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This interview is being conducted in the Hearing and Balance Centers Conference Room in the Administration Building on the Towson University campus. It is part of a series of interviews comprising the TURFA

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Oral History Project, conceived and supported by the Towson University Retired Faculty Association with a generous support from the Dean of the College of Health Professions. This interview, as well as others in this series, is

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available in the Towson University Archives. Our guest interviewee today is Ray Stinar, who is Professor Emeritus from the Department of Kinesiology. Welcome, Ray.

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Thank you. And we'll start the interview by just asking, going all the way back and saying where were you born? I was born in Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago, Illinois.

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And what colleges and universities did you attend? Well, I attended Northern Illinois University for both my undergraduate and my master's. And then I taught a little bit at Northern for a while and I

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started working on my master's plus 30 before I came east to Towson. And what years were you attending university? I was there from 1962...

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I graduated in... From 62 to 68 basically at Northern, and in that time period I taught in the suburban area of Chicago for a while. Then I came back and taught the lab school, and then I went back to

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suburbia, and then I came back to the lab school, and then they closed the lab school, and I came to Towson. But you've had most of your career in higher education. Why did you decide to go into the field of higher education?

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Well, basically, I taught for two years in public schools in the Chicago area and then I was invited back to campus, Northern Illinois, to work in their lab school. And their lab school was part of the College of Education where

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we had children to work with, you know, from kindergarten. Well, I think it was preschool. I think their youngest group was 3, so 3 to 5. And then five to seven, all the way up to 8th grade.

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And so my senior year I did an internship there and the person I worked under went on sabbatical and he invited me back. So I've been teaching for two years and then I was invited

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back. I taught for a year and he came back. And so then I went back to the public schools and then he moved.

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They called me and offered me a job. I came back and I taught there for two years and they closed the school, much to my chagrin. And then eventually you came to Towson.

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That's right. And how did that happen? How did you happen to arrive here? Well, it was like I said, I was without a job.

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I had three children and I looked around for jobs. I really liked being in higher education and working with student teachers and teacher education and so forth. So I found three positions that I was interested in.

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One was Iowa State and Ames, one with Purdue University in Lafayette, and one was this Towson, Maryland, which I didn't know where Towson, Maryland was at the time because I was a Midwestern boy. So I interviewed it at Ames, Iowa State, and I interviewed at

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Purdue, and Towson was kind of on the back shelf because I wasn't ready to go there yet. It was, the interview was going to be, like, in June, I think.

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And so I really thought I was going to get the job at Iowa State. They didn't offer it to me because they brought in somebody with a doctorate.

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I didn't have my doctorate at the time. Purdue offered me the position. I said I will come to Purdue. In the meantime, Towson called and said they'll fly me out for

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an interview. So even though I had accepted verbally on the phone to Purdue, I came to the interview at Towson and found out that Towson offered two things that Purdue didn't offer. One, $2000 more.

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My salary at Towson was going to be like $2000 more than Purdue offered me, and Towson offered me a sabbatical, and I could not get a sabbatical Purdue until I had my doctorate. So that was not something I really was interested in doing.

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So in 1972, I arrived here at Towson University. And it was called something else then, wasn't it? Towson State Teachers College. Towson State Teachers College at that time.

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And when you got here, what were your first impressions? I thought it was a very student friendly, you know, place. I mean, everybody seemed to get along. Like I said, I felt, you know, very comfortable here.

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And so it just seemed like it was the natural fit because I was working with student teachers and so I came here and I, it was in the Department of Men's Physical Education.

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And then we became the Department of Physical Education and then we became the Department of Kinesiology over the course of my tenure here at Towson. What years are we talking about that you came?

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72 to 2006. When I first was hired, I was here to teach methods, teaching methods, elementary physical education. I worked with student teachers. I taught a couple activity classes that, you know, helped

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children, you know, help the adults modify classes for elementary children. I worked with elementary education majors, early childhood education majors I worked with in both departments,

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which we had, we offered courses... All the teachers at those time took courses in physical education because as a classroom teacher, they were supposed to continue the program when they, you know, of physical education,

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when the physical education teacher wasn't there. We did that and then I eventually taught some graduate courses, motor development, organization of physical education, of PE.

