Gretta Stanger has been a sociology professor at Tech for almost 47 years. Stanger has taught many students the importance of sociology. She has played a large roll in directing the women’s center here at Tech. Being one of the longest serving faculty members at the university, Stanger sat down to share her life from the past 47 years.
What brought you to Tennessee Tech?
I grew up in Memphis. I’m a Tennessean. The timing was such that I was happy to see a school in Tennessee that was recruiting. I really didn’t know what I was getting into at all. I decided that it was a good place to rear children, and I liked the surroundings.
How many classes have you taught at Tech?
I have taught 20 different courses over these many years. It was mostly in the earliest years because there was only one other full-time professor. We were teaching more students or as many as we have now in sociology. When I first came I had a teaching load of 15 hours. I’d never taught anything except intro when I got here. My one intro class had 180 students. That gives you an idea of how crowded it was. It was taught in the chemistry building.
Which of the classes you’ve taught is your favorite?
It’s the one that I’ve been concentrating on in the more recent years. The class got put in in the mid 1970s, at the time one of my areas was social change, and I was told I needed to put it into a class. So, I said, ‘Ok let’s call it women in the changing U.S.’ That’s how it started out but it has been a gender class from the beginning, even though it highlighted women for a number of years. Its present name is the sociology of sex and gender.
I didn’t have a chance to study this even at the doctoral level. Just on my own and with reading I became more aware how gendered the entire society is. That is the hardest thing to teach in sociology because we pretty much assume that institutions like the university are gender-neutral.
Have you noticed a shift in the way students learn over time?
Yes and no. The kinds of things that have been done in the classroom have been changing all along, and I would assume that has connected with the way students learn.
Almost nobody takes any notes on anything. Whether it’s me talking, whether it’s a student talking, desktops are clean except for the phone and they’re just sitting there. Earlier, students were much more engaged. Faculty have had to make changes as we have had more and more usage of different kinds of things. It’s harder to get students to read.
Stanger has always taught sociology classes but has added more work over time. In 1992, the university administration decided to create a center for women on campus. In January of 1993 Stanger became part-time director of the Women’s Center and stopped teaching as many classes. She is a full-time faculty member and part-time director.
How has the Women’s Center changed?
I’d like to think that the visibility has increased, but that is one of the things that we have to keep pushing. We had almost no money, so we capitalized on who knew whom. We got people to speak for free at lunches and to come in to book review groups. We went from putting on women’s history week to women’s history month. We have only had three administrative associates, which has been an advantage.
We started out in the old maintenance building. It was November of 1933 when we moved to Pennebaker. At the beginning we only had one or two work study students. In the last 15 or 16 years we have been able to expand the number of students who work study.
One of the things I was happy to see over the years is more women got included on local and university committees. When I first got here no students were on university committees now it has grown.
What is one of your more interesting academic experiences?
I had a wonderful opportunity one year where I had applied to go off campus. With the exchange I was matched with someone who taught at the University of Whales. He taught my courses here for a year and I taught his. Students would come to class and discuss things among themselves and some wouldn’t come until the final. They were organized that way.
It really helped me to see different models of the college environment. My son and I took advantage of the situation and would take weekend trips around Europe.