{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/vm42r3qw1r/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Interview with Dr. Donald Clark"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/173/original/Logo_CL_ColorReversed.png?1773939905","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eInterview with Dr. Donald Clark. TU Treasures Oral History Collection. UAOH003-003. Coates Library Special Collections and Archives. Trinity University, San Antonio (Tex.).\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2021-06-13 (Created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Participants"]},"value":{"en":["Donald Clark (Narrator)","Ryanna Chouman (Interviewer)","Victoria Ni (Transcriber)","Cael Ferland (Indexer)","archives@trinity.edu (Metadata contact)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Special Collections and Archives, Coates Library, Trinity University"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThe materials in this collection may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S.Code). The materials are available for personal, educational, and scholarly use. It is the responsibility of the researcher to locate and obtain permission from the copyright owner or his or her heirs for any other use, such as reproduction and publication.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP3"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["UAOH003-003 (cms record id)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Relation"]},"value":{"en":["TU Treasures Oral History Collection (is part of)","EAST Oral History Initiative (is part of)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee Type"]},"value":{"en":["Faculty"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThe materials in this collection may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S.Code). The materials are available for personal, educational, and scholarly use. It is the responsibility of the researcher to locate and obtain permission from the copyright owner or his or her heirs for any other use, such as reproduction and publication.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Trinity University Special Collections and Archives"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Trinity University Special Collections and Archives"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/173/original/Logo_CL_ColorReversed.png?1773939905","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/307/899/small/clark-landscape.jpg?1776364461","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 2 - clark-donald-20210613-session1-raw.mp3"]},"duration":4083.98933,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/307/899/small/clark-landscape.jpg?1776364461","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-trinityuniversity.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/307/899/original/clark-donald-20210613-session1-raw.mp3?1776364383","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":4083.98933,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Interview with Dr. Donald Clark (Session 1) [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=0.0,0.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CHOUMAN: Hi. \n\nCLARK: Hello. \n\nCHOUMAN: How are you doing? \n\nCLARK: Good, fine. (laughs) \n\nCHOUMAN: Can you hear me okay? \n\nCLARK: Sure, yes. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay, great. Thanks so much for, uh,  being willing to meet with me. I'm super excited to get to know you a bit better. \n\nCLARK: It's nice to meet you. So you've just graduated, right? \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I guess I'll introduce myself (laughs) since this is our first time meeting. I just graduated from Trinity this May, and I studied international studies and Chinese. I've been a student of Dr. Field’s and Dr. Zhang's for a while now. And this summer, I'm working on a project for the EAST program. Just so you know a bit more about it going into this interview. We did this, of course, because Trinity has a really developed EAST program, as I'm sure you know, and a great Chinese program, and we'd love for more people to know about its history and how it came to be. So one thing that we're doing is studying a history of the EAST program and faculty that have influenced it, administration. And that's why we're interested in speaking with you. But also we're doing a history of East Asian influence at Trinity, figuring out when the first Asian students came to Trinity in the first place, maybe the first Asian students in San Antonio even. Uh, so we're—it's a big project, but we're starting to chip away at some of that. What I would love to do with you today is—hopefully this might be a first session out of maybe another one, if you're available. Uh, I would love today to focus a little bit on your personal history, and then in maybe our next session, we can talk a little bit more about your time at Trinity specifically, and uh, contributions you've made and that sort of thing. But just while we get it, I'd love to ask you some questions about your life, if that works. \n\nCLARK: (laughs) Dr. Zhang told me that you might be poking around in my Facebook page. \n\nCHOUMAN: I haven't yet, but I would love to—I’ve done some online research. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: Well, the answers are in the albums in the Facebook page.\n\nCHOUMAN: Ok.\n\nCLARK: If you friend me you can get access to all that stuff.\n\nCHOUMAN: I’ll definitely do that, (laughs)\n\nCLARK: Test your patience, and you can look up my illustrative life\n\nCHOUMAN:Yeah, no— great supplement.