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And then our famous course that everybody taught, we developed a course called Individualized Fitness. And we did that because at one time everybody that came to Towson had to take a physical education credit and then

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suddenly that was going by the wayside. So in our wisdom, we developed the IF class, the Individualized Fitness class, where most of the activity courses for physical, non physical education majors were like half a credit or

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a credit, and we developed the three credit course and that was kind of our inroad to the rest of the community. And then we also developed courses in sociology of sport and philosophy of sport.

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June Canard was probably the big person behind that. And so suddenly we had a second writing courses that our kids loved. By our kids, I mean Towson, you know, Dave Zang was very active in that area.

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You probably know Dave Zang, and June Canard and Lisa Swanson, I think were the people that really carry that off. And we also worked closely with our friend Howard Nixon and he was in sociology.

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So that's how we kind of worked that whole area there. So that gave our department, because at that time, probably in the late 80s, early 90s, our enrollment was shrinking.

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And so in fact, when I was hired in 72, the next person that was hired, new faculty, was when I was chair in 76. All right, So I'm talking 72 to 96, I'm sorry. So it was a long spell where, you know, we lost enrollment at

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Towson and so forth and especially in education, and so forth. So by redefining ourselves with the course that we offered to the campus that we're not just activity based courses, it kind of gave our department a jump start again.

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And I know that you also had different administrative positions as well. Why don't you tell us a little bit of that? Yes, I started out as, like I said, I became the department chair I

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think in 92, 91, 92. I did that for 14 years, who's counting? And then I became the associate dean of the college. I did that for a couple years because as I mentioned earlier,

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my role was to build the new building for the College of Health Professions in 2004 and just coming online now in 24, so that that role didn't develop for me. And then I became the program director of the Institute for

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Well-Being where we did some outreach programs and so forth. And that's what I did. I focused on that pretty much until 2006. And any new courses or programs you developed?

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Well, I'm trying to think, the one thing that I did when I became chair, we, you know, that we had a physical education major, but like I said, physical education wasn't really, it was starting to lose the allure for students in the schools and so

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forth and schools were cutting back. So in conjunction with Mary Ann Myron, I'm sure you remember Mary Ann Myron and Gail Parr, my assistant chair, we had concentrations in our program and Sports Studies and sport

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management and psycho sport and so forth. So we developed standalone majors and so we developed a sport management major, we developed an exercise science major, we developed a Sports Studies major and an athletic

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training major. And that was kind of, so that happened and that's where we kind of grew our program and so forth. And we started to hire people like Dave Zang and so forth

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that no longer taught physical education, but they were historians, you know, of sport and so forth. And that kind of moved our program from teacher education to, you know, various facets around the world of sport

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and movement. Like I said, I started probably in the early 90s and by the time the middle 90s rolled around or so, all the majors were developing, like, in conjunction with Doctor Myman here

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in the Provost office. And Gail is my assistant chair. We did that. And then as a result of those programs, we started to hire

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people, you know, crazy, because we were... And one time I had probably 50 or 60 interviews in a spring because of all the positions we had to open because these programs were growing and we need to, and we were hiring

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faculty again. So I remember one year we, we hired 7 faculty and we probably had about 50 interviews that year. You know, people coming and going with that.

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So it was exciting times. This was probably the middle to the late 90s, you know, into that area. And then when you moved into the dean's office, were there any

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new programs developed then? I wasn't involved with that so much as I was, like I said, I was more involved with the outreach program. And so what we did is we had the Wellness Center actually in this

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building. We started our wellness program back in the early 90s at the Towson Center and then eventually when this building came online,

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Dave Mayhew, they had nobody to be in the building, so he said, Ray, there's a fitness center over here. We'd like you to come over. I said, sure.

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So Citicorp had a fitness center right where we came in this building on the lower level. And so we moved in there and we started running our program there, our outreach program, and that's where we kind of grew

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this area. And then we eventually, when they had that lovely building downtown Towson, in Towson, we took that over too. And we're now in the administration building, right?

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We're in the administration building. Yeah. Over the years, did you see any changes develop in terms of responsibilities that faculty had?

