INTERVIEW OF. WILLIAM T. (Bill) SMALL. Robert Korstad, PhD. Chapel Hill, N C. August 24, 1989

Transcription

1 INTERVIEW OF WILLIAM T. (Bill) SMALL BY Robert Korstad, PhD Chapel Hill, N C Transcribed by Jennie S. Maurer SPH

2 Interview of William Small Page 2 Robert Korstad: Like I told you before, I'm trying to use these interviews for a combination of purposes; one, to help me with this history, but also this archival oral history interviews that we'll put together with all the written material that we've saved. So I'm interested in a whole variety of things and maybe if we could just start off you talking a little bit about your background, your family, where you grew up, what got you interested in various things that lead to your work in public health, and to the school. William Small: I grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. If finished high school there and went on to North Carolina college for undergraduate work, completed a degree in Chemistry and then went to work for a tobacco company, in research, in fact during the course of my going to North Carolina college, even prior to going into tobacco research area. I worked medical research in the Department of Biochemistry at Duke University, worked as a laboratory technician. There I learned a lot about laboratory technics and a little bit about hydrocarbon excuse me, carbohydrate chemistry and upon leaving there, I went into... well during that time counselled, tobacco research was very prominent, I mean there was a lot of controversy on the tobacco industry and its attempts to make a safe cigarette and that kind of thing, so I seized the opportunity to go into that area and worked in Richmond. Virginia for the American Tobacco Company and their new products division, and it was there that I did for a while some quality control, got involved in any new cigarette research activity. We made several synthetic cigarettes and did a number of very interesting things. I then returned to North Carolina and the way I got into Public Health was somewhat accidental, because I had a friend who happened to have been enrolled here in the School of Public Health in Environmental Sciences, a guy by the name Otto White. And Otto was telling me about how interesting public health was and particularly the area that he was working in, namely: Air and Industrial Hygiene. He

3 Interview of William Small Page 3 August encouraged me to apply. I did. and so I got in about a year or two after I had applied. Was this while you were still working in Richmond, he convinced you to apply? Yes, that's right. He convinced me to apply.i think just prior to my going to - that's right, just prior to my accepting the job in Richmond, during the time I was in Richmond I had my application was pending and I came back from Richmond took on a job resumed the same job I had at Duke and worked there or a year and then was admitted into public health during the time that I was working at Duke, and that's how I got into public health. He was the guy that inspired to look into public health. How did you get interested in Chemistry? Well. I wanted a field... actually my initial interest was electrical engineering. I wanted... naturally have gone to... I wanted to stay in-state so I would have gone to NC A & T during that time because that was the historically black school that the engineering programs. Somehow I got a scholarship to North Carolina Central and since North Carolina Central didn't offer any engineering I took the next best route and the next best thing to me was Chem or Biology degree, so I chose Chemistry with a minor in biology and mathematics and I figured with that type of background I still could you know branch out into any... I had a variety of fields. It was the natural thing to do and I'm glad I did go to North Carolina college, it is called North Carolina College during that point. That's how I got interested in chemistry, it wasn't because chemistry was really my best field, but it was a very exciting field and I knew that if I did reasonably well in the field I would be able to get a job somewhere and that was the bottom line being able to land a reasonably good paying job, something that also held my interest. I was very interested in science, and still am. So that's how all of that unfolded. And. of course, I came here and I matriculated or two years in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering in the Air and Industrial Hygiene program completed my degree in 1969, went to work for the state

4 Interview of William Small Page 4 division... actually it was called the State Board of Health during that time, I was assigned to the epidemiology division... the occupational health section. In fact I was assigned there as a Chemist and of course it was really industrial hygiene or occupational health chemistry that I was doing. What was the School like in the sixties? I guess are the first person really who I've talked to who was in the School in the late sixties. So I'm trying to kind of keep... could you maybe just describe you know some of the courses you took, what the activity was like around here, what the student... it was a time of a lot of... It was a very interesting time and particularly at the end of graduate level. Now mind you, we were... this was a graduate school, we were mostly a graduate school; however, we were not immuned or sheltered from the impact of the what should I say the turbulence in the sixty. And of course right around 67', this was... when I came in this was before Martin Luther King was assassinate but it was a time of unrest and upheaval. And the School of Public Health was not sheltered from that particular activity, because there were times when many of the undegraduates in their protests toward certain things that were going on in the University at the time... I remember there was a concerted effort by the black student movement to support cafeteria workers, that was a very, very turbulent time. In fact I recall having seen these fatigue., the kids dressed in army fatigues carrying sticks coming into the building here for meetings and... they were welcome to use our building, they would come in and they would hold rallys on behalf of the workers, cafeteria workers, and then there were other kinds of activities that were going on. Protests against, you know, racism, and segregation in public accommodations and that kind of thing. So we really were right at the tail end of... well the public accommodations law had already been passed, but still there was some pockets of resistance. And of course the students themselves begin to take on other issues, issues that affected as I said earlier, workers, and the plight of the staff, the dining hall staff, and others. So it was a time of transition, right toward the latter part of the sixties.

