NCSSM in 1980: Jon Miller on NCSSM’s Opening Year

Speech by Jon Miller

First presented in a speech on August 19, 2014 (This is a transcription of the speech, which varies slightly from the speech as it was written on August 12, 2014.  Omissions from the written speech are included in brackets. Additions to the written speech are entered in parentheses.)

NCSSM in 1980: 

Jon Miller on NCSSM's Opening Year

{As we embark upon the 35th year of classes here at NCSSM, humanities instructor Jon Miller shares with the staff some memories of what it was like at NCSSM that very first year—1980.}

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He lied to you.  I'm not going to say a few words. I'm going to say way too many words. 

Those headlines are a bit misleading. ["A Boost for Quality Education in the Triangle".  "Science, Math School May Have Major Impact MIT Professor Says."] 

 

[You Can Teach a Lot of Biology]

Physically this place was a dump!  

The buildings for years stood largely abandoned.  Duke was sharing [some of] the not yet named Bryan facility with our small administrative staff which in 1979 had begun to move into its first floor and was slowly beginning to encroach onto the second.  

Beall, Reynolds, and Watts were off limits; and they should have been!  Paint was hanging off their walls in festoons, water was standing everywhere. 

Wyche (now Royall) had been condemned even while the Nursing School was still using it.  It became a boy's residence hall as we hoped to hasten its demise. 

Hill became a girls' residence hall, and its basement housed the History and English faculty; and where the language lab is now, Ross Baker taught biology.  Right out of her back door, were the woods that covered the back half of our lot.  That was her lab. 

The athletic facility was an outdoor swimming pool just outside the Hill classroom windows; which made teaching in those classrooms, in the fall and in the spring, impossible. 

Late the Friday night before students were to arrive on Sunday, the painters finished their work in the dorms. The faculty, the residential staff, and the administration spent a hot [muggy] Saturday cleaning up those dorms; putting mattress covers on the mattresses.

Neill Clark, my colleague in English, and I, alternating between the swing blade and the mower, cut the grass around the dorms which was a foot and up to a foot and a half tall.  John Armitage, who lived in Durham, and was a member of that first class, frantically put screens in the windows of the un-air conditioned dorm rooms.

Students arrived on Sunday, every one of them having left a better equipped, finer physical plant than they were moving into.  Nonetheless they stayed, they graduated, they went to college, and they have remained remarkable supporters of their alma mater.

The dump began to become pretty snazzy.  In the second year, as I was helping Ross move some of the of her equipment to the brand new biology lab in Bryan, I remarked that she must be very pleased and excited.  To which she replied, "You can teach a lot of biology in the woods".  

It's a notion which reminds us that a grade school is not made up of just stuff.  It's the folk, and it's their willingness to take advantage of what they've got.

[All Things Were Possible]

Given the different definitions between "vacation" and "work", there are still some small pleasures of coming back to school.  Returners catch up with old friends.  New folk begin to find colleagues who will unravel the mysteries.  And there is a certain comfort of settling into the ways experience was made familiar.  

But on that first day there were only vaguely familiar faces.  There was no one to ask, because no one knew any more than the asker.  There were no comfortable syllabi to organize the future.  We had not really even been able to prepare during the summer, because we didn't know what to prepare for.  There was to be a program, but nobody knew what the program was to be.  [Thus], we had each spent our summers building [our own] air castles in the sky.

But we were all sure, even in the midst of our dump, that we had been entrusted with something special.  By some incredible fluke we were given charge of this great educational dream.  

It had not been everybody's dream.  The NCAE was opposed.  The Lieutenant Governor had had to cast the tiebreaking vote in the legislature to establish the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, and giving the school dumbfounding freedom to shape its own program... its own destiny... as well.

Other than the name, the goal of excellence, a budget, and an admissions plan based on Congressional Districts; those of us who arrived on that first day were free to create the school; the education that we thought best.  We were explicitly outside of, and free from, the expectations of the Department of Public Instruction.  We had no connection to the University {of North Carolina system}.  And everything seemed possible.

When we first [officially] gathered -- all of us -- almost 25 of us -- including the faculty, the residential staff, and four administrators, in a conference room, that was just about where Katie Wagstaff's office is now; we were seated around the table that couldn't quite fit all of us; leaving a few to sit in the corners around the room.

One of the first questions we addressed was how much student time each day would each of us require to provide excellent education in our areas.   (When we toted it up... and I've lost my place....) This was it.  This was our chance to get exactly what we wanted, what we needed, and what we had dreamed of.  But when we toted that dream up we, we discovered that we were requiring about a 38 hour working day.  [Laughter]  Maybe not everything was possible. 

Out of necessity we talked on and on, (we're still talking aren't we...  we talked on and on) slowly realizing that my dream had to be part of your dream; had to become a part of our dream.  And by the time the students had arrived, all that serious talk -- and NASA sending a man to the moon had never talked so high mindedly, or so seriously --  all that talk had created a serious sharply focused academic plan to speed 16 year-olds well on their way to graduate school.  It was pretty much to be books and classrooms.  

Unfortunately, the students themselves arrived.  [Laughter]

Within the first week some of those young people, not party to our serious talk, not aware of our graduate school plan approached Branson Brown, he of Brown Field out back.  He was our athletic coordinator; and they said to him, "Why not a cross country team?"  He made a few phone calls, bought a few T-shirts, took them to Joe Liles, the art teacher, who stenciled NCSSM on them; and by the end of the first week, we had  the beginnings of a varsity athletic program.  

By the end of the year, we also were in the student government business.  We were also in the prom business.  Adamant and probably misplaced opposition to cheerleaders lingered for several more years; but inevitability is inevitable; and soon we had the cheerleading squad.  

Clearly the "graduate school" was beginning to learn how to coexist with the high school.  

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(The experience...) these experiences and so many subsequent ones have taught us, and continue to teach us, that our dreams and ideas need to start big, and [that] all the constituencies and all the folk, need to sit at the table believing that all things are possible.  

In this process, we need to constantly remind ourselves that we are pretty free.  We still aren't part of, or subject to, the Department of Public Instruction.  While we are now part of the University {of North Carolina system}, they really haven't entered our world too forcefully.  We were not [for years] even in the accreditation box [for more than a decade], because we thought the process would be too limiting and too shaping of our program.  We didn't officially compute grade point averages for two decades; and even without GPAs and accreditation, our students still got into college -- good colleges -- and won scholarships -- big scholarships.

Just as we did then, we need now to remind ourselves that dreams have a lot of room here to grow (and they can grow)!  We can almost write our own book.  

