Richard Cyr (interview); Creator: Cyr, Richard; Interviewer(s): Sandy Grimes and Kevin Ferrell; Interview location: unknown; Running time: 100 min., Apr 28, 1992

Coverage: 1969-1992
Topics discussed : (tape 1;side A): Westside campus; Dr. Haas initiated it, but Dr. Bersi got it; money was tight and they were unable to get money; "Road to Nowhere"; Ancell School building; wasn't suppose to be business (was suppose to be scientific); Mr. Ancell donated a lot of money and it became business; Need for Westside; Midtown was becoming too crowded; Dr. Haas and Westside; she wasn't a "pusher"; knew what she wanted but wasn't a pusher; feels she really didn't want Westside to become reality; considered White Street and faculty her family; Dr. Haas and athletic department; meeting in Hartford where she declined the offer to purchase Osborne Street Field; the school really needed it; Midtown field; used strictly for field hockey and soccer in the beginning; now everyone uses it; Astro; turf is only answer for midtown now; Athletic teams; used to drive all teams to destination (except the football team); Women's sports; tennis was always here, as was croquet; softball came later; Women's basketball; enjoyed taking them to their games; incident where coach knocked down one of the players (fired next day); Maintenance of fields; did it for over 30 years and by himself for many of those years; Dr. Haas and administration; relied on her administration; Ray Trimper incident; he shielded Dr. Haas from people he didn't want her to see; he was her assistant; when he was in process of moving from Bethel to Danbury, he and his wife were living in Litchfield Hall; Cyr went to Haas and told he and his wife were going to move in as well if Trimper was allowed to; Trimper went to him angry, but Cyr told him if he stayed there he had to pay rent because of state rules; Mel Goldstein and the radio station; used state owned weather equipment for own personal gain; he was giving weather reports on the radio using state owned equipment; that changed after Cyr asked to see the records; eventually he wasn't doing reports from WestConn; Dr. Sullivan; Vice President of Administrative Affairs; replaced Dr. Robinson in that role; House mothers/dorm directors; stayed in the dorms w/ the women; difference between the two; house mothers cleaned rooms, etc and enforced rules; Arrival of football players; placed them in Newbury Hall after it was built in 1969; problems occurred w/ their arrival; most were macho; Beer can incident; the guys decided to fill an entire room w/ beer cans; when maintenance came up to try and open door, cans all fell out; filled up a dump truck them to bring them to the dump; Girl's dorm; "F; Troop" and the state police; guards for the girl's dorms; maintenance sometimes helped them get into their dorms; state police only came on campus when they were called; "F; Troop" were maintenance that couldn't work grounds anymore; Stolen police car; 1965 Chevy that didn't need key to start it; Cyr took car and parked it behind Higgins Hall as a joke; Intruder incident; he was playing a joke hiding behind trees; he was wearing a yellow jacket and changed later; he got the police down to WestConn; State Police; started coming more often w/ the football team; eventually organized police were formed; Old Main tunnel; between Old Main and Fairfield; branches off at one point towards Higgins; all the heat went through them for the buildings; Officer Bookman; he carried several guns on him; Crime on campus; little crime when it was mainly women on campus; talks about a time a girl stole a wallet, but felt guilty and gave it to him to return to the man she stole it from (tape 1;side B): Racial tension on campus; Bomb scares; during the 1970s they were frequent; maintenance was asked to look into them originally; the Union was able to get them to stop asking maintenance to do it; Police Chief Ed Nardy; police didn't act or resemble cops; "F; Troop"; Racial tension; Echo tried to suppress any tension; not unique to WestConn; War protest on campus; a few, but usually outside groups that came in; Lone Streaker; girl who almost knocked him down while streaking; only one who did it; a minor fad here on campus; Echo; anti; administration; he wrote an article for it once; Dr. Robinson; named vice president of administrative affairs; was a "tyrant"; "Do; Day"; never did much of "Do; Day"; all WestConn students got together to clean; up campus; usually everyone had fun; as time went on, people lost interest in it; Union Activity; no union when he first got here (CT State Employee Association); meetings were usually about holiday parties, picnics, or next meeting; he got a union to come down to talk w/ them (four joined the union); most were afraid to join and go against the union; "Renegade"; loved the label; all lousy jobs were given to him; Being fired; it was their mistake as he wasn't going to allow it; took college to court; Incident w/ Mel Goldstein; lied about what happened; said Dr. Robinson told him to lie; Firing reduced to 60; day suspension; Growth of the Union; the incident created the union to grow; many felt comfortable about joining the union; Health and safety; called OSHA about conditions; he was asked to stop OSHA from coming down, but he refused; Isolation; most of the secretaries ignored him when he got back from suspension; administration encouraged him to do so; no one looked at him; as more joined the union, less people reacted this way; Union process; Faculty members; Dr. Janick was always very cordial and students liked him; some faculty couldn't be bothered with him; others he got along w/ very well (like Janick); Nepotism at WestConn; Richard Sullivan; Maintenance of the campus; important to attraction of college; limited staff to maintain campus; Dr. and Mrs. Feldman; she did most of the work towards providing beauty to campus; she encouraged Dr. Feldman to act on getting things done; Graduation ceremony; a lot of things involved in going into it; incident where band had no chairs to sit in; worked several in preparation for it; Weather and Mel Goldstein; time graduation was held indoors because Dr. Mel said it would rain, but it turned out to be a hot and sunny day; Governor Grasso spoke and asked why it was held indoors; Dr. Bersi said next time he was going to listen to Cyr; History of Westside; nothing at Westside; used to be Gregory Farms; was owned in part by T. Clark Hull at one time (tape 2; side A): History of Midtown; White Hall was Danbury High School at one time; he was a student there (got thrown out); WestConn was somewhat isolated there; he was in a play in Old Main (played the villain); Berkshire, Higgins Annex, and the Library weren't there; History of athletic field; called "Dust Bowl" in the summer; WestConn in the 1950s; was a teacher's college then