Kelsey: Where and when were you
born and raised?
Nazzaro: Oh, that’s a good one. I was born in
Dover, New Jersey, in
1940. I’ve been kind of a local product all the way
around, Ann. I grew up in the
Dover area, and didn’t
venture too far from the roost, as far as career goes.
Kelsey: Where did you go to college?
Nazzaro: I went to
Rutgers University,
graduated in 1962 with my undergraduate degree, taught
for a while at
Hanover Park High School,
then went back to
Rutgers in ’67-’68, I
believe, got a
master’s degree there,
and started my career at
CCM, and then
ultimately went to college at
Seton Hall for my
doctoral degree.
Kelsey: What subject were your degrees in?
Nazzaro: My undergraduate degree was in history
and social sciences. Actually, it was in education,
with that as an emphasis. I had a minor in physical
education. I was very interested in coaching and had a
lot to do with athletics then. Then my
master’s was in
counseling psychology, and my
doctorate is in higher
education administration and supervision.
Kelsey: How did you find out about
County College of Morris?
Nazzaro: That’s an interesting story. Being from
the area, of course, growing up in
Dover, and having
taught at the
local high school at Hanover,
when I went back to
Rutgers and completed
my
master’s studies in the
late sixties,
community colleges were
a topic of discussion in the graduate programs that we
were undergoing at
Rutgers at the time,
because, as you know, in the mid to late sixties, it was
literally like somebody planted
community college seeds
around the country and around the state. That was the
heyday of the growth of
community colleges. So
they were a hot topic in our education courses, and lo
and behold there was a college being built in
Morris County. I would
follow newspaper accounts of what was going on for my
course work. And coming back to this area, having
graduated with my
master’s and looking
for a job, I applied. I thought
community colleges were
something that I really could relate to in terms of my
own value system, and saw this one in
Morris County, applied,
and talked to a few folks at the
college. I had an
interview with the president and dean of
students, and the rest is history
for me—got hired! Kinda cool.
Kelsey: What drew you to a
county college, why
were you interested in working in a
community college?
Nazzaro: I was interested in working at a
community college
because after having taught in high school for a while,
and then having the college experience as a graduate
student at
Rutgers, I recognized
the need for so many individuals, who, like myself, grew
up in
Morris County and
places like that, and who came from families who usually
had uneducated parents, and were living on moderate
income, and really didn’t have many places to go to
school. And I thought the
community college movement,
as we referred to it at that time—it was literally a
nationwide movement—had this value system where it was
providing accessible education to
students in an area that they could relate to. So
it all worked for me. I believed in that kind of
concept, I believed in everyone having a chance to go to
college. And for me, it was a great opportunity to kind
of put into practice something that I believed very
strongly in. That’s kind of why I got interested in it.
Kelsey: How old were you when you started
working at
CCM?
Nazzaro: I believe I was twenty-seven, turning on
twenty-eight at the time.
Kelsey: Describe your job.
Nazzaro: At that time, my job was coordinator, as
it was called. There weren’t any directors back then in
the early years, we were all coordinators. And I was
coordinator of financial aid
and placement. And my job description actually was to
create a financial aid program for students, using
federal, state, and local funds for scholarships, work
study programs, loans, and all those kinds of things, in
addition to creating a job
placement program and a career counseling effort.
In those days, everything we did was brand new, so we
started everything. So I had the opportunity to start
these two programs. I particularly enjoyed the career
planning program with the job placement activities. It
gave me the opportunity to work with a lot of local
companies, and to create jobs for
students who were graduating, and working with them
in resume preparation, and bringing recruiters on
campus, and doing all those good
kinds of things, teaching them interview skills and what
have you, and working with those companies to create
jobs. It’s interesting, even last night I ran into a
student from the class of 1970—Bill
German, his name was—and Bill reminded me that it
was through our efforts in the office, and my efforts,
that placed him in his first job, and how much
County College of Morris
meant to him. And so it’s really kind of interesting
that I still run into students today who we placed at
that time.
Kelsey: What was the
physical campus like at that time?
Nazzaro: Well, we had one building. What is now
known as Henderson Hall was
referred to as
County College of Morris
and the administration building back in the late sixties
and early seventies. And the rest of the campus was
being developed, so there was usually large equipment
moving earth and dirt, and creating the pathways,
creating the next buildings, which were the student
center and the academic science buildings, and the
library all came on line pretty much one after the other
in the seventies. So the campus was contained, it was
small, it was intimate, and we saw all the construction
going on, and the kinds of activity that would soon be
our campus. It was kind of always looking forward to
the future. It was interesting.
