Riggins: Good afternoon. My name is Adina Riggins. I'm the University Archivist. I'm here today with a very special guest. We are conducting an interview for our visual oral history program, Voices of UNCW. These interviews are kept in archives and become part of our past collection available for viewing for researchers and students. Our guest today is from the Cameron School of Business. Please introduce yourself for the tape. But before you do so, I'll state the date, June 6, 2006. We're in Randall Library of UNCW.

John Anderson: Uh.. my name is John Anderson. Uhm.. I'm with the-- I just recently retired from the uh.. Cameron School of Business Department of Information Systems and Operations Management.

Riggins: Thank you. Welcome, Dr. Anderson. Like I said, this is part of our series of interviews of retired faculty and staff. I'm pleased that we have, probably, going on 70 people interviewed for this oral history program. I'm very happy that you are able to contribute your stories and experiences to this program. We like to start off with some background information, so we can get a feel for who the people are behind the professors. Please tell us, where were you born, and where did you grow up?

John Anderson: I was born in Phelps, Wisconsin. And uh.. lived there-- of course, I don't remember living there. I lived there for two years. And then, the family moved to the northwest, to the Seattle area. And uh.. I went to the first five grades of school in- in the Seattle area. And then, we moved to Portland. And I finished up in uh.. Portland, Oregon, in high school there.

Riggins: Oh, okay. Well, you're the first faculty member I've talked to who's from or spent most of their time in the Pacific Northwest.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: You probably didn't meet very many people when you first came who were from out there.

John Anderson: None, in fact.

Riggins: None? No, it's still unique. Well, first describe your education and background.

John Anderson: I uh.. I got an appointment to the Naval Academy when I was uh.. in Portland. And uh.. came East in uh.. the-- in 1959 and uh.. went to the Naval Academy, finished up there in 1963. Uhm.. on graduation I went into the Marine Corps and spent four years as an Infantry Officer in the Marine Corps, left the Marines in 1967. And uh.. that was my first uh.. adventure with UNCW. I came to UNCW as a student in 1967.

Riggins: Oh, Alright. We'll certainly touch on that. But before we do so, is it common-- I don't know much about the military-- to uhm.. graduate from the Naval Academy and go to the Marines?

John Anderson: The-- Yes, it is. The uh.. the Marine Corps is within the uh.. department of the Navy. And so about uh.. it seems to me it was something like 12 percent of the graduating class at that time went into the Marine Corps.

Riggins: Okay. So it's a division of the Navy. I didn't even realize that. I realized that at Jacksonville, some of the personnel are Navy personnel and some of them medical personnel. But I didn't realize that.

John Anderson: Right.

Riggins: So you were in the service for about four years?

John Anderson: Four years, a little over four years.

Riggins: Were you an officer at the--

John Anderson: Yes. I- I-- When I left, I was a Captain.

Riggins: Okay. Did you travel? Did you go to a variety of places?

John Anderson: With the Marine Corps, uhm.. I was in the uh.. in the branch of the Marine-- th- that part of the Marine Corps that defended the East Coast, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.

Riggins: Oh.

John Anderson: And so I h- had uh.. Crewss in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, and spent a year in Boston aboard an intercraft [ph?] carrier there.

Riggins: That's a wide geographic area.

John Anderson: So uh..

Riggins: East Coast.

John Anderson: Got- got around. And uh.. and uh.. got to see a lot of nice uh.. nice areas of the world.

Riggins: Had you decided not to make it a career or is that part of how you ended up at UNCW?

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: Okay. Well, tell a story.

John Anderson: Yes. The uh.. th- there- there is an obligation uh.. when you attend a- a Service Academy, an- an obligation that you uh.. fulfill, and it varies. The number of years uh.. has changed. It's much more than it-- now, than it was then. It was four years at that time. And uh.. I uh.. decided early on that uh.. I was not going to make the Service a career. Uhm.. going to the Naval Academy was a good opportunity for- for me, uh.. in that my family would not have been able to put me through uh.. a University. So uh.. it-- that was a uh..

Riggins: How much of your expenses--

John Anderson: A- a real benefit.

Riggins: Oh, yeah. How much of your expenses were covered with--

John Anderson: The Naval Academy, it was total.

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: It-- Right.

Riggins: It's books and--

John Anderson: Plus, uh.. I made uh.. $111.15, I believe it was per month in pay. Most of which, of course, went back to the Naval Academy for various, you know, uh.. food and uniforms and things like that. We never saw that money.

Riggins: Um-hum. But you were able to get along and get an education.

John Anderson: Right.

Riggins: What did you study at the Naval Academy?

John Anderson: Uh.. everyone studied the same thing. It was uh.. it was an engineering program.

Riggins: Oh, okay. I mean, being (inaudible) with a Bachelor of Science and Engineering--

John Anderson: Yes, and engineering; right. And uh.. if you had to pick a particular area, it would probably be closer towar-- uh.. closer to uh.. an Electrical Engineering degree.

Riggins: Alright. Well, how is it that you came to UNCW in 1967? How did that happen?

John Anderson: The uh.. the Marine Corps sent me from Boston to Camp Lejeune. And while I was at Camp Lejeune, I met a dentist who uhm.. happened to know a family in the Wilmington area that happened to know a young lady who was teaching in the public school system here. And uh.. he said, "I think you would be perfect, uh.. for a date with this young lady."

Riggins: Yes?

John Anderson: So uh.. I uh.. I made the telephone call with him, and we chatted. Uh.. and uh.. I met my future wife uh.. over the telephone, initially.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And uh.. she was from this part of the country. She's from Atkinson, up in the Pender County.

Riggins: Yes.

John Anderson: And uh.. we were married in uh.. 1966. And uh.. I decided that uh.. this was the part of the country I wanted to settle in.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: And uh.. initially, decided that uh.. I wanted to go into business when I got out of the Marine Corps. Uh.. if not teaching, go into business. And so I thought I'd try for an MBA at East Carolina. And after talking with them about what was required, they- they gave me a list of courses. Since my background was in Engineering, uh.. there was a list of courses that I would need to take, including things like Economics and Accounting and Management and Marketing, and those business kinds of courses. And uh.. so I- I knew of uh.. some folks that had been to school here. And uh.. my wife's family knew some-- had some, sort of, indirect connections to the University. So I came down on a, what I thought was going to be a- a day convenient for me, and uh.. chatted with uh.. then, Dean Crews, Marshall Crews.

Riggins: Oh, yeah.

John Anderson: And uhm.. he said uh.. he-- Well, we- we chatted a little bit. I told him what my educational background was and that I was interested in taking a few courses here, in preparation to going on to East Carolina for the Masters. And uh.. he said, "Well, what you need to do is go over to the gymnasium and talk with Dr. West." And it turns out-- and I thought, "Well, this is strange, going to the gymnasium." And it turns out that was on uh.. registration day.

Riggins: Oh.

John Anderson: When I dropped in. Uh.. and uh.. so I went over to talk to Dr. West. And uh..

Riggins: And that was--

John Anderson: That's Mac West. Yeah.

Riggins: Dr. Edie--

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: Elonza--

John Anderson: Elonza McKinley [ph?] West; right.

Riggins: Yes. And people called him Mac, M-A-C.

John Anderson: Right.

Riggins: Yes.

John Anderson: And uh..

Riggins: And he was the Chair of Business at the time--

John Anderson: He was the Chair of the Department of Business and Economics at that time. Yes.

Riggins: Interesting.

John Anderson: And uh.. so I went over and met him. And he took me right behind the table. And we sat down and chatted. He'd been- he'd been in the Army. And so we had a little chat about the military. And then, he started itemizing the courses that I would be required to take, in his opinion. You know, to satisfy the folks at East Carolina. Uh.. and I was admitted to the- to the University and to the business program on that day. And uh.. went by the bookstore and uh.. started classes.

Riggins: It sure doesn't seem very bureaucratic does it?

John Anderson: No. It was not bureaucratic, at all. And- and uh.. I was-- since I- since I already had a- a degree, uhm.. and it was a B.S., um.. that sort of simplified it, I think. 'Cause I was uh.. admitted under the category of Special Student.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: I- I assume that category is still available.

Riggins: We still have it. Yes.

John Anderson: Uhm.. and so uh.. I began the studies under that category. And about mid-year uhm.. Mac asked me if I wanted to uh.. get the A.B. in business, if I wanted to be a graduate of- of UNCW and not just somebody who took some courses.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: And I said, "Sure, if it's possible." And so he outlined a few additional courses. And uh.. how--

Riggins: (Inaudible) a few extra?

John Anderson: Yeah, it was a few extra courses, is all. And so I went on through uh.. the following summer. Uh.. it was '68. And uh.. and was awarded the A.B. in- in Business Economics from--

Riggins: Right. And this would have been Wilmington College at this point.

John Anderson: It would've been Wilmington College.

Riggins: Yeah, I had said UNCW earlier, and that was my mistake. So in 1968, you got your Bachelors from Wilmington College. So that's how--

John Anderson: And well, I actually got it from- from UNCW.

Riggins: Oh, okay. The name switched--

John Anderson: Uhm.. the switch was in that- in that year, as I recall.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And- and I think- and I think the uh.. I- I'd have to go back and look at the- at the piece of paper. But I think it was UNCW. Yeah.

Riggins: Well, that's interesting. Going back to the registration day. You were able to apply, be admitted, and enroll and get your books, all in the same day, just with no appointment.

John Anderson: And I could walk into the Dean's office over there in uh.. in Alderman. And uh.. _________. Marshall Crews' office, and uh.. I don't even remember if there was anybody else in the office.

Riggins: And if you--

John Anderson: And he was walking through and then--

Riggins: You didn't have an appointment?

John Anderson: Unh-Unh.

Riggins: You just--

John Anderson: No- no. I was just-- actually, I was coming down on, sort of, a RECON mission trying to find out what I was going to have to do and when school would start. And I- I really didn't expect uh.. it to happen so quickly. But it did and- and I was very pleased with that.

Riggins: Right. Did you remember meeting with Dorothy Marshall at some point and getting registered and--

John Anderson: Uh.. I- I'm sure- I'm sure Dorothy Marshall was uh.. was there. Uh..

Riggins: Um-hum. Yeah, she would have been at registration.

John Anderson: Yeah, at registration. Uh.. I- I did not meet her at that time. And uh.. but uh.. but I'm- but I'm certain she was there.

Riggins: Alright.

