Item Information
Title
Interview with Edith Hubbard, enrolled in 1965 as a junior and returned in 1969 for graduate school
Description
Interview with Edith Hubbard, enrolled in 1965 as a junior and returned in 1969 for graduate school, describing her experience as a Black female graduate student in 1969. Voiced by Aubree Dixon
Creator
PlayMaker’s Repertory Company in collaboration with the University Archives at Louis Round Wilson Library
Source
Interview with Edith A. Hubbard by Alex Ford, 22 October 2015 N-0038, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Series N: Undergraduate Internship Program, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/04007N/
Date
2021
Language
English
Identifier
Transcription
Actor: Aubree Dixon
(Introduction): Interview with Edith Hubbard, enrolled in 1965 as a junior and returned in 1969 for graduate school:
So, I came here totally unprepared. Even though I’m from Chapel Hill, I had been sheltered and loved and coddled in high school and at Bennett. When I got here, it was like, “Why are you here?” That was hard. The transition here was hard. First, I didn’t know anyone. My first semester here, I had an English class in Bingham. I went to class, and I sit on the front row, because I wear glasses. I don’t see well, so I always try to sit on the front row. So, when class started, the professor said, “You have the wrong class.” I took out my little notebook, looked at it, the building, the day, the class. Everything was--. So I said, “I’m supposed to be here. This is it.” He said, “No, you’re not.” He, essentially, said, “You’re not going to make it.” Something clicked in my head, because I remember saying, in very colorful language, “If I don’t make it, nobody else in this class is going to make it.”
When I came back here for graduate school--. Fast-forward. Race, for some of us, had taken a back issue, and it was a woman’s issue. I’m in graduate school, and I’m taking a course, and the professor--we’re graduate students--he’s going around. There was a nun in the class that was absolutely fabulous. We’re going around, and we’re saying who we are and why we’re here. At that time, I was a military spouse. My husband was in Southeast Asia. So I introduced myself, “I have two children. My husband is in Southeast Asia, and I’m here working on my masters. The professor said to me, “Well, you’re just taking up the space that a man needs.” There was dead silence in the room. So, the nun--I was in shock--the nun said, “Well, let’s see how it works out.” That mentality is still, I fear, somewhat prevalent today that men are supposed to have the opportunities and the privileges. It amazes me that people have the audacity to articulate it. It amazes me. That was, what, 1969? Go figure.
(Introduction): Interview with Edith Hubbard, enrolled in 1965 as a junior and returned in 1969 for graduate school:
So, I came here totally unprepared. Even though I’m from Chapel Hill, I had been sheltered and loved and coddled in high school and at Bennett. When I got here, it was like, “Why are you here?” That was hard. The transition here was hard. First, I didn’t know anyone. My first semester here, I had an English class in Bingham. I went to class, and I sit on the front row, because I wear glasses. I don’t see well, so I always try to sit on the front row. So, when class started, the professor said, “You have the wrong class.” I took out my little notebook, looked at it, the building, the day, the class. Everything was--. So I said, “I’m supposed to be here. This is it.” He said, “No, you’re not.” He, essentially, said, “You’re not going to make it.” Something clicked in my head, because I remember saying, in very colorful language, “If I don’t make it, nobody else in this class is going to make it.”
When I came back here for graduate school--. Fast-forward. Race, for some of us, had taken a back issue, and it was a woman’s issue. I’m in graduate school, and I’m taking a course, and the professor--we’re graduate students--he’s going around. There was a nun in the class that was absolutely fabulous. We’re going around, and we’re saying who we are and why we’re here. At that time, I was a military spouse. My husband was in Southeast Asia. So I introduced myself, “I have two children. My husband is in Southeast Asia, and I’m here working on my masters. The professor said to me, “Well, you’re just taking up the space that a man needs.” There was dead silence in the room. So, the nun--I was in shock--the nun said, “Well, let’s see how it works out.” That mentality is still, I fear, somewhat prevalent today that men are supposed to have the opportunities and the privileges. It amazes me that people have the audacity to articulate it. It amazes me. That was, what, 1969? Go figure.