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A History of Shared Governance at East Carolina The Mysterious Case of Annie A. White

Presented Tuesday, September 16, 2014 John Tucker, University Historian

Thank you Lori Lee for asking me to make a few remarks – approx. 5 minutes worth -- on the history of ECU’s Faculty Senate over the last 50 years since it was proposed, in the fall of 1964, and then the proposal ratified by a meeting of the faculty as a whole in early 1965.

Thank you President Morehead, Chancellor Ballard, faculty officers, senators, and representatives of the administration, and everyone.

The gist of my remarks is simple: you are much older than you imagine.

Fifty years only captures half of it.

Shared governance is the essence of what is being celebrated – as opposed to the political structure, that of a senate.

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If that is granted, then the tradition of shared governance can be traced back to a Tuesday, October 19, 1909 – two weeks after classes began, when then President Robert Wright convened the first recorded meeting of the faculty – all ten of them – seven women and three men. The first topic addressed was the course of study, or curriculum, that was to define the institution as an ongoing work in progress. Wright and the faculty agreed that the curriculum and academic management of the school should be a matter of adjustment to the circumstances of the environment, human, physical, and otherwise, encountered.

Our tradition of collegial, shared responsibility for curriculum, priorities, finances, grades, athletics, student affairs, campus relations, housing, calendars, social life, behavior, etc., traces recognizably back to that first meeting. You are both much older than you imagine, and at the same time immediately present in that past moment, as though time has not passed much at all.

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The relationship between the administration and the faculty is written beautifully on the ledger pages of the minutes, housed in our University Archives in Joyner Library, led by Mr. Arthur Carlson, University Archivist. The opening pages of the minutes from successive meetings – on Tuesday afternoons – relate many of the challenges of establishing a new academic order. One prominent chapter began a week later on Tuesday, October 26.

The minutes relate that Annie A. White, of Coleraine, NC, had left the school without permission. For a new institution intent on establishing a reputation for its academic quality and standing, the circumstances leading to the departure of Miss White were a matter of considerable concern.

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Rather than adjudicate the matter singlehandedly, President Wright presented the details of the case to the faculty for “full discussion and mature consideration.” Following discussion, Wright appointed a committee of faculty – including Professors W. H. Ragsdale (professor of pedagogy and school administration), C. W. Wilson (bursar and professor of pedagogy), and Miss Sallie Joyner Davis (niece of James Yadkin Joyner and professor of history) – to deliberate and recommend to the “Executive Committee” the views of the faculty regarding the matter.

Professor Ragsdale served as chair of the committee. On Tuesday, November 2, the faculty committee offered its report.

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According to the committee’s report, Miss White had registered at East Carolina Teachers’ Training School on the first day of the term, October 5, 1909. At that time, she identified her “parent or guardian” as “William E. White” of Coleraine, North Carolina. The report added that Miss White “left the institution” on Monday morning, October 25, 1909.

On October 19, Miss White had asked one of the faculty, Kate Beckwith, the lady principal, for permission to leave campus in order to go shopping. Ms. Beckwith granted permission provided that the shopping trip was necessary. Later, however, Miss White’s story apparently changed. She reportedly “confessed” that her “primary object” was not shopping, but instead “her desire to meet her brother somewhere in the street.”

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Subsequently, her story changed yet again. Now it was learned that Miss White had met her brother who was “accompanied by another young man whom she said was her cousin.” Two days later, on Thursday, October 21, Miss White missed class. It was later learned – from another student – that White had left campus in order to make plans to return to her hometown, Coleraine in Bertie County, the following Monday. The Sunday before Miss White’s flight, she met with President Wright. Wright asked if she had permission of her family to return home. Miss White responded that she had none. Wright then informed Miss White that her departure was not permitted, lacking authorization from home.

The following day, Monday, October 25, Miss White asked the lady principle, Kate Beckwith, if she was not going to have her trunk delivered to the train station where she planned to catch, minutes later, the 8:30 AM Atlantic Coast train. When Beckwith replied that she had received no instructions from President Wright, Miss White began to “make charges of injustice against President Wright of such nature that the Lady Principal refused to hear them.” Instead, Beckwith instructed White to see President Wright. Miss White disregarded Beckwith’s advice and departed on the 8:30 train, abruptly leaving the Training School, “disregarding the instructions

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of the Lady Principal and “in violation of what the President had told her the morning before.”

On October 26, the day after Miss White’s departure, President Wright wrote Mr. W.E. White, Annie’s father, “courteously calling his attention to the seriousness of such insubordination on the part of his daughter.” In reply, Mr. White wrote President Wright, tersely stating, “Please send Annie’s trunk at once. Also send bill.”

The committee concluded its official report on the Annie White incident declaring it an instance of “willful insubordination on the part of Miss White.” A resolution for submission to the Executive Committee was then

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passed unanimously. The resolution recommended that Miss White be “formally and publicly expelled from East Carolina Teachers’ Training School and forever hereafter debarred from the privileges of said school.”

The matter was next taken to the Board of Trustees, which like the Faculty, voted unanimously on the matter. President Wright’s approach to academic governance reflected, no doubt, his historical training and awareness that universities first emerged as associations of scholars and students. Until his passing 25 years later, in 1934, he remained an advocate of autonomy on campus and in the community, within the bounds of reason.

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His trust in his faculty is equally evident in this iconic photo, the provenance of which is not known. It does not appear in any of the Training School Quarterly numbers, nor in the Training School Catalogues, nor the Training School Bulletins. It is found, however, in Mary Jo Bratton’s history, East Carolina University: The Formative Years, published on the occasion of our 75th year as an institution of higher education.

Evident, however, is that this man, reportedly 6, 4”, who physically towered over the entire faculty, situated himself at the base of the steps, off to the side, looking towards them even as they turned their attention to the camera. Wright’s gaze communicated his reliance upon their wisdom and work in establishing the school. Instrumental in that accomplishment was not the doings of one person, but their collective efforts, as envisioned and perhaps empowered and thus orchestrated, with considerable latitude, by him and them, working together. The Annie White episode was hardly a happy moment in the history of the nascent institution, but nevertheless it was the road chartered by Wright and

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his faculty in its handling rather than its final resolution that is of greatest significance. As later installments will emphasize, able leadership and effective shared governance are fragile realities that must be affirmed as ideals for practice at every moment along the way. Prior to the founding of “the senate” in 1964-1965, there were, however, some profound wrong turns.