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Well, I think when I was hired in faculty, as a faculty member, we were teaching first, OK, and we were service oriented, OK. That's what our goal, our role was. We had some scholarship, but, you know, there were some people

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that were actively doing research and so forth. But basically, you know, the three legged faculty member, teaching, research, and service. We were basically, when I was hired, it was it was all about

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service and teaching and scholarship kind of came in there and, like, a lot of us got... The only reason we did our scholarship came about was going and getting our doctorate. You know what I mean?

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A lot of us, you know, were hired without our PhDs and, you know, and so we went to Maryland or whatever and we got our doctorate and that was our kind of a scholarship and then our, we did a lot of professional organizations, you

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know, outreach. I was involved with the Heart Association, I was involved with the National Association. So we did a lot of workshops and presentations around the

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country. And that's kind of what we were all about. You know, as we, at least I saw that into the... Probably the 90s into 2000.

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And then we started hiring faculty that were more research oriented and so forth like that. And what about the university? What kind of changes did you see in it over the course of your

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career? Well, I think the big thing was the emphasis was no longer on service. It was more so on scholarship and research.

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That's what I saw the big change, you know, going there. And in fact, when we first started the Wellness Center back in the late 90s or early 90s and into the 2000s, faculty were more than happy to volunteer.

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It was part of their outreach. OK. And then eventually we started to pay them as almost, like, an overload course and offload course and stuff like that.

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But then as we got closer to, you know, the 2000s, faculty weren't interested in doing that. And so that's when we started hiring people from the outside, you know, the people that we actually had the Wellness

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Center, the Christine Woods of the world and the Tiffanys and so forth. Those people that were, the Wellness Center were all they were, they were standalone positions that we were able to

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hire on soft money. Remember the term soft money? We had soft money back in those days from our registration fees and so forth.

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But then eventually, they became university physicians. You know, that's because they were, they were needed for what they were doing. You referred several times to the Wellness Center.

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Tell us a little bit about what the Wellness Center is. OK. Well, the Wellness Center, it started with a phone call that I got from Chris Thompson, the director of the Heart Institute

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at Saint Joseph Medical Center. In the early 90s, cardiac rehab programs would no longer pay for phase three cardiac rehab. So Chris had 32 individuals that were kind of, he had no place to

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put them because insurance would no longer cover their program. So he said, would you be interested in taking these individuals and you can charge them a fee and then we'll have a place for them to go.

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So I said, well, I need staffing from Saint Joseph's. So what we did probably I'd say 92, 93, 94 in that area, we moved the 32 individuals over to the Towson Center and I used the fitness center that we had there.

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And what we did is we open from 6:30 to 8:00 in the morning, from 12 to one at noon, and then from I think 4:30 to 6:00 in the afternoon. So we had like 12 hours that we worked, you know, a week.

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We were just up Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Saint Joseph provide me with clinical nurses and cardiac rehab specialists because we had nobody that was really certified as you know, a phase one lifesaver

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in the case if somebody had an event like that. So they provide the medical supervision and then eventually what happened is as we start to grow the program, they weren't interested in providing a service, but they said they can

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provide funding. So I negotiated with Saint Joseph's and they provided me with staffing, full time position where we could hire a person to kind of have the background and in terms of the

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cardiac rehab and all that kind of stuff. So that's how we started, and in the meantime as we transitioned to that full time person, Dr. Bill Forbes had done his doctorate at University of Maryland and he was an expert in

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cardiac rehab. So he was kind of the administrator, you know, he worked at the faculty number that kind of ran the program. I administered it and then we eventually were able to hire

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full time people that had certification in the cardiac rehab area and then we expanded to, we moved up to... We left here and we moved downtown. We opened it up to the community and, you know, our wellness

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program. When did you retire? I retired in 2006. 2006. Did you do any teaching after you retired?

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No! That's why I retired. Maybe this is, I shouldn't say that, but it always bothered me that people retired. Two years later, they're back.

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They want to teach. I go, Wait a minute. I did stay away for three years.

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And then I got called back by Charlotte because of some... Well, first of all, she called me back because she needed somebody to kind of monitor the wellness program, which, it was growing.

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And so even though we had people in position, I kind of came back and did some things there. Then I came back and I was director of the Autism Studies program for a while because they needed somebody to fill that in.

