History Repeats Itself, Knight Family
This article describes the Knights, an ECU Legacy family. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "History Repeats Itself," ECU Report, Volume 14, No. 5, September 1982.
It was in the fall of 1954 that a young lady from Wilmington and a young man from Rocky Mount came to East Carolina as freshmen and now in the fall of 1982 that couple will in many ways relive their college experience as their daughter begins her freshman year here.
Even though 28 years separate their freshman years, parents and child chose this school for the same reasons.George Knight and Dottie Jo James Knight had been ot the campus during their high school years for band clinics and there was no doubt about where they wanted to go to college. Daughter Julie has also been in all-state orchestra clinics and has grown upwith the University as her father is a professor in the school of music.
George had planned to major in English, but when he was offered a music scholarship, his life was directed in that course and that put him in daily contact with Dottie, who had always wanted to be a teacher and was certain about a major in music. At this time Julie is also definite about majoring in music with the idea of teaching.
With the exception of parents and daughter having a common interest in music, there will be more contrast than similarities for Julie while she is enrolled here. She had elected to live at home even though her parents offered her the option of dorm life. "Maybe later I'll live in the dorm," said Julie, "but for now I feel better about living at home."
If she had chosen dorm life it would have been much different from when her mother was a resident of Garrett Hall. "We had rules and had to sign in and out and if you were going to be riding in a car, you had to make note of that," said Dottie. "We had to be in by 10:30 on week nights and 11:30 on Friday and Saturdays and the entrances to the campus were locked and if you were late you had to face campus check. If your name wasn't on the sign out list, you went before women's judiciary. The punishment would be something like being grounded to the dorm for a period of time or not speaking ot a boy for several weeks."
Dottie recalls the "man on hall" alert which would send the girls running to their rooms and this usually only occurred at the beginning and end of the quarter when you were moving in or out. Now there is visitation in men and women's dorms every day and the women's dorms are not locked until 1 a.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends.The University has four coed dorms, including Slay Dormitory where George lived while a student.
As this fall semester begins and Greenville still holds on to summer weather, it is quite common to see men and women students going to class in shorts which is a situation that did not prevail in the fifties."The only place you could wear shorts was in p.e. class and if you wore them to class, you had to wear a raincoat over," explained Dottie. "I guess I was a bit of a rebel, because one day I wore shorts to gym class with a plastic (see through) raincoat over, but no one reported me." Today's students, who practically live in jeans, would be appalled to know that slacks were not proper attire for young ladies when Dottie was a student.
When mom and dad were freshmen, the total enrollment was 3,315 compared to the 13,300 students on campus during Julie's first year. Although there are obvious changes because of size, George believes the music school is not that much different from his student days. "It is a warm atmosphere. It's like a family, of course the family is bigger an dmore diversified than some years ago, but it is still fun loving." Both Dottie and George pointed out that the required involvement in organizations like the orchestra happen to be social situations also. George said, "We were in so many things, because the rule was that 'you are required to be in whatever you're qualified to be in'. "Today's students are not as involved with performing, but Dottie and George feel all the opportunities for performing while they were students provided the most growth and do not regret the way it was. Julie knows she will be busy because in addition to her general courses she has violin and piano classes which could take up to 21 hours of practice time during the week.
When asked if he saw any problems having a daughter as a music major, George replied, "There are just two rules, one, she can't come to my office borrow money and two, she can't ask to borrow the car," and Julie said, "Are there any other reason I would come to your office?" But seriously speaking George feels there will be no problems.
When Dottie and George were students, the main social life centered around the music school activities and a date would be a dinner at a downtown restaurant or a local movie."We walked everywhere as very few had cars," said George. Now most entertainment is still near campus, but there are over 7,000 vehicles registered to students so they are more likely to go to the beach or attend out-of-city athletic events. "The cafeteria was a very big thing for us," said Dottie, "almost everyone got up and had breakfast and it was a big social gathering." She also remembers that she could leave her books and musical instruments outside the cafeteria while eating and they would be there when she returned. "No one had insurance on anything," she said.Naturally they are insurance conscious now.
When the Knights were students, nearly all dormitory students ate at the cafeteria and now about twenty per cent of the students board on campus. Today's students must also be responsible for their own laundry, whereas there was a laundry service which collected and delivered to the dorms on a weekly basis for Dottie and George.
Dottie said, "I'm glad Julie is going to school now even though it is very different from my school years. I think today's students have more freedom to develop and this can be very challenging."
At this point in time Julie is not certain if her music will lead toperforming or teaching and her fahter pointed out that they are very different professions."when you are a performer, the emphasis is on developing your own abilities and when you're a music educator, the emphasis is on other people." Both Dottie and George find very little time to perform as their roles as educators have taken precedence.When the children were young, Dottie taught in their home and eight years ago began teaching full time in the Greenvile Public Schools. George is chairman of the music education department and each semester supervises five to eight student teachers, so he makes frequent trips to evaluate his students.