\n\nCLARK: So, how long is this session?\n\nCHOUMAN: Uh, if you're able to do an hour today, so from—I guess it's one to two for you—does that work? \n\nCLARK: Right, when I read this release I'm supposed to sign, there's a transcript, and you know, anytime you record something, if you're ever going to replay it, it takes an hour. (laughs)\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: And that transcript is like many, many pages, so you know, that's your problem. (laughs)\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, luckily Zoom makes it a little bit easier for us. It generates one, but I'm lucky for technology in that sense (laughs). Uh, and then for the release, I'll send you a uh, recording of this—we're recording this session now, so I'll send you the recording and— \n\nCLARK: It'll take me an hour to watch it? \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) If you like, yeah, and if there's anything that you want—\n\nCLARK: I'll fast forward. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, just let me know. Great. Okay, do you have any questions before we begin? \n\nCLARK: Well, it's clear what they're going to do with these materials. Who else have you talked to? \n\nCHOUMAN: You're one of the first people that we're interviewing, but we've been doing sort of half and half. We've done a lot of research in old Mirages and course of study bulletin and Trinitonians, looking at students that have influenced the development of these program and even further back with the first Asian students at Trinity. Uh, and then through the resources that we're getting through Dr. Field—Dr. Field's been here for a while too, so uh, we're just mostly like compiling lists of people that we'd like to speak to. Uh, but I think you're our first official interview, you're our starting point. But there's a couple going on with my co-intern simultaneously as well. \n\nCLARK: And you were, for a while an intern—or a, you worked in the office of the EAST program? \n\nCHOUMAN: I haven't, but I studied with the EAST program for a while. So I know the faculty pretty well. \n\nCLARK: Okay. All right. So, uh, and where are you going next? I know you're answering—I know you're asking me questions, but I'm asking you first. \n\nCHOUMAN: No, no, of course. So this summer I'm doing a critical language scholarship through the Department of State. It was supposed to be in person, but just because COVID is still a little bit in the air, I'm doing it online through a Taiwanese university. And then come September—I'm still trying to parse","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"out two offers, but one thing I might do is the—I was awarded the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship in Taiwan, so I might study, um, continue to study Chinese for a year. And then I'm still waiting—I saw that you used to lead the Shanghai Jiao Tong program. \n\nCLARK: I did that one year, yeah. \n\nCHOUMAN:Yeah, yeah. I applied for grad school there and I'm still waiting back to hear back for some scholarship offers and that sort of thing. \n\nCLARK: Oh, that's a great school. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, it looks so great. \n\nCLARK: That's a wonderful place to be a student. I would love to be a student in China. \n\nCHOUMAN:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully, hopefully things work out. But yeah, it sounds like a really good program to learn from too. And I could keep studying there as well. But yeah, no definite answer, but maybe by the time we finish a couple of sessions, I'll let you know for sure what I'm doing next year. \n\nCLARK: Okay, good. Well, okay, well, my, my interest—I taught at Trinity, I was on the Trinity faculty in the history department from 1978 until 2016 when I was hired. I was, uh, hired to fill an opening by a retiring professor of British history, because the history department, for some reason, had it in their minds that they needed to have somebody cover Asia (laughs) or, or East Asia. \n\nCHOUMAN:Sure. \n\nCLARK: (unintelligible)—thought of that on their own if it wasn't for the fact that the vice president for academic affairs, a gentleman named Norman Parmer, was himself a Southeast Asia specialist. His particular area was Malaysia, in Indonesia. And he argued, and he had the power to make it happen, I think, that they needed to take some cognizance of China and Japan and Korea. This, this was—not Korea, they never thought of that but—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: —but this was a novel idea to the history department, right. But, but they had an opening, this gentleman about British history was retiring, they had somebody else. So they went on the search for it, and so uh—the search process is well known to everybody, I don't describe it—but they hired me in August of 1978. And I was going to go into the Foreign Service, I was, I always wanted to be a diplomat, and my reporting date for the Foreign Service was August 22nd, 1978, and also my reporting date for Trinity was—the faculty meeting was August. So I asked the Foreign Service, I asked the State Department to put me off for a year and see if, and I went down to Texas to see if I could stand the heat and uh, like the school. And the heat was fairly—pretty unbearable, but the school was terrific. I loved my colleagues, I loved my students. Uh, I got my degrees at Harvard, and they thought I was crazy to go to a little Bible college in Texas, and—where everybody else was going to like Stanford and whatever. But, and—I tried to tell them that it wasn't actually a little Bible college. It was little, but anyway.