Kelsey: What was the
cafeteria like?
Nazzaro: The cafeteria
consisted of one room that had a bank of vending
machines where people could buy coffee, the usual things
that vending machines had to offer. And people would
bring their lunch. Literally, that was it. So there
wasn’t much of a cafeteria. It was right next to the
other room, which was the library. It was kind of a
one-building operation at that time. But the
campus exploded very dramatically,
immediately after we opened up some of the other
buildings.
I forget
the number of students we had at
that first go-around then. I think it was 650, is the
number that kind of sticks in my mind, went on there.
Kelsey: What were the rules regarding
smoking on campus?
Nazzaro:
Smoking in the
classrooms was allowed at that time. We had these
little silver ashtrays that were prominently placed on
desks. They were actually cardboard, shiny silver, and
students could smoke in class at the time. It went from
that to
smoking outside the
classroom only, in the hallways or outside the
buildings, and the next step was only outside the
buildings. And then eventually, as you know the rule
today, we are a smoke-free campus completely. What was
interesting, when
community colleges first started, obviously,
since not too many people were familiar with them at the
time, it was met with some skepticism on the part of
students and educators, and they used to refer to a
community college
oftentimes as a “high school with ashtrays.” Meaning
that it wasn’t much more beyond the high school level in
terms of their view of the academics, which of course it
was; but it allowed
smoking, and they
couldn’t in high school, so they called it “the high
school with ashtrays.” So it was an interesting thing
about
smoking then.
Kelsey: What was the atmosphere like on
campus during that first year?
Nazzaro: It was interesting. In the early years
and the first year, the atmosphere was particularly
exciting. It was a new venture, enthusiasm on the part
of faculty, staff, and
administrators was very high.
Students knew that this was a great opportunity for
them, and they were involved in the limited activities
programs that we had, and the club programs that we
had. They took an important interest.
One of
the programs that I administered actually at that time,
the work study program,
was very, very popular with students, and we hired many
students to work with the department chairs and the
facultyand other people on the small campus. They were
in every office, and doing things. So involvement was
important. And because of the fact that we were a small
campus then, with only one or two buildings, as the
other ones came on line,
fraternities and sororities existed,
which don’t today. A number of them rented houses in
the nearby community to take care of their
fraternity or
sorority needs.
One in
particular that I recall was
Sigma Alpha Mu, which
was a
fraternity started by
veterans who had returned from
primarily the
Vietnam conflict. The
fraternity was
established in local
Mt. Freedom. And it
was on Millbrook Avenue. That fraternity house was
typical of any fraternity house, had an advisor.
Jim Henderson was one
advisor, and Mary Bilinkas
was a co-advisor. The students,
some of them lived in the
fraternity, but they
had parties and things like any typical
fraternity would do.
That doesn’t exist any longer on
campus, which gave way to our expansive club and
activity system that we now have. In those days it was
a little bit different.
Kelsey: And this
fraternity that the
veterans started up, did that
start in the first year?
Nazzaro: No, actually it probably came in, we
opened the doors in ’68-’69, and I would say that that
fraternity started in
about 1971, ’72, right around there. But as far as that
first year was concerned, I’d characterize it as kind of
a new venture, people were feeling their way on a lot of
things, it was exciting, and students were very actively
involved in the campus.
Kelsey: Of course that time period was very
tumultuous.
Nazzaro: Absolutely.
Kelsey: And there would have been a lot of
things happening in the months just preceding the
opening of the college—Bobby
Kennedy's assassination,
Martin Luther King,
Tet. Did those events
affect the atmosphere on the campus?
Nazzaro: I think they did. It affected all of us,
as you know, during the times, who were living in the
age of constant change. It was an age of coming out of
the sixties, in which it was characterized as a period
of time in which all of our sacred institutions were
kind of up for scrutiny, and students were
protesting against rules,
regulations, all fueled by the background of the war,
the assassinations, and the political upheaval of the
Democratic convention in Chicago,
and all those kinds of things. It was a very, as you
characterized it, a very emotional, active period in our
country, and we were really, literally, changing as a
nation. I think it affected all of us who were working
young people, as we were. We were in our twenties, the
students weren’t much younger,
and it was a very exciting period of time.