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And then I was just, I was filling in things when we had some problems. And then when we opened the new building up there in 2011, that's when I kind of got involved, you know.

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But I thought you retired. I was retired, but I came back. I cut the ribbon with Maravene, OK. Let's talk a little about students.

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From the time you came here until the time you retired, did you see any change in the student population? I think the students were more self-centered as we transitioned from the 90s to the 2000s and so forth.

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I think when I first started, the students were very willing to volunteer and be involved and we had a lot of students involved in student organizations locally and nationally with the various organizations.

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Students went with me to conferences in Cincinnati and California and Florida. And so there was a lot of that, but that kind of... At least I saw that wane, they were more so into becoming assistants in

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research and working with faculty members and that thing, not so much in in service. So that's what I saw. The big difference.

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Yeah. Just in kinesiology, did you see pedagogy change in any way? We became specialist.

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Like I said, when I was hired and when I came here in 72, everybody was hired to teach physical education and coach. OK, like Maggie Faulkner coached I think lacrosse, Ellen Eason, women's basketball, Charlie Field, baseball.

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I was hired with Terry Wanless the same time, he coached football. OK, So most of the the hires of that time you were hired to coach and teach and naturally most of the young coaches taught

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activity course. They didn't teach any of the theory course. So, like, they just taught... And the, you know, the Doc Minnegans of the world, the Doc Bob Zeiglers of the world and

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the Corinne Bize of the world taught all the theory courses, OK. They were all eventually, at one time we were coaching and teaching and then they just became teachers.

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That changed... I think I was the last person hired in that situation. And Ned Britt and I, we came at the same time. Ned worked with cross country and track and he did that

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and then he eventually went into the field of, you know, intramural sports and gave that stuff up. So that happened in the early 70s and then when became the department of physical education, or physical

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education then became department of athletics, we were no longer required to coach. OK. So then we just became a standalone department.

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And then athletics kind of went on their own. And Tom Meinhardt, who was teaching in physical education, became the athletic director and just gave up his teaching. And that's what, he did that as an administrator and that's when

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they, and then we literally divided Towson center up. I mean, we had the athletic section and the offices like that and we kind of split and then we share the facilities, but we did not share any duties anymore.

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We were no longer coaching and teaching. We were just teaching or coaching. That's what happened. So that probably evolved probably in the late 70s, early

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80s, you know, about ten year cycle there when that happened. You referred to Doc Minnegan and I've heard that name before. Who was he? Doc Minnegan was kind of the guru of the department.

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He was a soccer coach and he kind of taught what I taught elementary physical education and teaching methods like that. And so Doc was, in fact, I took the position that he had.

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He retired and his position became available and I was hired into his position. But you know, I wasn't a kind of coach and he was a big soccer coach.

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And and so that situation, so that's what was going on in the 70s and then we split by the time in the 80s and then we became one department and then people no longer coached. And the stadium, know anything about the stadium being named

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after Doc Minnigan? The field was named after Doc Minnegan since the soccer field, I think the field was Minnegan Field and the stadium is Unitas Stadium.

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So that's how that happened. And again, I wasn't privy to that information. I was a young faculty member, I didn't know which end was up, but I didn't know about the politics, but that was happening.

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And like I said, I do know that the Unitases, because I worked with John and his children and try to get them through school and so forth, that after his son was going to graduate, the stadium became Unitas Stadium.

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And that was, you know, that was through Hoke and Joanne working with them as, you know, donors and like that. So all the time you were here, were you located in the Towson Center?

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No, we started in Burdick. I was hired in Burdick and probably from 72 to 76, for four or five years, and then we moved to the Towson Center, I think in the late 70s, early 80s.

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And now the people in Kinesiology are very happy because they're back in Burdick Hall and Burdick Hall is their place. Because when when Burdick Hall was there, we first started, we had

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athletics, we had rec sports and then we had physical education, and we had the men's department and the women's department. We were, there were four of us sharing that little space. There were sold out games there.

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I've been to some of those. Yeah. You couldn't get into the place. I remember Obama coming to a game.

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Yeah. Oh, yeah. And his brother there and then when he flew away. Yeah.

