Prophet, Pariah, and Pioneer: Walter W. Taylor and Dissension in American Archaeology

5: Professor Walter W. Taylor as Chairman

119 Background I went to Southern Illinois University in 1950 as Professor of Anthropology, within the Department of Sociology, and as Director of the University Museum. At that time I was charged with the development of a first-rate regional museum and a program of research in archaeology and related studies in cultural anthropology and the building of an undergraduate program in anthropology. It was realized that the latter endeavor would require several years for implementation, but I was promised that when this program was sufficiently developed with an adequate faculty, a separate Department of Anthropology would be created. In the summer of 1957 the anthropology faculty had been increased to four full-time members and one teaching assistant with the addition of Dr. Charles H. Lange, Dr. Carroll L. Riley, and Howard D. Winters, with Ellen Abbott Hannen serving as [the] teaching assistant. Academic courses offered were adequate for an undergraduate major in anthropology as well as for an anthropology minor for a master’s degree in sociology and anthropology. After considerable discussion , it was decided that we should request creation of a separate Department of Anthropology and that a chair be brought in to assume responsibility for its continued development. The university administration approved our request Professor Walter W. Taylor as Chairman Chapter five J. Charles Kelley (Edited by Jonathan E. Reyman1 ) J. Charles Kelley 120 but offered the chair to me. I accepted on an acting basis only, and when I went on leave in November 1957, Dr. Charles H. Lange succeeded me as acting chair. The Search for a Chairman The first candidate for the chairmanship on whom our group could agree was Walter W. Taylor, who was at that time living in Mexico City and working as a member of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología.2 Taylor politely refused the offer. Subsequently, several other possible candidates were contacted, without success. While on leave in late 1957 and early 1958 in Mexico City, I spent considerable time with Dr. Taylor and eventually persuaded him to reconsider the Southern Illinois position. In May 1958, at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology [in Norman, Oklahoma], he met and talked with the other faculty members and returned with them to Carbondale. There, after several interviews, he was offered the position again and accepted it. Taylor as Chair WhenProfessorTaylorjoinedthefacultyof thenewDepartmentofAnthropology in 1958, he immediately began an overhaul of the curriculum. His approach from the first was based on the educational philosophy expressed in A Study of Archeology: archaeology must be anthropology if it is to be anything. The educational theme of the new department, continuing to the present [1988], was to be that every student, regardless of his [or her] special interests, must first be trained in all branches of anthropology. He emphasized that the highest standards were to be maintained and that no student would be allowed to major in the department unless he [or she] maintained such standards. All faculty members were urged to tighten their standards. Professor Taylor set the example himself and extended it to members of the department faculty. They should be constantly available and were expected to work long hours, either in connection with their teaching or in carrying out their research. Morale within the department clearly increased in a short time. Unfortunately, undergraduate students in a newly developed regional university were not attracted to such a department; enrollment did not increase, and the addition of several new faculty members needed to develop the desired program could not be justified. Professor Taylor sought guidance from the university administration regarding this problem. He was presented with a challenge: upgrade the department to allow development of a Ph.D. program in anthropology. They left it to him to make it work. New positions would be approved as needed, and related programs would be supported. Professor Taylor accepted the challenge. At national meetings he made every effort to contact new graduate students, challenging 121 Professor Walter W. Taylor as Chairman the best of them to attempt the new program. Advanced students had already become familiar with the educational philosophy advocated so strongly in his monograph, and to many of them the challenge offered was attractive. Topnotch graduate students began to enroll, and the new program prospered. Taylor had met the challenge, and the new department began turning out excellent and well-trained Ph.D.s. What had been a struggling undergraduate...