We also have to remind ourselves that choosing a possibility sometimes eliminates other desirable possibilities.  Thus we tried then -- just as we continue to try -- to make boxes large enough and inclusive enough to fit; and to be ready immediately to renovate them, or to begin again when the lack of a team makes them limiting. Varsity athletics and home-sickness also reminded us that it is inevitable and proper for 16 year-olds to remain 16.  (This of course led to a much larger code of conduct than we had had.)  [Laughter] 

Steve Davis, the first chairman of our Mathematics Department, often said that we don't teach subject material, but (we teach) young people.  If we teach them, the subject matter will follow.  A very practical application of this of this "people primacy" principle came in his suggestion at our first comment writing session, that we first needed to have something both real and nice to say.  Then we needed to define a problem, if there was one, and suggest a solution, if there was one.  And then we needed to end with something nice.  Twice-a-year I think of this, and, however difficult, try to follow its prescription.  The academic business is the people business; but this teacher sometimes needs to be reminded of it.

[The Grand Thing, not the Grand Name]

My fellow grass cutter, Neill Clark, often and memorably reminded us in our early discussions of curriculum, of personnel policies and contracts, of what faculty should be called, of how often tutorial should be held and when -- that we needed to be careful of the grand thing / grand name distinction.  We are at our best when we focus on the "grand thing" and forget the "grand name".  If we do as the legislature legislated -- if we are excellent -- the name will come.

And it came early.  In the first several years, we were everywhere on the news and in the newspapers.  One could hardly walk across campus without bumping into the New York Times reporter; or one from LA -- one from Washington -- one from Louisville.  We were featured on the covers of major news magazines.  

Nobel Prize winners were on our board.  A grand name idea for a Laureate Village out back was floated briefly for a while.  (This was an idea where Nobel laureates would come.  There'd be cottages built out there; and they would pad around the paths in their slippers, and interact with juniors and seniors in high school.  It didn't happen.  [laughter]  We built a baseball field instead.)  [laughter]

Representatives from other states came, questioned, and returned home to start schools much like ours; unconsciously very different from ours [or consciously different].  I was once asked by a new faculty member if this were some kind of special school.  Well, we were then -- we are now -- a very special school; a model school.  

And still they come.  Last year, a Virginia delegation, hoping to turn what they had learned here into their own school.  The president of the Oklahoma school was here to find new energy, ...new ways for his school.  

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So, as we begin this year again, much has changed.  We have new stuff, more stuff, better stuff.  But the real NCSSM is much as was at its beginning. [The people are much the same.] This room is full of people with dreams and notions of excellence that we need to share.  

And by week's end, we will have young people -- always the same on that first day.  Their entering test scores are just about what they always were, when we adjust for re-centering of the test.  They are bright, eager, proud, terrified [to have been chosen, willing to be challenged].  They are ready to learn.  

[But] they will be different when they graduate, because they are coming to a school with different boxes, large and small; in a different time.  But they will be equally good and just as proud of their time here as was that first class.  

I know that Ginger Wilson, John Williams, and Clinton Gregg, and I are proud of what succeeding generations -- of what you -- have made of this school that we came to long ago.

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The YouTube Video of this speech can be seen at the following link:

https://youtu.be/P_1pnE2uhm8?si=0AAP1794WO54h2kV

{NCSSM, a publicly funded high school in North Carolina, provides exciting, high-level STEM learning opportunities. 

If you appreciate this video, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the NCSSM Foundation. Thank you! 

Please attribute this work as being created by the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. This work is licensed under creative commons CC-BY-NC-SA

A Defining Experience (Prompt #5 - Pioneers)

By Steve Gallup

Pi·o·neer  (pī′ə-nîr')*

How do you define a "pioneer"?

In 1980, when 150 students were selected to attend the NC School of Science and Mathematics, including myself; we were often described as "pioneers".  Sometimes it was the news media.  Sometimes it was Governor Hunt, or a proxy of his, on the Governor's Planning Committee.  Sometimes it was our own school director, Charles Eilber.

It became so common to be called a "pioneer" that it became a sort of cliche'.  We laughed at the thought that we were "pioneers".   We were only teenagers after all; most of us only 16 or 17 years old; some of us even younger.  We were just going to a different school; a specialized residential school in Durham.

And we grew tired of the moniker.  We had been through a pretty grueling admissions process, including a request for nomination; and completion of application forms, psychological and aptitude testing, and interviews.  We didn't feel as if we needed even more pressure from the outside world.  We didn't want to be perceived as "pioneers".  We wanted to stop applying and start attending.  We wanted to do our own thing!

But we couldn't escape the idea that we were "pioneers".  The book, The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper was recommended for summer reading.  As we began moving in, a bit of a panic swept through the student body, as we began to debate whether it was a summer reading recommendation or a requirement.  I opted not to read it then, and take my chances.  (I finally read it 42 years later, before our 40th reunion.)  

When dedication day arrived on October 11th, after only a month of classes, the word "pioneers" made a resurgence; often used in referring to us, the first class, as "pioneers"; even as, ironically, we acquiesced to sitting through multiple speeches and ceremonies mandated by the administration.   It seemed absurd.

"Pioneers" was even included in the list of options for the school mascot.  We voted for school mascot and school colors on November 8th, 1980.  "Pioneers" was soundly defeated.  "Unicorns" won in a landslide.

I didn't appreciate the appellation at the time; but eventually I grew to appreciate the distinction of being a "pioneer"; a member of the first class of the School of Science and Math.  

I proudly wear my high school ring, for the class of '82 (with the Unicorn and the Flaming Diaper logo).  I'm proud to proclaim my membership in the first class, even if it was, in part, an accident of my age, and the luck of timing; being a rising 11th grader at the time of the school's inception.  

It even seems historic.  In 2030, the School will be 50 years old.  I was there when it all began.

But what did I do that was "pioneering".  What did I bring to the table.  What did I offer?

Am I really a pioneer?

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Definition 1. One who opens up new areas of thought, research, or development*

By this definition, I feel almost certain that I was not a "pioneer".  I may have been a "settler"; but I was following a path laid out by many of the people who were working hard to establish the School of Science and Math before I arrived on the scene.  There were many who were thinking about, researching, and developing the school before the students arrived.  There were many "pioneers".

There was Governor Hunt, who proposed the residential school for talented students, in part to benefit the entire state of North Carolina.  He brought the idea to the governor's office, to the public, and to the legislature.  He got the school established.

Back in 1977, it was only a dream.  In September of that year, in his letter to educators and experts, exploring the concept, he said, "Among the ideas and of much personal interest to me, I am considering recommending a new state residential high school of science and mathematics."**

There was Charles Eilber, who served as the founding Director.  He codified the goals and the purpose.  He organized the administration, and he hired faculty and staff.  He oversaw the renovation of the Watts Hospital campus.  He sought, and he raised, millions of dollars in private philanthropic funding.  He inspired the high standards of "living and learning" that were to follow.

In his August report to the Board of Trustees, in 1980, Charles Eilber said, "While I am sure that not everything will be perfectly in place, and that the pioneering aspects of this first year will be obvious, there appears to be no reason why we can't anticipate a good beginning and the eventual fulfillment of the many expectations that all of us have for the first year of operation.***

There was the School's administrative staff: Ola Stringer, Michael Collins, Borden Mace, Kathleen Benzaquin, and a team of Residential Advisors, among others.  They developed the system for admissions, the policies for student personnel, and the plan to care for the whole life of the students... the children... that they were charged with looking after and educating.