John Anderson: That was- that was when everybody went to the gymnasium and stood in lines at tables and uh.. you know, got their names listed. Uh.. and- and I don't--

Riggins: By pencil.

John Anderson: By pencil. And I don't even remember whether there were computer cards involved at that- at that point.

Riggins: At that point I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they would've been. Well, you'd probably know some of the history of automation here. But I know this all automated pretty quickly around here. So they may have had some punch cards. What was your impression of the college then? You know, in the early days and when you first started classes.

John Anderson: And when I first started classes, I really enj-- I really enjoyed it. And uh.. I had uh.. I took classes, of course, from Mac West. And uh.. and Bob Appleton, of course--

Riggins: Um-hum. He was here.

John Anderson: Was my- was my professor for--

Riggins: He mentioned that.

John Anderson: For one class.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: Uh.. as I recall, it was Accounting, uh.. Managerial Accounting, I think.

Riggins: (Inaudible).

John Anderson: Uh.. Bob Olsen was here, and he was teaching Economics. And uh.. we- we called him "Bullet Bob." He was a retired- retired Army uh.. officer. And let's see, who else was here? Ruby Knox [ph?].

Riggins: Oh, what department was she?

John Anderson: Ruby was in Business and Economics.

Riggins: That's right. Okay.

John Anderson: And uh.. and- and I think-- and if I- if I remember right, I think, Dorothy Marshall was also listed on the roster uh.. on the faculty roster for- for the department.

Riggins: Yes, she was. She taught some business education courses.

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: Okay. So you remember all these professors. So it's a general Business degree at this time. Uhm.. did you enjoy certain areas more than others?

John Anderson: I- I enjoyed the Economics. I really- really picked up on the Economics. Uh.. it- it was exciting to me, because it allowed me to uh.. apply some of the mathematics that- that I had in Engineering. And- and the presentation of Economics from a mathematical uh.. point of view, I think, is- is uhm.. is more interesting, I think, than just the- the tradition general discussion of Economic concepts. And so I, kind of, got into the math part of it. And uh.. a uh.. a friend and indirect relative, my- my wife's uh.. cousin-in-law, I guess you would call it. Was uh.. studying Economics at North Carolina State. And he went on to be on the faculty at N.C. State. But uh.. when I was talking with him, he also had an undergraduate Engineering degree. And uh.. I was struggling with Economics. And he said to me, he said, "Well, why don't you just use a-- take Calculus approach to this thing." And we sat down, and in a couple of hours, the whole-- my whole view of Economics had changed.

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: And uh.. and so I th- I think Economics is what- is what kind of hooked me. And of course, you know, the economist will say that- that all business stems from Economics. It's the mother of all business. And uh.. and so uh.. my hope was, at some point, to do more Economics. And when I went to East Carolina, uh.. those Economics courses that I took were-- uh.. one or two of them were uh.. not required courses. I took them because I-- because of the interest. And I had some good professors who were quantitatively ___________, as well. So it- it-- I just, kind of, caught up in the Economics __________--

Riggins: It made more sense to you when it became more analytical and more--

John Anderson: Yes- Yes.

Riggins: That's good that you were able to see it that way to help you.

John Anderson: And I- and- and that's probably what interested me in business. Plus, while I was sitting there in the classroom, I was seeing uhm.. education from a different point of view, too. Uh.. when I went through the military school, the thing that was on my mind then was graduating. And- and uh.. when I was going through down here, and-- at ECU, uh.. the thing that was on my mind was the subject matter and whether or not I was able to understand and why or why not. So the- so the teaching part started to creep in.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: Uh.. and- and with a few projects assigned along the way, uh.. by the faculty members. Uh.. you had to get up in front of the class and- and make presentations and those kinds of things. So teaching- teaching started to rear its-- I won't say ugly head. It's head, anyway. (Laughs)

Riggins: You had said that you had thought about teaching, you know, beforehand when you were considering going into business, getting a business background. You were thinking of possibly teaching, as well.

John Anderson: And high school teaching.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And- and probably, the reason for that uh.. was because my wife was- was a teacher. She was an elementary school teacher. But uh.. and her father was a principal. And she had uhm.. other members of her family that were teachers. So the- so the teaching, seeing how well they uhm.. enjoyed what they were doing. And- and uh.. being involved in conversations with- with those folks along the way, kind of, just, you know--

Riggins: It makes a difference that they enjoy it.

John Anderson: Yeah, yes.

Riggins: You know, they may not get rich that way. (Inaudible).

John Anderson: Yeah- yeah.

Riggins: Well, what is your wife's name?

John Anderson: Mary Nell.

Riggins: And her maiden name was?

John Anderson: Shaw.

Riggins: Shaw.

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: And her father was a principal in Pender County?

John Anderson: In- In Atkinson; right. Um-hum.

Riggins: Great. What--

John Anderson: And--

Riggins: Oh, go ahead.

John Anderson: The- the uh.. the- the indirect connection that uh.. also interested me in- in UNCW uhm.. was that a- a good family friend of theirs, my wife's family, uh.. happened to be the uh.. Chairman of the Board of uh.. Trustees uh.. down here. And uh.. one-- another member of the Board of Trustees was- was from that area. The- the uh.. University got a lot of support from- from uh.. that part of the state. And it was uh.. there was a lot of hope from uh.. various counties around here that- that the University would get cooking down here.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And uh.. so I was- I was fortunate to meet them and uh..

Riggins: Who was the Chair of the Board of Trustees at this time? Do you remember?

John Anderson: Uh.. Ashley Murphy.

Riggins: Okay.

John Anderson: And uh.. Frederick Colville [ph?] was the other uh.. person who uh.. he was on the Board of Trustees at that time. So uh.. they would-- both of them, obviously, very positive about- about this little school.

Riggins: It's--

John Anderson: And uh.. and the high hopes that folks had for it.

Riggins: It's really fun to look at the old yearbooks from this time and to see that the students really were from the Region. They were not only from Wilmington. They were from Elizabethtown, Pender County. I mean, it really was serving the Region.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: It was the only place where people could go and that would be somewhat close to help cut down costs and other things.

John Anderson: It was definitely a commuter school, too. Uh.. I- I recall uh.. a lot of the students that I was in class with. Well, not a lot, but many of them were- were uh.. military-- out of the-- you know, out of the military. And uh.. many of them had jobs; if not many, most at least. Uh.. I think, probably, most had jobs and- and drove to the campus. So it was just a different uh.. it was a different mix uhm.. than we have now. Uhm.. but then, as I recall, there might have been five buildings on the campus.

Riggins: Yes. That--

John Anderson: At that time. And the little-- in those- those wonderful Oak trees out in front of Alderman and- and Hoggard, uh.. and Hinton James, those Oak trees were, like, little twigs at that time.

Riggins: Wow.

John Anderson: Very small. And uh..

Riggins: (Inaudible). Yeah.

John Anderson: So it was-- And the buildings were uh.. were new, relatively new. I guess, they were early '60's. Uh.. so they couldn't-- maybe- maybe, five years old, four or five years old.

Riggins: Oh, yeah- yeah.

John Anderson: Uhm.. and the parking lots were sanded, routed.

Riggins: Wow. Unpaved. No concrete.

John Anderson: Yeah, uh.. I say parking lots. As I recall there was- there was a parking lot, and it was beyond the gymnasium. Uh..

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: So it- it's uh.. was very uh.. and- and I feel uh.. I uh.. I really enjoy sitting and talking with folks that have- that have uh.. you know, been part of this whole process over the years. And- and uh.. thinking back in-- I'm- I'm glad to have been able to participate in the- in the growth of the institution over that period of time. Because it's-- I mean, how often do you get a chance to start at the beginning of something like a University and see it grow into- into maturity. And--

Riggins: And see it grow exponentially.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: You know, I mean, literally.

John Anderson: Yeah, I think, it's probably a- a-- my guess is it's a factor of ten or something like that. Uh.. the Business school number of students, University number of students is probably a factor of ten. 'Cause I think it was about 1200 students when I started. And fewer than 100 faculty, if I remember right. And so we're-- multiply all that by ten. Multiply the number of buildings by ten.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: And we're about- about that.

Riggins: And faculty. And of course, if you add in the part-time faculty. I mean, yeah, you can approach the factor the factor of ten.

John Anderson: Yeah- yeah.

Riggins: That's true. It's an interesting observation. Was there a feeling that this was gonna be a big place, you know, back then? I mean, you know, you had come from, of course, a well-established and larger program.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: At the Naval Academy. You were gonna go to ECU. Was there this feeling, like, "Oh, I'm at this small college, now," or was there a feeling that, you know, "We're gonna be part of the University system?" I don't know. That may not have been on everyone's mind. Certainly, as a student, you may not have been thinking about the growth of the University and (inaudible)--

John Anderson: Uh.. as a- as a student, actually, I wasn't. Because I- I-- this was a- this was a convenient way to get some prerequisites out of the way. And uh.. and when I- when I came back, however, that- that uh.. that was the result of a lot of thinking about where is the institution going? And you know, what's-- what would be the advantage to going back to a small school like that. And uh.. I think- I think there were expectations that- that it was going places.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And uh.. I know it-- I know that the community support was there. And uh.. and support, you know, in the- in the Region was there. Uhm.. East Carolina was a good example of a- of a Regional school that- that, sort of, mushroomed and- and uh.. and- and got the support from the state. And it became, instead of just a little regional teachers school, like, a full-fledged University, with a medical school and all the rest. And- and they had uh.. they had some aggressive leadership, and that helped it happen. And- and I think, what I saw happening here, the- the folks that- that were in charge here were uh.. looking out into the future and knew what they wanted to see happen. And it was- and it was going to happen.

Riggins: (Inaudible).

John Anderson: So yeah, there- there was uh.. there was talk about what are we gonna be in ten years? How many students will we have in ten years? And I remember, distinctly, in the uh.. in the '80's, early '80's, uh.. there was discussion about how rapidly can UNCW grow? You know, uh.. we had lots of students wanting to come here, because it was by the sea.

Riggins: Yes.

John Anderson: And uh.. you know, uh.. you know, talk about how do we- we need to put the clamps on and uh.. the- the budgets not gonna grow as fast as the number of students and all that- all that conversation. And there were guesses that by the turn of the century, uh.. we'd have over 10,000 students. And sure enough--

Riggins: (Inaudible).

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: That's a huge growth, too. And to think that, back in 1947, it started with just, you know, 100 or so students, a couple of hundred students.

John Anderson: One little building down on Market Street. Um-hum.

