MB: Well, I think Dr. Jenkins was thoroughly supportive of upgrading the School of Business.
EB: The new programs. It wasn't just the School of Business, all of them.
MB: All of them.
EB: All of them. He was supporting because for instance the School of Nursing was coming up and going, was prospering under Messick and Jenkins. And that was new. When I became a dean Dr. Gray in Art had become a dean just a little ahead of me. And then the School of Business was made a deanship. But so was the Nursing. It was one of their new babies to rock.
MB: Yes, he was juggling a lot of funds. But he was very supportive of the MBA program. Well, of course, of your accreditation.
EB: That came after I left.
MB: You had done the ground work.
EB: I had, only that it made it easier for Jim [Bearden]. Not only easier, but possible for Jim to do it, since we had become AACSB AB degree, the next step was to be MBA. But I was surprised that Jim did it so fast. I think within two years.
MB: You mean the accreditation for the MBA?
EB: MBA.
MB: Yes.
EB: The accreditation, that's right.
MB: But the degree itself was approved . .
EB: Was the degree itself approved after, you don't know?
MB: Yes, it was approved in '66. The Board of Higher Education approved it in '66 that we could proceed with the program.
EB: I left in '68 I don't know whether we had at that time granted an MBA.
MB: Maybe hadn't granted one, but you were in the process.
EB: I went to Marshall University then and taught there 3 years. And Jim, I was in close contact with Jim on the telephone. Jim was calling me constantly just to review some of the things. And I think I helped him then. But it was during that that time that the MBA was accredited.
MB: Yes, and it was quick after . . .
EB: It was quick, quickly done.
MB: I was very interested in following this MBA and the accreditation fight because that was one of the major struggles and achievements in the early '60's. Well, I mean, throughout until you got that in '66.
EB: Yes, it became in the '60s a real issue. I'd say that it really developed in the '60's although we'd been working on it a long time.
MB: Well, now the first official notice I have seen about the MBA program was about 1959. That Dr. Messick had made some mention to the Board of Trustees just before he resigned for anticipating working toward the MBA program.
EB: I was teaching. I had moved over to the MBA program. And we hadn't applied for AACSB because, for MBA, because we knew there were some more things to be done for the MBA.
MB: Right then you didn't want to apply.
EB: It came through with Jim's administration, Jim Bearden.
MB: But it was of course, based on earlier work.
EB: Yes, we were getting students then I recall, just the last year or two we were getting most of our students from the plant at Kinston, the . . .
MB: DuPont?
EB: DuPont.
MB: A lot, for the graduates?
EB: Yes, they were coming in with degrees in business from some other school. Some of them were our graduates, but mostly from other schools. DuPont had hired them from the north and they were coming out of established schools.
MB: And they wanted to upgrade their degrees. I guess it changes every time you come back doesn't it, a little bit?
EB: A little bit. Yes, it really has changed. And it really is an inspiration to come back and see so many friends. See the university moving like it does.
MB: You say you had a reception for you this morning?
EB: Yes.
MB: That would have been over in the School of Business?
EB: Jim Bearden, Jim had to leave, had to be out of town, but Dr. Ure gave a little coffee clatch or so between 10:00. I was there till 12:00 because the professors who knew me or were in, and even the new ones in the School of Business, were just dropping by at a time they could get off from their schedules.
MB: Just starting the second term.
EB: Yes, 10 or 15 minutes for a cup of coffee, but I got to see a lot of them that way. And Dr. Howell, What is the name of the, Dr. Howell's vice president? He was there.
MB: Oh, right, Volpe, Angelo Volpe.
EB: Yes, Volpe. He and Dr. Howell came by. But it was mostly old timers some of them about 6 or 7 were retired people from the School of Business who came by. But most of them were people who were still working in the program. And were people in the, not in the School of Business now, in the Secretarial Sciences, that were under me in the School of Business.
MB: They're now in Technology.
EB: Yes. Jim had to move them over there. I fortunately, didn't have to do that because I hated to. But the AACSB just said it had to be done. So it became Jim's job about the year I left. That was the point of most of the telephoning between me and Jim when I was at Marshall. The technical side of it, of how he would do it and what he would do. Because he knew that I had been the one that the AACSB batted over the head because of the Secretarial Sciences.
MB: Yes, they wanted . . .
EB: And that was a bad decision to have to make because these were quite loyal people.
MB: Yes, but one of those things for the requirements. And I'm sure in the School of Technology, they've thrived.
EB: Yes.
MB: You've mentioned several times, Corrine Heath.
EB: Corrine Heath.
MB: She the secretary for the School of Business?
EB: School of Business.
MB: Has she been there a very long time?
EB: Yes a long, long time. But Corrine was, had been my secretary for, oh, more than 10 years, and I think closer to 15.
MB: Before you left.
EB: Before I left. She went through all this AACSB thing.
MB: And she's still?
EB: Still secretary in the School of Business. Do you know her?
MB: No I don't. But I had a paragraph in one of the last chapters, including some acknowledgement of a number of women who've been in position of responsibility and very low visibility. And a number of the secretaries, I think, that have been here 25 years or more should be acknowledged for their loyalty.
EB: That's the role she played. Very low visibility, but absolutely essential. By that time, in the '60's, we had 5 or 6 sub-secretaries in the department. Two sub-department heads. Marketing would have a secretary and Accounting and so forth. I believe at the time we were processing finally the application we had six secretaries under the supervision of Corrine. So we had an understanding with all the department heads who had them around over the building that when Corrine pressed the alarm button that they worked for me that week or two or three days, they did it. They knew what we were in and Corrine Heath was the one, Corrine was the one who coordinated every bit of it. And completely behind the scenes. She was extremely efficient.
MB: I had checked, but I had not heard. I don't have her on the list and I'm glad you mentioned it, because I want to include it.
EB: I'm glad I did too, because if there's any one person that deserves credit for that accreditation Corrine more than anybody else.
MB: Well, I thought you did.
EB: No, Corrine. She's quite an easy going person, that you might think was so nice and comfortable to work with that she wouldn't be productive. But it wasn't true. She knew how to get these other secretaries to work. And of a morning when I had corralled them for whatever AACSB report needed, she'd call them in of the morning and line it up and by the end of the day they'd have it done. And she would have knowledge enough to tell them, to brief them. That was the pretty part about it. She knew what AACSB wanted and she'd put it together and then she'd have a meeting. And away they would go to their own typewriters in their various departments to type it up. And they weren't molested by their own bosses.
MB: To get the top priority.
EB: They knew the top priority. Just as, on the other end of the line, Corrine knew the top priority was not for me but for Dr. Jenkins or Dr. Messick if they called. The other way around. Because if they called her and I wasn't in, or out or something, she would immediately, not wait to ask me. She'd go at it and do what Dr. Jenkins said he had to have be 2:00 that afternoon.
MB: She'd get it.
EB: She'd get it. She knew her way around.
