Roberta Wilson was a professor of Exercise Science from 1976-2005. Lee Dawn Bowman was an associate professor of Physical Education from 1975-86, as well as the Women's Athletic Director and Coach.

The interview traces the development of the Physical Education program (with Athletics) into today's Department of Exercise Science. When Dawn and Roberta arrived in 1975 and '76, their positions required not only teaching but also a heavy load of coaching and administering women's sports. The women's athletic program, shaped by Alice Bond in the years following World War II, featured synchronized swimming and archery as big sports for women, though Alice 's idea was that men and women, everyone, should be able to try everything. (In some sports, male athletes would play on the women's team.) Then came the implementation of Title IX which meant, for Puget Sound as for schools across the nation, the provision of more sport opportunities specifically for women — often in inadequate facilities, like the Women's (now the Warner) gym, with the low beam ceiling where the balls bounced back. It also meant exhaustion for the women coaches. At the same time, Dawn and Roberta, with substantial academic credentials, aimed to develop the academic side of the program: from a set of courses primarily serving Education undergraduates who needed to learn how to coach, they would develop a program in Exercise Sciences, especially Physiology, that would integrate with the university's curriculum in the liberal arts and the sciences. But again — exhaustion! In the late 80's Roberta took a year's leave to do her doctoral work at USC; she came back to a position where she was no longer required to coach and where she could put all her time into developing a strong undergraduate major with substantial lab experience. By the time she retired in 2005, Exercise Science, with four faculty positions, was established as an essential component of the Health Sciences.