Ola Stringer, Head of Admissions, said, "The development and distribution of the admissions packet, which was a cooperative effort by all School staff members, sparked the realization of the magnitude of work facing the Admissions office."****  The early staff were working together to produce materials on all aspects of the school, including the instructional program and the student handbook; materials which did not even exist at the time that applications began.

There was the School's founding faculty (Ginger Wilson, Jon Miller, Ross Baker, Don Houpe, Ama Shabazz, Stephen Davis, Chuck Britton, Joe Liles, Dot Doyle, Jackie Meadows, Kevin Bartkovich, Branson Brown, Randy Foy, and James Henry).  They were hired about the same time that prospective students were applying; and they must have worked hard to prepare a curriculum plan, putting into operation the lofty concepts and dreams of the governor, the board of trustees, and the administration.

Dr. Miller, in his remarks on the beginning of the 35th year of classes, said, "There was no one to ask, because no one knew any more than the asker....  There was to be a program; but nobody knew what the program was to be.... By some incredible fluke we were given charge of this great educational dream."***** 

And there were the parents.  They sent their "pioneer" children from all over the state.  They were taking on faith, the promises of the School, which had no track record to rely on.  They were sending away children that they had been raising for fifteen years or more.  Comments from my own mother, in a questionnaire for parents, sent in 1980, may give you some idea of what was probably a common feeling.  She said, "Believing that I have taught my son all he can learn from me; also, I have given him all I have to give for his benefit (except continued love and interest). I am encouraged that the community (specifically NCSSM) will now take over this responsibility and privilege."******

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Definition 2. One who ventures into unknown or unclaimed territory to settle.*

By this definition, I feel almost certain that I was a "pioneer".  We were certainly venturing into the unknown.  And we were going into "unclaimed territory to settle"; we were going to live in dormitories vacated by the Watts School of Nursing, and repurposed for the residential high school; the School of Science and Math.

I was willing to take a wild risk on a completely unproven concept.  I was willing to leave home... and my home school,,, and start over.  Like a pioneer, I was independent and adventurous; but I was also communal and friendly; fun-loving and approachable.  I was looking forward to building a new community... maybe a better community, in a new place... potentially a better place.  

But above all, I think I was attracted by the unknown.  I admired the heroes of the "golden age of exploration"; captains who would sail off into the unknown, on trips across the ocean, or around the world.  And I admired the fictional heroes of Star Trek, who voyaged off into "Space... the final frontier... to boldly go where no man has gone before."  I was ready for my own voyage of adventure and discovery.

So I applied for the school; asking my Biology teacher to complete the nomination form.  I completed the application forms.  I took the SAT.  I went to the interview and the regional testing.  

And they saw some potential in me; perhaps a bit of swashbuckling bravado.  They saw something of a pioneer spirit.  After all, I was determined; eager, hard working, and enthusiastic.  I was committed to the ideals of the school; to excel not only in science and math, but in all subjects.  

And I was committed to the state of North Carolina (although I didn't know it 'til later).  I confirmed the expectations of Governor Hunt, that the school would nourish and grow scientific talent within the state.  I went to college in the Triangle.  I got a medical degree at Duke.  And after residency, I spent all but three years practicing medicine in the state of North Carolina.  

I tried to do honor to the opportunity that was given; to the doors that were opened to me by my admission to the first class.

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Definition 3. A soldier who performs construction and demolition work in the field to facilitate troop movements.*

I wasn't alone, of course.  Or unique.  We all took a leap of faith together; like members of a battalion.  We performed feats of "construction"; and we did a little "demolition work", too.  

With regards to construction... building things up... we established student organizations, like the Outing club, the Chorus and Wind Ensemble, the Dance club, the Yearbook club, the Student Activities Board, and Student Government.  (I recall students discussing the creation of a constitution for the student government! It was something I had always taken for granted in the past.)  

We petitioned for activities and events, including varsity sports, a talent show, dance parties, a haunted house, casino night, Junior and (later) Senior proms.  I personally was involved in organizing a small social club, playing and assisting in varsity soccer, and organizing an intramural ping pong tournament.  In my senior year, I joined three other students in a bicycle trip across the state.  Later, I helped organize fund-raising activities so my hall could hold a weekend barbecue at a city park, off campus; a chance for us to invite special guests, to show them our appreciation.

We did a little tearing down also.  We tested the code of conduct in every respect.  As we got to know one another, pranks became epidemic.  It was almost an expression of affection, to pull a prank on the residents of your hall.  But more direct expressions of affection were a problem too.  Hugging and cuddling became so common that the school had to clarify the limits of proper decorum.  I believe that they issued a memorandum; a statement to discourage "public displays of affection" within weeks of the school's opening.

We tested the bounds of destructive behavior with shaving cream-filled self-detonating balloons, smelly biochemical compounds, and other experiments in DIY chemistry and engineering.  We tested the bounds of curfew and trespass in every imaginable way.  And we pushed back on the incredible demands on our time.  

Our free time was virtually non-existent, between the cumulative assignments of homework from the faculty, and the dictates of work service, community service, and other requirements from the administration.  We pushed back in acceptable channels of communication; via student government, newsletter commentary, and informal discussions with faculty.  And we pushed back in unsanctioned revolutionary actions. We had a spontaneous snow day called in to the local news station by an enterprising "pioneer", one winter.  And we organized a "Senior Skip" day at Sarah P. Duke Gardens in the Spring of 1982.  

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Definition 4. A species that is typically among the first to become established in a bare, open, or disturbed area.*

So... were we pioneers?

I think so... absolutely. 

But not just me. And not just the students.

Each population that established the school... each "species", as it were.... from the NC governors office and the board of trustees... to the Director and the administration... to the staff and the faculty... to the parents and teachers of the student applicants... to the students themselves...; each of them created something new; a new symbiotic, living and functional institution; from the "bare" bones of the ratified bill of the NC General Assembly... the "open" framework of the planning committee... and the "disturbed" soil and structures of the renovated Watts Hospital campus. 

Charles Eilber, himself, described the development of this unique environment, in his message in the front of the first student handbook.  I don't think I can describe it any better.  He said:

The content has been planned, discussed, and revised over many months by an experienced staff and faculty, and it represents our effort to assure students and parents of an orderly environment in which living and learning can begin to happen.

However, as we live together and learn from the experiences of this first year, the Handbook must reflect the lessons of experience. It will evolve and change because many more of us - including students and parents - will be here to contribute to its use and development.

From this beginning we will work together to build a structure within which each of us can grow as an individual, and this school can grow as a community.