5 Interview of William Small Page 5 The School itself was small, compared to what it is today, the classes were very small, and of course you really got to know your instructors very well. Of course, I remember in Environmental Sciences periodically all the students would get together... I was one of only about two black students in that department at that time, in environmental sciences. There was another kid... well there were three of us, there was one guy who was on assignment with the Air Force and he was on leave to get a degree in radiological hygiene, there was another kid in my... not in my area but he was in another area in environmental sciences he stayed around a year or so and he dropped out. And of course I stayed around and completed my degree in What courses did you take? Do you remember? Yes I remember very well. I took... (laughter) the because I had had some statistics, course that really almost threw me was that Biostatistics, the first semester I took biostatistics. I took hemophysiology??? as I recall and one other... epidemiology. So you still had a few required core courses that all the students in the school? Except that my biostatistics course was a step higher than the general course that all of the other students were taking, I was in another are prior to coming here and of course most of our... envr and most of the environmental science students naturally took courses that were maybe a step higher. Because they had already had the kind of math and science background? That's correct. To tell you the truth, even though I had had a strong background... well I'd had some statistics... I still had a tough time with that course because we were still on the semester system, but we were... it was a very rigorous course and you really had systematically put time in almost every day, because there was so much to be done, your homework assignments and of course, I'm not using this as an excuse,

6 Interview of William Small Page 6 but my instructor was not native to America and of course I had some problems trying to understand what he was saying at times (laughter) but still we made it pretty good, and the thing I liked most about the school, and the one thing that I was told when I came here by my advisor, was not to segregate myself so to speak, to stay among the main stream of students and work together and that kind of thing, and that's what we did. We had study sessions, and we met in the building that is right next to the... the old building where the Institute of Nutrition is and where the Institute of Environmental Sciences... I can't think of the name of it. Are you talking about over by the hospital? No, no, it's right, you know where the Department of Nutrition is, right back here? Oh, yeah, yeah. I forgot what it was called, anyway that particular house was set up so that students in environmental sciences could go there and we could study, we would go upstairs and have conferences and study there and we spent a lot of time together a group of us helping one another out, I don't think I could have made it had I not had that kind of interaction with my fellow students. Was that true through the School? Or was that something that was unique to the ENVR students do you think? That's a good question. I would have to say based on my conversations with a number of students who were in other departments with me, I think it was probably somewhat unique to Environmental Sciences. And I say that without reservations because when I came here the leaders of the schools were the guys... and I have to say this, guys because there were mostly fellows in Environmental Sciences. The Student Union was run by these guys who in so doing had involved their wives, and they had a wives' club here that received "put hubby through degrees at the end of each year." In other words, there was a strong group of student wives supporting these guys and I remember one of the leaders was

7 Interview of William Small Page 7 a guy who is currently chairman of the engineering department over at Duke, a guy by the name of Aarne Vesilind I'll never forget that guy. Then there were some other guys whose names escape me at the moment, but I remember Vesilind and a few other fellows who were really active and they kept things going, they were the true leaders. And that was inspiring to me, as a., you know a new student coming into the school, and I knew the department had top notch students, not only from the standpoint of academics but also from the standpoint of general leadership skills. So it was very inspiring to see these. Did you interact with other students like in public health nursing, or public health education? Or Parasitology much? Not much of that going on as I recall, except when... I have to take that back. There was a little of that because the student union, which was the governing body at the school, which is the governing body of the school, was comprised of representatives from all of those departments, but since Environmental Sciences was one of the larger departments there were more representatives, so they naturally controlled. Of course Dan Okun was the Chairman during that time. And Dan, himself, was the kind of leader who got to know his students pretty well, because we... I'll never forget this, I think every year we got a chance to meet with him on a one on one basis, and yeah, I'm sure. He had you in his office? And talk with you and that was something again I thought was extremely helpful, to me as a... well as one of the few black students in the department to have an opportunity to come into the Chairman's office and sit and talk. Did he have socials? I mean like picnics and stuff? There were things that went on during the year. There were also picnics that went on among the guys - the students who were in various program areas; for example, Dr. Rippeton?? who is now deceased, and who was in Charge of the Air

