Affiliation: College of Public Health and Human Sciences
Alan Acock Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
March 2, 2017
Alan Acock (b. 1944), a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Human Development and
Family Science, chaired OSU's HDFS department for twelve years, beginning with its
creation in 1990. An accomplished scholar in the field of family studies, Acock is
also well-known for his work in quantitative analysis - one particularly influential
book, A Gentle Introduction to Stata, is now in its fifth edition. He has likewise authored major papers on topics including
the impact of divorce on children and improved methods for working with missing statistical
values. In his interview, Acock traces his career as a sociologist at four different
institutions; comments on growth and change within the HDFS department; and lends
insight into his diverse body of scholarship.
Stacy Allison Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Janice Dilg.
July 21, 2014
Stacy Allison (b. 1958) grew up on a farm near Woodburn, Oregon before attending OSU
as an undergraduate majoring in Nutrition. While at Oregon State, Allison discovered
a passion for mountain climbing that ultimately led to her dropping out of school
in favor of pursuing the summits of many of the world's highest peaks. In September
1988, Allison made history when she became the first U.S. woman to reach the summit
of Mount Everest. In addition to her noteworthy career as a mountaineer, Allison
has also developed successful businesses as a motivational speaker and a general contractor.
Her interview focuses on her early climbing years in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest,
her two expeditions to Mount Everest, the advancement of women in mountaineering from
the 1980s to present day, and her career outside of mountain climbing.
Betty Lu Anderson Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Mike Dicianna.
June 1, 2017
Betty Lu Anderson (b. 1923) attended Oregon State College from 1942 to 1945, during
which time she majored in Home Economics and worked for the school newspaper, The Barometer, where she wrote sports copy and, as a senior, served as editor. Anderson's years
as an OSC undergraduate coincided with the American entry into World War II, and her
attendance at the college was marked in part by a notable absence of male students.
Much of her interview focuses on this unique period in Oregon State's history. Anderson's
later careers in journalism, librarianship and the church are included as secondary
topics.
Rollie and Laverne Bilyeu Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Mike Dicianna.
March 26, 2015
Rollie (b. 1933) and Laverne Bilyeu (b. 1932), both raised in rural northeast Oregon,
met as sophomores at Oregon State College and married during the summer before their
junior year. Majoring in Business Administration and Home Economics respectively,
the Bilyeus lived, studied and worked as a married couple for two years before graduating
with the class of 1955. In their interview, Rollie and Laverne reflect on OSC's campus
culture during the early 1950s, discuss their shared experience as married students,
and outline their varied occupational pursuits in the years that followed, including
Laverne's association with several county branches of the OSU Extension Service.
Tammy Bray Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
March 28, 2014
Tammy Bray (b. 1945) was the Executive Dean of OSU's Division of Health Sciences and
Dean of its College of Public Health and Human Sciences from 2002 to her retirement
in 2016. An accomplished researcher in the field of Nutrition, Bray arrived at OSU
in 2002 following stints as research professor and administrator at the University
of Guelph and the Ohio State University. As an OSU dean, Bray oversaw the expansion
and reorganization of what was formerly known as the College of Health and Human Sciences.
In 2014 the college achieved a major milestone when it became home to the first accredited
public health curriculum in the state of Oregon. Bray's interview focuses on her
upbringing in Taiwan, her academic career, and her efforts as a dean at Oregon State
University.
Dorothy Fenner Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Janice Dilg.
March 22, 2014
Dorothy Fenner (b. 1917) attended Oregon State College as an undergraduate from 1935-1939
and as a master's student from 1939-1941, obtaining degrees from the college's Home
Economics program. During World War II, Fenner served her country as a code-breaker,
intercepting and interpreting Japanese signals from a base in northern California.
After the war, she and her husband John engaged the OSU and Corvallis communities
in numerous capacities, including work with the OSU Alumni Association, OSU Foundation
and Music Department. Fenner's interview focuses on her years as an OSC student, her
war service and her connections to the university in the decades that followed.
Aya Fujii Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Mike Dicianna.
September 15, 2015
Aya Fujii was born in 1927 in Hillsboro, Oregon and grew up with six siblings on her
family's farm. In May 1942, she and her family were forcibly relocated from their
home as part of the war-era policy of Japanese American internment on the west coast.
Fujii ultimately spent nearly all of her high school years in Adrian, Oregon, where
her family participated in a field labor program for interned citizens that was administered
by the Eastern Oregon Farm Labor Bureau. In fall 1945, just after the conclusion
of World War II, Fujii enrolled at Oregon State College, where she majored in Home
Economics. She later spent more than thirty years working as a dietician at two Portland-area
hospitals. In her interview, Fujii shares her memories of her family background and
upbringing; her experience of being interned for over three years; her undergraduate
tenure at OSC; and her life and work following college.
The Lives of International Students
Three life history interviews conducted by Chris Petersen.
March 3 - 6, 2015
In 2015, Oregon State University served as a home away from home for over 4,000 international
students hailing from 107 different countries. Over the course of three interviews
conducted in March 2015, the experiences and perspectives of four current OSU international
students were recorded, with particular emphasis paid to changing perspectives on
U.S. culture, contrasting systems of education around the world, and the major social
and cultural adjustments required of international students studying at Oregon State.
The international students who shared their stories are Jenny Urbina, a Ph.D. candidate
from Colombia; Kong Zheng Yeang, an undergraduate from Malaysia; Andrea Jara, also
a Ph.D. student from Colombia; and Chidi Okonkwo, a master's candidate from Nigeria.
An Oral History of the Linus Pauling Institute
Six interviews with Steve Lawson, conducted by Chris Petersen.