What was
interesting, too, to characterize that period, to move
off that question just a little bit, the
campus was pretty much populated
about 50-50, male and female—perhaps
more toward the female side—and many of the students
were not typically out of high school. They were
probably a little older, in their late twenties, and
many in their early thirties, who saw this as an
opportunity for them to come back to campus. So it
affected their lives pretty heavily, I remember.
Kelsey: Do you remember any
demonstrations during
that first year?
Nazzaro: During the actual first year, we didn’t
have much. One thing that affected me was kind of
interesting. As the placement director, I would bring
corporate recruiters on the campus
to interview our students who were looking for jobs.
And during that time there were two groups who
predominantly made the circuit of all colleges,
including
community colleges:
one was the
CIA, and the other was
the active
military recruiters.
While all this was going on, I had some hesitancy to
schedule these folks on the campus. Well, at one point
I scheduled the
Marine Corps recruiters
to come on campus, right at the height of a lot of
activity regarding the war, and the recruiting area that
I used was a table that was pretty much right outside
the president’s office in the hallway of the only
building that we operated out of. And this one day that
I’d scheduled the
recruiters, there was
also scheduled a dialogue session on the
Vietnam War in the
cafeteria. So a lot of
students showed up, knowing that
they were going to do this, and they were then going to
protest the presence of the
Marine Corps recruiters
on the campus. It turned out that the
Marines handled it
absolutely wonderfully. They turned it into a dialogue
of their perspective on the war, and a very open
discussion. I can remember all the students were
sitting on the floor in front of the
Marines. I thought
this was going to blow up into something any minute. I
said, “What did I do?! I created this situation!” But
it turned out to be an academic experience that was well
worth it, and the students got an opportunity to hear
another perspective about the war, so that was kind of
an interesting thing that first year that happened.
Kelsey: What was the world like for you in
1968? What concerned you?
Nazzaro: Certainly the
war, certainly
political upheaval, where we were going as a nation, was
foremost on all of our minds. And here I am, a young
guy in my twenties trying to start a career. I’d just
gotten married, and wondering…. I had a high
draft number, and I was
expecting to be pulled out of my job and my family and
be
drafted into the
service. And for whatever reason, the number never came
up. That didn’t happen for me, but there was always
that issue of going into the service at that time. The
world was exciting for me, I was involved in still doing
some coaching on the side with my love of
lacrosse, and
establishing a career, and thinking about having a
family, and beginning to settle down as a young
professional adult. So all that was going on for me.
Being back in my own community was exciting, having
grown up in this area. What’s interesting to me, I
literally played on the property of the college as a
child. We would skate on the
Dalrymple Pond. A cousin of mine was the real
estate agent who sold this property to the college. We
knew the Dalrymple family
well that lived on the campus. So
it was an interesting experience to be part of this
thing going on, as part of my own background. So that’s
what life was like for me at that time.
Kelsey: What was social life like for those of
you who were working at the college? Did you
go out after work, was
there a local hot spot?
Nazzaro: Yeah, I think Fridays were usually a time
where folks who worked together were able to go out and
enjoy a drink after work, and some good camaraderie. We
used to go to lunch together a lot with large groups.
Senatore’s was the hot spot at the time, on
Route 10. And then not too long
after that, we would congregate at Senatore’s, and
another place that ultimately became the Millbrook Barn,
which was at that time I believe known as Joe
Francello’s Bundle of Rubble, or after that it took on
another name, The Crocked Wine Barrel. But anyway, it
was a restaurant-bar over on Millbrook Avenue, which was
a good social spot. But Senatore’s, I would say, was
the hangout for the
CCM employees that
socialized. And there was quite a good social
experience at that time. People did get together and do
some things, so it was interesting, it was fun.
Kelsey: How did you dress to
go to work?
Nazzaro: Oh, ties all the time. You know,
administration, even most of the
faculty, wore ties and jackets. Although we didn’t
wear suits most of the time. We had sport coats, sport
jackets. We were very professional at the time, and
continued to be over the years. That was the
dress code in those days—you tied
up when you went to work.
Kelsey: What about the
students?
