Gene Lanier ~ Student to Faculty Member

Memories shared by Gene Lanier class of 1955 in commemoration of Founders Day 2006. Share your memories with us too.

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Although I was slated to go to Wake Forest, I attended Senior Day at East Carolina and their musical production in Wright Auditorium which blew me away. So I changed my plans and enrolled at East Carolina in the summer of 1952 and finished in the spring of 1955 with a BS degree and many fond memories. In the classroom I remember well Dr. Pasti's world history exam which included 100 multiple choice questions, and discussion questions like "Write an imaginary conversation between Marcus Aurelius and Thomas Jefferson", and "Trace man from the amoeba stage to the atomic age." In Dr. Poindexter's composition class, we had to write a theme every single day. In speech class we were ordered to go up on the third outside balcony and shout down to the class on the ground our speech for the day.

Outside of class, my memories include working on the college newspaper, student government, men's judiciary, the YMCA at the hut, and socializing at the old soda shop with bridge playing inside at the booths and dancing the night away outside on the patio. I teamed up with a bunch of other guys one night and we went to dinner at the old cafeteria in bermuda shorts which was unheard of in those days.

After degrees at UNC-Chapel Hill and serving as a counterintelligence agent in Western Europe, I came back to East Carolina and worked for 40 years, 1959-99, and finished as a Distinguished Professor and Professor Emeritus. My fondest memories in that capacity includes all the wonderful students I had during those years and meeting my current wife of 44 years in the library elevator.

See also Freedom Fighter for more information regarding Dr. Lanier and his career at ECU.