8 Interview of William Small Page 8 August program, he was one of the professor in the air pollution, he would invite us over, Fraizer would invite us over, so here again there was reinforcement more or less among the professors and the students to know one another and to also I might we were also inspired to continue our relationship once we graduated, and we still do in fact. Each year I get a list of where all the graduates are; we have always been encouraged.. if we need anybody or need any help or support to get on the phone and call and it has held true to that particular philosophy, even today, I can get on the phone right now and call Otto White if I want to call??? on the west coast, anybody and say, "this is Bill remember me?". I was... All I have to say is I was in the program at such and such a time and that's it, it is a very, very encouraging, warm and inspiring feeling to be able to do that. The faculty really encouraged that? The faculty encouraged that. yes. And not just Okun? No. no, not just Okun, not at all. But you could tell there was a certain cohesiveness between the faculty and the students. Now that is the perception that I got during that time, now I may be way off base, but I don't think I am, it.. the perception was there, because I can remember times when we would go out to... when we had departmental picnics we'd go out and play ball and do all kinds of things. In fact, yeah, there was just something always going on and there was... (laughter) we used to get fed up with Dr. Weiss' memos. We used to call them Charliegrams. (laughter) Wouldn't get fed up with them, but there was just an enormous amount of paper generating out of his office. I believe he was deputy director or he was... everybody called his memos "Charliegrams". Environmental issues were very hot at that period of time. You must have felt a certain kind of support for the work you were doing, I mean there were major issues, there was articles in Time Magazine.

9 Interview of William Small Page 9 That's right. In fact what inspired me to look further into Environmental Sciences was an article that I read in one of the national magazines which accentuated air pollution and industrial hygiene problems, air pollution with respect to the way it is effecting farmers and urban people and industrial pollution from the standpoint of the workers and some of the hazards that workers undergo. I said, you know the United States being a highly industrialized country, this will probably be something that will be of concern from now until, we will also have to monitor the working environment, the outside of the ambient air to find out... to make sure that we are not you know over contaminating either site. That was something that really interested me. I saw it a long term kind of career benefit area. Were there any other at the school or other things outside of your department, or other people during those couple of years that you remember, particularly or... you probably didn't have very much contact with the Dean? I only knew the Dean from the standpoint of I knew who he was, I remember my first year in the school, the Dean invited us to his home, and I happen to be out of town during that time and I took that very seriously. The Dean invites a student to his home to I think this was on a Sunday afternoon, and I took it very seriously when I got that invitation, so I knew that I was going to be out of town, so that Sunday evening or whenever it was, a Saturday or day before I called the Dean long distance and told him... cause I took that invitation personally, and I called his house and told him who I was and told that I appreciated the invitation but I regretted that I would not be able to attend owing to the fact that I was out of town on some other business. And I don't think he knew who I was from Adam, and I didn't care but I just wanted to let him know that I really appreciated it. Here, again, reinforcement that..hey, here is somebody who really cares. Now I'll tell you something else. I more or less went about my business doing my... I did my work, I worked hard as hell and I didn't get involved in a lot of extra curricular things I was strictly... because I couldn't. I had a wife and a baby, actually

10 Interview of William Small Page 10 it was my second kid, who was about two years old, and we only had one car and I think there were times when I had to... I lived in Durham and right where I'm living now and when I couldn't get the car I would get up about 6:00 o'clock in the morning and I would catch a bus over here and come over and spend some time, you know, in the lab or whatever studying up until classes started and I would stay over here religiously all day long, whether I had any thing assigned as classes or whatever, because I wanted to make sure that I did something with my time. I made it a habit to try to be here all the time. And you asked if there was something or someone who stood out in mind, other than the people in the immediate department, I must admit that among our best friends were the people on the housekeeping staff. First of all these were black people, they were glad to see me here, and of course, they naturally kind of served as support people, other than the people I had in the department who were studying with me and others, these were folks who brought things closer to home for example. This was my connection with the so-called real world of Chapel Hill, so to speak. Because they were the ones that were really doing what my parents had done, you know, to get me where I was and so we spent a lot of time.. I spent a lot of time talking with them and relating to them and so forth and so on. And the one guy was a fellow named Abbott Reaves??? he has passed now, even to today his wife calls me when she needs some advice or you know even just to talk about him... in fact I was with her last week I went to her home and sat down and talked with her and things like that. We have always been very tight. When he passed about three years ago, she had me to come to his funeral and say some words. The words that I related were words that were related to my experiences with him when I came here as a student and my experiences as he... even after I had graduated and after I came back here as an employee here, the things that went on there and so on and so forth. How our friendship jelled and solidified to the point that we were lasting friends. So you were kind of a surrogate son for him in the school. He could watch your progress in the school. That's right.