Nazzaro: When I think back about the students,
hair was long, sideburns were mutton chops. The pants
were bell bottoms, and the shirts were kind of loud and
flowery. Some students wore beads and other forms of
jewelry, but for the most part, they dressed as typical
of the sixties and seventies attire that existed at the
time. They came casually. Most of the women at the
time wore—their skirts were shorter, and they wore
skirts and dresses to school. You didn’t see too many
women in jeans at that time, which became very, very
popular later.
Kelsey: How did you get to work?
Nazzaro: I drove. I
had a
V.W. Beetle. It got
good gas mileage, and I came to work in the
Beetle, and then
eventually got rid of that. I don’t remember what
sequence of cars came thereafter, but I do remember
drivin’ the little gray
Beetle to work every
day. I lived in
Convent Station, in an
apartment in
Morristown at the time,
near
Morristown. My wife
had just finished at
Fairleigh Dickinson University,
and so she did have a semester to go when we got
married. We ended up living there so she could go to
class while I came to work here at
CCM.
Kelsey: Describe what Route
10 looked like at that time.
Nazzaro: Wow. Route 10. I remember Route 10 as
being pretty much a two-lane highway at that point in
time, with one lane in each direction, separated only by
a grass median. Then they expanded it to two lanes in
each direction. And as I went east on Route 10, I think
from the college to what would be the intersection of
202 and Route 10 was the only traffic light. And that
was the next time you hit a traffic light, so it was
kind of freewheeling all the way. And then the section
down there where the
Parsippany Hilton and
those places exist, was a huge farm with waves of corn.
All you could see were cornstalks, as far as the eye
could see, and a silo there, and that was about it. So
Route 10 was not congested at that time, and it wasn’t
until the eighties that it really boomed in this area,
that caused Route 10 to be such an important corridor.
Kelsey: Describe a typical
day for you that first year.
Nazzaro: Wow, let’s see, typically it was seeing
students. I would come into
work and did the normal amount of paperwork that I was
required to do, of any administrator. Particularly in
the financial aid world
that I operated in, I would spend a lot of time
reviewing applications for
assistance, and creating what’s referred to as
financial aid packages to meet the needs of students,
and working to get those packages out in the mail to
individuals for the next coming semester. For the
students who were there, many experienced financial
problems, and would come in to see me on a scheduled
appointment basis, and we would talk about their issues
and try to create a financial assistance program that
would meet their needs. In addition to that, I would
see students about their major with careers and talk
about job prospects and job situations for that. And
there was the normal run of meetings. Although we
didn’t have as many meetings in those days, I was part
of the division of student services.
George Dragonetti was
dean of students, and he would call us together
periodically, and we would have staff meetings to deal
with issues on a student-wide basis. So my day was
fairly exciting, with a solid mix of administrative work
and seeing students. As you
could imagine, with a small college you took on other
responsibilities without them having to be part of your
job description. Like all of a sudden if a truckload of
new equipment came in, then we would be rolling up our
sleeves and unloading the truck and doing things like
that. So it was kind of fun. It was exciting.
Everybody seemed to work together, and the team pulled
kind of together.
One of
the characteristics that’s different from the college
then and now, is in the early years, Ann, the college
was populated pretty much by male
administrators, most all of
the jobs. Although it was a good mix of
male-female on the
faculty, when you went to the
administrative side, it was mostly dominated by men who,
interestingly enough, most of us had been former
athletes, so it was a very competitive environment. We
wanted the college to be very, very good, and everybody
was working hard to make us the best that we could
possibly be. And later on, as Ed Yaw
became the second president, that began to shift.
Literally the gender of the college began to shift from
being kind of a—if you want to think of it as a
competitive male institution, to one which was more
embracing of females, and saw more female administrators
being hired. So that was a significant change. And I
think that was a direct result of one of the movements
that the college…. And I maintain
community colleges were
the enabler of the
women’s movement, as it
was referred to in the seventies, because we were
inexpensive, we were literally in people’s back yard,
and we offered child care services for folks. So as we
got into the seventies, right after the first year, and
into the second and third year, more and more females
began to gravitate to
community colleges
because they could do it, and still do the family issue,
and then begin to get back into the work force. So that
changed things, and the
community college was
at the right place at the right time for that to happen
for thousands upon thousands of females.
I did
some teaching besides. I was
an adjunct professor in the psych department, and I
taught career planning and career development. The
typical class at that time for adjuncts and the
part-time students would be
predominantly females in their thirties. Eighty percent
of the class would be populated by that group, and we
served that group very well.