August - December 2011
The Linus Pauling Institute was founded in 1973 by Linus Pauling and two colleagues,
and was originally located near the campus of Stanford University. Primarily devoted
to exploring Pauling's controversial ideas on the health benefits of large doses of
vitamin C, the Institute gradually developed a broad and eclectic research agenda
that included work on superconductivity, molecular evolution, and metabolic profiling.
Consistently hamstrung by financial woes and further embattled by personnel disputes
that resulted in legal actions, the Institute was on the brink of closure by the time
of Pauling's death in 1994. Buoyed by a handful of timely donations and the administrative
acumen of Pauling's eldest son, Linus Pauling Jr., the Institute managed to stay afloat
and, in 1996, relocated to Oregon State University. Today the Linus Pauling Institute
is a thriving research enterprise that makes regular contributions to the fights against
cancer and cardiovascular disease, and to the promotion of healthy aging. Over the
course of six interviews, Steve Lawson, an Administrative Officer at LPI who has worked
for the Institute since 1977, relays his memories of the Institute's colorful history
and shares his impressions of Linus Pauling, whom Lawson knew as a colleague and as
a friend for nearly two decades.
Melinda Manore Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
November 30, 2015
Melinda Manore (b. 1951) received her Ph.D. in Nutrition from Oregon State University
in 1984. In 2001, Manore returned to OSU, joining the faculty as chair of what was
then the Department of Nutrition and Food Service Management. A pioneering scholar
of the intersections between nutrition and exercise, Manore has published widely on
topics including rural obesity in children, nutrition and exercise for women, and
healthy eating for athletes. Her interview traces the arc of her academic career with
a particular focus on her achievements in research. Included as a secondary topic
are Manore's institutional memories of the transformation of the College of Home Economics
into what is now the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.
The OSU Extension Service Centennial Oral History Collection
Sixteen life history interviews conducted by Elizabeth Uhlig.
August 2007 - June 2009
In anticipation of its centennial in 2011, the Oregon State University Extension Service
interviewed several of its emeritus faculty in 2007, 2008, and 2009. These interviews
help to tell the story of Extension in Oregon over a fifty-year period following World
War II, and cover topics including agriculture, 4-H, home economics, energy, community
development, Sea Grant, communications, administration, and support. The interviewees
who are included in the collection that is presented here are: Roberta Anderson, Len
Calvert, Dean Frischknecht, John Hansen, Bob Jacobson, Duane Johnson, Alberta Johnston,
Harold Kerr, Glenn Klein, Linda Modrell, Owen Osborne, Jack Ross, Jane Schroeder,
Walt and Sally Schroeder, Greg Tillson, and Tom Zinn.
Clara Pratt Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Janice Dilg.
August 4, 2015
Clara Pratt (b. 1948) worked as a faculty member at OSU for more than thirty years,
directing the university's Gerontology program from 1974 to 1993, and also serving
as Oregon State's final dean of Home Economics. It was in this latter capacity that
Pratt was closely involved with the dissolution of what was then known as the College
of Home Economics and Education, and the creation of the predecessor to today's College
of Public Health and Human Sciences. Pratt was likewise involved in the early conversations
surrounding the creation of a branch campus in Bend, and to this day works part-time
as an instructor at OSU-Cascades. Her interview touches upon her forty year association
with OSU and her key involvement in major changes within Gerontology, Home Economics,
Health and Human Sciences, and OSU-Cascades.
Jean Starker Roth Oral History Interviews
Four life history interviews conducted by Maia Fischler.
September - November 2007
Jean Starker Roth (1920-2015) was an influential alumna who supported a wide range
of initiatives on the OSU campus and in the Corvallis community. The daughter of
T.J. Starker - an OAC graduate and faculty member in Forestry, and a successful businessman
and civic leader - Starker Roth completed her degree in Home Economics in 1942. She
worked for seven years as a teacher and Extension staffer, and also supported the
war effort at Camp Adair and elsewhere. In 1948 she married Kermit Roth, and over
the decades that ensued the couple raised four children. After Kermit's death in 1979,
Jean assumed control of the family's business activities while also giving back generously
to the community and to her alma mater. Over the course of four interviews, Starker
Roth recalls her upbringing and schooling in Corvallis, her management of the Roth
family household, her involvement with a variety of business concerns, and her many
philanthropic activities.
Maret Traber Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
June 23, 2014
Maret Traber (b. 1950) is the Director of the Oxidative/Nitrative Stress Core Laboratory
at Oregon State University's Linus Pauling Institute. Traber joined the Institute
as a principal investigator in 1998 after twenty-two years spent working in support
of others' research efforts. The author of over 180 peer-reviewed papers, Traber is
now internationally recognized as a leading authority on Vitamin E, and has helped
to establish the recommended daily allowance for the vitamin. Her interview focuses
on her long journey to institutional stability, the research that she has conducted
in nutrition and biochemistry, and her reflections on change and growth at the Linus
Pauling Institute.
Tony Wilcox Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
June 23, 2015
Tony Wilcox (b. 1951) was a member of the faculty of the College of Public Health
and Human Sciences from his arrival at OSU in 1987 to his retirement in 2015. Primarily
interested in exercise physiology as a researcher, Wilcox also served as chair of
the Department of Exercise and Sports Science from 1994 to 2011, and as co-director
of the School of Biological and Population Health Sciences from 2011 to 2015. Wilcox
likewise spent more than a dozen years as an OSU Faculty Senator and was President
of the Faculty Senate in 1997. His interview focuses on his work as a researcher and
administrator in exercise science, his life-long passion for running, and his many
contributions to the Faculty Senate and to a wide swath of university committees.