Riggins: Definitely. Well, you went to pursue your MBA at ECU. So you had to do some commuting or did you move over to Greenville?

John Anderson: We actually moved to Green-- to Greenville. And uh.. got a little- a little house about a mile or so from the campus. And uh.. spent the year and-- the academic year and the following summer up there.

Riggins: Okay.

John Anderson: And uh.. one of my classmates there was negotiating hard in Raleigh for a job with a Community College. And uh.. he was-- he was talking to me about the same institution, and put me in connection, or connected me up with the person up there. And uh.. I called Mac West in the search of a uh.. a letter of recommendation.

Riggins: Interesting. Great.

John Anderson: And uh.. I said-- I, you know, told him, I said, "Mac, I've got a- a possibility of getting a teaching job at such and such uh.. community college." And he said, "Well, why don't you come back here?" And he- he said, "We've got an opening. Uh.. I can bring you back as an instructor, uh.. if you'd like to come back here." And so I said, "Well, let me think about it." Then, I talked it over with Mary Nell and- and she said that'd be great. And she- she'd be happy. She felt like she could get a job back in the- in the county. And of course, she could. She was an outstanding- an outstanding teacher and- and never had-- in her whole career, never had a- a moment's problem getting jobs going from one place to another over the years.

Riggins: Wow. That's amazing.

John Anderson: But uh.. I- I called Mac and said, "I'll- I'll be glad to come back. What will I be teaching?" So he rattled off the courses, Management and uh.. I think there was a Management and a- and an Investments course, and uh.. I can't think of what else. I think I might have even taught Managerial Accounting or something like that. But--

Riggins: So every--

John Anderson: And at--

Riggins: Everyone pitched in.

John Anderson: At that time, you taught, everybody taught everything.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And uh.. and so I came back and spent a year, uh.. as an instructor. And uh.. was sort of- sort of hooked, again, by- by the Economics and teaching Economics. Uhm.. and decided I might like to go on and- and with Mac's counseling. He was suggesting if you want college teaching, you're gonna need to get the PhD.

Riggins: This University was already pushing in that direction.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: Very much so, I would think.

John Anderson: Yes. And uh.. and so uh.. I spent the next few months, uh.. right after I got here, looking for- for programs. And uh.. it was a toss up between Management Science at uh.. the University of Tennessee, uh.. or Economics at the University of Virginia. And so I pursued the Economics. And we loaded up all of our stuff in a U-Haul truck and drove up to Charlottesville. And uh.. and about midway through the year, I said, "No, this is- this is not for me. Economics is not for me." It started getting out of the quantitative area into the- the more, you know, philisoph-- now, philosophic is not the right word for it. But--

Riggins: Theoretical?

John Anderson: The-- the non-- yeah, theoretical. The non-quantitative kinds of things in this-- in the-- I lost uh.. I lost the- the momentum, I guess. Uh.. I wasn't excited about Economics anymore. So--

Riggins: You could tell it just wasn't for you. It wasn't--

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: Your domain.

John Anderson: Yeah, I- I needed-- I wanted uh.. something more quantitative uh.. but not uhm.. well, not- not so much Economics.

Riggins: Not engineering, not as quantitative as that.

John Anderson: Yeah- yeah, when I start- I started reading the History of Economics. And uh.. I- I lost- I lost a lot of the motivation. Uhm.. and so uh.. I called Mac and told him that I'm- I'm gonna change programs. And- and uh.. had thought about shifting over to the Business school up at Virginia. And-- but I wasn't sure.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And uh.. Mac told me that there was a position available down here, now, in a s-- an Assistant Professor's position, a tenure track position, if I would be interested, if I wanted to come back. He wasn't sure whether I wanted to come back or not. And uh.. so again, after some deliberation and- and encouragement from my wife, we- we uh.. we came back. And I started on the tenure track. And in the course of that first year back here, began another search for a PhD program. And it turned out that N.C. State's Industrial Engineering program was- was right down the-- right- right down the trail I was uh.. I was seeking.

Riggins: Industrial Engineering?

John Anderson: Right. It has the uh.. the operations research-- at that time, it had the operations research type courses.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: In the Industrial Engineering department. And so it was very quantitative uh.. and uh.. you know, lots of statistics. And uh.. so it- it was what I was looking for. And- and uh.. so I went and got hooked up with that program. And- and over the next few years spent the summers up there and- and a year in residence. And then, laboring over a dissertation for a few years and finished that up in '77.

Riggins: Oh, wow. So part of this time, did you live with your family in Raleigh?

John Anderson: I spent- I spent a- a year in residence in Raleigh. Uh.. Mary Nell stayed down here. She had a teaching position here. So I would go up there on Monday morning and come back on uh.. on Saturday-- or Friday night. And then, during the summer after she was through teaching, she came up there and stayed. So--

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: It-- But- but there was a lot of time on the road. I--

Riggins: Oh, yeah.

John Anderson: I look now, and wish that I-40 had been in place, 'cause it was not--

Riggins: No. And it was quite a hike, I'm sure, you know.

John Anderson: It was 421 through Clinton. (Laughs) Up to, let's see, uh.. wound up coming in uh.. on the south-- whatever it is, the southeast or the-- the southeastern part of Raleigh, and winding through the streets to get to the campus. It was a- it was a- a fairly t-- almost a three hour drive.

Riggins: I'm not sure if it was there, then. But did it make sense to take 70?

John Anderson: Yeah- yeah.

Riggins: Oh, so you would take 70.

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: But 421 to 70 (inaudible)--

John Anderson: And- and uh.. right. Uh.. what- what's the uh.. is it Newton's?

Riggins: Newton Grove.

John Anderson: Newton Grove uh..

Riggins: That's off of 40 (inaudible)--

John Anderson: And then- and then, uh.. I- I forget--

Riggins: New Bern and--

John Anderson: But the-- there's a town uh.. that I- I can't even remember the name of it. But it goes through all these towns. Meadow was- was one of the towns. And yeah, it's uh.. two-lane country roads most of the way. Uh.. and we still take that- that drive occasionally, when we go to Raleigh, just-- or come back, one way or the other. And just--

Riggins: Just to see what it's like.

John Anderson: Just to see what's changed. And--

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: For the most part, it hasn't.

Riggins: Wow.

John Anderson: Uh.. still the same little houses and, occasionally, a few-- a new one here and there. And-- But uh..

Riggins: That's telling. Because, you know, when I-40 came up, Wilmington sure did change.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: And so did the triangle.

John Anderson: Yes, um-hum.

Riggins: But the stuff in between, I'm not so sure it changed.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: Well, it sounds like you labored through the dissertation. What was your topic of your dissertation?

John Anderson: Dissertation topic was uh.. oddly enough, uh.. University exam scheduling. And uh.. I- I got great cooperation from Dorothy Marshall uhm.. on- on getting data on the University exams. You know, lots of student data. And it was a- a quantitative approach to uh.. scheduling exams in such a way that a student would have the minimum number of exams to take on one day, on any given day. And uhm.. found out that it was an intractable problem uhm.. that you just, sort of had to take the uh.. a satisfactory answer. Uhm.. It's not-- it- it didn't-- it didn't fall out. You couldn't get an optimum uh.. solution. It was uh.. you could get a satis-- satisfactory solution. But uh.. so that's- that's what I spent my time uh.. playing around with for a couple of years.

Riggins: Did you use the computer for this?

John Anderson: I used the computer for this. Yes.

Riggins: And you wrote programs to--

John Anderson: Right.

Riggins: To work on this?

John Anderson: Right.

Riggins: Okay.

John Anderson: And at that time, the computer center here was uh.. was oriented-- was- was Tuck oriented. And- and the Triangle University's computation center was- was the- the State's source of all computing power.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: And only the major schools had their own computers on campus. We- we tied in by telephone line.

Riggins: Um-hum. Right. So did you use the computing resources here?

John Anderson: Yes- yes.

Riggins: Or did you use N.C. State's--

John Anderson: I used- I used N.C. State's while I was up there. And uh.. and then, after that- after that uh.. year in residence, when I came back here, uhm.. I- I took my uh.. Comprehensive uh.. my written exams. And uh.. and worked on the dissertation here, and had great support from Don Trivett [ph?] in the- in the computer center to- to get those things done. And then, of course, all the uh.. all the rest- all the rest of the evolution of the computing kinds of things uh.. you know, we were- we were just starting to get uh.. terminals out elsewhere on the- on the campus. Uh.. some departments were more ahead of others. And uh.. I- I wound up doing most of my work by going over to the computer center and sitting down at a keypunch and- and punching out those cards. Uhm.. I think, Political Science, at that time, and- and of course, uh.. Computer Science Math slash Computer Science, they had uh.. I- I believe they had links into-- oh, I can't even remember what it's called, now. But there was a- there was a way you could get interactive with the computer at- at Tuck. Uh.. and so they could get on the computer, get on the terminal, uh.. the _________ terminal and key in the instructions uh.. and work that way. But- but I did all mine-- had to do all mine uh.. by punching the cards.

Riggins: Oh, gosh.

John Anderson: Still have some punch cards, by the way.

Riggins: (Laughs) Just in case you should need them. With some of your data?

John Anderson: Just- just as a r-- Yeah, I still have the cards that uh.. have- have my program uh.. that I wrote on it. But uh..

Riggins: How do you get a computer that will run in?

John Anderson: It's just-- It-- Well, I--

Riggins: (Laughs) I was gonna--

John Anderson: Don't think I could do that. But it's still fun to- to pull out those cards and remember how- how really, really slow it was to get things done with the computer back then.

Riggins: Time consuming.

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: But sounds like you felt comfortable with it. Had you done much computer work before you started your PhD program?

John Anderson: Uh.. I- I wouldn't say much. I did- I did uh.. some at the Naval Academy. Uhm.. but that was more- more by way of introduction to computers and how computers are used aboard ship and- and that sort of thing. Uh.. and- and had to deal with some punch cards in the Marine Corps, but not- not much. And then, when I uh.. was at East- at East Carolina, one of my Economics professors was into computing punch cards. And they had a nice computer center there that uh.. that we could use. So I- I started to get involved a little bit more with it there, learning Fortran and-- as I recall, Fortran and Gotran and whatever- whatever it-- whatever the languages were uh.. at that time. But uh.. no. I- I really uhm.. when I went to State and- and got involved with those programs there, that's when I- that's when I started to dive into computing more seriously.

Riggins: How did you like programming?

John Anderson: Oh, I love programming. I still- I still do. It's uh..

