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- Title:
- Robert Crawford interview
- Interviewee:
- Crawford, Robert
- Interviewer:
- Williams, Charles Thomas
- Date Created:
- 2018-05-01
- Role:
- Faculty
- Department:
- Liberal Studies; School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Science
- Subjects:
- higher education interdisciplinarity interdisciplinary education experiential education Evergreen State College place-bound students nontraditional students Vicky Carwein Faculty Assembly MAIS Global Honors human rights torture AIDS September 11 curriculum planning research Vietnam War
- Biography:
- Rob Crawford is a founding faculty member and professor emeritus at the University of Washington Tacoma School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. His academic interests span the fields of political science, history, and cultural theory. He is a human rights activist and a Faculty Associate with the UW Center for Human Rights. He founded the Washington State Religious Campaign against Torture in 2007 and has continued to facilitate it. In 1960, Crawford was a first-year student at Whittier College, a liberal arts college in Southern California. He was involved in protests against the Vietnam War, and later, intrigued by the birth of the new country, he went to Ghana and conducted part of his undergraduate studies at University of Ghana. He completed his PhD in political science at University of Chicago in 1974 and his postdoctoral work at Northwestern University. Before moving to Washington in 1986, he had taught in the Chicago area and at Boston University. He joined the UW Tacoma founding faculty from Evergreen State College, which influenced his approach to coordinated studies and innovations in teaching. He received the UW Tacoma Distinguished Teaching Award in 1996 and most recently, in 2018, the UW-UWRA Distinguished Retiree Excellence in Community Service Award.
- Description:
- In this interview, Rob Crawford reflects on his involvement in building the University of Washington Tacoma. He describes the various roles he had, including faculty member, chair of the Faculty Assembly for three years, and cofounder of the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture. Drawing on his teaching experience at Evergreen State College, he compares experimental models and approaches to an interdisciplinary curriculum. In the first part of the session, Crawford shares his memory of the founding faculty and the first graduating classes. He notes that the students were older and brought with them professional and life experiences, which enabled a sense of collaboration between faculty and students. He recognizes the academic freedom he enjoyed at UW Tacoma, which has allowed him to flexibility design and trailer his teaching. He discusses a sample of his courses, including topics on the AIDS epidemic, the Holocaust, peace and justice, and human rights, and how he has cultivated his cross-disciplinary interests at UW Tacoma as a political scientist, historian, and cultural theorist. He also touches on the creation of the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies and the Global Honors programs. The interview then turns to faculty relationship with the administration. Crawford looks back at his experience working with UWT’s first chancellor Vicky Carwein, as well as with the Faculty Senate and other faculty organizations in Seattle and Bothell. He laments the institution’s relentless demands for growth, especially in terms of numbers. Continuing with this thought, he expresses the dissonance he felt with his early vision of UWT as a place for innovation in education, noting as well the limits of having interdisciplinarity as the only parameter.Crawford concludes the interview by naming teaching, curriculum development, and institution building as the three most rewarding aspects of his work at UWT. At the same time, he shares his concerns and frustrations about the direction of the institution.
- Location:
- United States--Washington (State)--Tacoma United States--Washington (State)--Seattle
- Type:
- Sound; Text; StillImage
- Format:
- cpd
- Preferred Citation:
- University of Washington Libraries, University of Washington Tacoma Library, UWTOH201805