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And, well, his brother coached the team we were playing. Yes. That's why... That's why he was there.

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Right. And then, you know, I remember the games I remembered is I think Louisville came. Denny Crumb was there.

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We played them. You know, you always have your have and have nots play each other, but we did because of, I don't know why, but we got some of the better teams to come in and play us there.

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That's unusual. Usually Towson would go to Maryland or Louisville and play, but every now and then we'd get one of those teams that come in and play us and that's when they play...

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They fill the stadium. I saw Michigan there. Yeah. Yeah.

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Played there. Yeah. And Oregon State. Well, that was the brother.

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Yeah, that was the brother. And Louisville was there. I mean, remember Dennis, that he came in somehow. So I think it was just, you know, what usually happened at

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that area, you would go to their school 3 or 4 times and they had to come to you once. And that's kind of what was going on as Towson was trying to move up the, the basketball ladder, moving to, you know, big

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time athletics. In fact, I was hired to to teach and coach basketball, but I never coached basketball because, you know, they didn't need me.

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So it worked out very well for me because I wasn't interested in doing that. But anyway, to make a long story short, the discipline of physical education, athletics kind of split.

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Athletics went their own way, you know, and they became an independent branch and we just became, you know, a department, you know, in the educational area. And then we started to grow into other areas because as faculty,

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the interest or the evolution of the discipline, we went into fitness centers, you know, and researched and a lot of people would take exercise science and so forth as a prep to go in a doctoral program in physical therapy or

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OT and stuff like that. So that was a spinoff for a lot of our people too. A lot of our kids came and got their degrees and then they went to PT school, you know, they went on to get advanced degrees

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in other areas. When it was physical education, what were students, why would students major in that? What were their careers going to be? You were going to teach physical education.

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And then when we first started, we had men's department and women's department, and we never crossed the line, OK. I mean, when I was hired, Bob Zeigler was the chair of the men's department and Corinne Bize was the chair

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of the women's department. OK. And then Corinne left and Ellen Eason took over and in the course of probably two or three years, we became one department,

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OK. And Ellen became the chair of the department. And then she moved the associate dean and I became the chair. That's how that evolved.

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So now let's go to the other side of that split, department of kinesiology. What are students who are majoring in kinesiology, what careers are they?

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Well, I would say there are three areas that I think most of them, number one, the whole fitness area was the big boom for a while. Everyone's going into fitness, so exercise science, they're hoping to get into running a fitness center, becoming

00:24:09.720 - 00:24:20.960

personal trainers and so forth. A lot of kids also use the undergraduate degree in exercise science, because it was heavy in the sciences, to get into physical therapy school, OT and so forth.

00:24:20.960 - 00:24:29.000

And so they would use that as their undergraduate degree and that was the inroad to those other areas. Teacher education. We still have people teaching in the schools.

00:24:30.040 - 00:24:36.920

The sport management was the business side of the thing. We had kids, we have a very extensive internship program with all the

00:24:36.920 - 00:24:47.250

fitness centers and all, you know, the communities around here. So a lot of our kids that would go in and do internships and eventually hope to work in a a fitness center like a Gold's Gym

00:24:47.250 - 00:24:58.560

or something like that, run that program. A lot of kids, you know, became personal trainers. You know, that's another area they like to do that. And then athletic training became a standalone major also.

00:24:58.880 - 00:25:11.950

So then we were hiring kids, you know, a lot of times when you first start out as a physical education teacher, you're also the athletic trainer because you had the courses in exercise, you know, prescription and care and

00:25:11.950 - 00:25:20.450

prevention of athletic injuries. So you knew how to tape an ankle and fix the knee and all that kind of stuff. But then when we became standalone majors, you know,

00:25:20.450 - 00:25:29.680

exercise- athletic training went its route and they became a standalone. In fact, I think athletic training now is a master's program.

00:25:29.680 - 00:25:37.200

You can't become an athletic trainer unless you have a master's. And then sport management, you know, becomes the business side of sport.

00:25:37.800 - 00:25:50.960

And then we still had the physical education and teaching. We had Sports Studies for a while, which was our liberal arts approach to the study of sports. So we paired with Rodger Fink in psychology.