Riggins: There are people who love it and people who don't have a mind for it. It just seems like the people who stumbled up on it and-- Well, I'm not saying you're one of the stumblers. But people who found it and just realized this is it, you know. I really like this.

John Anderson: Yeah. Well, the- the challenges uh.. early-- in fact uh.. Barbara Greim--

Riggins: Um-hum. (Inaudible).

John Anderson: Uhm.. I'm trying to think uh.. I think, it was-- I think it was during the- the year that I was here as an instructor. And I-- and I believe-- and I want to say it was during that summer. Uh.. Barbara taught a course, a brief course, and uh.. and there weren't many people in it. And I don't remember whether it was just for faculty. I don't think so. I think there were students in there. And I asked her if I could sit in on it. And uh.. and Barbara taught the guts of the computer. This--

Riggins: Interesting.

John Anderson: This is how a computer works. And I had never- had never thought of most of the things. This is- this is a disk. Here's how the disk is laid out. Things called sectors and, you know, and so on. And uh.. and she just- she just hit that- that note that- that just opened a- opened a door for me in- in computing. I said, "Well, now, all of this stuff related to computers, that's all man made stuff. And uh.. it should be manageable by anybody that's willing to- to struggle with it." And so uh.. I got serious about language and uh.. got the support that I needed. Uh.. Norm Caleb [ph?] was the- was the uh.. Department Chair and- and later, Dean of the Business school. And uh.. he was very, very supportive of my effort to learn about and work with computers. He bought uh.. he bought the- the department's first computer.

Riggins: We have a picture of that in archives, I believe. What kind of computer was it?

John Anderson: It was- it was an Ohio Scientific.

Riggins: Um-hum.

John Anderson: It's-- it was a little blue box, about- about the size of a briefcase. And uh.. and that little Ohio Scientific had nothing-- I mean, it was-- there was no monitor with it. It was nothing. It was just the- the chips in a box, and an on/off switch. And uh.. I wound up attaching that to a Teletype. And so I had a little stand-alone computer, a- a Teletype with a paper tape reader. And the Ohio- Ohio Scientific clamped onto the- onto the Teletype. And uh.. and that was- that was the Business school's first stand-alone computer. And that was about the time when Radio Shack was making its bid with the TRS-80 and the microcomputer was- was coming into uh.. use. Uh.. within a couple of years after there, there were lots of microcomputers around the Business school and around the campus.

Riggins: So this may have been in the late '70's when (inaudible)--

John Anderson: That-- It-- Right. It was mid to late '70's that- that I was getting involved-- personally, I was getting involved with- with the computer and--

Riggins: I don't think we have a picture of that. We have a picture, I believe, of the TRS-80.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: (Inaudible).

John Anderson: Yeah, this was- this was ahead of that.

Riggins: Okay.

John Anderson: It was--

Riggins: But the department went and got some TRS-80's after--

John Anderson: Right. Right.

Riggins: Okay.

John Anderson: Uh.. the- the TRS-80 uh.. purchases were made in the, probably, '78, '79, somewhere around in there, as- as I recall. And uh.. I- I got involved with that. I- I bought one myself for home use. And then, talked it up and- and got involved with uh.. some of the clerical staff that- that, as you would expect, would say, "No. Don't want anything to do with it." And another one would say, "Yes, I do." And uh.. Barbara Trainer [ph?] uh.. was one of the- one of the uh.. Admin Assistants in the Business school at that time. This is in- in uh.. Bear Hall.

Riggins: Um-hum. Oh, okay. Yeah.

John Anderson: And uh.. Barbara Trainer got interested in it and- and uh.. her station was right outside my office, in Bear Hall. And uh.. I would be- be talking to her all the time about how wonderful the computer is. And so she- she said, "Well, okay. I'll try it."

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: And she got into typing up tests and printing tests and things like that with- with the computer. Yeah, and uh.. and she uh.. she enjoyed. Uhm..

Riggins: Oh, I'm sure she was unique. This was in the early '80's, I think--

John Anderson: This was late '70's.

Riggins: Wow.

John Anderson: Um-hum. Yeah.

Riggins: She was unique in doing that (inaudible). It sounds like you were ahead of the game, too.

John Anderson: Yeah, she- she was uh.. she- she was the first uh.. she was the first in the Business school to do that and one of the few on campus--

Riggins: I'm sure.

John Anderson: That was- that was actually using it. Uh.. and the- the software was not readily available at that time. And I think we were using-- Let's see. What was it called?

Riggins: Yeah, how did you get the software?

John Anderson: S-- It was called SuperScripsit.

Riggins: Superscript?

John Anderson: SuperScripsit. And that was a Radio Shack product word processor. And uh.. there were a couple of other word processors that were out there for other PC's. Uhm.. but Microsoft Word and, you know, the ones that are in common use now uhm.. were not commonly used then.

Riggins: Was it a DOS computer or was it--

John Anderson: It was a DOS based computer.

Riggins: So was there two drives? Or I guess, at that point--

John Anderson: They were- they were floppy drives.

Riggins: Floppy drives.

John Anderson: Yes, um-hum.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: Yeah, five inch. And--

Riggins: Was the machine capable of doing lower case letters, as well as upper case?

John Anderson: It did upper case and lower case. The printers were uh.. were uh.. dot matrix printers.

Riggins: (Inaudible)

John Anderson: And uh.. and I think, at some point-- and I don't- I don't recall whether it was in the late '70's or maybe later, that they- that they actually laid out some money for a- a daisy wheel printer, so they could get a nice quality uh.. output. But- but uh.. that was- that was from watching that taking place uh.. in- in the late '70's. Barbara was ahead of the- was ahead of the curve. Uh..

Riggins: Wow. That's great. What about with your students, did you introduce the computer into your class list?

John Anderson: As much as I could, yes. And- and uh.. in f- in fact uh.. we had an Introduction to Computers course by that time. And uh.. I- I was teaching Fortran-- or uh.. for a while, using punch cards. And then, when the uh.. Microcomputers came along, and we got the teletypes, uh.. I was able to use uh.. BASIC- a version of BASIC. And there were several small versions of BASIC that all, you know, they had to have a-- like, uh.. what was called an 8K BASIC, which is pretty darn limited. I mean, there were a- a dozen or so instructions that you can use. But uh.. it was- it was fun. And it was an inter-- and interactive language. And it-- once that was available, we started using that in class. And uh..

Riggins: How did the students feel about that?

John Anderson: They loved it. In fact--

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: In fact, oddly enough, uh.. this past December, I went over to-- I- I hope this thing doesn't-- You're not gonna run out of tape are you?

Riggins: No. In fact, I'll let you know. It'll flash when we have five minutes left. So we know, at that point we can change tapes.

John Anderson: Oh, okay. I'm get-- I'm getting pretty verbose here.

Riggins: This is wonderful. This is exactly what we're looking for.

John Anderson: Uh.. I went- I went to the uh.. driver's license place in December, to renew my driver's license. And a fellow sitting back there was kind of looking at-- behind the desk, in a u-- one of those uniform guys. And uh.. sitting back there behind the desk. And- and uh.. my turn came in line. And he signals me over. And uh.. and I walked over. And I was looking at him and he was looking at me. He says, "You don't remember me, do you?" This is ni-- this is 2005, now.

Riggins: Yeah- yeah.

John Anderson: He says, "You don't remember me, do you?" I said, "Well, I- I think I remember seeing you, and I'm not sure when." He said, "Try the early '70's." He said, "'73, '74, '75, somewhere around in there." And uh.. and I said, "Really?" And so he- he helped my memory. And so we chatted. And he was a student who took the programming course. And he said uh.. "My first introduction to computers"-- and he was sitting there, meanwhile, while he was going through all this stuff, you know, for the driver's license. He's going through all this stuff on the terminal and chatting at the same time. He said, "I took my first computer course from you." And uh.. he said, "I really loved that course." And he said, "I learned a lot." But he said, "The main thing is that it turned me onto computers." And he said he went on and uh.. got a job here and then, got a job there. And- and each- and each different place he went uh.. his computer interest and the things that he learned about computing, kind of, helped him- helped him along. And uh.. at some- at- at some point, the uh.. the State uh.. gave him an opportunity to- to get involved with- with uh.. computing in Raleigh, which he did. And working for the uh.. the license- the licensing agency. And so he said, yeah, he said, computing uh.. th- that first computing class is what got him motivated. And he said, "It's- it's helped me all the way through my career."

Riggins: It's gotten him all his jobs.

John Anderson: Yeah- yeah. So he- he says-- he said, "I'm glad I had a chance to meet you and- and thank you for that." And that's one of those rare- one of those rare connections, you know.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: But it told me-- and I- and I've always wondered, out of the, you know, however many it is 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 students over all the time, uh.. how many of them that uh.. did pick up on, get started in computing and- and really, you know, really wind up going down that- that trail and- and spend their life working with computers.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: A lot of people would say, "What a dull life." But--

Riggins: Well, not this day and age. I mean, just talk about something that changes every minute, every day.

John Anderson: Isn't that true?

Riggins: It's the world of computers. Well, yeah, that's real interesting that, you know, he took one course from you and, maybe, he took some other computing courses.

John Anderson: Yeah, he- he went on-- he took courses uh.. after he left the University. He took computing courses, you know, uh.. outside the University environment.

Riggins: But he may not have majored in Computer Science.

John Anderson: No- no.

Riggins: But he got enough knowledge to get him excited, continue his education--

John Anderson: Right.

Riggins: Get jobs.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: Yeah, that probably happened quite a bit. Because, you know, people probably went into your class-- Well, except for the Intro to Computing class, they may not have really seen the connection. Although, I would suspect that it would be there. For example, when you taught other courses besides Intro to Computing, did you bring in the computers if you taught your production--

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: And (inaudible). What brought the--

John Anderson: Well, statistics, for example. Yeah, we- we would use uh.. the software in statistics. And in the Production course, we would talk about how the- how the computer was used in Production. And- and actually, in just about every course that I can think of, certainly all the course I taught, the computers role in business was part of the course. And most of the textbooks at that time were starting to inCorpsorate computer related things. Like, uh.. computer test banks became commonplace and- and uh.. and then, there was supporting software, like, for Stat. They would have various Stat packages that would- that would be provided with the textbook that the student got when they bought the book. And uh.. I mean, that was clear back in the- in the '80's that that was happening.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: Uh.. and now, of course, everything is web oriented. So the- the same thing is happening. It's just a different approach to getting to the- getting to the resources.

