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Joe Califano, who had been, I believe, legal counsel to L. B. J. and wrote a book that I found in the stacks here at D. H. Hill Library, A Presidential Nation,

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Joe Califano, as Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, decided essentially that he wanted to micromanage the University of North Carolina system,

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that to achieve racial equality certain programs would be taken from certain institutions and moved elsewhere, and you can imagine the hue and cry.

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For those looking at this who think it was some sort of racial thing, no it wasn't. It was the notion of your institution.

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There was some talk, and this could be rumor, but some talk that the engineering program at North Carolina State would be moved to North Carolina A & T. Well, stop and think.

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A & T had its own engineering program, and it's an incredible school - my old friend, Rev. Jesse Jackson, went to school there after transferring from the University of Illinois -

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but why strip NC State of the essence of what made it a land grant institution?

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So, I received a letter-. You know, you look back and this, and some of the political guys watching this I think will get a kick out of it.

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I remember the guy's name to this day: James K. Wego, who worked as legal counsel under Califano.

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"Look, as students we have some concerns about what you're proposing,"

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and he sent me a letter in bureaucratese, basically telling me to mind my own business, that students had no role in this.

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Well, as you might imagine, this made for great television, and since Channel 5 is located right across Western Boulevard

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I called the newsroom and, I believe it's Mike Tescano - who, ironically, had worked as a press aide to Mo Udall of Arizona, very liberal Democrat who ran for president in '76 -

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Tescano hears this and, boom, suddenly there's a story. So I end up doing a couple of pieces with Channel 5.

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Woody was kind enough to say, "Well, you've got your one role as student body president and your other role with us at Channel 28."

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So, I do that, and we finally get a meeting, the Association of Student Governments from the UNC system.

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We go to DC to sit down. Now, Califano, I think by that time, had-. [Sound effect indicating that he had left] But they sat us down with a bunch of lawyers, and eventually this plan was abandoned.

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I think it had to do more with where the calendar was, coming up on an election in 1980,

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I think in retrospect the student involvement in stopping the federal government's micromanagement of the UNC system

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probably was the most important achievement, and it wasn't exclusive to NC State so I can share that with my colleagues from the other constituent universities within the system.

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That probably stands the test of time, although to be candid again it was probably election year pressure that helped Mr. Carter take a second look and back off of, I think, what was a wrong-headed plan. So that's probably the greatest achievement.