The pre-history of Oregon State University's Center for the Humanities can be traced to the Humanities Grant Study Committee, a collection of fifteen department chairs and faculty representatives from OSU's departments of Art, English, History, Modern Languages, Music, Philosophy, and Religious Studies, as well as the College of Liberal Arts Dean's Office. Led by faculty members Gordon Gilkey and Richard Astro, the study committee was charged with evaluating the feasibility of major changes to the humanities curriculum at Oregon State and exploring the possibility of applying for funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities that might facilitate changes of this sort.
The product of this group's work was a successful NEH Development Grant proposal that made a significant impact on the university's intellectual culture. The 1977 grant, titled "An Exploration of Community," steered just under $1,000,000 in federal money to the university for use in developing curricula in four areas: Northwest Studies; Marine and Maritime Studies; Community Studies; and Studies in Science, Technology, and Values. Administered by the newly created Humanities Development Program, these interdisciplinary certificate programs were meant to both broadly strengthen OSU's humanities offerings and to link study in the humanities to courses already extant in the university's science and professional schools.
The Humanities Development Program was run from the outset by Peter Copek, a faculty member in English, and it succeeded in filling a void at OSU. During the program's six year lifespan, over fifty faculty members participated in the development effort, creating sixty-five courses in what became three program areas. (The program's "Community Studies" and "Science, Technology and Values" offerings were reorganized as "Twentieth Century Studies.")
The Humanities Development Program contributed to the vigor of campus life in other ways, in part through its use of NEH funds and other support from organizations including the Oregon Humanities Committee to sponsor a wide array of campus events. Seminars, musical performances and film screenings were common sources of outreach for the program, which also supported and helped to organize at least four conferences. Perhaps most notably, Copek, who maintained a scholarly interest in film studies, co-founded the International Film Series, which screened independent and foreign films every weekend during the academic year for over twenty years, beginning in 1977.
The OSU Center for the Humanities was created as a result of a second NEH grant, this time a challenge grant which, in 1984, awarded $700,000 to the university following its own success in raising an additional $1.4 million from private donors. The $2.1 million total was used to endow the Center which, as with the Humanities Development Program before, was run by Peter Copek. In addition to continued offerings within the certificate programs, the new center also unveiled a fellowship program which provided stipends for both OSU faculty and "external fellows" to conduct research in the humanities, usually for one term. For external fellows, the funds provided by the Center supported travel, lodging and office space. Similarly, the Center lessened the load on internal OSU fellows by paying others to teach the courses to which they were normally assigned. The Center likewise continued to organize and support various events on campus, including multiple music festivals, a lecture series (keynoted by Gore Vidal) marking the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, and a symposium on the military-industrial complex.
In its early years, Center for the Humanities operations were run out of an office located in Moreland Hall. That changed in June 1989 when the Center moved into what would become its permanent home, a former sorority house on Jefferson Avenue. At the time of its formal purchase by the university in 1993, the facility was christened the Autzen House in honor of the Autzen Foundation of Portland, which provided major funding for the acquisition of the space.
The Center enjoyed stability and moderate growth throughout the 1990s, but change came suddenly in June 2001, when Peter Copek died at the age of fifty-six from a heart attack that struck in the aftermath of gall bladder surgery. English professor David Robinson was subsequently named director of the Center. Under Robinson's leadership, the OSU Center for the Humanities has continued to sponsor academic fellowships and to support campus and community offerings, including two annual events - The Magic Barrel Reading to Fight Hunger and The OSU Holocaust Memorial Program. The certificate programs that emerged from the original 1977 NEH grant are no longer offered at OSU; removal of the last of them, Twentieth Century Studies, was initiated in 2005.
The Center for the Humanities Records document the creation and activities of the Center itself, and also tell the story of the entity that preceded the Center at Oregon State University, the Humanities Development Program.
The collection includes, in Series I, records describing the formation, operation and assessment of the Humanities Development Program, which was first conceptualized in 1975 and came into being following OSU's receipt of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant in 1977. Events sponsored or co-sponsored by the program, including lecture series, film screenings and stage performances, have been arranged into Series II. The primary thrust of the NEH grant that funded the Humanities Development Program was the creation of four interdisciplinary study certificate programs - two in Community Studies, one in Northwest Studies and another in Marine and Maritime Studies - and records relating to these initiatives are available in Series III.
Series IV is devoted to the second NEH grant, a challenge grant funded in 1984, that led to the creation and endowment of the OSU Center for the Humanities. The Center's operations are described in Series V and include records of the Center's Program Advisory Board, Center newsletters, annual reports, materials relating to budget and facilities, newspaper clippings and a small collection of photographs. The Center's correspondence - mostly written by Peter Copek - with a wide array of individuals and organizations is available in Series VI. Series VII focuses on events sponsored or co-sponsored by the Center, including music festivals, colloquia and a high-profile lecture series celebrating the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution in 1987. The successful proposals and subsequent tenures of various Center fellows, both internal and external, have been arranged into Series VIII. Finally, Series IX lends detailed insight into the International Film Series, a Center-supported initiative which brought foreign and independent cinema to the OSU campus every weekend during the term for more than twenty years.