Kelsey: So you helped second-year students—once
there was a second year—to find career paths.
Nazzaro: Yes.
Kelsey: Did you notice that the men were more
interested in transferring, in order to keep their
2-C [sic] [2-5] deferments? Or
were they really looking closely at getting a job,
knowing that the minute they walked out of school they
would be first in line for the
draft?
Nazzaro: Well, that was certainly an issue, with
men primarily. There’s no question about it that as
that
war dragged on, and
more and more vets returned, and people began to, as the
society began to look at this
war in a negative kind
of way, it was always on the mind of male students, some
of whom literally used the
community college and
then went into the service, and prepared for a better
opportunity in the service. There were others who
looked at the educational system as a way to avoid being
drafted, and to use it
as a
deferment. Although I
remember that being in college was not an automatic
deferment, if your
grade point average was not at a certain level. So that
was an incentive for many young men to keep their
GPA up and going
strong. Graduate school was always the next step for
those who had a bachelor’s degree to try and move away
from military service. Yeah, I think that was on their
minds. It was certainly always a question of what are
you going to do when your number comes up, how are you
going to handle that?
Kelsey: Did you interface at all with any
veterans that first year, that
’68-’69 year?
Nazzaro: Not as many as when we got into the
seventies. I assume so, but it wasn’t an identifiable
large number then. It wasn’t until we were a little
more established that we literally reached out, and
other government organizations began to reach out and
encourage veterans to take advantage of what I would
call the
G.I. Bill of that era,
to come back. There was adequate money to service
veterans, so they did come back in large numbers during
the subsequent few years.
Kelsey: But you would say that in that first
year they were not self-identifying?
Nazzaro: Yeah. We had a veterans’ coordinator who
did not have that as their full-time job, but in
addition to their other services would coordinate
veterans’ affairs. It wasn’t as big a deal in the first
year, as it became in the subsequent years.
Kelsey: Describe what was considered as
cutting-edge technologyin your office in ’68-’69.
Nazzaro: Yeah, wow, the typewriter. (laughs) An
IBM Selectric was the
hot typewriter, if you could get your hands on that.
Photocopying was still in its infant stages, and
oftentimes was very, very difficult. It had a special
roll of paper that photocopies were made on, before it
began to be plain paper copiers. Carbon paper was still
being used. And the technology was absolutely, when you
think about it today, was so inefficient and ridiculous,
whereby we were all into dictating to our secretaries,
memos, and memos of record, and policy. And the
secretaries were still taking
shorthand at that time,
and transcribing the
shorthand into a memo,
which you then would have to proofread and change and
give back and have it retyped and ready for distribution
and things of that sort. When one thinks about the
technology today in comparison…. It wasn’t until much
later, of course, that
computers came in, and
I remember when that happened. We all treated the first
computers on
campus like it was something to be
idolized as some kind of a god that we needed to bow
down to. But yeah, in that first year the hot
technology of course, was you had a
telephone, you had an
IBM Selectric
typewriter, and hoped you had a secretary that could
take good shorthand and could type quickly enough for
you to get the work done that you needed to get done.
Photocopying was literally the old
Xeroxing. And, I don’t
know if you recall ever, but there was a thing called a
mimeograph machine, in
which a template was made, and the template was put on
the
mimeograph machine, and
then it was cranked by hand, and these copies would come
out that were with blue ink on them, and they reeked of
ether or some alcohol. If you did it long enough, you
could get high during the day, just by making
mimeograph copies of
these. And people used to use
those for tests primarily, and other things that
faculty had. So yeah,
that’s the technology, that was it. Oh, and
tape recorders. Yeah,
tape recording, you
could play tapes, and we’d take a little
tape recorder to a
conference or whatever and do your notes that way, and
play those tapes back. And they weren’t all
8-tracks either.
(laughs)
Kelsey: I bet not. Describe
student interactions with you and other administrators.
And do you notice any differences between ’68 and 2008?
