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This collection contains an oral history with Nora Lynn Finch conducted by Gwynn Thayer and Taylor Wolford in July 2022. Included is a full transcription of the interview. In the interview, Finch discusses: playing sports from a young age (particularly with her brother); coaching at Wake Forest University and Peace College; meeting Kay Yow and being hired at NC State; her relationship with Athletics Director Willis Casey; the implementation of Title IX and discrimination against women athletes; her role models; and trans athletes. Nora Lynn Finch attended Western Carolina where she played field hockey, volleyball, basketball, and tennis. She received a BS in Education in 1970 and Masters of Education in 1971. After doing some officiating, Finch coached women's basketball and other women's sports at Wake Forest University then at Peace College (where she also served as Director of Athletics). After acting as Coordinator of Women's Athletics for two years, Finch became Assistant Director of Athletics, the first woman in N.C. to hold the title. When Jim Valvano promoted her to Associate Director of Athletics, she became the first woman athletics director in the ACC to hold that title and the first at an ACC school to be the primary administrator for men's sports (soccer, track and field, and swimming). She would serve as the Senior Women's Administrator at NC State for over 30 years. Less

This collection contains an oral history interview with Phil Freelon that was conducted by Gwynn Thayer in 2017. Included is a full transcription of the interview. In the interview, Freelon discusses: his family and growing up in Philadelphia during the civil rights movement; the influence of the arts by his grandfather, a painter in the Harlem Renaissance; his education at Central High School; the mentorship of both John Spencer at Hampton University and Roger Clark at North Carolina State University; discrimination and diversity in the field of architectural education; the architectural profession on the national stage; acquiring projects within the public arena; his work on museums, specifically the National African American Association of Museums; and cultivating talent in a design firm and his management philosophy. Phil Freelon (1953-2019), was an African American architect who was founder and president of The Freelon Group, Inc., and then managing director and director of design of Perkins + Will, located in Durham, North Carolina. Freelon specialized in public architecture and was best known for his design of cultural museums and educational buildings in Washington, D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; San Francisco, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia; and Durham, Greensboro and Charlotte, North Carolina. Freelon led the design team that gave shape to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, won the 2012 Design Guild Award, and the same year was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President Obama. Less