The Center for the Humanities Records are arranged into nine series: I. Humanities Development Program - Formation and Operations, 1975-1984; II. Humanities Development Program - Events, 1975-1983; III. Certificate Programs, 1975-1999; IV. National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant, 1982-1989; V. Center for the Humanities - Operations, 1983-2012; VI. Center for the Humanities - Correspondence, 1974-2000; VII. Center for the Humanities - Events, 1985-2000; VIII. Center for the Humanities - Fellows, 1987-2000; IX. International Film Series, 1977-1999.
The
OSU President Emeritus John Byrne shared his memories of the creation of the Center for the Humanities and the purchase of a permanent facility for the Center in an
Collection is open for research.
Center for the Humanities Records (RG 221), Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
The majority of the records described in this collection were transferred to the University Archives in 2001 by the Oregon State University Center for the Humanities. In 2015, two cubic feet of materials were transferred into RG 221 from the Peter Copek Papers (MSS Copek). That same year, the contents of two publications were also transferred into the collection: Humanities Development Program publications (PUB 231) and
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.
Documentation of the original idea for the Humanities Development Program, as well as the NEH grant ("An Exploration of Community") that made it a reality, can be found in Series I. The series also contains materials reflecting the program's daily activities, two sets of reports assessing the workings of the program, and content generated by the task force charged with transitioning the program into a full-fledged center.
File includes annual reports for 1976-1977 and 1977-1978; "The Rosenheim Report," an independent review of the program conducted by Robert Albrecht, Walter Jones and Edward Rosenheim; curricula vitae for program administrators Peter Copek and Bill Robbins; program budget expenditures and projections; and student evaluations of courses sponsored by the program.
File includes internal correspondence related to the report as well as a typescript: "Response to the Evaluation Report of the Oregon State University Humanities Development Program by the NEH Site Visit Team, February 1979," written by Peter Copek, June 1979.
The Humanities Development Program's public outreach agenda has been arranged into Series II. Major events sponsored or co-sponsored by the program have been itemized individually; calendars and flyers that provide a more thorough view of all of the program's engagement with the public are available as well.
Files include materials concerning the conference budget, program and participants, as well as correspondence documenting its organization.
Files includes materials concerning the conference budget, program and participants, as well as correspondence documenting its organization.
Items tracing the creation, evolution and operations of the Humanities Development Program's academic certificate programs have been arranged into Series III. The 1977 grant that led to the implementation of the Humanities Development Program specified that four interdisciplinary certificate programs be added to OSU's humanities offerings. Two of these programs - "Community as People, Place and Idea" and "Science, Technology and Community" - were later merged together under the umbrella of Twentieth Century Studies.
File includes materials concerning the meeting budget, program and participants, as well as correspondence documenting its organization.
File includes a catalog of the OSU Marine and Maritime Studies Slide Collection.
Bibliography of resources relevant to the program's course offerings in Northwest Studies; Marine and Maritime Studies; Community Studies; and Science, Technology and Values.
Series IV holds materials documenting the work required to write, fulfill and implement the 1984 NEH Challenge Grant that led to the creation of the OSU Center for the Humanities. The series likewise includes several different iterations of the NEH grant proposal, which was finally submitted in May 1984.
Documentation of both the Center's on-going planning processes and regular operations is held in Series V. Of particular note are records pertaining to the Center's Program Advisory Committee, a group of OSU faculty, mostly from the College of Liberal Arts, who served two-year terms and who provided input on a number of issues related to the Center, including selection of both internal and external fellows. The series also holds materials related to the Center's budget and facilities, as well as annual reports, newsletters and newspaper clippings that provide detailed insight into the Center's activities over time. Where appropriate, date ranges reflect activities conducted over the course of a given academic year.
This committee was charged with discussing potential areas of focus that the Center could consider for coordination and support during its first few years of operation.
The Center's Program Advisory Board consisted of OSU faculty, mostly from the College of Liberal Arts and usually serving for terms lasting two years. The board was charged with advising on most aspects of the Center's operations, including topical themes of support, selection of internal and external fellows, public programming, administration of grant funds, other fundraising, and issues related to Center facilities.
Initiated by the Humanities Development Program, the Humanities Film Collection consisted of films either purchased or leased by the Center for Humanities and made available to OSU faculty for use in the classroom. A catalog of this collection was compiled by the Center for the Humanities and its films were organized into the following categories: Early Comedy, Silent Drama, The Thirties, Post-War Cinema, International New Waves, Experimental Film and Animation, and Documentaries. The collection's documentaries were further classified as: General, World War II, Religion, Third World, Americana, and Marine and Maritime.
Photos include an image of Peter Copek conversing with Senator Bob Packwood at a press conference announcing the creation of the OSU Center for the Humanities; an image of the Autzen House facility; and images of Center fellows Michael Coolen, Rachelle McCabe and Don Morton [?]. File also includes two negatives of unidentified etchings.