11 Interview of William Small Page 11 That must have been a real relationship then. It was a very, very good relationship. As I said before it still exists today even among his family. Many of his family don't even know me except through my relationship with him and his wife. These people must have been pretty much invisible to the normal students who were here, they never... they didn't see them or talk to them or... Very rarely. Were there very many black students here at that point? No, there were only... let's see there were two or three of us in Environmental Sciences, there were only about seven or eight in the entire school. Very, very few students, in fact there was one guy as I recall in Biostatistics who was from the Virgin Islands, I'll never forget his name. Keith Halwood?? then there was another fellow who is now a physician in Parasitology, there were two students in... two in health administration and one in nursing, Public Health Nursing, and that was about it. You could count them on these two hands. Was it hard coming from an all black college then going into a... well you had worked at Duke, so you had a lot of experience working in a racial relationship and stuff, so for you this wasn't like you had just graduated from college and went to graduate school. I think it would have been extremely difficult had I come right out of an undergraduate setting into a graduate setting of this nature. But having worked at Duke, having worked in industry and having had research experience, you see, I knew the lab, I knew how to do things, I knew how to make things, I could develop or create equipment the way I wanted it to be and experiments and I knew that, and so it wasn't difficult at all and I knew the lab was like being in my living room. So that helped a heck of a lot, I'm not kidding you. I had

12 Interview of William Small Page 12 August confidence when I came here, it was just a matter of you know getting the right ingredients together while I'm here, while I was here and going forth. The course work wasn't that difficult, but there was a lot of it, and also the nature of the exams were somewhat different than the ones that I had in undergraduate school, I had to kind of get myself acclimated to what the professors really wanted and how to present it and that kind of thing. So it was really, the first year was somewhat... it was really challenging, because I had to get myself acclimated to their style of teaching and... the teaching was okay but the tests and other kinds of things. And after I got that, I didn't have any problem. How did you chose a topic for your thesis? There was a guy who (laughter) that is interesting. There was a fellow who was in radiological hygiene who was doing some particle analysis, some absorption analysis and was looking at radioactive... the absorption of radioactive sulfur S35 on particles and their deposition, their subsequent deposition in the lung. My advisor. Dr. Fraizer said, hey this might be something you may want to look at, not from the standpoint of radioactive sulfur but take just the regular S32 and sulfur dioxide gas was really what we were looking at and so he said, that's something that is of interest, he says, here is some literature if you want to look at it and read about it. So I did, and I was interested and I said, hey, you have any ideas of how I might approach this? He said, well, we are interested in taking a certain graphite particle and play around with it and see how... and use various and concentrations of sulfur dioxide under certain conditions of humidity and temperature and see what happens. And that's what started it, and so I did a few experiments and got some very interesting results and developed a paper. The guy who was doing the radioactive sulfur dioxide took my thesis and he expanded, he was in radioactive 835 and went on and got a dissertation out of it. (laughter). So it was a very interesting area and in fact the second year that I was in grad school, the petroleum institute picked up part of my course, I was on a grant from them, so it was a very exciting time.

13 Interview of William Small Page 13 So how did you go about getting this Job with the State Board of Health? Dr. Fraizer knew about a position that was open there in that particular section, the occupational health section and he... they were expanding their occupational health laboratory at that time, the entire program, but particularly they needed someone with a chemical background in chemistry and also a background in occupational safety and health to come in and set the lab up and begin the analysis that they were interested in performing to make determinations on environmental samples. So Dr. Frazier recommended me and I got the job. I worked there for a couple of years as you have seen, I don't know if it is stated there but I also spent an enormous amount of time in Pirian????Florida in one of the Federal agencies there learning technics and gas chromatography and mass spectroscopes and a number of analytical areas that are quite useful in analyzing environmental samples, particularly samples from industrial settings. I spent six weeks down there once and another three weeks there. In fact as soon as I was employed by the State they sent me off to Florida for six weeks. As a result they bought the first gas chromatograph which I operated and they bought a whole lot of other equipment and they hired, we hired a laboratory assistant who I trained, and so begin the process of establishing a laboratory to look at dust samples, samples from industrial environments, to look at pesticide analysis, the big thing I learned... the one major aspect of my training was in pesticide analysis. Also using the gas chromatograph to determine other components not only of environmental and agricultural samples, but also samples from dust within the environment. We also learned to work with blood plasma to determine pesticides level from levels in workers in pesticide formulation. As a result of my training and my experience at the state level, in my opinion really broaden my knowledge. Yeah, sounds like you did a lot of new different things. So then when did you come back? This is your original resume.