[Student Handbook (1980); NCSSM Digital Collections]

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Footnotes

 *[American Heritage Dictionary 2022]

**[Governor James Hunt. NCSSM background paper; February 1978; NCSSM Digital Collection]

***[Director's Progress Report to the Board of Trustees; August 1, 1980; NCSSM Digital Collection]

****[Director's Progress Report to the Board of Trustees; March 1980; NCSSM Digital Collections]

*****[NCSSM in 1980. Jon Miller on NCSSMs Opening Year.  YouTube video created by the NC School of Science and Math.]

******[NCSSM Confidential Questionnaire for Parents - September 1980.  Sent by Cecily B Selby - Special Assistant for Academic Planning. Personal Copy]

"I appreciated...the... considerations given to parents.  We need the assurance that we have done the right thing for our children and ourselves.

Believing that I have taught my son all he can learn from me; also, I have given him all I have to give for his benefit (except continued love and interest). I am encouraged that the community (specifically NCSSM) will now take over this responsibility and privilege.

My faith in God leads me to hope that NCSSM will bring to North Carolina something of truth and value within the lives of all who live here."

-Margaret Gallup, 9/27/80

Summer Reading Assignments and James F. Cooper's "The Pioneers"

 Summer Reading Assignments and James F. Cooper’s The Pioneers

by James Lisk 

June 2, 2025

 

I was excited to start first grade. My mother said I would learn important things in “real school”. Kindergarten had been playing, singing the alphabet, and music sessions; sessions where the other kids always got the shiny cymbals and I got the dull wood sticks. First grade was going to be different and I had questions; questions my mother could not answer. I wanted to know why the sky was blue, why my toy gyroscope didn’t fall over when spinning, how birds could fly, why a magnet picked up a nail but not a penny, and how a light bulb worked. That first school day I eagerly sat on the front row, only to get moved to my assigned seat. The teacher read “See Spot run. See Jane run.” while pointing to each letter and describing the sounds they made; repeating what my mother had taught me years before. The second day, I sat on the back row and started to look for distractions, but got moved to my assigned seat.

Later, I found exciting distractions in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, Isaac Asimov, or better yet via the exploits of James T. Kirk and Spock (thank you, Gene Roddenberry). And some answers I wanted were in the World Book Encyclopedia.

When The Pioneers reading assignment came, I thought “Shouldn’t the Science and Math school have a science or math summer reading assignment? Or maybe a biography of an accomplished scientist or inventor? Something that will help me become a scientist?” But I was determined to get ahead and complete this assignment, so I read the book. It seemed so irrelevant to me.

Years after finishing The Pioneers, three specific impressions remain: 1) the way the towns folk made sport of killing as many passenger pigeons as they could; 2) a description of harvesting sap from maple trees in a way that killed the trees; and 3) the repeated references from teachers and administrators that we, the first students at NCSSM, were Pioneers.  The Pioneer, it appeared had been selected to be our mascot. And Pioneers, after surviving starvation and freezing, were unable to maintain the abundance that later surrounded them.

Walking to E.K. Poe elementary school for meals at the start of the school year, I could have pondered over the scarcity of good food and adult sized chairs for us Pioneers. But no, I was too engrossed in the abundance of other students who were loaded with their own questions about how the universe works.

Writing Prompt #5: Pioneers

Prompt:  Write a story about the 1980 summer reading assignment, "The Pioneers".  Alternatively, write a story about what being a "pioneer" means to you, or how you acted as a "pioneering" student during your stay.

Deadline:  May 26, 2025

Details:   In speeches and in news stories, the students in the first class of the school were often described as "pioneers".  In the admissions process, students were sought who could make tangible (pioneering) contributions to the growth of the school.  Write a story describing how you felt about being a pioneer member of the first class.  Did you do anything during your two years in school to live up to the moniker that you were given?

Background:

In 1980, NCSSM faculty suggested that students get a head start on their school reading by reading two books over the summer;  "The Pioneers", by James Fenimore Cooper, and The Americans: The Colonial Experience, by Daniel J. Boorstin.

~~~~~~~~~~

The following questions were included in the 1980 student's application for admission for the incoming class:

If selected for enrollment, what do you believe that the NC School of Science and Mathematics will do for you?

If accepted for enrollment, what contributions do you believe you can make to the N C School of Science and Mathematics?

[Directors report to the Board of Trustees - March 1980]

~~~~~~~~~~

In 2006, one of the school's founding faculty, Dr. Ginger Wilson was interviewed for a story on the 25th anniversary of the school, for NCSSM Magazine.  Here is a portion of what she said:

We used to call them 'pioneers,' and they really were because they were coming on a promise of what this [school] might be and what it might become...

Most of them were at the top of their class and in a lot of activities, and they were leaving all that for something that wasn't... 

It was just kind of out there. And you had to go on the word of people that were here and on the promise of what we said we would do.  