Riggins: Um-hum. Right. I talked to Beth Roberts before your interview. She's the Administrative Secretary here. She was a student in Business.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: She said that she remembers doing flow charts in your class.

John Anderson: Um-hum.

Riggins: And that's a basis of thinking about computers is creating flow charts for your industrial (inaudible). Let's take a break, if you don't mind.

John Anderson: Okay.

(tape change)

Riggins: I'm back. This is Adina Riggins again, university archivist here with Dr. John Anderson for a second part of our interview. It's been great talking to you, Dr. Anderson, and hearing about your 41 year long association with UNCW. During the break, we were counting the number of years and we realized that your first association with the campus was in 1965 when you came, when your wife's brother was enrolled here.

John Anderson: Right.

Riggins: And you were thinking about coming back to get some courses then at that time?

John Anderson: It was-- it was a year later or so that I thought about coming back, yeah.

Riggins: Uh huh, so that's wonderful. It's a good long time. And then when you started teaching again, you know, it was probably incrementally getting to be more (inaudible).

John Anderson: I think we might have had seven or eight when I started teaching.

Riggins: When you started teaching. So, you certainly oversaw a lot of growth just in the business school, let alone in the whole campus. When you-- when you got your Ph.D. and everything were you noticing that on campus there was an increased push towards research among the faculty? It seems like that was a trend starting in the '70s, late '60s to '70s on this campus as well as probably any small college that desires to become a research university.

John Anderson: Yes. Uhm.. one of the things that pushed that particular issue was the uh.. desire uh.. for the business school to become accredited.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: And the American Assembly, at that time it was called the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, AACSB, and the-- when- when Norm Kaylor became the department chair after Mac West stepped down uhm.. that would have been 1971 I believe, one of Norm's objectives was to get AACSB accreditation and he began talking about that. And, in fact, all through the '70s uh.. that was usually underlying a lot of the planning of the-- of the department later to become the school. And uh.. he- he was attending AACSB meetings uhm.. to learn about uh.. accreditation requirements and Mac West was uh.. was working with him and uh.. uh.. I was fortunate to be included in the late '70s to go to a meeting with Mac and uh.. uh.. and Norm up in Virginia. And the- the topic of conversation at that time of the meeting, everything was all about AACSB, so we were kind of getting things in-- getting things lined up in order to get accredited. And so, Norm had started on that uh.. early- early on.

Riggins: It's an enormous project I guess.

John Anderson: One of the requirements, of course, uh.. of getting accredited is that the faculty needs to meet certain standards and uh.. something like the Ph.D. or equivalent in the area that you're teaching uh.. or if you're not you got to be able to show something that would offset that requirement uhm.. and then, of course, research, the three teaching, research and service objectives are all there. But the uh.. the research requirement began to take on a serious tone probably mid to late '70s and uh.. that's my best recollection. In fact, in uh.. I want to say 1978 I think it was uh.. my name was uh.. submitted to the department Committee on Promotion and Tenure. Uh.. the senior faculty got together and talked about who, I mean it was a very informal, seemingly, I mean compared to today's process.

Riggins: Yes.

John Anderson: It was a very informal process.

Riggins: It probably didn't feel that way to you.

John Anderson: Yeah. The senior faculty got together to talk about promotion and tenure and my name was in the-- in the hat. Uh.. And when the decision was made at the department level uh.. I was recommended for tenure but not for promotion. And uh.. and so uh.. on- on following that it didn't bother me at that time because I wasn't all that much into, you know, I wasn't that far along in the process and wasn't that much aware of the university all the things that are part of the university career. Uh.. but uh.. I did get tenure and I was talking with uh.. uh.. Dan Plotter [ph?] who was the academic dean.

Riggins: He would have been your dean too at this time.

John Anderson: He was. He was the dean, yeah, he was. There was-- there was one dean. He was the uh.. he was the top dog in the academic arena. And uh.. talking with him about what was required. What is it that- that one needs to do to get tenure. And he said, "Well what are you doing?" And uh.. so I explained to him. And one of the things I was doing that I want to make sure that uh.. I get on this interview is uh.. rowing. Uh.. UNCW has a crew and back in 1969 uhm.. that's when it started. And uh.. and it-- I'm- I'm digressing now but- but I think this-- I think this is a- a colorful part. It's a colorful segment of UNCW's history and activities that doesn't get a very good uh.. doesn't get very much play.

Riggins: Definitely.

John Anderson: But uh.. when I was at the naval academy I was uh.. I was on the crew and uh.. when I came here as an instructor I was approached by Jerry Shinn, and Jerry was a mover and shaker. You probably talked with-- talked with him.

Riggins: My colleagues have, but I've met him, uh huh.

John Anderson: And uh.. he-- Jerry, if Jerry had an idea he'd go hard charging and uh.. and would not, you know, was not easily deflected from uh.. whatever goal he happened to have in mind. Rowing happened to be one of them and I'm not-- I'm-- to this day I don't know why.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: But uh.. sitting in the building in Alderman Hall over there where the chancellor's office is now there were-- there were two wooden boats uh.. about a little bit longer than this table and they're called waries [ph?] and they were four man waries. Uh.. they looked like whale boats, lap straight whale boats, beautiful boats, and they had been donated to the university and, of course, in rowing maybe in uh.. in Europe there might be wary races but I've never heard of wary races over here.

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: They were not racing shells uh.. like I was used to seeing.

Riggins: They were more leisure, leisure?

John Anderson: Probably, yeah, probably. Yeah, and uh.. and Jerry Shinn approached me and he says uh.. "We've got these boats and we'd like to start a crew at UNCW," and Bob Walton was in the uh.. in the business affairs area at that time and Bob was interested in it too. And uh.. so they said, "Well what can we do with these?" I said, "Nothing. You can't, you know, these are not racing shells. You need to get racing shells." So, we went back and forth a few times and uh.. and Jerry said, "Well, can we get you-- if we can get some students interested will you-- will you coach it?" I said, "Yeah, what the heck, yeah." And so one by one the students would come around to my office and say, "Well I hear they're starting a crew. What is that?"

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: "What can we do?" So, uh.. uh.. as- as the weeks passed and that-- this is the fall semester of that year uh.. enough students got together that had expressed an interest in rowing that I- I told Jerry, I said, "Okay, I'm ready to go but we don't-- we don't have a shell. We- we need to have a shell." So, uh.. we- we uh.. scrounged around and got some support in the community and uh.. there was something going on at that time that was called the Feast of the Pirates.

Riggins: Yes, heard of that, yeah.

John Anderson: And this was-- this was starting. This was the first year of the Feast of the Pirates and it was uh.. there was a group of uh.. folks down at Wrightsville Beach that were organizing this thing called the Feast of the Pirates and it was Henry Green, uh.. see I've got-- let's see Henry Green was involved and uh.. Kenneth Sprunt and uh.. and a few others in the community and they were-- they were sitting around. They had this committee formed and all this stuff was going to go on like an Azalea Festival but it was going to be for Wrightsville Beach. And uh.. and so the idea was can we get a waterborne activity? How about a crew race? So, we approached them with that and- and I met with that committee a few times and they said, "Great, you know, we'll-- what do you need in order to make this happen?" So, uh.. we managed to raise a few hundred dollars and got a uh.. uh.. a rowing organization up in Worchester, Massachusetts to cough up an old, old shell from uh.. probably the '30s, I don't know. I mean it was really old. Uh.. and it cost us a few hundred dollars in shipping and they hauled this thing down here and we had this old shell but we had to have some place to put it. So, Bob Walton's brother-in-law uh.. owns a steel company so they came up with the steel necessary to build this trailer and we built a trailer with a big cedar uh.. rib on it and a couple of cross pieces and you get this shell up on the top.

Riggins: It sounds nice.

John Anderson: And stored it in the physical plant parking lot (inaudible) behind Hoggard Hall.

Riggins: Wow.

John Anderson: And uh.. we would every afternoon then hook that boat up to an old station wagon that I bought and we'd haul that boat down 117 down to uh.. Castle Hayne and put it in the river to the left of where you cross the bridge to the left down the river a little bit.

Riggins: Oh, wow.

John Anderson: There is a little beach like area there and we'd wade out and set the boat in and uh.. one of the uh.. one of the guys had a little motorboat that belonged to his uncle or something and we'd load that boat, get that boat in the water and uh.. practice several times a week. Uh.. contacted uh.. UNC Chapel Hill, contacted uh.. East Carolina, contacted the Citadel to say "We want to have a race at Wrightsville Beach on this day as a part of the Feast of the Pirates."

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: And so uh.. that- that year we had a uh.. had the first race of the UNCW crew. Unfortunately, the old equipment uh.. they started down toward the Coast Guard station and raced towards uh.. uh.. the- the bridge that goes over to Wrightsville Beach from Harbor Island.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: Restored that bridge. That was the finish line. It was a 2,000 meter race and uh.. right after the start one of the riggers broke on the UNCW shell so they rode it down with seven people rowing instead of eight, so there wasn't-- they didn't compete very well but they did row a race and uh.. and they were all excited about that. That was the beginning of UNCW's crew.

Riggins: Well, do you have any records from the crew, like any written records?

John Anderson: Yeah, oh yeah.

Riggins: Oh!

John Anderson: I've got, yeah I've got some names of the folks that rowed. I got pictures and uh.. and newspaper clippings and things like that.

Riggins: Care to share any of that with archives? That would be wonderful, because we could make copies or whatever, because uhm.. I don't know what we have. I mean, I would have to look it up and see what we have on the crew uhm.. I don't know, I doubt we have what you have, that's for sure.

John Anderson: Yeah, well we did the uh.. of course I left after that year and then when I came back and got involved with the Ph.D. program I didn't really have much time to work with it. But in I'm going to say '74 or '75, something like that, a student came around to my office and he said, "We understand that UNCW used to have a crew."

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: I said, "Yeah, they had a crew for a year back in 1969-70." They said, "Well did you-- and you used to coach it?" "Yes." "Would you like to do it again?" And he said, "We've got some guys together. We want to learn rowing" and blah, blah, blah. So we uh.. started over again and this time we got a little bit more support uh.. from the student government association. There were people on the student government and uhm.. a number of the-- a number of the students that were really fired up about this whole thing and the administration and we got the chancellor interested. They saw what could happen. You know we got good community involvement before. And uh.. and so the university had some property. They had attained some property that uh.. it didn't have at the first go around, then went down off the (inaudible) road where the Marine Science Center is out there.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: That property was essentially just woods.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: And right down on the water there was a little building that couldn't have been any more than 700 or 800 square feet, a little white frame house with a pump on the porch and uh.. up on top of the hill there was a house trailer and uh.. and the person the university hired to be the caretaker of that property. And so we asked if we could build a boathouse down there. And after some deliberation uh.. Bill Brooks, who was the athletic director at the time, he said, "We've got you-- we've got you the support that you need and you can build a boathouse down there but we can't give you any money."

