UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #69
MERCIER, GERMAINE E.

MERCIER, Germaine E. (1898-1995)
Assistant Professor of French
At UW: 1923-1968

Interviewed: 1974		
Interviewer: Donna Taylor
Length: 1 hour, 54 minutes
Transcript: 52 pages

French background; French House; WWII Civil Affairs Training Course; Junior year abroad program; Fulbright program; French radio programs; Teaching; Position of women; Interdepartmental relations; Faculty associates; University Club.

Tape 1/Side 1 

00:00:06	Background in France, selection to come to U.S. 

00:03:15	Study at Whitman College and the University of Washington; teaching UW summer school.

00:07:40	Coming to UW to French House and for study; French House in 1923 and its history.

00:12:45	French House regular faculty visitors; activities, family atmosphere, organization of Society des Amis de la Maison Francaise; French Club meetings; foreign guests.

00:18:57	French plays.

00:21:14	UW French department stress on spoken language, course offerings, teaching in French.

00:26:36	CATS trainees in French.

00:30:29 	Changes in French instruction to oral-aural emphasis.

00:33:33	Creation of junior-year-abroad program; advantages, possibilities for travel.

00:37:03	Fulbright scholarships and their contribution in training TAs; supervision of TAs' classes; importance of emphasizing subject rather than grade.

00:42:23	Difficulty of making language alive and importance of it.

00:44:11	French lack of grades at university level; preparation through presentation for state exams.

00:46:52	End of Side

Tape 1/Side 2 

00:47:05	French student's initiative and acceptance of responsibility for his education.

00:50:11	U.S. students who are not university caliber; question of their motives in coming to the University.

00:52:19	Protests sometimes valid; lack of good taste and refinement in university education; student slovenliness and ill manners, lack of constructive alternatives; University role in cultivating refinement, taste and human dignity.

00:59:52	French radio program. Origin, national award, development.

01:05:37	Bringing high school students to French plays; poetry recitation contest.

01:08:04	Mistake of dropping language requirement; English and French as key languages, especially French as a world language.

01:10:55	Need for more translators; UW course in translation; French Area major.

01:14:25	Improvement of language instruction at high school level: NDEA summer program for teachers as sparking interest.

01:16:48	Discrimination against women at UW in rank and salary; beginning of improvement in acknowledgement of situation. 

01:21:36	Earlier hesitancy of faculty women to complain; rationalizations of discrimination.

01:22:53	Pressure to publish; unfair to good teachers, and students. 

01:29:02	Interdepartmental relations lacking at UW; French House's earlier role as a meeting place for different disciplines; better relations at University of Washington; lack of professors' interest in one another.

01:33:23	University Club: former restriction against women.

01:34:04	End of Side, End of Tape

Tape 2/Side 1 

01:34:12	Importance of exactness in language; French as an important world language; example of Senghor of Senegal; continuing prominence of French and its purity.

01:38:55	UW French students in general.

01:40:32	Women at the UW; discrimination in rank and salary; American men's romantic notion of women; disapproval of women who deny the problem; equality of intelligence.

01:46:21	University Club discrimination against women; lack of real social atmosphere at lunch; possibility of loosening it up, lowering membership fees.

01:49:33	Areas of needed improvement at UW: faculty relations with students, more emphasis on undergraduate teaching; more language study and literature in translation; more concern with a liberal education.

[384-end blank.] 

Tape 2/Side 2 

[00l-658 blank.]

01:52:57	Growing importance of English as world language, but continuing widespread use of French.

END