[NCSSM Magazine 2006, page 23; The Abiders; by Lauren E. Everhart]

~~~~~~~~~~

The NCSSM Partnership pamphlet published in the early 1980s, in its solicitation for philanthropic donations refers to the school as a "pioneering" institution (underlined below, for emphasis):.

Through a unique partnership comprising the nation’s top scientists, mathematicians, educators, and business leaders, the school was established in 1980 as North Carolina’s pioneering effort to boost the quality of education for high caliber students and to catalyze improvement in science and mathematics education across the state.

From the beginning, a wide range of national and local corporations, foundations and prominent private citizens have joined some of the nations top scientists and educators in launching and guiding North Carolina’s pioneering educational experiment. Through their efforts the School has surpassed all original expectations, becoming not only a training ground for tomorrow’s scientific and industrial leaders but a national leader in curriculum reform and model for other states considering the establishment of residential schools.

…We invite you to consider joining this partnership. By making a contribution to support the School’s pioneering work, you directly influence the education of tomorrow’s scientific and industrial leaders, and make an investment in the future of North Carolina and the nation.

[NCSSM Partnership Pamphlet; NCSSM Digital Collections] 

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A current search of "Pioneers 1980 NCSSM" on Google generates the following AI Overview Summary: 

 "The term "pioneers" in relation to 1980 and NCSSM refers to NCSSM being the nation's first public, residential high school specializing in science, technology, engineering, and math. In 1980, the Durham campus of NCSSM opened as such, establishing it as a pioneering institution in STEM education. This model has influenced other schools and programs across the globe, with NCSSM becoming a model for 18 similar schools" 

[AI Overview summary for Google search of  "pioneers 1980 NCSSM".]

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Definition of "Pioneer":

pi·o·neer  (pī′ə-nîr')

n.
1. One who ventures into unknown or unclaimed territory to settle.
2. One who opens up new areas of thought, research, or development: a pioneer in aviation.
3. A soldier who performs construction and demolition work in the field to facilitate troop movements.
4. A species that is typically among the first to become established in a bare, open, or disturbed area.

adj.
1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of early settlers: the pioneer spirit.
2. Leading the way; trailblazing: a pioneer treatment for cancer.

v. pi·o·neered, pi·o·neer·ing, pi·o·neers
v.tr.
1.

a. To venture into (an area) or prepare (a way): rockets that pioneered outer space.

b. To settle (a region).

2. To initiate or participate in the development of: surgeons who pioneered organ transplants.

v.intr.
To act as a pioneer: pioneered in development of the laser.

[French pionnier, from Old French peonier, foot soldier, from peon, from Medieval Latin pedō, pedōn-, from Late Latin, one who has broad feet, from Latin pēs, ped-, foot;]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.

Summer Reading in Bombay (Prompt #5 - Pioneers)

By Ami Shah

The summer before starting at NCSSM, I went to India to visit my grandmothers. We planned the trip 6 months before I was accepted, so I did not plan on doing anything but connecting with relatives. After a month of me being there, my dad let me know of my reading assignment for the summer. Now, I am in Bombay, without the ability to look for a large bookstore, and I am told to read 2 books: The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper and The Americans by Daniel Boorstin. 

How in the world am I going to find these books in Bombay?! This is Bombay in 1980. There was no Barnes and Noble or Borders books! We had street vendors that placed books on a sheet and that is where I bought books. Occasionally there would be a small neighborhood book store with a limited number of books. Usually, we would find a romance novel, or an Indian epic or religious book: but there was no way I was going to find The Pioneers or The Americans! I was panicked as I was heading to this new school one week after I returned to the US! 

After my 3rd tiny book shop, I found success! The Pioneers! True luck! The book was not that bad: I read it in a week, all 132 pages! I was only worried that I had not found the other book. 

As I started on Miller’s English lit. pop quiz, on The Pioneers; I was going to nail it, as I actually read that one. Of the 6 questions, I only knew 2 of them! How could that be. Little did I realize that the book I found in Bombay was actually the Readers Digest version of all of the James Fenimore Cooper novels! Oh well, at least I tried: A for some effort! 

Moving into the Art Studio at NCSSM (Prompt #4)

by Joe Liles 

Faculty Emeritus; Instructor of Art; NC School of Science and Mathematics

Introduction

I have been assigned to write a paper about my memories of moving into the Art Studio at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. But I must confess that it is necessary for me to digress even before I can start the story. This is because the move was not instantaneous; it was a seven-year process.

The Start of the First School Year

I started my job as Instructor of Art in August of 1980. It was hot! And the school was a mess.  At that time, it was really more of an abandoned Watts Hospital than it was a school. The Hospital had mainly moved out only four years earlier. We teachers were given the
responsibility of taking the spaces assigned to us, cleaning them up, and getting them ready for the first class of students which was set to arrive right after Labor Day in September. Everyone – teachers, administrators, staff – worked to get the dorms ready. And we weren’t ready! My memory has it that we had to delay the opening of the school by a week. We worked like maniacs doing jobs we never imagined would be in our job descriptions. The day before the students arrived, we were putting covers on all the mattresses and putting together dorm room furniture.

Move-in day was chaotic but enormously meaningful to everyone. The students were anxious yet full of hope. Most of them felt that they were pioneers forming a new school, the first residential public supported high school dedicated to science and math in the country. Our new school found its way to the covers of both Time and Newsweek magazines. The students were surprised by what they found waiting for them. They discovered the original morgue of hospital days, complete with a marble slab table, refrigeration drawers for dead bodies, and a human brain in a jar of formaldehyde. They discovered many things. The old delivery rooms had operating tables and enormous lights. The cafeteria was non-existent.

I am sure many of the faculty, staff, and administrators shared many of my feelings. I felt, like the students, somewhat of a pioneer. I was anxious as well. I was moving like a body on adrenaline. There was so much I needed to do planning-wise to get ready for classes. Plus, I started an endeavor that would last another 30 years: I photographed everything. I took photos of students with suitcases accompanied by parents and younger siblings. I took photos of the conditions in the dorms. I took photos of every gathering our school had during that move-in time: the first time the students were assembled in a group, an academic assembly, school-wide picnic on the concrete tables next to the woods behind the school. Despite all the uncertainties, most everyone was smiling. The students seemed genuinely happy with the new friends they were making.

I was told that the Art Program would have to start out in temporary quarters because the eventual site of the Art Studio was slated to be in the old Operating Pavilion and Emergency Room of the hospital. That part of the old hospital was then condemned and boarded up. My temporary quarters were to be the old Newborn Nursery on the third floor of the north wing of what is now Bryan Center. The name Bryan Center had not been formally declared yet. Yes, it was true that Joseph and Kathleen Bryan were to donate over a million dollars to help the school get started, but most everyone initially called the huge brick building that was the main entrance into the school “The ’53 Building” because it was finished and dedicated as the new addition to Watts Hospital in 1953.


An Early Art Class

I remember one of my first classes was an Art Application class where, over the semester, I planned to take the students through some self-discovery exercises followed by experiences in drawing, screen printing, and photography. There were too many students to fit within the Newborn Nursery, so I set up tables and chairs in the long hall that ran the length of the building.

We did “dream drawings”, “abstract self-portraits”, and “blind contour drawing.” In one of the early classes, the students were doing still life drawings of objects I had placed on the tables. I noticed that some of the students were not paying attention to my directions but were, instead, looking at something way down the hall. I turned to look as well and saw something flying toward us. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was big. As it got closer and closer, I could tell the students were getting uncomfortable. A few screams rang out. Some students covered their heads. It was a giant, flying cockroach!