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: I had some regard for the education I had in, in uh, Washington State as an undergraduate. The College is so small—college so small that we had dinner with our professors—they invited us to their homes, the classes were really small, and we had close relationships with our fellow students. Uh, we were very mindful of our community. And I envied that and wanted to do that in my life. So although I'm sure it would have been very nice to teach at New York University or something, I was quite happy when Trinity turned out to be a place like I went to, and also it appeared to me that Trinity had some money, and I had expensive habits. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: So uh—and it turned out that that was the case. Trinity and my department supported my habits for 38 years. If you're in Asian studies, you have to travel. I mean, if you're, if you're studying Texas history, you can go to Austin or Laredo somewhere. But if you're studying Asia, you have to cross salt water and, and it's, uh,it's very expensive. And, you also have to go to conferences. I was in an outpost in San Antonio. My nearest colleagues were in like, Michigan, Chicago, in the East coast, and to go to conferences and things like this, so it, I don't think—when I was a student, I had no idea that this was important to professors. I thought that they existed, you know, for me, but, but they don't (laughs), they have careers, they have lives. They have families and they have careers to build and the—and the career building is","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=300.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"a uh, pretty serious—bunch of steps and going through pearly gates of promotion and stuff. So if you don't publish, if you don't get known, if you don't—if you aren't seen, if you aren't well, well-recognized in, in the Asian studies world, you would have to be recognized—There, there's gotta be people in Asia who heard of you, right? \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And, and how does that happen? And so, yeah, I was in Texas, but I was out of Texas, like—well, I, the last, the last like 15 years that I taught in Texas, I was on an airplane going some place about once every week. And because people were starting to ask me to come and talk about things. And so, you know, those are measures of, of success in an academic career, and Trinity was good about letting me do that, and understanding that—I had, I had seniors who understood that's what I needed to do and they supported it. So that's—that's that. Why was I interested in Asia? My family is a very—uh, it's an unusual family. They were—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. I've heard that actually. I would love to, to hear a little bit more about, um, your sort of history. \n\nCLARK: Well, my great—my grandparents were college graduates who went to denominational colleges, like Trinity once was. And in those colleges, around the turn of the 20th century, or in the 1890s, they were constantly being recruited to go abroad to the mission field and preach the gospel to every creature—baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, right? So, both of my grand—all of my grandparents wound up volunteering around 1900 to go to Korea, this little kingdom unheard of. They’d never met any Koreans, they’d never tasted any Korean food, they had no idea what they were doing, (laughs) they didn't speak a word of the language. And they signed up to spend their whole lives there, they stayed there until World War II, it was amazing. My parents were both born there, and they grew up together, and then later they got married because it was like nobody else who could understand them. And, and so then they went back and, and actually lived in the 1930s. Their parents were there, they were there, and then, and then our family uh, grew. And during World War II, we absented ourselves from the Second World War and went to, actually, we were essentially kicked out of the Japanese empire. And—Korea was a Chinese colony, you know—so my parents then transferred to South America, that's where I was born. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, okay. \n\nCLARK: In Colombia, in Medellin. And so my siblings all know Spanish really well, but they were graduating from high school, going to college when we—when my parents were asked to come back to Korea after the Korean War. The place was a smoking ruin and needed all hands to help with whatever needed to be done so—\n\nCHOUMAN: And how old were you at that point? \n\nCLARK: I was 10 when I first saw Korea. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay \n\nCLARK: Lived in Japan for a while, and then the commander let us bring families to Korea and that's so—I was 10. And then I went to—well I ran wild because we didn't have a school so that was fun, but then we finally got a school and I graduated high school in 1961 in Korea and went to college \n\nCHOUMAN: Did you learn Korean while you were there? What was your school environment like?