Marguerite A. Perry . .. Ambassadrice de la culture Francaise
Biographical sketch of Marguerite Perry. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.The citation for this article is: "Marguerite A. Perry . . . Ambassadrice de la culture Francaise," Pieces of Eight, July 1, 1984.
During Christmas break in the year 1939, Marguerite Austin Perry came to the East Carolina campus for interviews, went dancing with the department director and was hired to teach French beginning the next week."It was a real opportunity," she recalls. "I had been at a little high school in Mullins, South Carolina, teaching English, French, tap dancing and tennis.
"To teach at East Carolina -- it was ECTC then -- was like a dream.
Thus she began, at the age of 21, a career on the East Carolina faculty which soon will have spanned 45 years. For some time, she has held the distinction of being the oldest faculty member in point of service and has the honor of carrying the bejeweled eight-pound ECU Trustees Mace at commencement and on other ceremonial occasions.
"It feels like it weighs fifty pounds," says the petite Marguerite. "But it's kind of fun to carry it."
'The good, young days'
Of course, her initial assignment at ECTC meant teaching more than one subject. She taught not only French but Spanish as well, along with some courses in health and physical education. But no tennis or tap dancing.Her long faculty career has run a gamut of unusual extracurricular assignments, including taping programs for the campus radio station, booking concerts and chalking the floor of the auditorium for seating arrangements.
Another of her duties in the early years was to stand in the back of the auditorium and flatten the mortar boards of seniors as they marched in at commencement "so they wouldn't look so cocky, or slap-happy, I suppose."
Her career progressed from unranked instructor to full professor and chair of Foreign Languages and Literatures.
"I've seen the transition here from a small college to a major university," she says proudly.
"The good young days of this school were very good," she recalls with nostalgia. "But in comparing then and now, one can be reassured that out of something good can come something pretty wonderful."
Many Changes Come About
While no one could have imagined the changes that would take place, she says, "essentially, it is the same business -- education. Just on a larger scale." It was after the war, with the influx of men, that major changes began to come about. Before then, the students were mostly women and there were fewer than 1,000 of them.
"Those young men gave us a shot of aspiration and inspiration," Professor Perry says.
She knew and worked with such people as Sallie Joyner Davis, Mamie Jenkins, Ronald Slay and Mary Greene. "Those people were monumental in the development of this school," she says. "It has been one of my greatest privileges."
Different Concerns, Interests
Both faculty and student concerns and interests have changed greatly as the university grew, she says.Marguerite Perry was an early champion of organized student government on campus. She went to student assemblies and spoke out for organizing student government.
"I saw a possibility for them to develop leadership," she says. "And that has happened."
Also, she remembers the days when a girl would be suspended or expelled for drinking a glass of wine. And whtn the faculty "had to hide their smoking."
In the past, when the faculty was called on to handle assignments now filled by professionals, Marguerite Perry directed the campus radio station and chaired the campus entertainment committee.
"We had a tape recorder and a little wagon which we would pull down to the president's office and record interviews," she recalls. "We taped and sent out at least 500 programs."
At first, the radio station had no call letters and no studio. A room in Graham finally was converted into a station, but when it was time to broadcast a student volunteer had to go downtown and pull a switch.
On the entertainment committee, she and volunteers booked concerts and dance bands and other artists. "We did the publicity, we sold tickets, we bought lighting and we even marked the floors for seating arrangements."
The committee also was in charge of decorating Wright Auditorium for the dances attended by both students and faculty. "They were very popular," she says. "We don't do that anymore."
Married Couples Policy
In the early years of East Carolina, the college didn't hire married couples, she recalls, citing another difference between then and now. "I got permission from the president to keep my job before I married a music professor. Soon after that, two other faculty marriages took place -- the same summer, I believe, and of course many other faculty couples have been employed since then."
Marguerite Perry's AB degree is from Winthrop College in her native South Carolina and she fondly recalls the Winthrop girls in their navy blue uniforms, dancing barefoot on the Rock Hill campus.
She completed the Maison Francaise program at Emory University before the baccalaureate degree was conferred.
"I wanted at first to be a violinist. But when my instructor suggested that I switch from violin to viola, well, I knew that French was my forte," she says. At Emory, she won a contest for a poem demonstrating the French language. The prize was conferred by the French consul in Atlanta, a portly gentleman who kissed her on both cheeks.
"I had to reach for that accolade," she says.
She received the master's degree in French at Duke in 1939. During the next several years, she studied public health at UNC-Chapel Hill, Spanish in Mexico and French at the Sorbonne in Paris for two years. In 1955, she was a Fulbright scholar and received a diploma presented by the Ecole superieure de preparation et de perfectionment des professeurs de francais a l'etranger.
In other years during the 1950s and 1960s, she traveled to Europe, residing in France but traveling throughout the continent. A favorite recollection is swimming in the blue Adriatic sea on the rocky coast of Yugoslavia.