14 Interview of William Small Page 14 I worked at the state for two years and four months, then I came here and it was kind of a... guess you might say a flip flop in career focus that caused me to come here. I had a buddy whom I recruited into the program here in industrial hygiene who at the time I was at the state was of course here, and then he told me about a position that was opening up here. In fact, really what happened was that the students who were here, the black students who numbered about thirteen as I recall during that time, during 1969, 70',71', right in that area. Right after you finished? Right, after I finished, they were concerned that there were no black students, there were a few black students here and a few faculty, but their major concern was in the area of students. They felt that there should be a concerted effort made by the School to recruit more black students and their rationale was that these areas in public health are so pertinent to the black community, not just the white community, but that there was a need in the black for the kinds of things that were going on here in the school and that the persons who would probably be most effect in getting to the black community would be other black people. That's not the truth, but it was feeling certainly - it was very widely felt that there needed to be more black students in the school and an opportunity to reach out to meet the needs of the black community. So Dean Mayes formulated a committee to look into the thought of recruiting more students and also getting someone here who would be effective in devising or designing a program to increase minority enrollment in the School and subsequently to recruit minority professionals in the field. My buddy... I'll never forget this, he came by the lab one day, he said, look man, he says (and I was happy in what I was doing)., he says, look, we've got the Dean sold on the idea of hiring a full time recruiter, he says I put your name in the hat. He did it without even asking me. I said, well I'm not really interested in doing anything like that. I said, my background is in science, I said I'm very much interested in what I'm doing. He said, give it a shot, he says, I think we need somebody who knows something about public health.

15 Interview of William Small Page 15 who has been through the School, and who knows what it takes to get through and who is somewhat familiar the school in general and the faculty. So he kept talking and kept talking, and the more he talked the more convinced me, so I said okay, you've already put my name in the hat. I says if I get an interview I'll see what happens then. So I got an interview and in fact there was a group of black students who formed their own committee and my understanding was that whoever was chosen for the position would have to be recommended unanimously by the black students. So they interviewed me and they liked what I said and so I was offered the position and I guess fortunately I didn't refuse it. I took it upon myself to look at it with the understanding that, okay, I'll stay here two or three years and try to get things going, but I'm going back to my first love. You liked the lab? I liked the lab quite a bit. But then I got here and the more I got here the more I liked what I was doing and then of course Dean Mayes left after a year and Dean Greenberg came in and we took the program to another level and he saw fit to promote me to the position I'm currently in and of course we began to do some things to broaden our focus in the area of minority recruitment, faculty recruitment, because we found that just recruiting minority students wasn't enough, that we had to look at bringing in minority faculty so there was a concerted effort- not only by this School, but also by the University as well - to recruit more minority faculty. Now I might add that the School of Public Health was at the forefront of... well actually I'll go further than that... was really the initiating entity on this campus in terms its organized effort to recruit minority students and faculty at the graduate level, particularly. We were the first school, as I recall to really hire someone full time and to go at it in a systematic manner. We involved faculty, we involved students, we involved staff, and we used all kinds of technics to reach out into the community to attract students in various school and it paid off too. Our statistics show that. What kind of technics or what kind of ways did you go about trying to attract minority students, right after you came back?

16 Interview of William Small Page 16 One of the things we did was.. we made telephone contact first, because I came in in November and of course if you are recruiting for... this was November 71', if you are trying to attract people into a program in the next academic year, November is kinda late, and surely by December you know, you are really late, because most people, most students have made up their minds and then the other thing is that most of the faculty admissions committees have filled their quotas almost to the point where they've chosen the class. Now mind you, our School was much smaller then, so decisions were made much much more expeditiously than they are being made now, because you didn't have as large a pool to be concerned about. But the one thing I was impressed with was the fact that even though we were starting late, we were able to organize a group of people who were interested and who were committed to helping do whatever had to be done to bring in a reasonable number of students for the following year. Okay, moreover we had the Dean who said to each department let's give the committee a chance to... let's really give them a chance, let's hold back a fellowship or so per department so that we will have something to offer these students when we get them. That was done as well. So in essence we started - as I said relatively late, but we made phone calls to various schools in the area, North Carolina particularly because we said, let's hit all of the historically black schools in North Carolina. We contacted people to call, we visited, we met the students, and we told them about public health. Many of them had no idea whatsoever what we were talking about. But we did find a group who were students who were interested and who were willing to look at us for graduate studies and we did END OF TAPE A - SIDE I