\n\nCLARK: (laughs) Well I learned kitchen Korean—I lived in a bubble, we were—we were rightly concerned about health and various things, so I mean, there are all kinds of things that we couldn't eat, such as Korean food uh, at the time people had— there were, you know serious health reasons why you should be very careful what you ate. So yeah, we lived in a western house on a western comp—on a missionary compound, uh, went in a car to a a school, we had our own club, and I hung around the army—I loved the U.S. army—I mean, I was a kid I was—I sort of lived off the U.S. 8th Army which has headquarters in Seoul, and I grew up idolizing foreign service officers diplomats, and that's why I wanted to be like—they were the most important Americans in the city, and I wanted to be, uh, I wanted to be an ambassador. \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure. \n\nCLARK: So I was touched with all those people but I'm glad I wasn't—I'm glad I stayed at Trinity because there were seasons certain presidencies and that if I had had to represent them to other people, I would have been, you know, ashamed and embarrassed.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=600.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the foreign service officers that I knew and grew up with uh—my whole cohort going through the, you know, going through life, have been academics, uh, spies, diplomats, and religious people right—all international something.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah \n\nCLARK: So, so—and I was lucky, I got to—I got to visit Asia and spend—I had three Fulbrights in my career, I spent those times in Korea and preparing books and getting my children educated the way I had been—my wife and I were both in the Peace Corps so she knew Korea well, and because we were—we somehow finagled our Peace Corps assignment to be in Korea in the late 1960s, so uh, that was all uh, an important an important part of our of our life. But I never became a missionary, though I was programmed to be. My parents were—there's always a great disappointment to my parents and grandparents because I went on and all I got was a doctorate and went to be a college teacher so— \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, I'm curious how did you decide—\n\nCLARK: (speaking at the same time) That's not fair to them but there were little noises like that at times.\n\nCHOUMAN: How did you decide to uh, I guess return to the U.S. for college, and when did you decide that you were interested in East Asia and sort of an academic sense? \n\nCLARK: Well uh, when I was a college senior, I took the Foreign Service test and failed it, and then I failed it again. And I was like, How can this happen, like I'm so ideal for the —for the Foreign Service. But the fact is I didn't know squat about the United States. I mean, I didn't know American literature. I wasn't in any position to be a good representative—I couldn't talk about American art or American music—I was just like, you know, let me name all the capitals of the NATO countries—I can do that but, but uh—so they were right, I wasn't ready. I eventually did get in when I was 35, but that's like a long time (laughs) and as I say I was—I had a choice between foreign services—the Foreign Service wanted me the budget officer, wanted me to go to Peru and be the budget officer for the—for the embassy, like building. I was like Really? Is that why I was put on this earth to be the budget officer in the embassy and—you know, no I'm going to go to Texas and so—you know, where was I? You asked me how I got into this—well yes, it was at that point that I decided that I wasn't really a competitor for stuff that I wasn't good at, and so I sat down and had a—had a moment where I said You know, what is it—is there anything about me that other people don't have? What are my assets? \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: And I said, Well I had this weird upbringing and I know some stuff and so who cares about that? And at the University of Washington in Seattle they cared about it. Also although I was a poor student at in college—a C+ student, not a poor student, but you know, average student—I was interested in swimming and girls.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: And a few things—so uh, I went to the University of Washington—I went over to the University of Washington and presented myself and I said, Hey I'm gonna be drafted and killed in Vietnam if you don't let me into graduate school and they said “Well you know, this is a pitiful record.” So—but then this one professor stepped in and said “Hey, aren't you the grandson of Charles Allen Clark?” and I said, Yes and so his book is—you know, so my grandfather had written the book on religions of Korea in 1930 and it was still famous—in fact it's still in print. It's a classic, it's a snapshot of Korean religions that you can't get anymore because—like it's all changed, like the temples are air conditioned now and you can't, you know—so—Charlie Clark's book—and the guy said “You know, he may—he doesn't look like much but maybe uh, you know, maybe we can work with him.” And of course I went, and I was extremely happy—I loved studying Korea at the University of Washington.\n\nCHOUMAN: So you studied in—what was your undergraduate degree, what was your major?\n\nCLARK: My undergraduate—I was a political science major because I wanted to be a Foreign Service officer. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh okay.\n\nCLARK: Go ahead, ask me the capitals of the NATO countries.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: So uh, I had that really happy year—it was the first year that my wife Linda and I were married and we had an extremely happy sort of honeymoon year. She taught at Roosevelt High School, and then I got classified 1A in the draft and I was going—-I couldn't fake enough infirmities to get out of my physical,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=900.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"so that didn't work.