Te May Ching Papers, 1947-1988

Series 1, Correspondence, is comprised of both in-coming and out-going personal and professional correspondence between Ching and her Oregon State University colleagues, prospective and current student advisees, and domestic and international scholars in similar fields. Also included in this series are separate correspondence folders for Charles E. Allen, Walter B McHenry, and M. C. Parker, and travel reports from Donald David Hill.

Series 2 is comprised of records collected during Ching's tenure as a member of the Oregon State University faculty. The series includes materials related to the operating policies and procedures of the university; Crop Science Department records such as memoranda and inter-office correspondence, meeting minutes, and facilities and equipment records; materials documenting department and university programs and activities; and institutional publications.

Series 3, Professional Associations and Activities, is comprised of files documenting Ching’s affiliation with professional associations such as the American Society of Plant Pathologists, the Genetics Society of America, and the Northwest Forest Tree Seed Committee. Materials in this series also represent Ching’s on-campus professional activities, including her work with the Faculty Committee on Curricula in Agriculture, the Committee on Education for Women, and the College of Agriculture Long-range Planning group. Of particular note is folder relating to OSU’s Women in Development (WID) group, of which Ching was presumably a member. This file contains information on women working in the sciences, women in higher education, and discrimination against women in academia.

The materials in Series 4 represent Ching’s teaching, both at OSU and abroad, student advising, and completed student work. Included are course materials for Farm Crops courses (what is now Crop Science in the Department of Crop and Soil Science); copies of Master’s thesis and doctoral dissertations on which she advised; and files pertaining to “short courses” and lecture series Ching taught in China and Mexico. Of special note are the masters and doctoral proposals, which provide evidence of the contemporary concerns of seed biologists.

The series includes four subseries: 1. Courses; 2. General; 3. Student Work; and 4. Student Advising.

Access to student advising files in Series 4 is restricted due to the presence of confidential information. All requests for access to this material should be directed to the University Archivist.

Series 5 is comprised of materials documenting Te May Ching's research efforts. The series is comprised of five subseries: 1. Project Files; 2. Budget Records; 3. Grant and Project Proposals; 4. Laboratory Notebooks; and 5. Collected Publications and Bibliographic Records.

Subseries 1 includes materials both for specific projects and for more broad areas of inquiry, as indicated by Ching's own labeling and filing. The project files predominately reflect Ching's interest in seed treatments, storage, and germination. Subseries 2 is comprised of budget records documenting income from grant agencies and other sources and expenditures on equipment, samples, and personnel. Subseries 3 contains proposals submitted to grant agencies and internally to OSU administrators and outline funding, personnel, equipment, and facilities needs. The laboratory notebooks represent a large portion of Ching's research and are comprised predominately of experiment datasets, though some also include materials related to experiments conducted as part of course instruction. All laboratory notebook titles were assigned by Ching. Subseries 5 is comprised of resources, including conference proceedings, scientific papers, and reports relating to her research. Of particular note are three boxes of index cards containing bibliographic records created and assmbled by Ching.

Series 6, Publications, documents the published outcome of Ching’s professional research. The majority of the publications authored by Ching relate to seed germination (e.g. changes occurring during germination, effects of specific processes like irradiation on germination). The Publications series also includes reprints of Ching’s articles, reviews published by Ching, and files of tables, figures, and permissions for her published articles.

Series 7 is comprised largely of photographs of seed and plant samples assembled for research, presentation, and publication purposes and includes prints, negatives, and slides. Many of the photographs appear to have been selected for use at conferences or in research publications, while others seem to have been retained for their research value. Many of the photographs contain little or no identifying information.