Fortunately, the roach landed on the floor and not on a student. I chased it into a corner and stomped on it with my pointy-toed cowboy boots. Problem solved. We went on with class.

An Early Photography Class

Another experience stands out in my mind. It was the first time we used the new photographic darkroom I had labored hard to build. It was located in a long narrow room that had “Baby Washroom” painted on the door. This was the last room on the hall before you got to the four Delivery Rooms. This was the place where babies were brought immediately after birth to be cleaned up, wrapped in a blanket, and taken back to their mothers. 

I chose this windowless room for the school’s first darkroom because I could get it totally dark. I had red “safelights” in four stalls that contained enlargers for students to enlarge their black-and-white film images onto light-sensitive photographic paper. The room had a long countertop where I put a series of trays for developing and fixing the photographic prints. There was a sink with running water that students could use for washing their prints. Drying the prints would be done in the hallway outside.

I had painted most of this room black to avoid reflecting any of the white light that the enlargers would use to focus the negative image onto a paper easel below. But there was a plaster wall above the sink that was painted white. It was not next to the enlargers, so I was not inclined to paint it black. In fact, if it was white, it could be used to reflect the red safelights I had in the room that would allow students to see their work environment but not expose the paper. 

The problem was that with the thousands of babies that had likely been birthed next door in the Delivery Rooms and then washed in this room, the white wall was streaked with what I assumed was blood and other unmentionable body fluids. This would not do! So, before the students came, I had attempted to paint over the stains. But the stains came through the paint. It took five coats of paint before this wall would stay mostly white, but you could still see traces of blood. This was the origin of my first ghost story for the new NCSSM, and it figured into what happened the first time I used the darkroom with students.

Normally, the plan for the photography class was that students would use a small closest farther up the hall for loading their film in total darkness in light-tight film developing canisters. This closet could hold one or two students at a time. Once the film was loaded onto a tricky little reel and placed in the containers, the lights could be turned on and the students could take their canisters down the hall to the Baby Washroom where we had running water that was essential for the developing process.

But for my first photography class, I needed all twelve of my students to load their film onto the reels and into the cannisters. This needed to happen in one class period. I decided that we could do this as a group in the main Darkroom with all the lights turned out. This way if the students had difficulties loading their film, they could hand me their loaded reel, and I could check it to make sure it was done properly. Mind you, all this would be done in total darkness. The plan was that, once all the film was checked and loaded into the cannisters, we could turn on the lights.

On the fateful day that we were to develop twelve rolls of film, we all crowded into the darkroom. Each student laid out in front of them their roll of film, a bottle opener for prying open the film container, a pair of scissors, the reel, the cannister, and the light-tight top. I must admit that my ghost story may have influenced what happened next, but there were other factors involved that may have contributed to what happened. It was a small room. There were twelve students plus me. There was only a little ventilation.

I asked all the students if they were ready, and if they had everything in front of them that they needed. When all said they were ready, I turned out the lights. There was the sound of students opening their rolls of film and rolling them onto the developing reels. I estimated that it would take 10 minutes for all the students to get their film into the cannisters. I figured it was the perfect time to tell my ghost story.

Hey you guys, do you realize that we are in the Baby Washroom of the old Watts Hospital?

This is where the babies were cleaned up immediately after they were born next door in the Delivery Rooms.

I hate to tell you this, and you can see for yourself when we turn on the lights, but there are blood stains on the wall above the sink.

Well, when I was testing this room for the first time to see if it would work for developing film, I turned the lights out and was loading my film just like you are doing now when I heard a baby start to cry.

This baby cried until I could get my film in the developing canister and turn on the lights. As soon as I turned on the lights, the baby stopped crying. What do you think was happening?

At that moment I heard my student, Kim, speak. “Mister Liles, I don’t feel good. I think I might faint.”

I immediately told all the students to get their film into the cannisters with the lids on. When they said their film was safe, I turned on the lights. 

I went up to Kim to see how she was doing. She collapsed in my arms. Kim was a rather small person. I didn’t have any difficulty picking her up. A student opened the Darkroom door for me, and I carried Kim into the hallway outside. She was already starting to come to and said she was OK, but I carried her all the way to the elevators. I punched the down button with my nose, and when the doors opened, there stood a pair of bewildered looking parents. I explained that I needed to get this student to some fresh air. We took the elevator to the first floor, and I supported Kim as we walked outside. 

Kim fully recovered. I suppose I should have taken Kim to the Infirmary, but we had no Infirmary.  I learned some important things from this experience. I learned I needed to be more careful with my students and pay attention to both environmental conditions and hazards in my classroom and lab areas. 

And maybe I needed to cut back on my ghost stories.

All of this points out that everyone at the new North Carolina School of Science and Math was emersed in a challenging environment that came with turning an abandoned hospital into a high school.

The First Art Program Move

The next year, the Art Program had to be moved up to the fourth floor of the north wing of Bryan. This was because, in the remodeling of the second floor of the wing for a new Chemistry Program for the school, a dangerous condition was discovered in the flooring.

Back in the hospital days, the second floor was used exclusively for surgery. There were six Operating Rooms. To eliminate the risk of someone setting off a spark due to static electricity that could cause an explosion of the gases used in anesthesia, a metal grid was embedded in the concrete slab floor. This grid served as a type of grounding rod for all errant electrical charges. It seemed that the disinfectant cleaning liquids that were used to clean the floors had corroded the metal grid in the concrete. This had caused the concrete to decay in strength. 

It turned out that the entire floor had to be torn out. This would be a huge job that would impact the floors above and below. The first floor would have to be vacated because it would lose its ceiling to the demolition. The first floor would also have to be fitted with a temporary network of supports to handle the weight of the wet concrete when a new floor was poured above. The third floor was deemed safe from construction, but the noise from jack hammers would be unbearable.

It was decided that the fourth floor of Bryan was safe to use for the second year of NCSSM. The Art Program would occupy the northern half of the hall, and the Math Department would occupy the southern half. This floor had only been recently abandoned the year before by the labs of the new Durham Regional Hospital. This was the hospital that was built to replace the vestiges of the dual healthcare system of the Lincoln Hospital for the black citizens of Durham and Watts Hospital for the white. It was true that Durham’s original hospitals had racially integrated in 1965, but it was obvious that neither Lincoln nor Watts Hospitals were equipped to handle the growing population of Durham. The plan was to close both Watts and Lincoln and start over with a new modern hospital with no connection to the segregated systems of the past.

This construction on Durham Regional Hospital had been mostly finished in 1976, and patients had been moved in. But several essential functions of the new hospital needed to remain in some of the buildings of Watts Hospital even after the School of Science and Math moved in. These were: the blood and fluid labs, the hospital laundry, and the Watts School of Nursing.

These remaining hospital functions remained during parts of the opening year of NCSSM, but now they were gone. The fourth floor of Bryan that had housed the hospital labs during the first year of the school could now be taken over by the Art Program and the Math Department.

It worked to my advantage to be on the fourth floor. The Math Department benefited by knocking out a few walls and building two new large classrooms. There were few offices as well. Down at my end of the hall, there was one large room I could use as my main classroom, and a bunch of smaller rooms that were former lab rooms for the hospital. The Math Department was not interested in these small rooms, so I was welcomed to put them to use. I turned one into a very nice, larger black-and-white darkroom with air conditioning, one into a small color darkroom, one into a storeroom for art supplies, and another for a new ceramics studio. I used one room for making silkscreens and their stencils, and a final one for cutting glass and making frames for student art. We had an entire campus in need of artwork in public places.