17 Interview of William Small Continued Page 17 TAPE A - SIDE II So when did you started recruiting We started recruiting and we were very successful the first... that year. In fact we saw minority enrollment, mostly black enrollment increase threefold during... as a result, rather of that recruiting activity. And of course in subsequent years we have been able to maintain the same kinds of activities. Despite the fact that we have seen some deceases in financial aid from the federal level, and of course, I might add, the minority enrollment trend kind of followed the availability of money. Most students here have always... at least for many years... had some type of fellowship or scholarship to the school. Absolutely. There is one other thing I might add. Back in the sixties, federal fellowships, mainly traineeships were very, very easy to come by, they were abundant. In fact I can recall, and I think Bob Moorhead will verify this, that almost every student who wanted a traineeship or needed a traineeship, had a traineeship. In fact we sometimes had to pull folks off the hall, and say don't you want a traineeship. See those days are gone now and students are having to of course devise very ingenious ways of financing their education through loans and fellowships even some are working, particularly students who are nurses and those who have skills in the clinical areas, they tend to supplement their income. How did you find being an administrator, leaving your lab and leaving the kind of scientific work? Much of what I learned as an administrator I picked up many of the skills through trial and error. Mostly error (laughter). It is different working in a laboratory with minimal contact with the outside world in a situation where you are working with materials and you are working... you are trying to get results from whatever comes in that you are analyzing and you report back, you report your results and the human factor comes in

18 Interview of William Small Continued Page 18 only rarely when you are interacting with your colleagues, for the most part you have something before you that you are trying to find out what is in it, how did it get there or what have you, and make sure that you are doing it precisely and as accurately as you can. So it is really different when you start working in the social and behavioral end of things because you are dealing with people and, of course, people are very, very unpredictable to say the least. Much more so than inner gases or something like that. But I might add very interesting. One of the things I like about public health is that it stays on the cutting edge of things. It is never, never outdated, or outmoded or what have you. We are always at the forefront, especially our researchers here in all areas, they tend to stay right... you know current and on top of the real issues, I think that is really what makes me very, very delighted to be involved in and with a field such as this. How did the atmosphere change around here in the seventies, do you think. After the activism of the sixties gave way to different concerns. You had a larger number of black students here, and you also have attracted more minority faculty. Did that have an impact on the school, the kinds of issues and concerns that people had? I think it did. I think the resulting increase in minority presence in the school lead to a recognized lead by a number of faculty and... well the Dean and others that we need perhaps to look at our curriculum to make sure we are including something within the curriculum that reflect the constituency of our student body and faculty and that kind of thing. For example, many students were concerned that some of the data on certain issues pertaining to the minority community were probably not as current as they should have been. As I recall there was a discussion amongst faculty and the Dean regarding certain kinds of epidemiological studies and other kinds of studies and so I think the administration...

19 Interview of William Small Continued Page 19 we were talking about the curriculum, I mean some of the changes and things. Yeah So they started changing the curriculum? Some programs. For example. Health Education, there was a course that dealt with minority issues and throughout the years there have been other courses added that deal with the minority health and minority concerns. And I think that was part of that effort to make the curriculum a little more relevant. And this is what the black students were saying, we need to make the curriculum more relevant to the real world and that kind of thing. I'm not saying that all of that has been done to the point where there is no need or that now, there is still things that we are looking at that certainly... I think when you start looking at health issues, health problems you will find that minority communities tend to be the most affective, or affective ones as opposed to the other communities. Another thing that I think helped quite a bit in making.. giving some relevance to public health and creating a feeling of pride and understanding among students was what we call the minority health conference. We initiated a Minority Health Conference in 1977 and we've had the conference or something of that nature almost every year thereafter. The purpose of that was not only to... it was really... there were several reasons for doing that, one, we felt that minority students who were training here would in all probability be the leaders of tomorrow in the health field. If they are going to be leaders they need to know how to interface with the community and you know, how to get these organized and put on programs. The conference was planned by the students and was actually run by the students, and the only involvement I really had was just to advise, to make sure they received resources to do the things they wanted to do. It was kind of a learning for them outside the classroom. In fact, we saw the Minority Health Conference as an extension of the classroom in that it allowed the students to bring in health professionals from all over the country and even from within the school to discuss issues pertinent... as they related to health issues during that particular time. Here again we had

