Nancy Taylor, 2016-12-20, 2017-01-05, 2017-02-24, 2017-02-28

Item

Staff Only

Nancy Taylor Oral History Interview Transcript

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Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

The Evergreen Oral History Project collection contains interviews with more than one hundred retired Evergreen faculty, administrators and staff. These conversations were conducted mostly by current and emeritus faculty. From the initial year devoted to designing the College (1970-71) to the present, Evergreen has been a highly innovative academic institution, committed to pedagogy that strongly supports students’ learning. The project’s purpose has been to document a very wide range of experiences and points of view of longtime members of this community. Faculty narrators recall how they developed their practices of team-teaching, interdisciplinary studies, communities of inquiry, and other distinctive features of the curriculum. Nearly all narrators tell stories about their biographical backgrounds, how being at Evergreen affected them, and how their work contributed to students’ education. Narrators also reflect on how they and Evergreen responded to challenges and changes of politics and culture, including issues of class, gender and race, over the College’s first half century.

The Evergreen Oral History Project began in 2016. As of May 2024, 104 retirees had been interviewed by twenty-eight interviewers. Interviewers have chosen whom they wish to interview, which imbues many of these discussions with the tenor of dialogues between friends. Rather than respond to a preset list of questions, narrators discussed whatever was most memorable and interesting to them.

Special thanks go to transcriber Penny Miller, who made draft transcripts of almost all of the recorded interviews; Amanda Walker and Abby Kelso, Vice-Presidents for Advancement, who sponsored and found funding for the project; Pat Barte and Ray Janssen-Timmen, for administrative support; John Sheehy, director of Reed College’s oral history project, for guidance launching ours; Susan Fiksdal, Anthony Zaragoza, Barbara Smith, Nancy Taylor and Nancy Koppelman, each of whom interviewed many retirees; Liza Harrell-Edge and Sadie Aymond, for accessioning and managing the collection in the Library Archives; and the anonymous donor whose generosity made the project possible. Sam Schrager has been director of the project.

Dates

Creation: 2016-12-20
Creation: 2017-01-05
Creation: 2017-02-24
Creation: 2017-02-28

Biographical / Historical

Name: Nancy Taylor

Date of Birth: June 12, 1941

Place of Birth: Auburn, WA

Family Heritage: Danish and English; longtime NorthWesterners. Grandparents on both sides homesteaded in Western Washington, one grandfather a pioneer doctor in Kent; the other a dairy farmer in Renton

Parents: - John Owen Taylor, Physician - Alma Nelson Taylor, Teacher & homemaker

Spouse(s)/Partner(s): Fritz Levy, Professor of History, UW for over 40 years (taught Early Modern European and English History)

Children: - Sarah Levy, MD (Group Health); age 56 - Marian Levy, Bookkeeper, worked in retail (REI), now a full-time student in Business and Accounting; age 54

Schools attended: - Kent-Meridian High School, Kent, Washington (graduated 1959) - Stanford University, BA History (1963) - Stanford University, MA Education (1964) - University of Washington, courses toward MA in history (1977)

Work history (a chronology): - High School Social Studies Teacher, Fremont High School, Sunnyvale, CA (1963-65) - Field Representative for Educational TV, WGBH, Boston (1965-67) - Research, Far West Laboratory for Educational Research, Berkeley, CA (1967-69) - Admissions Counselor, TESC (1969-70); Acting Director of Admissions (1972) - Member of the faculty, TESC (1971-2005) - Taught at North Seattle Community College two different quarters, taught at Kobe Shodai as part of TESC Kobe exchange (1994), taught at Nagoya City University (1998), taught in Wuhan, China (2002) - Academic Dean, Hiring and Faculty Development, TESC (1999-2000) - Emeritus Faculty 2005 (Three year post retirement contract, 2005-2008)

Teaching at Evergreen: -Academic Interest: History, humanities, writing, Japanese studies; Shakespeare, Classics, Women's Studies -Favorite programs: - "Victorian Studies" - w/ Susan Preciso, Janet Ott, Jin Darney (as dean) - "Cultural Transformation in Japan" - w/ Hiro Kawasaki, Setsuko Tsutsumi, Takashi Tohi - "Great Books" - w/ (various versions and various teams) Leo Daugherty, Gordon Beck, Charles McCann, Gil Salcedo, Bob Haft, York Wong, Fritz Levy - "Ancient Stories, Modern Lives" - w/ Andrew Reece, Nancy Koppleman - "Enduring Stories" - w/ Rita Pougiales, Lance Laird, Sherry Shulman - "Cultural Codes" - w/ Sam Schrager, Tom Foote, Setsuko Tsutsumi - "Form & Content" - w/ Hiro Kawasaki, Chuck Pailthorp, David Marr, Judith Espinola - "Shakespeare and the Age of Elizabeth" w/ Richard Jones, Leo Daugherty, Peter Elbow - "Shakespeare" w/ Don Finkel, Jin Darney - "Making American Selves" - w/ Don Bantz, Brian Price, Sherry Shulman - "Friendship" w/ Elizabeth Williamson, Jin Darney, Nancy Allen -Early programs: - "Human Development" - w/ Richard Jones, Bob Sluss, Eric Larson, Chuck Pailthory, Nancy Allen - "Western Civilization" - w/ Mark Levensky, Thad Curtz, Karen Syverson - "Democracy and Tyranny" - w/ Merv Cadawallader, Richard Brian, Linnea Pearson - "Cities of Destiny" - w/ Carol Spence, Merv Cadawallader, Gil Salcedo - "Ajax Compact" - (Returning Women) w/ Helena Knapp

Governance/service at Evergreen: - Chair of the Faculty - Chair of Presidential Search Committee (Jane Jervis) - Chair of Provost Search Committee (Don Bantz) - Hiring Priorities DTF - On many hiring committees - CRF Representative - Agenda Committee - Self Study Committee - Core Programs Convenor

Some of your accomplishments at Evergreen: - Admitting the first class to the college - Teaching with some 80 faculty over 38 years - Hiring Jane Jervis, President - Helping to hire 27 new faculty as Dean of Faculty Hiring and Faculty Development - Being part of a very productive Academic Deans Group (1999-2000) - Research on 17th Century Women, especially their letters, leading to my book: "Cousins in Love: The Letters of Lydia DuGard, 1665-1672," (2003).

Other interests/affiliations: - My life has been centered around family and teaching. - Three year long sabbaticals in England doing research on 17th century English Women - Kobe/Evergreen exchange - changed my life - Shakespeare - teaching, participating in the biannual Shakespeare Conference in Stratford, England, attending hudreds of performances - World traveler