Participation Type
Panel
Presentation #1 Title
A Tribute to Richard B. Drake & Ronald C. Wilson: Reflections on How Two Historically Appalachian Colleges Responded to Tumultuous Times
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Dick Drake and Ron Wilson taught history at Berea and Warren Wilson Colleges for much of the second half of the 20th century. In an earlier era, Berea and Warren Wilson’s predecessor, Asheville Farm School, were prominent Appalachian mission schools and key contributors to the Council of the Southern Mountains.
The careers of Drake and Wilson reveal much about their respective institutions’ responses to traumatic changes in the nation, the Appalachian region, and American higher education in a turbulent, still inadequately understood, era. The two history professors’ responses to dramatic new directions in humanities scholarship – particularly the emerging field of Appalachian Studies – and the two college’s evolving approaches to regional outreach will be my primary concerns.
Drake and Wilson passed away in June 1988 and were mentors for me at two critical junctures in my academic career.
My primary sources will be: Shannon Wilson’s Berea College: An Illustrated History and Warren Wilson College: A Centennial Portrait that Reuben Holden and I composed in 1994.
For broader contexts, I will draw from Ron Eller’s Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 and H.W. Brands’ American Dreams: The United States Since 1945.
Was part of the Panel discussion: Higher Education.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
I am a graduate of Warren Wilson College and completed the PhD at the University of New Mexico in 1987. After unexpected circumstances brought me home to East Tennessee that same year, I became actively engaged in Appalachian Studies. While teaching at the Webb School of Knoxville from 1987-2016, I made numerous presentations and composed several essays and books on Appalachian themes, including Appalachians All: East Tennesseans & the Elusive History of an American Region (University of Tennessee Press, 2010).
Preliminary Outline
A Tribute to Richard B. Drake & Ronald C. Wilson: Reflections on How Two Historically Appalachian Colleges Responded to Tumultuous Times
Dick Drake and Ron Wilson taught history at Berea and Warren Wilson Colleges for much of the second half of the 20th century. In an earlier era, Berea and Warren Wilson’s predecessor, Asheville Farm School, were prominent Appalachian mission schools and key contributors to the Council of the Southern Mountains.
The careers of Drake and Wilson reveal much about their respective institutions’ responses to traumatic changes in the nation, the Appalachian region, and American higher education in a turbulent, still inadequately understood, era. The two history professors’ responses to dramatic new directions in humanities scholarship – particularly the emerging field of Appalachian Studies – and the two college’s evolving approaches to regional outreach will be my primary concerns.
Drake and Wilson passed away in June 1988 and were mentors for me at two critical junctures in my academic career.
My primary sources will be: Shannon Wilson’s Berea College: An Illustrated History and Warren Wilson College: A Centennial Portrait that Reuben Holden and I composed in 1994.
For broader contexts, I will draw from Ron Eller’s Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 and H.W. Brands’ American Dreams: The United States Since 1945.
Was part of the Panel discussion: Higher Education.