00:25:51.400 - 00:26:04.750

So we had psycho sport concentration and then we paired with the people in- Howard Nixon in terms of sociology where we had a concentration in in that area. So that was the non-science approach for kids because we had

00:26:04.750 - 00:26:18.490

kids that did not do well in the sciences because in in physical education and exercise science, you had the anatomy and physiology, you know, and you had all those courses, the science courses, the biology and the chemistry and in the

00:26:18.490 - 00:26:27.200

athletic, not the athletic training, but in sport management courses, you had the business. Our kids have been sport management, they had a minor in business administration.

00:26:27.600 - 00:26:35.840

So they had the accounting, they had the marketing and the management and all that kind of stuff. And their basic stats course that drove most kids up the wall crazy.

00:26:36.760 - 00:26:46.960

I remember the famous name I'll share with this Johnny Unitas. His son Chad was in our program, and his daughter Paige was in our program. Paige was sharp as a tack.

00:26:46.960 - 00:26:55.160

She was just... Chad was a golfer. And he couldn't quite figure out how to get through school. So one day I walk in my office and there's Johnny Unitas

00:26:55.160 - 00:27:03.600

waiting for me. And he says, Ray, how do I get Chad out of school? I said, well, we're going to make him a Sports Studies major in sports psych, OK.

00:27:03.720 - 00:27:12.720

So all the sciences and all the math courses were gone, and eventually Chad graduated. And Johnny, you know that stadium that says Unitas Stadium?

00:27:12.760 - 00:27:20.920

Yes. He named the stadium. I had a call from Joanne Glasser saying, Ray, guess what? John's going to name the stadium. Thank you.

00:27:20.960 - 00:27:31.240

I said, OK, so that's how that happened. I always wondered how that happened. That's exactly how that happened. John sat in my office and we made some things work.

00:27:31.240 - 00:27:41.200

And then next thing I know, we had a stadium named after John. Well, do you recall any particularly humorous or interesting stories over the years while you were at TU? The stories that have stuck with you?

00:27:41.200 - 00:27:44.240

Yeah. There's three things that I thought about when you said that. Now I hope,

00:27:44.680 - 00:27:55.160

I hope I can share these. Let's hear them all. Well, I'll start out with, we used to run workshops in the summer, OK, with Craig Dopkin.

00:27:55.160 - 00:28:08.640

I don't know if you remember Craig Dopkin? Craig was an outdoor education person, and Genesee Valley was an area out in, off of Exit 31 out in the country. And it was Tom Lamonica and his wife Lynda.

00:28:08.640 - 00:28:17.760

She was the women's gymnastics coach. They ran this, they had this farm and it was kind of an adventure farm where they had ropes courses and all that kind of stuff out there.

00:28:18.080 - 00:28:26.990

So we started doing workshops out in the summer out there all the time. And it was, you'd bring in teachers and physical education together and maybe you spend, you know, a full week out

00:28:26.990 - 00:28:35.520

there on the farm and do group initiatives and ropes courses and so forth. And we did tubing, we did biking and all that kind of stuff. But one day, I'm getting to my funny story.

00:28:35.520 - 00:28:43.590

One day, you know, the sun is coming up. It's like 6:00 in the morning. I'm standing there. We were all camped in tents and we kind of, faculty kind of let

00:28:43.590 - 00:28:52.880

the students stay over there. And faculty was on one side of the creek. All of a sudden I heard, Doctor Stinar! What? I look and about six women mooned me.

00:28:53.720 - 00:29:07.080

They were called the Blue Moon special. And they were all teachers that had graduated from Towson and that we had eventually. I won't mention their names, but it was it was a very... No, it wasn't scary.

00:29:07.080 - 00:29:16.940

It was very interesting that that actually happened. So that was the Blue Mooners. All right, so that happened. And then, as I said, we used to run workshops, OK, and as part of

00:29:16.940 - 00:29:31.440

the workshops, we'd bring people in from all over the country to be keynote speakers, OK, and exercise physiology, perceptual motor development, all kinds of history and so forth. And so we had quite a few people that would come in from all over

00:29:31.440 - 00:29:45.790

the country to attend these workshops. So one day, my graduate- She wasn't a graduate, my student assistant was planning an activity because it was the last night of the thing, they came in on on a Sunday and

00:29:45.790 - 00:29:58.760

on a Friday they'd go home on Saturday. So we decided to go downtown and she want us to go to, I'm trying to say this tactfully. She wanted us to go to the Hippo.