Riggins: Oh.

John Anderson: So I was out knocking on doors and uh..

Riggins: Fundraising event.

John Anderson: And it was-- and we got great support again from the community. Uhm.. they donated materials, plywood, cinder blocks, nails, those kinds of things and uh.. one of the guy's uh.. father was a bricklayer and so uh.. we went down there on a Saturday morning and- and poured-- had the concrete truck come down there and pour the footings, laid the blocks, and then-- and then built this uh.. 65, 64x16 or something like that I think it was plywood uh.. boathouse with a, you know, it was a regular boathouse.

Riggins: That sounds very hands-on.

John Anderson: We had room for uh.. six shells I believe but we only had uh.. a couple of the really beat up shells from the other-- from the other (inaudible).

Riggins: From building for the future.

John Anderson: Exactly. And then the student government uh.. got excited about it and coughed up I think it was about $6,000 and uhm.. we ordered a brand new shell from uh.. George Pocock [ph?] in Seattle and they shipped the shell out here and it arrived and everybody met down at the waterway and carried a brand new fiberglass uh.. kedwar [ph?] shell, racing shell and so we had-- we had the top of the line equipment, new oars, uh.. in fact the oars uh.. the oars that we got originally and some of the other equipment that we got for practice shells uh.. again Gerald Shinn, who happened to know uh.. Congressman Elton Lennon who happened to have some connections in the Washington, D.C. area for some unknown reason but uh.. they uh.. they made contact with the naval academy and the naval academy gave up some old equipment, some of their old equipment. And Bill Brooks took a trailer and drove up and hauled this stuff back to the campus. And uh.. so a lot of the equipment, the oars we got from the uh.. from the naval air station (inaudible) and I don't know where- where the rest of it came from but it was-- it was, you know, stuff coming from everywhere and that boathouse uh.. was used for a number of years after that and they raced in uh.. the years that I was involved. We raced in Charleston and in Tennessee and uh.. Chapel Hill and, of course, down here.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: And uh.. so one of the-- one of the guys in one of those first crews went on to be the coach at Clemson.

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: Crew coach at Clemson, yeah. And uh.. the first captain of the crew team, Bob Browning, wound up uh.. as the curator of the uh.. Coast Guard Museum in Washington, D.C.

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: Yeah, so it just-- it was just interesting you know hearing these things come back over the years and uh.. they all had uh.. great experiences with rowing like I did. It's something you get hooked on.

Riggins: Uh huh. It's very much a team sport sort of thing.

John Anderson: Yeah, it's- it's a total team sport. There are no-- there are no, you know, individual heroes in rowing. The team that works together is the one that wins.

Riggins: Great exercise.

John Anderson: Uh huh.

Riggins: Upper body.

John Anderson: It is that. But, anyway that's- that's uh.. that's the diversion, the digression that I wanted to be sure I got in there.

Riggins: I'm so glad you filled us in. And, like I said, we don't have anything in the archives about the crew that we touched on all this so it's great. We got your story and--

John Anderson: And, that gets me back in now. I can connect back into your original question.

Riggins: Yes, to Dan Platter.

John Anderson: Talking with Dan Platter and he says, "What are you doing?" And I told him "I'm involved with-- this is what I'm doing." And uh.. and he said, "Well what you need to be doing is you need to be involved with the faculty. And, you know, more faculty involvement, you need to be doing some research." And as the university evolves there's more emphasis placed on those kinds of things, although involvement with students is- is good.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: And involvement with sports is good. It's not going to contribute toward promotion.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: And so, I kind of eased my way out of that and got involved in uh.. in research kinds of-- kinds of things.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: And uh.. and over the next couple of years gave papers and, you know, those kinds of things and finally-- and finally made the next hurdle. I believe it was in 1980, '80, '81, sometime around there.

Riggins: You got promoted.

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: Well, yeah, I guess that's something that professors are still struggling with, a balance you know, spending time with students, developing students versus-- or going, not necessarily going along with developing their career so that they can get a promotion and tenure.

John Anderson: Yeah. That was-- and I-- and I understand. I mean looking back on it I certainly understand uh.. the need for- for those kinds of things because you're being judged by external agencies and uh.. and with things like our AACSB accreditation, for example, comes a lot of recognition, additional students that are looking, that are shopping for school, AACSB accredited school, which is one of whatever it is, a few percentage of all business or a fairly small percentage of all business schools is accredited by AACSB. And so this has, you know, got to be a good school and you're not going to get accredited unless you meet these standards. So, it's easy to understand uh.. and it's also uhm.. it's also a very worthwhile thing. You know I was glad to be a part of that whole process and see the business school become recognized and acknowledged by the AACSB.

Riggins: To meet these standards costs money right so often to make sure you have uhm.. faculty with Ph.D.s.

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: I don't know if that always worked out in the real world because I know it was hard to get faculty in some of those days.

John Anderson: Uh huh.

Riggins: But and to have a certain number of students per course. I mean were these some of the standards that you know--

John Anderson: Yes. Yes. And uh.. it did-- it did cost money and uh.. and uh.. one of the things that happened over those years is uh.. is uh.. the provost and the other-- and the other key university administrators uh.. all had the same objective in mind. You know we wanted uh.. at least in the business school are one of the things that they wanted to happen is that accreditation and that was uh.. that was a priority. And so, a lot of money got uh.. funneled over toward the business school over those years. And we were able to build up the faculty, a strong faculty. They came in with Ph.D.s uh.. and even the ones that came in uh.. the ABC, all but dissertation, uhm.. were-- they came in with the understanding that you need to finish up in a given amount of time or we can't-- we can't retain you.

Riggins: Right, right.

John Anderson: And uh.. there were a few over the years that uh.. did not uh.. did not finish and- and as a result left.

Riggins: Uh huh. Alright that was-- that was as the times were changing. I did an interview earlier in the year with Bill Pate.

John Anderson: Oh, yes, uh huh.

Riggins: Yes and I believe you were his supervisor at one point.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: Uh huh.

Riggins: Worked on his-- what was his role?

John Anderson: I hired Bill in fact, yeah.

Riggins: Okay.

John Anderson: Yeah.

Riggins: Was there a committee (inaudible) at that time or were you kind of just charged with--

John Anderson: Yeah in 1980 I guess it was uhm.. uh.. the vice chancellor at that time and I don't recall when he became the provost, Cahill, Charles Cahill.

Riggins: Charles Cahill, yeah.

John Anderson: Yeah. Uh.. he- he asked me to uhm.. come over and work as his special assistant to go through the process of planning for the evolution of uhm.. computers and information systems on the campus. It had not been done to that point. We were still the top agency essentially. And uh.. so I agreed to do that. I worked out of his office for a year and then Don Trivett, who had been the computer center director for I want to say probably close to ten years uh.. resigned in- in 1981. And uh.. and then the vice chancellor asked me if I would uh.. go over there and hold that position which I did not want to do. But anyway, yeah, I agreed to do it and uh..

Riggins: You did that in addition to teaching?

John Anderson: Uh.. I was teaching maybe one course occasionally but uh.. uhm.. we went through a planning process for uh.. a year or so and got the computer science people and the-- and somebody from all of the different discipline areas to be involved uh.. to the extent that they were feeding into the process what their computer requirements would be. And the goal was to provide better computing support, whether it was Tuck or otherwise and very quick. I mean everybody that got involved said, "We need to get away from Tuck and get our own computer," you know that kind of thing.

Riggins: And so you can do more with it or have more control?

John Anderson: Exactly, exactly, and so we went through a process that was essentially a four year process from '80-- at least I was involved for four years '80 to '84 and uh.. I sort of uh.. shepherded the planning process and then uh.. came up with a long range plan and got that thing approved. Uh.. that involved uhm.. defining and reorganizing the staff uh.. getting the uh.. area that we would need-- the physical area that we would need in Harvard Hall, uh.. rewiring the campus, all this stuff in anticipation for whatever we were going to bring in. And we wound up at the end of the four years we wound up bringing in two computer systems uh.. VAX [ph?] from Digital Equipment Corpsoration, one for the academic area and one for the administrative area, had rewired the campus so that all the buildings had online access to the computers uh.. and offices, individual offices could get online access to the computers and set up computer labs in uh.. key buildings around the campus.

Riggins: Bill must have been around for some of this, was he (inaudible)?

John Anderson: Bill was uh.. yeah, Bill was hired in uh.. 1981 I believe.

Riggins: That sounds right. You have a good memory for years.

John Anderson: And he uh.. Bill, in fact I think Bill was the first, was the first major addition to staff that I did as- as the director over there and that was because of the intention to split out academic and administrative computing. We needed somebody to focus on administrative computing. Bill happened to be a graduate and was working with the banking system at the time and new Cobol and- and, of course, at that time most of the business uh.. computer systems ran off Cobol. And so he had-- he had the skills and he also had the interest. And so uh.. uh.. after- after the interview process it was clear, you know, he would be the guy to bring back, so we brought him back and he was the-- he was in charge. He was the manager of administrative computing.

Riggins: Okay.

John Anderson: And uhm..

Riggins: Who handled academic was that you?

John Anderson: No. No, oddly enough. Uh.. uh.. we brought-- I brought a guy over there by the name of Paul Hosier.

Riggins: Oh, okay.

John Anderson: And uh.. uh.. one of the things that- that we did early on besides that uh.. administrative emphasis and setting Bill down the trail of finding out what kind of administrative software the campus should be looking at, we split out the academic part and- and literally disconnected uh.. academic and administrative ends and set up a uh.. an academic computer center in the social and behavioral sciences building. And uh.. whereas we had one card reader up to that point and everybody used it and, of course, if the administrative, if the registrar's office stuff were going through the card reader, everybody in the academic arena had to wait. So, and everything to that point if you wanted to run a program you put the cards in to a box and you waited while a highly paid person picked up the cards and put them in the reader. Well, we disconnected that essentially and- and uh.. managed to finagle uh.. uh.. another card reader and sent that card reader over in the social and behavioral sciences building, set up an office for Paul and Mike Sheehan [ph?] and uh.. and they were over there and the students then were able to take right from the keypunch take their deck of cards and go and stick it in that machine and run their programs.