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: Tried to be a language officer with—in Korean, and they would give me a commission to make me a lieutenant straight out of the gate, but then they said that first they would send me to Vietnam and I could see if I could survive, and then after two years, maybe they'd make me a language officer.\n\nCHOUMAN: Geez. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: No thank you, I resigned—so I didn’t follow through with that—so I had to do something and we joined the Peace Corps, and like that whole generation—1967 or so, so many people who, I mean I know people, who are in the Peace Corps because—well anyway, so you had to get a deferment of some kind, but I blew—I messed up my deferment, uh, my student deferment, and that's why I got one anyway, blah-blah-blah—the point is that—so they sent us to Korea—we asked to be sent to Korea, and they let us. There we were—and the experience we had in Korea was in a village, uh—I mean I said Wait where's the country club?\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)/\n\nCLARK: But the village was a, a fantastic experience—living deep in Korean society uh, eating Korean food uh, going to, you know, somebody who died, we would go to the ritual. We would—if there was somebody who would be married, they would ask us—anyway, we had every kind of life through four distinct seasons of the year uh, in this tiny mountain village in Korea, and saw—this is where I learned Confucian rules, this is where I learned uh, loyalties and hatreds. Uh, this is where I learned about uh, gender things, uh children, I mean, every aspect of society—I mean we did things like—I mean, we made ourselves useful teaching English and stuff, I mean our job wasn't, uh, very much to talk about. But what a thing. So at the end of of our two years uh, I heard that up in Seoul uh, Professor Gary Ledger and Professor Edward Wagner—Ledger of Columbia and Wagner of Harvard—wanted to talk to Peace Corps volunteers from Korea who were rotating out, who were finishing their terms and might want to go to graduate school on federal money that was flowing for area studies—like here we'll pay for it—and I was on the train to Seoul to this meeting and uh, so I applied to both Columbia and Harvard, and between the two of them, they sorted us out and, you know, Ledger said “I'll take this one at Columbia, you take that one at Harvard.” \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Great.\n\nCLARK: And so there I was—I'd gone from a C+ student at Whitworth College in Spokane Washington, to uh, the MA and PhD program at—in East Asian studies at Harvard. \n\nCHOUMAN: Fantastic.\n\nCLARK: If you like what you're doing in academic life—I mean, I hated political science.\n\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: I think it—well anyway, I won't repeat what real humanities people think of bogus uh, social sciences—but anyway uh, that's just my opinion and it's hateful.\n\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: So uh—but uh, at Har—I was in my element, you know. And I had a story to tell.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: So—and I had enough language. So I had to finish the fourth year of Korean, two years of classical Chinese, four years of Japanese—modern Japanese. All this took time, so I was there seven and a half years. I had a Social Science Research Council fellowship in a Fulbright—to take the family back and live in Seoul, and attach myself to a university and work on my dissertation. The dissertation got published in the Cambridge history of China as part of it so later that's—uh, that's one of my best publications. But uh—right, so then at the—in the fullness of time, after my wife made some ultimatums about finishing up and getting out of here, getting a job because we had too little children, uh, there were jobs—I went to the job market and went to San Antonio—a little frightened, I mean she was like “Texas, what?” uh—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. (unintelligible)\n\nCLARK: —and I've been to Texas, but I tried to reassure her that it was possible to live.\n\nCHOUMAN: No, Trinity is not what you expect for sure. I was wondering if you could talk a bit more about—so it seems like you grew up in Korea, but you also revisited Korea several times as you were sort of coming into yourself in adulthood and your career. Uh, I bet you witnessed a lot of changes","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=1200.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"during that time and in your personal understanding and politically too.\n\nCLARK: Yes, absolutely. The story of my life parallels the story of modern Korea—as I say, it was rubble when I got there at the age of 10 and uh, I don't know about you, but I learned later that stuff that you see as a child is not nothing, uh, it makes scratches in your mind that last you all your life.