20 Interview of William Small Continued Page 20 another forum for students - not only black students, not only Indian students but the school in general to interact with people who were out there in the field, about the issues of prevention as it relates to minorities. That was a very, very good program. You have been able to carry that on? Yes, we have been able to carry that on over the years, and we've had really nationally speakers to involvement themselves. In fact, we have become model for other schools, like Michigan, Berkley and others to follow in terms of looking at how they can enhance their minority presence, their minority interests in Schools of Public Health. It is something that I think is very worthy of mention because here again, it was part of the commitment of the school of the administration of the school to try to help and to insure that the minority students felt that they were really a part of the school. And we were genuinely interested in minority issues. The Dean's office actually footed the bill for all of this and still does. It is something worthy of mention, in my opinion. Did you interact generally like that with the students groups... when did you start dealing with students in general? When I became Assistant Dean for Student Affairs,.. now prior to that time there is a title that nobody ever remembers except me. (laughter) My first title was coordinator of minority affairs. That's what I came here initially as. Soon thereafter Dean Greenberg appointed me as Director of Student Alumni Affairs, something like that. Something like that, some complicated title. Well, I really wasn't interested in alumni affairs and anything of that nature and I barely knew anything about alumni, such as the alumnus, so we decided I would just be director of student... I think it was Director of Student Minority Alumni Affairs, I kept that title for maybe a year or so and then I assumed another title, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, and it was at that point that I begin to take on a larger role for the broader student body, in fact I'm the advisor to the Student Union, which is of course the entire school, but I still have... and I'm also an advisor to the Minority Student Caucus, which is a bonafide recognized

21 Interview of William Small Continued Page 21 August student organization within the University. So I don't have any problems with that, because my responsibilities are pertinent to all students, it just happens that I also play a role with what you might call special interest groups as well. And there are certain groups at the departmental level that aren't minority, but special interest groups who come to me for advise. So I see myself as you know a person certainly reacts... excuse me, not reacts... yes I guess you might say reacts to all students, but certainly I am one who interacts with all students and all faculty. How have the students changed say over the last fifteen years? How would you characterize their concerns in the seventies? Well let me preface what you said by saying I'm disturbed at this point because I see a group of student, and I'm not picking out or homeing out minority students, any ethnic group of students, but in my opinion the...for lack of a better word, the activism is... and it is at a minimal, it has decreased considerably, and activism is not the best word to use, I would say that the aggressive nature is not as evident as it was back in the sixties, and even the early seventies. For some reason I see a more pacifist condensating student as opposed to a student who is more involved with the issues and concerned about... I'm sure they are still concerned about the people and about the community, but not to the extent, not in the numbers I saw back in the sixties and seventies. The attitude in my opinion is more self-centered and I think perhaps it is not because they are more selfish, they are not anymore selfish than students back then, but I think it is a fact of the times. Because if you look at what has happened in the country with respect to education, and funding for education and monies for students, not just minorities, but students in general, the students have to look at things a little bit more objectively and they have to pick and choose between getting out there and creating some waves and getting what they really came here for; namely, an education and get out, minimizing loans, many of them have to go the loan route, and many of them are saying, well if I have to work, I just don't have time to do anything but what I came for. I'm concerned. Because I think having students

22 Interview of William Small Continued Page 22 involved at all levels is essential to a school such as ours. We grow as faculty, as administrators by interacting with students from a variety of settings, students who have been abroad, peace corps, students who have been part of the getto, students who have been part of migrant programs and so forth and so on. Students who have even been out teaching and in the military, Viet Nam, or wherever. I think all of this is essential in helping us, as administrators and faculty, to grow and to perceive and to get an idea of what's happening in the real world. See we get caught in our Ivory Towers here and boy I tell you we miss a lot. I'm really disturbed about that. The students are younger these days, and right out of college, this is a profession of a career move, not a social commitment that more of them had in the sixties and seventies. That's right, I see that. So that makes your job harder in some ways. In some ways it does. I'll give you an example. It is very difficult for me to get students organized for some reason, to do things. I'd love to have the Student Union as active as it was eight, ten years ago. It is like pulling hen's teeth now to try to get a student to commit him or herself. Some of the best students and I can recall them by name, I can... in fact we still stay in touch, students who were really at the forefront doing things and got things done and made the school look good, and really were active. I say an activist from the standpoint of doing positive kinds of things and asking questions and wanting to get involved and having the school to try to meet its place, or make its place in the real world. These were the students that were really a pleasure around and with. Yes, they are much younger, and somewhat idealistic from the standpoint... in the wrong way sometimes. I think they feel that perhaps I've got to make it by a certain time, I've got to have certain things, otherwise I'm a failure. Daddy says I have to do this and that. If I don't do these things in this