00:29:58.760 - 00:30:07.560

I don't know if you've ever heard of the Hippo, but it was a gay bar. We didn't know that at the time, and it was very dark. And so we're all in there dancing, having a good time.

00:30:07.560 - 00:30:14.960

It's been about 20 of us and all of a sudden the lights came on and some people were not thrilled when the lights came on. They saw things they shouldn't have seen.

00:30:15.240 - 00:30:21.600

And I will never forget, this one gentleman, he taught in a public school- in a private school. He said I got to tell sister about this,

00:30:21.600 - 00:30:26.000

she won't believe it, I'm afraid to tell sister about this. And he left. He went out the door and left.

00:30:26.000 - 00:30:36.160

So that was a very exciting thing. So anyway, that happened. And then last thing that happened to me, which is part of the workshop scenario.

00:30:36.680 - 00:30:49.890

We used to run workshops and we'd take students with Fran Bond and the early childhood people. We'd do camping experiences, we'd go out camping and so forth. And we're out at a campsite in Howard County with elementary

00:30:49.890 - 00:30:59.610

education majors and some physical education majors and so forth. And we took students with us, young students, you know, they'd actually be out there for the week with, you know, and work in

00:30:59.610 - 00:31:10.910

outdoor education activities in science and math and so forth. And I was there because of the physical activity and doing some games and so forth like that. So we were staying in a kind of like a barracks dorm or

00:31:10.910 - 00:31:19.890

something like that. And we had, you know, the male students here with male teachers and me. And then we had on the other side downstairs below, there was

00:31:19.890 - 00:31:32.520

a group of, you know, female students with the young, you know, females and like that. And so this young lady who was an early childhood education major comes walking down our hallway.

00:31:32.520 - 00:31:37.640

We're all laying in bed. And she said goodnight, boys, goodnight. And she reaches over, she kisses me. Goodnight, Doctor Stinar.

00:31:38.480 - 00:31:43.960

I'm shocked. And it wasn't, you know, a passion, because it was just a, good night. Like she was the mother of the whole tribe.

00:31:44.240 - 00:31:53.920

So those are the shocking things that I remember when you told me that, from the Hippo to the moon to the goodnight kiss. Great stories, great stories.

00:31:54.400 - 00:32:04.880

And I shared all those with my wife, too. I don't think she was with us at the Hippo, though. I think she missed that experience, which was good. Well, I can tell you have a real fondness for the institution.

00:32:04.880 - 00:32:17.810

What makes Towson University so special to you? Well, I think, you know, it was the idea of the involvement with the community because that's, you know, with the whole idea of the Wellness Center and so forth, and Saint Joseph's

00:32:17.810 - 00:32:26.840

Medical Center. That is the thing that I think made Towson unique to me because it allowed me to have an outreach to the community. And that's what we're all about.

00:32:26.840 - 00:32:35.010

So I don't think we talked about that, did we, the outreach? No, please talk about it. Well, I think like I said, we started working with Saint

00:32:35.010 - 00:32:53.140

Joseph's and as we outgrew our space, this building came on line downtown and we moved, you know, all our outreach programs with, you know, Charlotte's blessing and her leadership. We moved the Wellness Center, we moved the OT center, we moved the

00:32:53.140 - 00:33:07.680

speech language hearing center, you know, the sound booths and all that stuff all downtown. So that I think was unique about us is that we started out with working with Saint Joseph Medical Center and then we moved

00:33:07.680 - 00:33:21.200

to the Baltimore County Department of Aging. I was contacted by them to see if they could run some programs because our cardiac, at that time, our cardiac rehab program was just for people that had cardiac events.