Riggins: Those were the students who had assignments to program.

John Anderson: Yeah, yeah. And uh.. and so that-- to me that was a logical, a logical step to open access to the computer up while we're using Tuck and we knew that was going to be short run because we were getting our own systems. Uh.. so Paul wound up uh.. directing that academic-- that academic arena and coordinating with the different academic areas.

Riggins: That's great. Well after uh.. you went on your own away from Tuck did you still have the two, the separation between administration and--

John Anderson: Yes and they had two- two different uh.. two different computers actually so the administrative stuff was- was running on one and not interfering with uh.. what was happening on the other.

Riggins: Uh huh, uh huh.

John Anderson: So that worked out fairly well.

Riggins: What was your involvement with the computing center over the years? Did you remain sort of supervisor to Bill Pate or?

John Anderson: No. No. I- I went through that process of getting the computers on the campus and then uh.. I resigned and went back to the-- back to teaching.

Riggins: Uh huh, uh huh.

John Anderson: So I was back--

Riggins: And he was on his own.

John Anderson: Back in the classroom. Bill was on his own. Paul took over as the-- as the uh.. director. It was called the Office of Information Systems at that time.

Riggins: Oh, okay.

John Anderson: And within that office the way we had it set up it had a manager for administrative and a manger for academic computing and then each had their own group of people working for them. And then there was a third, a third arena called operations and Chris Mowry was the uh.. the manager, the operations manager and he was responsible for all the equipment and for, you know, maintaining equipment, security and- and the computer center itself.

Riggins: Oh, okay that's good.

John Anderson: Uhm.. yeah, it's interesting uh.. Chris came aboard in the early '70s, maybe mid-'70s uhm.. but uh.. he had been there for a few years and uh.. he was-- he was a former Marine as well and so we got along real well. Uh.. he was very, very astute. Uh.. what I lacked in- in- in willingness to perceive political properness or propriety, Chris was there to say "Don't do that." And so he was-- he was very good in that respect.

Riggins: That's great. You can learn from people like that. That's for sure.

John Anderson: Yeah. Yeah. And the political part uh.. uh.. is- is probably the part that I had the least amount of interest in.

Riggins: You like the asking for money, begging for money?

John Anderson: Give me-- give me the amount, yeah. So uh.. and when I left that area I went back to the classroom and in 1986 or thereabouts the uh.. ports authority, I got a call from uh.. the ports authority and they wanted somebody to come down and do a little seminar for them on- on computers. And I think this is something that maybe Dennis Carter had something to do with. Uh.. but uh.. I spent a couple of days down there and- and uh.. uhm.. did some presentations on this is a computer and this is how the computer works and how it could be used and just computers 101 kind of thing uh.. for most of the staff down there because they were going through the process that we had just gone through on the campus. They were-- they were beginning to think about a long range plan for computing as a course. I did the seminar and then a few months later I got a call from the ports and said, "We need somebody to come down here and lead this process. Uh.. would you be interested?" I said, "No." I mean I just, you know, was still burned out from the other one and- and uh.. so they called back and said, "Well, what, you know, what do you need? Can we get you away from the university for a while?" So, anyway the negotiations went on for a little bit and- and uh.. so I took a two year leave of absence and went down to ports authority and worked with them. But anyway, how that connects to the university is when I got down there and took a look at the staff and the way things were laid out and what their anticipation was for the future and the way other agencies that used the ports were computerizing at a very rapid pace, I knew I needed somebody that- that was good that could be there for the long haul. And so I called Chris and uh.. and talked to Chris about, you know, "How about come on down here and see what I'm doing, you know? You might-- you might be interested in what's going on. You like computers. Come down here and just look around a little bit." So, I started working with Chris a little bit, got him interested, pointed out that there were former Marines on the staff down there. There were former Marines on the ports that were working in various offices down there. It was more of a military kind of structure than the university. And uh.. plus if he were to come down there and help me out then when I left we can work it out so that he would-- he would uh.. take over. And so uh.. worked with Bill Edwards down there and- and got an agreement that, you know, we'd get Chris in here and then at the end of my two years, Chris would stay and he would get a shot at that-- at that director's job.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: And uh.. and so that- that worked out. Chris agreed to do it. He came down there and he's still there today.

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: Yeah. Yeah. He's done very well down there.

Riggins: And he was at the university for quite a while.

John Anderson: He was at the university probably ten years I would guess, yeah, at least.

Riggins: So he liked the environment there.

John Anderson: And it's, you know, it was an easy-- it was a state, same kind of a state, relationship with the state as far as retirement and all is concerned so he just made that move and uh.. and really liked uh.. really liked what was going on down there and uh.. fit in immediately and the two of us over that two year period managed to get things sort of set up and then I was able to come back to the university and go back to the classroom.

Riggins: Uh huh, yes you were, glad to do it I guess.

John Anderson: Glad to do it, yeah.

Riggins: Right but the challenging part is you mentioned, you touched on was the politics. I don't know if you want to explain that a little bit. Was it-- well it was hard without working out in the computing center in some ways.

John Anderson: Uh.. well uh.. I don't know that it's-- that it's limited to the computing center as much as it is to the university and uh.. the- the training, the preparation that I had uh.. in the military school and in the military uh.. you- you uh.. you get things done in a different fashion and uh.. uh.. the university doesn't work the same way and it-- and it took me a while to figure that out. And uh.. you- you need to have a whole lot more patience in a-- in a-- in an administrative position in the university environment than you do uh.. let's say in the military or in the business environment because everything-- you've essentially got a loose-- I've had it described to me as a loose consortium of scholars and- and everybody is-- everybody is sort of independent and to get everybody onboard takes time. And here was something, here's an objective. You want to get this objective. We could have done it in a year but it took four years. A business would do it in six months, you know, that kind of thing. So- so it requires a different uh.. it requires a different uh.. level, a different expectation as to outcomes uh.. to do administrative work on the campus.

Riggins: It seems it takes some people a while to get used to that if you're used to something else and your personality type perhaps is more used to getting things done (inaudible).

John Anderson: And at times it can be very frustrating and uhm.. and so uh.. I really wasn't-- I really was not uh.. prepared for that and- and nor was I interested in the long haul in- in doing that- that kind of thing because I mean I have all the-- all the respect for-- in the world for the guys that want to do that and uh.. because it does take particular skills. It takes-- it takes people skills uh.. that are hard to find I think. So the uh.. I- I admire-- I admire uh.. Norman and Charles Cahill and those folks that did that over the years.

Riggins: Paul Hosier.

John Anderson: And Paul Hosier, to watch Paul go through that process and- and reach the level that he's-- that he's reached and- and it was-- it was obvious to me uh.. when he was working uh.. when we were working together uh.. over in the computing area it was obvious to me that he was very-- he's a very skilled uh.. people person.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: He's- he's easy to trust and- and is trustworthy and- and uh.. so I was not surprised over the years to see him do what he's-- what he's done and to reach the level that he's at now. He's just a-- just a real nice and competent person. But anyway that's- that's the uh.. that's the politics part.

Riggins: Yeah. I was going to talk about, you know, input. Did you ever serve on faculty senate?

John Anderson: I served on the faculty senate.

Riggins: How did you like that?

John Anderson: Again--

Riggins: Well I've been on it too and, you know, when you spend an hour discussing what does collegiality mean your head starts to spin.

John Anderson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh.. I mean it takes a person that has a different-- that has a different uh.. approach to things than I have to do that and do it effectively. Uhm.. I get-- I get into a situation where a decision has to be made and I want to make the decision. Uh.. and- and early on in a discussion uh.. we'll sort of reach this tentative thing and- and one or two of us in a group will say, "Well this is what needs to be done" and then "Well, we've got to back up and we've got to check with this person, that person, this group, that group." And then after a lot of time passes and a lot of discussion passes they wind up at that point.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: And that- that's uh.. it's-- it's-- well it's frustrating in a sense but- but it's also something that I would rather be doing other things than- than going through that process but- but some people get a great deal of uh.. satisfaction out of participating in that.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: And uh.. I am not one of them.

Riggins: Well somebody has to do it. (Inaudible) it's good somebody does it.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: But, yeah, that is a challenge. What other areas did you serve in as your service component? Did you serve on pathway senate?

John Anderson: I was on a number of committees over the years, you know, the curriculum committee and uh.. uh.. library committee and committees within the business school. I was involved with the uh.. committee that set up the NBA program the business school. That was-- that was an interesting process, again political but uh.. but not to the extent that it was uh.. campus wide.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: Uh.. also had the pleasure of uh.. when I was finishing up at the ports, Norm Kaylor asked me if uh.. if I would uh.. like to chair a new department in the business school. Uh.. and I wound up uh.. starting up the production and decision sciences department.

Riggins: Oh, okay.

John Anderson: And hiring the faculty. There were-- I'm trying to think maybe five or six of us starting off and then we went through the process. Norm gave us the resources to hire on some additional faculty so we hired I think three faculty in the first year and then a few, you know, on as the years passed but, yeah.

Riggins: So, some originating members were people like you from the business school?

John Anderson: That's right, yeah. We had-- our department took care of the uh.. statistics and the uh.. computer area and the production, operations management area, so we had those three- three discipline areas within the business school lumped into our department.

Riggins: Who were some of those early faculty members? Are any of them still here?

John Anderson: Uh.. yes, Tom Burke [ph?] was uh.. there for statistics. Ravi Badarinathi was there for statistics. John Garris was there for statistics and the operations management. Uh.. let's see, who else was there, me. And then we hired in uh.. uh.. Art Gowan, uh.. Rick Matthews [ph?] uh.. Barry Wray.

Riggins: Oh.

John Anderson: Uh..

Riggins: Is he still--

John Anderson: Barry is still there.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: And then in the early, you know, a few years after we had been cooking uh.. uh.. Cem Canel came aboard. He's the chair over there now.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: Uh.. so it- it's-- the department, of course, has been growing over the years but uh.. and- and there was a lot of uh.. stimulus early on because of the-- of the uh.. you mentioned in the question about the uh.. the web kind of all these dot com kinds of things. Uh.. we had a lot of students that wanted to be IT majors or IS majors uh.. because of all the growing, the stock market was soaring and businesses were clamoring to get anybody that knew anything about the Internet. And so they were lining up to get into the--

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: Into the department, yeah.