23 Interview of William Small Continued Page 23 sequence I'm... in order to make it, I've got to have that BMW by such and such a time. You know, that kind of thing. That house Of course public health is not a field where you are going to make a lot of money, but some of our students do pretty good. One of the things I'm interested in, what impact did the growth of the school have on both the quality of education here and quality of research. I mean up until the last few years, up until the eighties really it was... I mean there was so much money you had for anything really, that the school just really grew at this enormous rate and still has to some extent. Has that been a good thing from your standpoint or do you see negative aspects of that? Well I see some positives and I see some aspects that I would concern as not so positive. I think we would be putting our heads in the sand and wishing unrealistically stagnet, you know in terms of enrollment with other schools of public health, there are other schools of public health that have come into existence since I came on board. I think what we have found there is an increasing interest in public health, not only from the Federal standpoint, but also from the standpoint of the populous of the country. I mean the schools of public health, in my opinion are about the kinds of things this country needs to be about in terms of meeting many of the health needs of communities in mass from a population standpoint. I think this School inevitably had to grow because of the nature of its program. First of all it has a first class program, it is a premier... one of the schools as I said before at the cutting edge of so many things. It has in my opinion - in fact a diverse population of people ethnically, economically, etc., the State itself when you look at it geographically it is very very diverse. I mean you have the ocean, you have the coast, the mountains, it has a variety of vacation land if you want to put it that way, and it has all the problems that you find in any part of the country. It is a microcosm??? almost of the country. We've grown because we saw fit to grow. We cannot... the programs that we had back in the seventies were not sufficient for the eighties and the nineties, and so I think the school has been

24 Interview of William Small Continued Page 24 very futuristic in its outlook and we are way ahead of many many schools of public health in the kinds of things we are about to do, and the things we are currently doing. So I think in that regard growth is inevitable. And when you have programs and talk with people from other schools, representatives from other schools, it is almost like Chapel Hill is the awe of everybody. I mean it is like going to meca so to speak. Very few health professionals that you ever talk with who are in public health who haven't come through the School of Public Health. So you have a situation here where you have a group of envisionarys and I can cite the past Deans and current dean who with the kinds of things we are looking at in the year 2000 you can remain, you have to grow. Surely there may be a limit, but I don't think that the limit ought to be associated with the kinds of growth that should take place in research and that kind of thing. In other words, there may be some programs even yet that we don't have here that we need to think about for the year I have no problems with that. I do see though that it makes individual kinds of interaction, interpersonal kinds of interaction between faculty and student. Perhaps a little more difficult than when we were smaller, but I think there are ways to get at that as well. I think with a little creativity, planning, some of that can be overcome, and surely every professor, I'm sure would like to have 10 or 15 students, maximum 20 students in class, but that is not going to happen. You've got to make sure you have a strong central organization. Central administration, either at the school-wide level or at the departmental level to kind of off-set the feelings of autonomy or what have you. So you have never had problems recruiting students to a school like this? No. I mean you have a student who is concerning going on or Johns Hopkins or Michigan. I mean this school has in most programs as much to offer as anybody else.

25 Interview of William Small Continued Page 25 August It does. It is really amazing... no we haven't had problems recruiting. I think the problems that we've had with students coming is a mispreception of what North Carolina is and what it stands for. You see North Carolina over the years has been perceived by outsiders as being a backward... to a certain extent backwards. Let me explain what I mean by backward. It is not necessarily that the state isn't making progress in the right direction, there have been one or two things that have happened politically and some instances accidentally that have given the state a negative image among people who have never visited the state. Now I want to underscore that. Many of them have never visited the State yet they coined an opinion based on what they have read in the paper. In fact if you could show them in their states and in other states similar things that have happened but they were accentuated to the level that they have been in North Carolina. The one incident that kind of hurt recruiting was the incident in Greensboro with the Klu Klux Klan and that CWP. Another negative image I've heard, and it occurred with the fact of Jesse Helms as a Senator from our State. And this is not something that minorities held against us, but even non minorities have mentioned as a negative. It is not until they come here and see what is really going on that they understand that kind of thing can happen any place. I just use that as an example of some of the things that have been negative in a way. There is nothing I can do about that. I just give the folks the facts and keep on. Because you know for every one who says, no, there is several others who are willing to give it a shot. I do feel though that there are other schools that have been able to come forth with promises of dollars, almost instantaneously... almost on site I should say when they are recruiting. We don't do that. We say get your application in, if you are accepted there are possibilities of x number of dollars, x pool of money or what have you. We never promise, we never say that we are going to do that. The only time we would ever do that was if in fact there was a student that certainly qualified and really had impeccable credentials and I knew that somebody, the graduate school or somebody had said if you find a student like this, you can make them a promise. But that is very rare we never do that. We get our share of students.