Nazzaro: That’s a good question. I’ve often said
that the only real difference between
students then and now is
technology.The students have pretty much the same
issues, the same kinds of concerns, and the same
growing-up kinds of things that they were worried about
then: about their grades and courses they were taking,
how to finance the education, what am I going to do
afterward, and what does my future hold, and what is my
relationship with my peers, and so forth and so on. If
you compare the two eras, the difference I think in the
interaction was there was more personal interaction in
the first year, where people really dealt with
individuals on that level, because you couldn’t do it
virtually, you couldn’t send each other
e-mails and have
electronic chats and do
things via
text messaging and
other sorts of technology that’s available today. So
things were more intimate, they were more personal, you
got to know each other on a different level, and they
were dealing with the same problems, only differently in
terms of the way you dealt with them. So that was the
one interesting thing. Over the years of the close to
forty years that I’ve been here, or worked here, that’s
sort of remained a constant:
students’ problems were not too much different from
generation to generation. They were just texted
differently, in different contexts perhaps.
Kelsey: What about behavior?
Nazzaro: Well, that went up and down over the
era. You had people in college who, again, in the first
year and then moving into the very early years, the
behavior of students was very respectful, yet collegial
with us. You’ve got to, again, because of the personal
nature of the relationships that existed, students and
administration and
faculty had closer communication,
closer relationship, and their behavioral problems were
less. When the relationships became more distant, and
things changed, I think student behavior became
different. Again, looking at different periods of time,
the
counter-culture and the
drug culture in the
early years was then dealt with administratively and by
authority. And then it took on a different form as that
went on into the later years where students sought
different kinds of activities.
I think
sports were important in the early years. The first
year we had a
basketball team right
off the bat and did well. We had other sports we were
involved [in], and that led to different kinds of
behavior. In a nutshell, students were more into the
college in the early years in their behavior, and less
into themselves, and more as that went on, later on, it
changed a little bit as students became more interested
in their own selves.
Kelsey: Do you still keep in touch with
students,
faculty, and administrators who you knew during that
time?
Nazzaro: Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. The
first-year students were kind of very, very special as
we got to know them. I mentioned in the early part of
my interview, running into a student last evening. That
happens to me quite frequently, and I remember those
students well when I run into them. Some of whom are
considering retirement now, so I guess where does that
put me in terms of age? Again, many of them came back
at a later age in their lives and so forth. I don’t
want to go into names, but there are people in the local
community that I see that are part of that first year.
There are students who worked in offices that I see
around. Yeah, I do manage to run into quite a few of
those students.
And
through my second career at the college, which we’re not
talking about in this interview, as the
vice-president of the
college’s foundation, when
we went to the fundraising program, a lot of those
students surfaced, particularly when I started the
billboard campaign with the “I started right”
personalities. Many of those I reached back into the
very, very early years of the college to highlight, and
it was kind of fun, it was good.
Kelsey: What do you remember most about that
first year?
Nazzaro: That first year, what I remember most is
when I think about it, I think of the building of
Henderson Hall, and how
close we were to one another in proximity, and the tiny
little offices that we all had, and how we managed to
run a college in one building with 600 students, and all
that we did—that’s what I remember most, of the
excitement and the problems also that went along with
that. But on top of it all, in that first year, all of
us had the vision for the future. And that was kind of
exciting, because we knew what we were going to try to
become, and I think we became that. So yeah, that first
year, relationships with my colleagues, and the physical
confines of that first building, and some of the
students, and how we managed to
do all that we did those years—very vivid in my memory.
Kelsey: How has
CCM changed since 1968?
Nazzaro: Rutgers
uses a motto, “Ever changing, yet eternally the same.”
And I sort of think that applies to
CCM as well. We
started out with a very basic, fundamentally strong
educational value system. We decided that we weren’t
going to be a typical
community college of
the stereotype that would be a cake walk academically.
We always felt that we would be easy to get into, but
hard to graduate from or get out of. That was one of
the mainstays of our values. So
things changed physically. We got bigger, more
technology, a wider variety of students, diversity
increased dramatically as a reflection of our society,
and we just do so many more things, have so many more
options for students. But under it all, fundamentally,
we’ve been changing, but eternally the same in sense of
the value system of what we wanted to be, and how we
wanted to do that. And I think that’s been the
mainstream of the presidents and the
administrations that have
conducted themselves at
CCM.
Kelsey: Is there anything else you’d like to
add?