In the main art classroom, I taught the Art Applications class that I had done the year before that dealt with drawing, painting, printmaking, and photography. I added a class in ceramics with a new electric pottery kiln. I offered a class in mechanical drawing and used the main classroom for this. We used the main classroom for extracurricular activities as well including a new tradition of producing a multi-media slide show for each of the two semesters of the school year.

This slide show was immensely popular with the students. They (and I) took color slide pictures, categorized them into sections like move-in day, classrooms, dorm life, athletics, and more.

Life continued for me like this as Instructor of Art for several years. It was obvious to the NCSSM administration that the Art Program was very popular with the students. Consequently, the school first hired a ceramics teacher and then expanded that position to include teaching of all the art media I had established. It is unusual to find art teachers for advanced secondary education who can teach many different media.  Most specialize in something like painting, sculpture, photography, ceramics, printmaking, etc. We found a teacher who could join me and do it all! This was Elizabeth Moorman.  

Seamlessly, Elizabeth waltzed in as a half time teacher not funded by the State, but funded by the Parent Fund. With Elizabeth, we were able to expand the number of classes we taught. Elizabeth was a virtuoso in ceramics, so she took the lead in that discipline, but she also taught sections of the other classes. She left the Mechanical Drawing class up to me. With two teachers, we were no longer the Art Program, we were the Art Department!


Building a New Art Studio

As the school years progressed, we approached the time that we would realize the pinnacle of the Art Department. This would be remodeling the old Operating Pavilion and Emergency Room into a first class Art Studio. The Robert W. Carr Architecture firm was picked for the design and supervisor of the construction. I worked with “Judge” Carr and his son, Edgar, during the design process. 

I couldn’t believe my good luck. I was given a blank slate by the school and the architects to take the entire square footage of the hospital surgeries, sterile supply facilities, X-ray department, emergency rooms, pharmacy and turn them into anything I wanted. The main operating room with a huge skylight and glass wall would become a Painting and Drawing Studio. A second operating room would serve as the Main Art Classroom. The pharmacy room would be dedicated to engineering and architectural graphics and CAD (computer aided design).

The emergency department would be remodeled to house both a Ceramics Studio and Black-and-white Darkrooms, the autoclave area that was used by Watts Hospital to sterilize surgical equipment was designed into a Graphic Arts Darkroom and large format photography studio. And the old X-ray department would become a Printmaking Studio for woodblocks, lithography, etching, linoleum block printing, and screen printing.

Design and construction took most of two years. I was able to identify cabinets, tables, sinks, and more from still-condemned parts of Watts Hospital to be reconditioned and used in the new Art Studio. I refinished beautiful solid maple cabinets from the lab areas of the old hospital for use in the ceramics room. State funds were used for most of the new construction, but Strawbridge Photography Studios provided money for the new darkrooms and the Philip Morris Corporation provided a big chunk of the expenses for building the rest of the Art Studio.

I remember an experience I had in the remodeling for the Art Studio. I wanted the new Mechanical Drawing Room to have a nice sound system so I could play music for the students to work by. This room was constructed in 1908 with a slab floor that was three inches thick. I had noticed some ventilation grates on the outside of the building that led to a three-foot high crawl space underneath this slab floor. I drilled ¼” holes in the slab from the room above at locations where I wanted to put a sound system cabinet at one end of the room and two speakers at the other. I pushed the speaker wires through the holes into the crawl space below. I went outside and crawled through the open ventilation hole. I wore long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, plastic gloves, and a breathing mask. I found the wires coming from the speaker holes and pulled them up to the other end of the room and fed them up through the hole that would go to the sound system. With a little more work up top, I had a functioning sound system for my students! I supplied all the equipment and speakers from stuff I had at home that I didn’t need.

But this story has a dark side. A day or two after I had installed the sound system, I was organizing the equipment in the printmaking room. I moved a stack of silkscreens from a corner of the room. I immediately saw a small, shiny, black spider make a run for cover. I do not want to offend anyone about my next move, but like I did years before with the cockroach, I stomped on that spider. Upon investigation of the carcass, I spotted the classic red hourglass on the spider’s underside. This was a poisonous black widow!

Where there was one black widow, there could be more, so I talked to Gregg in the Maintenance Department and asked him if he could arrange to fumigate the crawl spaces underneath the Art Studio. I couldn’t be moving students into a new space that had the possibility of a black widow population! 

Gregg wanted to inspect the crawl spaces first and crawled into it the same way I had. He returned with the report, “Joe, that space under the Mechanical Drawing Room is infested with multiple black widows.” The fumigation happened, and we never saw another black widow.  I often think back on my venture into that crawl space and marvel that I was spared by the spider residents.


The New Art Studio Move-in Day

Things were nearing completion after the start of the 1987 – 1988 school year.  In the late fall, I publicized a “Art Studio Move-in Day.”  On that day all the students in my classes plus walk-in volunteers carried equipment and supplies from fourth floor Bryan to the new Art Studio.  Other sites at the school were also used to store new equipment, tables, and chairs.

Elizabeth Moorman’s job was expanded to full time, and we hired an Arts and Crafts teacher for the evening hours. This was Bryant Holsenbeck. We immediately began operating at full capacity, day and night. I should add that both Elizabeth and Bryant were paid with Parent Fund money and did not have the job security that I enjoyed as a 10-month, term contract State employee. But even with non-ideal contracts, the teaching of art and interacting with students at the School of Science and Math was as close to ideal as a teaching job can be. This was somewhat enabled by the fact that all the art classes were electives and were not required specifically for graduation. Most if not all our students wanted to be in our art classes. And they got to make things. And make things they did!

We had an Art Studio that was likely better than those of any high school or college in the state of North Carolina. It was a pleasure to work with ambitious students in well-equipped, multi-faceted studio spaces.


A Final Story

I told you that this writing would be about my moving into the Art Studio at NCSSM. Well, I have completed this task, but I have one more story before I go.

In 1929, an anonymous donor arranged to have a concrete quartz-lined goldfish pond constructed in a garden area outside the Operating Pavilion. When Science and Math moved in, the goldfish pond was still there, but it no longer held water due to cracks in its walls and floor. 

Shortly after moving into the new Art Studio, several students approached me about the possibility of repairing the goldfish pond. I said I would investigate. I found a swimming pool repair man in Timberlake, NC who inspected the goldfish pond and said that he could grind out all the cracks in the concrete and repair them with a patching compound that could withstand ground movements. He said it would be ideal if I could collect a lot of white quartz rocks that we could use to replace the rocks he damaged in his grinding. 

I knew that security officer Bobby Jackson lived in eastern Durham County where he had mentioned to me that the fields around his house were full of white quartz rocks. Bobby supplied us with buckets full of beautiful white quartz to do this job. The pool repairman also said I could save a lot of money if I removed all the dirt around the pond. This was an intimidating job.

The students came to the rescue. We spent weeks digging out the goldfish pond. Mounds of dirt lined the area. We pressure washed the interior of the pool and the outside walls. The swimming pool repair guy was amazed at the quality of the student work. He completed the repair job in April of 1988. After everything had cured, we replaced all the dirt and timidly filled the pond up with water, 1,100 gallons of it. The students figured this out.

I was anxious for two reasons. One was obvious. Would the goldfish pond hold water?  The other was quite personal.  My wife, Carole, was expected to give birth to our second child the next day by a scheduled Cesarean Section.