Series VI holds materials that document the Center's communications with fellowship applicants, invited speakers, internal stakeholders, and other humanities centers around the country. The series' General Correspondence files primarily focus on daily operations at the center. While the files in the series are dominated by correspondence, they also hold grant proposals made by other institutions/humanities centers and proposals made to funding organizations by the Center, as well as an array of newsletters, articles, curricula vitae, brochures, event posters and assorted background materials.
File includes an audiocassette recording of a talk delivered by Birn at OSU, "Script Writing a Revolution: The Pamphlet Press and the Estates General of 1789," delivered February 22, 1989.
File includes a proposal to the Collins Foundation for the funding of a building to house the OSU Center for the Humanities.
File includes a proposal made to Gilley for endowment of the OSU Center for the Humanities.
File includes a monograph "Notes of a Naturalist: Poems and Drawings by Kenneth Gordon," published by the OSU Center for the Humanities, 1987.
File includes a typescript "Controversy: Catalyst for Change," written by Williams circa 1989.
Arranged into Series VII are materials related to numerous events, both large and small, that were either sponsored or co-sponsored by the Center. Primary among these events is the lecture series "The Constitution 1787-1987: Bicentennial Reflections," which brought nine different speakers to the OSU campus including Gore Vidal, who delivered the keynote address. The series likewise documents two music festivals, numerous symposia and colloquia, as well as an NEH-funded initiative for OSU faculty study of four non-western epics, as led by a series of invited experts.
The "Center Activities - General" files include documentation of various activities sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, including Working Paper Series presentations and other seminars led by Center fellows, as well as film screenings, musical performances and other events co-sponsored by the Center in collaboration with various campus and community groups.
"Amadeus: The Life and Times of Mozart" was the title given to a two-month festival hosted in January-March 1986 on the OSU campus and elsewhere around Corvallis. The centerpiece of the festival consisted of six lecture-concerts and ancillary panel discussions focusing on Mozart's life, work and contemporaries. File includes a proposal to the Oregon Committee for the Humanities for funding of the event.
File includes black and white contact sheets and prints consisting primarily of images of OSU Music professor Tharald Borgir posing with a fortepiano. The file's contact sheets also include portraits of Mozart at various points in his life.
Winter music festival presented at OSU in January-March 1987.
A lecture series consisting of nine talks hosted by OSU in April-May, 1987. Files include a proposal to the John Ben Snow Memorial Trust for funding of the series.
In preparing for the "Bicentennial Reflections" lecture series, Center for the Humanities staff compiled folders for each conference speaker. These files included background information on the speaker, documents reflecting the logistics of their visits and stays in Corvallis, and materials related to the lectures that they delivered as participants in the series. The series speakers documented in these files are: George Anastaplo, Dwight G. Anderson, Carol Berkin, Lacy K. Ford, John Kaminski, Walter LaFeber, Tom Slaughter, Gore Vidal (keynote), and Sheldon Wolin. Files are also included for Stanley Katz, Stanley Kutler, Pauline Maier and Orde Pinckney, all of whom were invited to participate but did not do so.
A compilation of the presentations given under the sponsorship of the OSU lecture series bearing the same name. This manuscript was compiled with the hope that it be published in monograph form.
Winter music festival presented at OSU in January-March 1988.
Subtitled "An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Economic, Political, Social, Rhetorical and Technological Implications of the Military Industrial Complex," this event was held at OSU from October 13-15, 1988 and featured addresses by David Eisenhower, Johan Galtung and Seymour Melman.
A series of six lectures presented at OSU from January-April, 1989. File includes a Project Director's Notebook documenting a performance by Clay Jenkinson titled "An Innocent Abroad: Thomas Jefferson in Paris," and supported by a grant from the Oregon Committee for the Humanities.
This successful grant application supported the study, by fifteen OSU scholars, of four non-western epics in the company of "invited lead scholars of international repute."
A series of film screenings, round table discussions, and talks focusing on Spanish cinema, this event was held in Corvallis and Portland from February 27-March 3, 1991.
A colloquium hosted by the Center for the Humanities on May 1, 1992 and featuring talks by John R. Lampe and Franjo Štiblar.
Series VIII is comprised of internal and external fellowship proposals known or suspected to have been funded by the Center. Also included are a handful of proposals known to have been rejected by the Center but later accepted for funding when resubmitted in revised form. The series likewise holds a compendium of cumulative data documenting work done by Center fellows from 1986-1994.
File includes quantitative and qualitative data on the fellowship program, including number of fellowships awarded, publications and presentations resulting from fellowships, and end-of-stay reports written by various fellows. Most of the data cover the years 1986-1994; end-of-stay reports document work done by fellows in 1992-1993.
Founded in 1977 by Peter Copek and fellow English professor Anne Taylor, the International Film Series screened independent and foreign films every weekend during the term for over twenty years. Largely through Copek, the film series was administered by the Humanities Development Program and the Center for the Humanities for the duration of its existence. Series IX contains detailed documentation of the film series' operation, including the selection and screening of specific films, the proceeds (and deficits) accrued by the screenings, and the series' advertisement and impact on campus. Where appropriate, date ranges reflect activities conducted over the course of a given academic year.