Riggins: And this was when the department was uhm..

John Anderson: We were very young.

Riggins: Very young.

John Anderson: Yeah. This would have been uh.. in the early-- late '80s or early '90s.

Riggins: Uh huh. Uh huh.

John Anderson: Uh.. and then, of course, when the dot com bubble burst uh.. it- it was uh.. wait a minute, yeah, when the dot com bubble burst probably when was that mid to late '90s I guess.

Riggins: Yeah, that wasn't until really March of 2000 I remember.

John Anderson: Yeah. Yeah we were growing in terms of numbers over those years and- and then when that thing collapsed and there were all kinds of folks out there that- that had uh.. IT experience businesses weren't looking for them as much anymore so it became more difficult for our graduates to find jobs and it's been sort of on the decline since then.

Riggins: Well, there are some new buildings coming up in there.

John Anderson: Yes. Yes.

Riggins: So that's-- that might turn things around.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: And there will be a new building with the department from College of Arts and Sciences, computer science and sharing it with a department from uhm.. Cameron School of Business and now it's called Information Systems and Operations Management.

John Anderson: Right. Right.

Riggins: Well that will be interesting.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: Having two departments from two different schools.

John Anderson: That started out uh.. as a-- kind of a uh.. a nice-- a nice to have thing if we could-- if we could work it out uh.. we'd like to have a Master's program in information systems and that was in 1998 I think. I was back. I left the chair in uh.. '91 and then was the associate dean and interim dean for uh.. a year and a half and then back to the classroom. Then in '98 uh.. took over the department again for a three year stint. And at that point uh.. recommended that we try-- that it was probably time, that it was the appropriate time to think about a Master's program in uh.. in IT. And so we started that process, got approval uhm.. to plan and went up to Chapel Hill and came back. We got approval to plan and uh.. and then we-- then the uh.. the new provost came in and put the skids. I mean it- it was essentially stopped along with other things on the campus kind of while he figured out what was going on.

Riggins: Uh huh.

John Anderson: And uh.. the computer science department was thinking along the same line and so as a matter of uh.. efficiency uh.. maybe (inaudible) whatever the main motivation was. The provost Cavanaugh said uh.. the only way you will get your program is if you do it in connection with uh.. computer science. And so uh.. that was fine. We got together with uh.. folks from computer science and Art Gowan spearheaded that process and uh.. spent several years going through the-- through all the details of getting approval and that sort of thing. But early on, and it would have been 2000, 2001, somewhere around in there, uh.. there was a new classroom building, funding for a new classroom building and uh.. we- we suggested that uh.. it might be good to do something like establish a technology building and put uh.. functions on the campus that are technology related all within that-- within that building. This would-- this would certainly make it easier if you had to. You'd have the high tech area rather than have it spread out all over the campus. If you could get it in one-- in one box it might be a little easier. Other institutions have done that. And so there was-- there was-- this was nothing new on campus. I mean they have-- they have schools of technology, information science and technology and things like that elsewhere. And uh.. and so uhm.. Larry Clark, the dean of the business school, argued that on the campus and got approval for that to be a technology building. And then that just-- things just kind of slid together. We had a Master's program under development and we've got a building that's being planned and now being built and it will come online I guess this coming fall.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: And uh.. and so everything is kind of clicking. They offered-- started offering the Master's courses this- this past year.

Riggins: And the Master's program will be uhm.. uh.. information.

John Anderson: It's computer and information systems.

Riggins: CIS.

John Anderson: Computer science and information systems.

Riggins: What else will this building have? Will it have-- is this the building with the training room?

John Anderson: Yes and I'm not sure what else will be in there but I understand there will be a training room in there.

Riggins: Which is really economics and finance I would think.

John Anderson: Yeah, it's in finance, right.

Riggins: But because it's technology related it's in there.

John Anderson: Uh.. I'm not-- I'm not sure what the motivation is for that but uh.. but it was part of the uh.. but it was part of the requirements to get the-- to get the thing designed and underway. It would be nice to have a training room. And they had uh.. plans for things called sandboxes and, you know, other things. I wasn't all that involved in the planning. I was on phased retirement by then, so I didn't uh.. I didn't get all that involved in it.

Riggins: Well that's (inaudible).

John Anderson: But they went through the process and uh.. and it looks like they're going to have a successful grand opening in the fall.

Riggins: Wow.

John Anderson: One hopes.

Riggins: It looks like they're certainly well on their way. I also wanted to ask you about the students. What have you observed about the students over these years? You mentioned that they're from a different geographical area now and they tend to be less-- fewer traditional or non-traditional students. Are you finding that?

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: How else have they changed and what are some of the observations that you've made over the years?

John Anderson: Uh.. if I compare it with-- if I compare today's uh.. class with a class say of- of uh.. the early '70s I think-- I think uh.. the students are less well prepared uh.. in their secondary education.

Riggins: Really?

John Anderson: Than- than they were. The mathematics uh.. things that we were able to do back then in say statistics and other quantitative areas we can't-- we can't do now, so their mathematics preparation is- is not as good. They are, however, and every time I get into a discussion of this with somebody-- I was at a-- I was at a homecoming recently and uh.. a bunch of guys sitting around, ex-oarsmen from the naval academy and uh.. one guy, a good friend of mine spent 30 years in the navy. He's looking across the table at me. He says, "John, what do you see? What's the difference between students today and students yesterday?" That's a-- I don't know whether that's a standard question or what.

Riggins: I think so. Yeah, I think it's--

John Anderson: But I went through this uh.. and uh.. always wound up at the same point, so I'm prepared for the question, a little bit I guess. But- but the uh.. if I were to start to itemize the things, math would be the thing that I would say they're not as prepared for. And then I'd start listing these other things and I'd say that they're less motivated. Uh.. they seem to have less self discipline. I run down this long list of things. And then at the end I have to say but let's look at what they do now that they didn't do then. They're all coming in with uh.. with much better hand/eye coordination because they've been playing video games.

Riggins: Does that help them in the classroom?

John Anderson: Just kidding. But uh.. they do come prepared. They have a better perception of politics. They have a better perception of uh.. of computers and information systems. The technologies are there. They're used to the technologies. They take advantage of the technologies.

Riggins: Right, more sophisticated in that way.

John Anderson: And- and I always-- and now I tend to come to the conclusion that the educational process at the university hasn't kept pace in terms of change with the- the changes that are taking place off the campus, so I'm not sure that-- I'm not sure. I'd have to do a whole lot more thinking about it but I'm not so sure that- that uh.. what we observe as differences in students uh.. perhaps ought to be addressed and we need to make some changes as an institution to accommodate what's going on elsewhere.

Riggins: Well I'd like to ask what some of these changes could be. What do you suggest? Because--

John Anderson: Well, let's take motivation for one thing. Uhm.. I- I find-- I have a sample of one to work with right just my class and uhm.. I find that the students are much more difficult to motivate in a stat class now, for example, than it was some years ago. Uhm.. it may be that I've changed too so I'm not--

Riggins: Right, right.

John Anderson: I have to acknowledge that as a possibility. Everything is changing.

Riggins: Yeah.

John Anderson: Uh.. but- but motivation if I address the motivation issue first uh.. what- what can the university do to change a student's motivation in the classroom? One thing that seems to be done uh.. is introducing more technology or different technologies. You've giving them online courses now where they weren't available before, so these courses that are pretty straightforward just learn some facts, the introductory courses, those are naturals it seems to me for the uh.. the technology.

Riggins: The online environment.

John Anderson: Exactly.

Riggins: Because that's what they're used to.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: We've talked about this on the library faculty as well about how to engage students, you know, with technology because that is-- that is how it's done.

John Anderson: Yes.

Riggins: You know that's the way they're thinking. I don't want to--

(tape change)

Riggins: I'm back with Dr. John Anderson. We're going to be concluding our interview, but I didn't want him to leave without my asking him some questions about some recent projects, as well as some of the names of other people I should talk to for my project. In terms of our recent project, what can you tell me to inform me of the future of your- about gathering information about retired faculty, and how did this emerge in the School of Business, and then become university wide?

John Anderson: Uh.. as- as uh..- as we mentioned, Tom Burke, who was uh.. a member of the production- a member of the School of Business for- for many, many years, he- uh.. I guess he was uh..- he came I think it was 1965 or thereabouts, and- and he retired in 1990, or '91. But uh.. Tom died recently and uh.. there was uh.. some- some difficulty getting the information straight, about- about Tom, where he was- I mean, his role in- in the Business School and so on. And he's been- he's been gone for 10- uh.. been out of the Business School for 10, 15 years, something like that. So it's sort of understandable, I think.

Riggins: People who worked with him are also retired.

John Anderson: Most- most of the folks in the Cameron School didn't know Tom.

Riggins: Right.

John Anderson: And uh.. when the information--. I- I was- I was interested to see that Tom was uh.. reportedly in the Department of Management and Marketing. And- and uh.. I- I know Tom would've been one of the first to say, no I was in the Production and Decision Sciences Department.

Riggins: Oh somebody- yes--.

John Anderson: And uh.. so I- I contacted Larry uh.. Clark, the Dean, and I said uh.., "You know, Tom was- when he retired, he retired out of the Production and Decision Sciences Department, and had been a staff professor for uh.., you know, 25 years." And uh.. so I- I uh.. got together with Larry and uh..- and he asked me if- if I would be interested in doing a project for him that was related to uhm.. keeping track of uh.. retired faculty in the Business School and finding out where they were, what they were doing, and- and just kind of opening the- the- the lines of communication, keeping those lines open, a little bit better than- than had been done. And uh- uh.. Larry was- was apologetic uh.. and- and- and said that uh.. he was- he felt like he had not done as good a job as he might have in- in keeping up with retired faculty. Uh.. so he wanted to do something about it. And then he explained to me a number of things that he had done at other schools, as Dean, uh.. along those lines. So as a uh..- as a part of the expectation from me as- as a- on the phased retirement system, uh.. he asked me if I would be interested in a project that would uh.. collect some information and- and give some feedback to him about- about possibilities. And so I agreed to do that, and spent uh.. most of the spring semester. We met with the faculty, retired faculty from the Cameron School, and there were I think 17- 19 altogether, and uh.. we had about a dozen attend a luncheon, in February.

Riggins: That was earlier in this year- yes.

John Anderson: And uh.. we talked about uh.. what it meant to be retired and what kinds of things the school should expect from retired faculty, if anything, and what a retired faculty sh