00:33:21.640 - 00:33:32.290

So we weren't really bringing in the community. So they wanted to run some Community Centers. So we opened up eight senior centers under the Department of Aging with, I don't know if you know Sandy Feldman or, did you know

00:33:32.290 - 00:33:42.860

Sandy Feldman? I don't. OK, she was with Baltimore County, she and Arnold Epple. But anyway, they reached out to us and we opened up these senior centers and we hired people from the university, some of our

00:33:42.860 - 00:33:57.660

graduate. So like that we had centers in Catonsville and Dundalk and Parkville and Towson, and there were eight centers that we opened up around in the community that we ran through the Wellness

00:33:57.660 - 00:34:06.960

Center. So they were designed in a way that if a person came into the Senior Center, say in Parkville, and he was a healthy individual, we ran a program.

00:34:06.960 - 00:34:14.200

But if he had some cardiac problems or some health issues, we would screen him. Doctor Fords would screen him, and then we'd put him in the cardiac reapproach.

00:34:14.200 - 00:34:23.040

So it was a feeder system for our cardiac program as well as a community outreach program. Tell us a little bit more about your responsibilities as an administrator.

00:34:23.400 - 00:34:35.120

Well, like I said, I started out as the department chair. I did that for fourteen years. And I think the big role in terms of dealing with faculty is dealing with faculty who had issues, problems.

00:34:35.200 - 00:34:42.280

You know, you get faculty to come in your office and they're concerned about this student or that student or the student would come in your office and complain about this faculty or that faculty.

00:34:42.280 - 00:34:55.660

So we have problems to solve all the time. And then also dealing with promotion and tenure issues, as you all know, if you want promotion, tenure, that's always a sore subject for people when they're not given promotion or

00:34:55.660 - 00:35:06.080

tenure. And so that to me was the biggest issue that I, not that I had to deal with as an administrator, but I think, you know, I enjoyed my time.

00:35:06.080 - 00:35:16.280

I mean, the only reason I left was to become the associate dean because the idea that we're going to build the building, I probably would still be chair. You know, I had a great faculty.

00:35:16.280 - 00:35:25.420

I mean, we got along very well. And you know, I was able to hire a lot of people and like I said, I think it was a good department. And and because we evolved from the Department of Physical

00:35:25.420 - 00:35:34.160

Education into a multiple facet department, people actually got to be in their niche market, so to speak. You know, they were doing what they wanted to do. They didn't want to teach this class.

00:35:34.600 - 00:35:44.600

They could do their history, they could do their philosophy, whatever, they could do their tests and measurements, wherever they felt comfortable in it. Over the course of your career, was there something that you can

00:35:44.600 - 00:35:53.520

say, That was the my most favorite thing that I did. Well, I really think I liked the outreach that we did. Yeah, I think it was,

00:35:54.360 - 00:36:04.560

that was the one thing I felt that I accomplished the most because I know we started with the, like I said, I got the phone call from Saint Joseph's Medical Center saying I got 32 individuals.

00:36:04.560 - 00:36:16.670

And that kind of started us. And that, a lot of our faculty, a chance to contribute to the community because they weren't, you know, most of the people were not researchers at that time when we were hired,

00:36:16.670 - 00:36:27.730

you know, in the 70s, we were, you know, you were a teacher and you did service. And by having the Wellness Center and the outreach programs and the autism, even the autism center, they all provided

00:36:27.730 - 00:36:33.680

chances for service for faculty. And that was very important at that time. And they're all still operating. They're all still operating, right.

00:36:33.680 - 00:36:40.960

Yeah. And, you know, I remember, you know, you take the Autism Center, I mean, with Lisa Crabtree, you know, was doing some work and then we did some work there.

00:36:40.960 - 00:36:48.460

We needed a space like that. And we did a partnership with the Forbush School. We had kids coming in from that. And so all those things kind of led to the whole idea of the

00:36:48.460 - 00:36:54.440

Autism Center. And I remember sitting there with Janine and the Hussmans sitting here, and they said, we're going to give you $1,000,000.

00:36:54.840 - 00:37:03.840

And thus we had the Hussman center. So things like that, you know, we're exciting to see that happen, you know what I mean? Plus $250,000 operating budget for the next ten years.

00:37:03.880 - 00:37:11.320

So that was a very good thing. It was a very good thing. Well, thank you for spending time with us in this interview. It was a very good interview.

00:37:11.520 - 00:37:17.080

You've contributed to the Oral History Project and we wish you much happiness. Thank you, Sir, Ma'am.