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Interview with Suzanne Wilson Barnett, 28 September 2016

 Item — Box: 1, item: 50

Scope and Contents

Suzanne Wilson Barnett was a professor of History at the University of Puget Sound.

An historian of China and Japan, Suzanne Wilson Barnett critiques what has been achieved under the last three presidents of Puget Sound, and at the same time cautions against our usual habit of crediting the presidents with all the initiatives. On the contrary, the initiatives have come from all different parts of the campus community, especially, in regard to curriculum, from faculty and students -- she cites the recently established program in Bioethics, now a minor. She pays tribute to the faculty “giants” on whose shoulders later generations of faculty have stood, and particularly those who brought Thompson’s presidency to an end in the late 1960’s (Walter Lowrie, John Magee, Shady Bauer, John Lantz, Bob Albertson and others); she praises two presidents for implementing particular courageous decisions – Phil Phibbs in downgrading the sports teams, and Susan Pierce for transferring the law school to Seattle University –both decisions serving to clarify the mission of the liberal arts college. She appreciates the Puget Sound culture where the faculty reaches consensus through considerable contention, where we see the university not as a finished thing but something still “becoming,” and where each of us feels called on to play a part. In the last section she describes the path that led to her taking the position at Puget Sound in 1973/4 and also her research interest in the influence exercized by 19th-century Protestant missionaries in China who set up printing presses and produced in (no doubt flawed) Chinese their accounts of European and American history, institutions, and values. (FRS)

Dates

  • Creation: 28 September 2016

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open to researchers by appointment.

Extent

From the Collection: 0.25 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Repository Details

Part of the University of Puget Sound, Archives & Special Collections Repository

Contact:
Collins Memorial Library
1500 N. Warner Street #1021
Tacoma 98416-1021 United States us