#52stories - Week 10 (Mar 8th - published late)

Undergraduate School. 1971-1974.

During my senior year in high school, I decided to apply to three schools in North Carolina: NC State, UNC, and Duke.  All three offered degrees in math.  I didn't have a preference and decided to choose the one that offered me  the best financial aid package.  I filled out application and financial aid forms for all three schools.  UNC asked me to come to campus for an in person interview for the James Johnston scholarship, which was new that year.  I remember answering questions confidently, but near the end, the person interviewing me asked, what will you do if you don't get this scholarship?  That had never really occurred to me, so I'm sure I fumbled that answer.

In any case, I heard from NC State first as they offered me a student loan.  UNC offered me a Johnston scholarship of $1400 per year.  At that time, tuition and fees were $500 per year and a dorm room was $500 a year; so this would pay all of that plus books and some meals.  Duke offered me a Reynolds scholarship of $3600 a year; which would cover approximately the same costs as the scholarship at UNC.  I accepted at UNC mainly because I was concerned that the rising costs at Duke would out pace the scholarship.  I declined the other two schools.  While I never heard from NC State again, I did hear from Duke.  I got called out of class to go to the principal's office in the middle of math class.  When I got to the office, I was told that a a Duke official was on the phone asking for me.  They asked me to reconsider; and when I said I had already accepted at UNC, they assured me that I could change that decision.  But I stuck to UNC and have never regretted that.  Especially tonight as I have just finished watching UNC win the NCAA men's basketball championship again!

I went to UNC during the summer after graduation for placement tests in French and math.  We stayed in Morrison dorm, one of the newer, suite-style dorms.  I met other incoming freshman there and we talked about our experiences and uncertainties.  I expressed concern about getting a roommate who didn't want to take her studies seriously.  One of the other students, Virginia Stewart from Nashville, TN, suggested that we room together, so we wrote the University and asked to be roommates.  We ended up being assigned to Cobb dorm, roomed together for 3 years in rooms 252 and 248, and are still friends today. In fact, she is the person who introduced me to my husband in 1971. Here's a picture of Rex & me at his graduation in May 1973. We're standing in the Pit outside the student stores.

I hated early classes, so mine were usually between 10 and 3.  I took a few night classes that met once a week for 3 hours.  I started out taking Honors classes and then realized that I would be better off taking regular classes and making higher grades. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics, which involved taking a LOT of calculus classes.  So, I accomplished the goal that I had set in the 8th grade of getting a college degree in math.

My extracurricular activities were mainly social activities.  I did serve as dorm treasurer my senior year, but I don't remember doing much else.  I regularly attended football and basketball games.  And, my senior year, I was in Carmichael when UNC beat Duke after being down 8 points with 17 seconds left.  If you missed it, you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO445W4mtZI

I saw some great performances at UNC, and they were free to students.  Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Chicago are two groups that I heard in Carmichael.  My freshman year, UNC still held its Jubilee in the Spring.  It was a multiple day, round the clock (or nearly so), Woodstock type event.  Performers in 1971 included Chuck Berry, Spirit, Cowboy, Muddy Waters, the J. Geils Band, the Allman Brothers, Tom Rush, and Livingston Taylor.  Livingston & James Taylor were from Chapel Hill, so we seemed to see them often.

We also had talks from some pretty famous people, including Roger Mudd and Jane Fonda.  My senior year, my dorm hosted a pot luck dinner for a singer who was coming to campus to perform...Holly somebody.  My dorm president received a call from Jane Fonda asking if she could come with her friend Holly.  So that's how I had a pot luck dinner in the basement of my dorm with Jane Fonda.  Here's a picture of Cobb dorm.  It is a huge H shaped brick building.

When I was a freshman, women had to be in the dorm by 1 am and the dorms were locked.  So to get in after that required a call to campus security.  This wasn't usually an issue for me, but second semester, a was working at the computer lab trying to get my program to run correctly and didn't get back to the dorm until about 1:30 AM.  Fortunately, my parents had signed the permission to allow me to come in late or I would have been in trouble.  Cobb is now coed, by the way.

My senior year was the year of streaking.  The Daily Tarheel  advertised a big streaking event aimed at setting a record for the number of streakers at a university.  The title of the article was "All The Nudes That's Fit To Sprint".  The men met in one location and the women in another.  The spectators formed lines on either side of the path and the campus police blocked traffic on the roads that needed to be crossed.  I remember that I had a terrible cold but wanted to witness the event, so I went with others from my dorm to watch.  We stood near the student union.  It was quite a spectacle to see over 200 students streaking.