Eunice Toussaint

My name is Eunice Toussaint, and I started work at the college in September of 1955. I was interviewed and hired by Elizabeth Stolp, and she is a dear friend today. I never intended to go to work; I was married with a family, but we decided that to pay off some medical bills I would work for a while. It was supposed to be maybe two years, and twenty-three years later in June of 1978, I retired happily, but I also felt very privileged and happy to work all those years at the college. I started work in the information office as a switchboard operator, the old PBX switchboard where you plugged in to the switchboard. And I have to admit that several times in moments of not thinking about what I was doing I disconnected people also, but for the most part, I was the first voice you heard when you called the college. I think the changes I probably remember are the college farm, the changes in the number of buildings. The 1960’s were the biggest growth years, as you may recall, the college student body and the faculty quadrupled during that time, twelve new buildings, two under construction. Before he [President Kendall] retired there were just so many changes on campus. But I think basically it’s a very friendly campus, and I think it’s one of the prettiest campuses in the system. I haven’t seen all of the colleges, but the ones I’ve seen, I know this is really the friendliest, prettiest. It’s just pleasant to be here. I first started working in the counseling office as a secretary; there was a manual typewriter, then the electric typewriter, the IBM Selectric. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I got one of those. And then they had the machine records where you punched cards that went through a machine that printed out. In the advising part of the office, I did the assigning academic advisors for the students and then typing up list — for days, typing lists for each advisor, the students that he had.