Nazzaro: I brought a prop. Yes, I brought a
show-and-tell that I want to add if I could. We were
talking earlier about the early years. This was in 1972
[sic] [1970]. I don’t know if you can see that well on
the screen, but this photograph was a sign of the times
in ’72 [sic] [1970], where this young lady—Linda
Tunstead her name was—was on the patio between what
we called then “A” and “B” Buildings, which had just
been built, and it was during a national war moratorium
day, as it was referred to, to bring the
issues surrounding the
Vietnam War to the
table. And it was a dialog going on, on the pros and
cons of the war at that time. This gal
happened to be reflecting on what was being said, while
holding the American flag, and showing the forlorn kind
of attitude, or being torn with the issues of the day.
And this
photograph became
extremely famous. It made
Life magazine, there
were people who wanted to make a national stamp out of
it, it actually was presented to
Congress as a stamp,
and it remains with me today. This always hangs in my
office to remind me of those early years, and the things
that went on, and to remind me about the college. When
this appeared in a local newspaper with a brief article
on me when I retired from
CCM, and the young lady
in the picture happened to be visiting her parents in
Whippany—this was just
recently—and called me and had gotten my number, and we
talked, and Linda and I had a long chat. She talked
about the many, many times that people had her on
different kinds of shows and discussions and so forth
about this
picture, and how it did
change her life dramatically. She lives in
California now. It was
kind of interesting. That’s my show-and-tell project
for the day.
And
finally, the only other thing I think, Ann, that I’d
like to add is that for me
County College of Morris
was a wonderful experience, being part of it, and
growing with it over the years. There’s not too many
people that have the opportunity to join an organization
that’s in the town basically where they’re from, and to
grow with it and be part of helping the community
connect with the college. And I’ve always tried to do
that, and that’s been part of my mainstay and reason for
being. I think a lot of us took that attitude in the
early years, and really took the word “community” in
community college very
seriously, and wanted the folks in the community to take
advantage of what we had to offer. And I think over the
years we’ve done that, and done it quite well. And
you’ve been a big part of that yourself.
That’s
kind of it.
Kelsey: Thank you very much.
Nazzaro: You’re welcome.
O’Hagan: That was great.
Kelsey: Great.
Nazzaro: Thank you. I didn’t get into the one
that I wanted to tell the story about. I don’t remember
what year that was.
O’Hagan:
We’re still recording. Whenever you’re ready.
(recording paused)
Nazzaro: Oh, by the way, Ann, before I leave,
there’s one other story that I need to tell you. And I
can’t pinpoint the year. I know it’s in the early
seventies. When the buildings were finally completed,
we had a very special occasion to
name the buildings.The
administration put together a very special night in
which a dinner was being offered, and the buildings were
being then presented, if you will, to the individuals
who they were named after. And all of the buildings,
except for the one we’re in now, the Sherman Masten
Resource Center, were named after founding trustees.
Jim Henderson, of
Henderson Hall, was the
first chairman of the study committee that created the
college, and the first chairman of the board of
trustees. Oliver Sheffield,
of Sheffield Hall, was a prominent Ph.D. chemist at
Picatinny Arsenal, and
he was our first
African-American member
of the board of trustees. Isedore
Cohen from Cohen Hall was
the treasurer for the then
Epstein’s Corporation,
if people remember the Epstein’s Store in
Morristown. He was
treasurer of that—Ike, as he was called. And finally
the DeMare Hall, named for
Patrick DeMare.
Well,
the night of the dinner, when they presented these, Mr.
DeMare stood up. Pat was an
Italian immigrant who
spoke in somewhat broken English, who was a self-made
businessman and a very generous contributor to the
community, was there with his entire family that
evening. And when they presented him with the award of
the building, he made the statement that, “The
County College of Morris
doesn’t owe me a thing—I owe it everything,” and with
that, on the stage, in front of several hundred people,
he just passed out and died, literally on the spot. And
that was probably the most dramatic thing that I’ve ever
seen and been part of here at
CCM, and maybe in my
life, to see that actually happen. And one of our
faculty members rushed to the
scene, Bob Hale and a couple of
others, tried to administer
CPR, were unable to
revive him. The ambulance came and it was a chaotic
evening, but it sure put in my memory bank the night the
buildings were named after people, and it will be
something I’ll never forget, and I don’t think anyone
who was there will ever forget it either. I had to
throw that in. I couldn’t not remember that story. So
that ends it, thank you.
Kelsey: Thank you.
[END OF
INTERVIEW]
INDEX