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: So later, and in like in—I would say in the last, like 10 or 15 years—and I wrote a book about some of this uh, around the year 2000. Uh, that the—it gave me a a kind of a uh, orientating, an orientation point to judge what happened next, and Korea went—has gone through some rough times—I mean, basically—the basic story that I tell is Two or three generations of the most brutal, bruising, suffering, hard work of people doing this for their children but uh, suffering the most cruel kinds of conditions. And also dictatorship and arbitrary arrest and uh, sacrifice of their own education so that their children could have a better one. Even emigration to the United States where people, you know, a lot of Koreans live in Los Angeles and Chicago and wherever. Uh, so now or—starting in about 1990, I would go back and teach summer school in Korea—when I was at Trinity, I would do this often. I was a regular at Yonsei University in Seoul for their English—\n\nCHOUMAN: I didn’t know that. Interesting\n\nCLARK: —for the English language uh, program. So through the eighties and nineties, I uh, I taught summer school in Seoul. Basically there would be like a 747 load of Korean American students who were being sent back to Seoul to meet their families, and they were supposed to do something while they were there, so they would go to school and I would teach them—I mean, I would ride out with them, and then we would all fly back to America or Canada together, uh—but they were my—I would teach them Korean history in Seoul. Boy, was that fun, to teach Korean history in Korea, right? So like the city was our lab—our history lab. I could say Okay go down—go up this mountain path, and there's this shaman temple and, you'll—you know, this is what you do when you go there, uh, and this is what you'll see and then come back and write about it. And you know, stuff like that, and we would—so it was such an exciting experience, such an exciting pleasure to do that. Uh, after I stopped doing that, I went to work for Semester at Sea and uh, and then went around the world on the ship as often as I could. Uh, after my wife died, if I wasn't actually in class at Trinity, I was on the ship, even if I had to pay for it myself (laughs). From two thousand and—\n\nCHOUMAN: (speaking at the same time) How long, how—\n\nCLARK: Oh, pardon?\n\nCHOUMAN: So I just about to say—how long did you do Semester at Sea? \n\nCLARK: I did Semester at Sea from 2002 to 2018. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay \n\nCLARK: And I taught on full voyages three times, around the world, 105 days each time, and I also went all over the world on short voyages—like to Russia and Africa and wherever. I love teaching on the ship. It was the same kind of students that were at Trinity, but here again, the world was our lab. So we’re put into a port in India say—and stay for a week—it's not like a cruise where you get off in the morning and you get on it, and you know, for dinner—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: —and you were there, getting baked in the sun for a day. We would take trips into the hinterlands—so in China for instance, there would be trips in the Suzhou, Hangzhou—that was a quick trip—Xi'an, a little farther afield. The ship would be in Shanghai, I mean, Beijing is not a port (laughs), so we had to have water. So then we would fly out of Shanghai and go to Beijing, go to Mongolia, go to Tibet, uh, go to Guizhou, uh go to—and then the ship would move to Hong Kong and pick everybody up, and move on to Vietnam.\n\nCHOUMAN: Did you ever go to Korea during that time too?\n\nCLARK: Yes we did, absolutely,yeah right.\n\nCHOUMAN: Continuing the the sort of parallel, you can't—\n\nCLARK: Yeah, no, we went to Korea with—the ship docked in in Busan and I took people ashore to one of my grandfather's temples in","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=1500.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"—which is near Busan—that was a, a moving visit for me, I was, sort of, with my grandpa's spirit in Tongdosa, this temple.\n\nCHOUMAN: Wow.\n\nCLARK: So to Seoul—and also of course, everybody, when they go to Korea, they have to go see the DMZ. Some sort of like, Cold War porn or something, but uh—it's just theater, it's—my father, in all his life refused to go to the DMZ, he refused to go to Panmunjeom—yeah he said, “This makes me sad.”—he grew up in Pyongyang, my (unintelligible) too—\n\nCHOUMAN: Oh wow, interesting.\n\nCLARK: —they both went to Pyongyang Foreign School, go figure. There was a—I went to Seoul Foreign School, my parents went to Pyongyang Foreign School.\n\nCHOUMAN: Wow.\n\nCLARK: And so then they had this sort of wistful view of, “Oh the division of Korea, we can't go back, but everything is better in North Korea and we can't go, and we're so sad—stuff like that.”\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah \n\nCLARK: I just listened to this, I had no idea what they were—\n\nCHOUMAN: What an interesting perspective. Did you travel a lot, uh, within Korea when you were growing up or you mostly—\n\nCLARK: I did, uh, when I was in high school, we had an enlightened, uh, social studies teacher, and we had like 32 people in the school, and the juniors and senior classes were enough to fill two like, Suburbans, right? And, what were then called Chevy carryalls or 10-seater Land Rovers—and we—and so she taught a class on Far Eastern history, which was not just Korea—it also was modern Japan and the rise of communism in China and things like this. It's the first time I was ever exposed to the works of Mao Zedong—this lady had us—here read uh, Revolution Is Not A Dinner Party, you know, and we were surprised because we were—we thought it was forbidden, but this lady was teaching us how to evaluate stuff like—and so there were two revolutions that went on in 1960 and ‘61 in Korea which she said “Get out there and, you know, don't get hurt, but pay attention—this is like history being made.” \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah \n\nCLARK: That stayed all my life. Well, she organized and other people, you know, all the grown-ups helped—two trips, one clockwise, one counterclockwise through the hinterland of South Korea, visiting temples, and they—when there weren't bridges we forded the streams on—in these vehicles. When we—we stayed in Korean inns and—you know, rats in the ceiling—and went