity to alien cultures is another. If the experience is to be effective, it must have a genuine academic purpose. To be sure, travel to any new place is "educational" in a limited sense, and more than 200 institutions now offer credit for some sort of foreign study. These programs are of uneven quality, and some are unrelated to intellectual life.

No one would deny the special appeal of the Venice House, located on the Grand Canal next to the Guggenheim museum of twentieth century art. The whole city is an art museum, and the musical calendar is crowded. Who can place a value on the role we have assumed in the international cultural community? Would any student forget the amateur theatrical in our own garden, attended by such notables as Ezra Pound and Peggy Guggenheim?

Some programs demand at least a full year in residence abroad. We have planned the work in Venice for at least one semester. The Winter Term is ideal for such concentrated courses as Theater in London, or perhaps a single archaeological project. The overview of several societies in one- or two-day stands is academically thin and physically tiring.

I believe most of the Wake Forest overseas work has been carefully planned. The students who stayed at home joked about the "Four-Fun-Four Plan," but those who travelled abroad found that it was not all fun: term papers still must be filed.

Q. What are the most pressing bricks-and-mortar goals for the campus?

A. Facilities for the fine arts; a student health center; a public affairs forum or auditorium to relieve the crowded calendar of events and provide for conferences and seminars that come within the yawning gap between DeTamble (200 seats) and Wait Chapel (2,400 seats); a mathematics-physics building; refurbishing of residence halls; and the renovation of Reynolda Village.

Q. Many private colleges have collapsed or run enormous deficits. Is Wake Forest in trouble?

A. We have not run a deficit in many years, but the balance in operational funds on June 30, 1972, was $1,725 Careful management made possible an increase of $192,000 in the maintenance funds for unbudgeted improvements, and the endowment rose by $6,770,526. It should be noted that only $1,218,331 of this sum was new funds; the rest represented market gains. Market values fluctuate, of course, and the figure for June 30, 1972, was $52,065,976. The balance sheet indicates indebtedness of $3,965,828, long-term obligations that until now have been retired on schedule. These are self-liquidating. It should be noted further that income from all sources increased: endowment, tuition, church support, alumni giving, and direct grants from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Since the passage of the tax reform act of 1969, foundation giving has leveled off while the of these philanthropic agencies have been in the process of revising their policies. Student aid has risen to almost a million and a half dollars. The Baptist State Convention increased its support last year from $454,946 to $489,955. Annual giving rose from $121,309 to $154,563. Virtually all of this increase has come from new givers. We can now count 36 per cent of our living alumni giving through the Annual Fund program or to capital needs, the President's Club (at least $1,000 a year) or the Deacon Club.

Wake Forest has many friends, who have provided a margin of safety in a time of peril for private institutions. May their tribe increase!

Q. All sorts of special institutes have been established at Wake Forest in recent years. Are these not a drain on the resources of the University?

A. No. They pay their own way. We provide shelter to the Academic Consortium of the four Winston-Salem schools: Salem, Winston-Salem State, the School of the Arts, and Wake Forest. Julius Corpening '49 was the first director, and after he became director of the Deferred Gifts Program, David Smith, Harvard Law graduate, took charge. This is a venture of joint corporate citizenship, in which the colleges pool their skills in such activities as tutoring, health research, police training, recreational leadership. Lately we have offered our services for the community observance of the bicentennial of 1976.

We co-operate with Reynolda House in providing staff and accommodations for the American Studies program.

We have been for five years a partner in the Church and Industry Institute, which has brought together 800 clergymen and 30 industries. The program is now offered for credit in 13 seminaries. The young seminarians spend some time in ordinary jobs on the assembly line, or in corporate offices, or on the salesman's route: they emerge with a better understanding of American business.

Richard Ottaway, the organizer of Church and Industry, has turned his talents to the Human Enterprises Institute, a broad umbrella-for many efforts to improve community leadership, the understanding of criminal justice, and organizing to respond to school integration by federal court orders.

The Ecumenical Institute under J. William Angell, professor of religion, has drawn on the scholarship of Catholic and Jewish scholars for interfaith conferences this year. Most notable of many eminent religious leaders who were our guests on campus were Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Church, Pastor Winfried Maechler of Berlin (leading interpreter of Bonhoeffer), and Carl Bates, president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

All these, and such special events as the national high school debate tournament, held on our campus in June, were totally financed outside the University budget.

Q. You said at one time that the college presidency is "where the action is." Why then the high turnover among college presidents?

A. I have not seen the latest mortality statistics. These have been years of stress for everyone in education. Perhaps our society expects too much of its schools. The job is never done, and a profound weariness indicates it is time for a change. Kingman Brewster of Yale, who seems to have great zest for the job, recently stood for reelection. That would appear to be a hazardous process for some of us. I hope none of us who presume to be educators become so dogmatic in our educational theories that we are unable to adapt to challenge.