I got up early the next morning and walked the two blocks from my home on Wilson Street up to the school. When I rounded the corner into the Art Garden, I held my breath. When I caught sight of the goldfish pond, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The pond was full of water and had not leaked a bit!

This pond was turned into a real water garden with blooming lotus plants, lily pads, arrowhead plants, elodea, snakeroot, aquatic snails to eat algae, many goldfish and koi, and a re-cycling pump for a waterfall. One of my Mechanical Drawing students drew up a design for the Art Garden with benches, shrubs, and a brick walkway around the pond.

I am happy to report that, as I finish this report of how I moved into the NCSSM Art Studio, my daughter, Elizabeth, is now 37 years old. And so is the repaired goldfish pond and water garden. Both Elizabeth and the goldfish pond are alive and well.*

*The goldfish pond (including time before and after it's repair) is now 96 years old.

Joe Liles

May 11, 2025

A Time and a Place - Life before Cyberspace (Prompt #4)

By Steve Gallup

Watts Hospital - The Backdrop for the School of Science & Math

When we moved in, on September 7th, 1980, our group photo (in shorts and short sleeved shirts) was taken in front of the edifice of the 1908 Building.  And on the day we graduated, on May 30th, 1982, our group photo (in cap and gown) was taken on the lawn, with the 1908 Building and Wyche House in the background.  Our high school experience was book-ended by portraits in front of the venerable Watts Hospital and Watts School of Nursing.  

The facade of the 1908 building, with it's red tiled overhanging roofs, it's stuccoed walls, it's ornamented loggia, and its ornate Moorish cupola, became symbolic of the new institution, and symbolic of the high expectations.  The iconic cupola even served as the school's logo for many years (after the "Flaming Diaper"... before the "Catalyst").  As a backdrop, it was awe-inspiring and exciting.  To prospective applicants and to students, it was inviting.  In fact it was designed to be inviting when the hospital opened 70 years before; to encourage patients to feel at ease as they entered the institution.

But even though the dramatic and historic architecture of the buildings served as a testament to great philanthropy and innovative planning... even though the buildings were home to decades of medical care, including life and death... all that meant little to the young students, including myself, embarking on an entirely new adventure.  For us, the grandeur of the buildings served only as a backdrop to a grand experiment; a newly funded residential high school for gifted students, in the state of North Carolina.  

The High School Campus

In 1980, there was no student center or student commons... no gymnasium... no auditorium... not even a cafeteria.  Classrooms were confined to the basements; generally functional, but nothing more.  I doubt that the teachers had even the slightest amount of time to make the classrooms their own. 

Other parts of campus (awaiting renovation) were off limits completely.  I don't think I even saw the elegant lobby of the 1908 building until years later.  And the school administration, though housed on campus; was (happily) assigned to office space quite far from our student living quarters.

Our dormitories were the places most filled with the bustle of activity during that first year.  There were a little less than 150 students assigned to roughly 5 halls on campus; two halls at Wyche House (male), two halls at Hill House (female), and one hall on the third floor of the Main Building (also male).  In our rooms we might study; or more likely, unwind with our radio or cassette player or hi-fi stereo (depending on our audiophile nerdiness); or read a book; or discuss our day with friends.  Over time those conversations would grow to include everything from the mundane to the existential, including our hopes and our fears.

I had no roommate during most of the first year; so I spent most of my time, not in my room, but in the recreational room; in the basement of Wyche House.  I played ping pong down there... a lot of ping pong.  I met the other guys in the dorm down there.  We talked about random topics.  We ate Domino's Pizza.  We started a "secret" society; a fraternity of sorts; The Callipygian Correspondent's Collaboration Club.  It was inspired partly by the chance discovery of a slightly naughty word in the "C" section of the dictionary (no internet, remember), and ginned into existence by some form of group adolescent social psychology.  In retrospect, it's not surprising that this (blatantly misogynistic) gentleman's club should become an embarrassment; a testament to my immaturity.

Those social spaces... those recreational rooms, porches, and lounges... were unforgettable.  All kinds of events and activities, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, took place in those spaces.  They were the "melting pot" of our differing perspectives; our different origins.  They were the places where friend groups and close relationships were kindled.  Those experiences became the kernel of growing hall pride.

The Places In-between

But our daily lives, our personal time and our meanderings, were often found in the liminal spaces; the halls and breezeways between buildings; the elevator and elevator lobbies of Beall (Valinda Beall Watts Pavilion); the steps of Wyche or Hill House; the grassy quad between the dorms; and the road that crossed the middle of campus.

For me the most memorable space in which I lingered, between scheduled classes and activities, would be the mail room.  I think it was on the ground floor of Hill House.  It may sound like a dull utilitarian space; but it was nothing of the kind.  The mail box doors were all made of brass, designed in the 1920s, creating an antique, but regal, grid of lock boxes on the wall.  Each door was about the size of a deck of cards... maybe a little bit bigger... about 3 by 4 inches in size.  Each student had their own box, and their own combination.  

Upon opening the brass door, on any given day, a myriad of contents could be discovered.  The mail room was the source of postage stamped letters, with news and loving encouragement from the family at home; and for some students, home was quite far away.  With virtually no internet in existence, the mail room was the source of contact with the outside world.

But the mailroom also became the essential hub of internal communications, from administration, staff, and faculty.  Even student newsletters and announcements found their way into the rectangular mail cubicles.  It was nearly every day that some memorandum, amusement, assignment, or directive was found curled up into the slot at the back of mailbox door.  It was a little like having a mystery gift delivered in a beautiful brass box.  It could be unlocked and retrieved with the right combination. 

But the contents must have also been quite important.  I still have a dream, to this day, that I'm running late... and I can't find my class, somewhere on campus... I can't find the administrative office, to find out where the class is located... and I can't find my mailbox with the crucial directions... or I've forgotten my combination.  My efforts to find my way are thwarted at every turn.  I wake up, realize that it's only a dream, and thank heavens that I made it to all my requisite courses, way back then.

Keith Promislow at his mailbox in 80-81

Detail example of the mailboxes in use at the time.

What Makes a Boarding School a Home?

The NC School of Science and Math began as a dream; an aspirational repurposing of a historically, culturally, and architecturally significant campus; the Watts Hospital Campus.  The expectations were high, that our class, and future classes would honor the legacy of the hospital that had served Durham for decades.  The 1908 Building was like the facade and the portal for all those expectations.

But, when we walked through that symbolic portal, a school and a community quickly developed, with interior functional spaces... classrooms and lounges... facilitating the mixture of attitudes and opinions, from students and faculty, from the farthest reaches of the state.  It was a physical space where learning flowed in both directions, between the young and the old; between the book-smart, impetuous, and ambitious student body, and the cautious, judicious, and moderating faculty and staff.  

Eventually it also became a home.  There were places for quiet contemplation and for purposeful solo activity, if you looked for it.  After class, and before starting my homework (or avoiding it), I would go to the lawn beside the breezeway adjoining the 1908 Building, and practice dribbling and kicking the soccer ball, hoping not to knock any stucco off the walls, or, worse, break an old historic window.  

Or I would go to the darkroom... remove the film from the camera in complete darkness and wind it on a spool for development; later choosing a frame from the negatives to enlarge onto photographic paper; exposing the paper, developing the paper, and stopping the development; then hanging up the various photos to dry.

Or I would go to work service, cleaning dishes on the conveyor belt; rinsing off the residue, loading them into plastic tray, and pushing them through the industrial washing machine, like a miniature carwash.

Or I might check the mail, hoping for a moment of whimsy... a letter from home... some news of the world... an instruction to follow... or a plan for tomorrow.  I dreamed of the future; and now I dream of the past.