We need the strength to resist the fashionable. After Sputnik I there was a great rush toward the sciences. In the early days of the Peace Corps, the foreign languages flourished. All sorts of ephemeral movements have been advertised as earth-shaking innovations, to be incorporated in the catalogue of every good college without further delay. Times of dynamic change are often followed by periods of quiescence, if not lassitude and decay. It is the business of the administrator to consolidate the gains, the increment of good that comes from all movements of reform. Obviously, some leaders are better prepared for the quick thrust of change. Some of us are temperamentally better suited to quiet times. Some restless men and women can do their best work in transitional times. It is this last group, I think who shorten the averages and escape from the pressures. The man needs a change; the university needs a change

Q. In a profile by Roger Rollman in the Winston-Salem Journal, you are quoted as saying, "Financial management is not my strength," yet Dr. Coy Carpenter's history cites you as "the leading money raiser of any administration in Wake Forest history.

A. No inconsistency there. No one really enjoys asking for money! And Dr. Carpenter was generous in giving the administration credit for the work of volunteers.

Q. The same article stresses your relationship with the North Carolina Baptist Convention and improved understanding with the churches. Have you enjoyed this side of your work?

A. Yes, very much. The denominational leadership and the ministers have been unfailingly kind to this layman. After 138 years, they are still proud to claim kinship. As Moderator of the Baptist Association these past two years, I have seen something of the problems of the local churches, and the churchmen have shown concern for the future of their colleges. After all, we are working with the same human material -- the youthful sector of it.

Q. Do you have enough help, volunteer and professional?

A. No. No institution, whatever its renown, can afford the kind of professional staff needed for the sophisticated operation of today's campus. Some of our work is done by computer. I am glad to report that human beings are still available. Some essential work would have been deferred without the help of such volunteers as Floyd Fletcher '33, who drove regularly from Durham to Winston-Salem to co-ordinate the work of development and alumni affairs. In the last year, I have relied on an old and capable friend, Dr. James P. Speer II, Foreign Service officer, broker, writer and teacher, who has done a thorough job in analyzing our work and organizing the tasks of this heterogeneous "fourth branch" of college government.

We make no secret of the pre-eminence of academic matters. I do not know a private university of our size, or of any size, so blessed by educational leadership. The provost, the dean of the college, and the deans of each of the professional schools know their work, which is universally respected. The same may be said for the director of student affairs. The third category of administration , constantly interacting with the first two is the management of our finances and physical plant. On many campuses, this is an unpopular office, but again Wake Forest has reason for pride in the respect, and indeed affection, accorded our chief financial officers.

So in preparing for the long-range development of the University, we have given special attention this year to that fourth category, a congeries of public relations, developmental affairs, fund-raising, civic work, federal and local government affairs, records-keeping, and computerizing. We are steadily dependent on a new professional class of specialists skilled in this work. Bill Straughan (B.A. '64, J.D. '72), becomes Director of Development responsible for a broad range of activities.

Q. As I go about to alumni meetings I find increasing interest in the fine arts. Why these sudden pressures for the fine arts pavilion, and what is being done to meet the need?

A. First off, I should say the pressures are not sudden: they are long delayed. The explanation for our present concern lies in the fact that, for more than a century, Wake was a traditional Southern liberal arts college, strengthening its reputation for excellence in the sciences and the literary subjects. With the admission of women, we became more aware of the significance of the arts. The young people we have admitted to the Class of 1976 know more about music, art, and theatre than many of us have reamed in a lifetime. No. It is not sudden pressure, but an honest recognition of the fact that the fine arts are the most liberating of the liberal arts, and they belong in our program.

The formal establishment of the Department of Art in 1968 strengthened our will to provide facilities for the kind of program worthy of our heritage and our setting. Our grounds adjoin those of Reynolda House, which houses a collection of American art. There is an insatiable demand for a deeper appreciation of art in all forms. We are not a conservatory. We are not educating specialists for Broadway or the Philharmonic Hall. We are educating the audiences and the patrons who will keep alive those things which enlarge our sensitivity and raise the vision of men beyond the immediate and the vocational.

The Trustees, in their October, 1971 meeting, established this as the number one priority in campus building. An excellent symposium on the fine arts attracted nine nationally known consultants to the campus in March, 1972. Asking the questions were students, trustees, faculty, and townspeople interested in the arts. In retrospect, I look on this meeting as perhaps the most significant event of the year. In June, the architect-and-site selection committee chose Caudill, Rowlett, and Scott of Houston to design the kind of facility which will be a statement of our commitment to the centrality of the arts in liberal education.

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