to Korean bathhouses, and we ate forbidden Korean food, and we uh, we learned a tremendous amount. But we learned some—we learned some intuition—that is, that people need to be taken on their own terms, not judged by American standards right? These people have their own logic and we were like, pampered expat kids and were so incredibly privileged, and—you know, we had servants and stuff like this—and here we were meeting noble people. Uh, she got me into a group of Korean high school students as their English machine, you know, I mean, I would talk English and the students were supposed to use me as a model, but what they were, were friends, right? And then I—they would take me home and their families were noble families—they were better educated than my parents, they were—they knew more languages than we did, they had been important uh, people in—and uh, they knew art and music and they were very cultured.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah \n\nCLARK: My inbred American superiority—this idea that America is this exception, you know—we're exceptional people, and everybody else is to be pitied or helped or something, that's got beaten out of me in these kinds of experiences—that, learn to take people on their own terms, and suddenly the world looks a little different to you.\n\nCHOUMAN: Sure.\n\nCLARK: If you go to Nepal to preach the gospel, at least pay attention to how people in Nepal intuit the spiritual, right? At least be curious about how they already have—and this is like a major uh, life lesson—so what did you ask me (laughs) before I (unintelligible)—\n\nCHOUMAN: No you're good, this is very interesting. I forget, but I'm wondering now—do you keep in contact with any of those people from way back—you have a really good memory—do you know where any of them are now and what they're doing, your classmates and friends from that time?\n\nCLARK: I absolutely do, I have 550 Facebook friends and a good number of them are from Seoul Foreign School in the 60s, some of them are spies and diplomats and uh, and others—but all through life, yeah,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=1800.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"from every phase of my life, I'm in constant touch through Facebook—I mean, I officially hate Facebook, I understand what a manipulation it is, and how Russians are—but at the same time, for me, it's my lifeline out of Seattle where I don't have mobility—I can't walk very well anymore, so I can't travel anymore. But here every day, like today, every day—I mean I must have been in touch with five from my–from before—from high school and before—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, I was gonna say you have a great memory\n\nCLARK: Yeah \n\nCHOUMAN: Great memory, and you guys have experienced together—\n\nCLARK: (speaking at the same time) We’re still very close.\n\nCHOUMAN: —to uh, the sort of environment that you grew up in—just it's not going to happen again, you know?\n\nCLARK: (laughs) Well, that's true you can't go back to that environment, and exist. So the village where we lived, we went to visit in after, you know, 40 years later, and it's like cell phones, and color TVs, and we didn't have electricity right—so, and—anyhow, right. A lot of—the world—that happened to Korea in my lifetime, and in all these visits—going summers, going on Fulbrights, going back constantly—there was—there were many years when I went to Korea at least once a year. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: I would be invited, or I would have some sort of—I cooked up some sort of business, or a family trip we would sometimes go—oh, there's a beach where I grew up in Korea—we had a house so—\n\nCHOUMAN: You could stay there.\n\nCLARK: (speaking at the same time) A beautiful—on the yellow sea, right.\n\nCHOUMAN: Uh, I'm curious, what did you—your Fulbrights, you said you did those during, uh, your postgrad right? Uh, what did you do for those?\n\nCLARK: Uh, the first Fulbright was for my dissertation when I was at Harvard. Uh, the second one was when I was at Trinity (laughs). I was at Trinity as an assistant professor—uh, Fulbrights were unusual at Trinity in those days, and uh, I regarded them as—I regarded that every year, you should be working on some sort of extra project, and so three or four years into my uh, Trinity career, I applied for a Fulbright, and one of the professors in my department says,“You know it's not a really good idea for you—if you get a Fulbright and go, you know, we'll have to cover your courses, and that'll be like, work for everybody.”\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) \n\nCLARK: What are you—what are you kidding? Do I  want to work at a place that wouldn't let me have a Fulbright because I don't have tenure? This is before tenure, and I was like, well—so I let the guy intimidate me into not proceeding with it, and the next year, it was like if—it's not a question of whether I'm going to go, it's a question of whether I'm going to come back. \n\nCHOUMAN: True, yeah. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: (laughs) Right, and of course everybody—I mean, the president and everybody were like, “Yeah, if you get a Fulbright, we'll totally make it happen,”—you know, the president had to sign off on like, health insurance, and benefits and stuff like this, and he said, I mean, “You should, you should.” and I was like How could I possibly let that guy bully me into, you know, not taking the (unintelligible).\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, he didn't want to take your classes, I guess.\n\nCLARK: He didn't want to teach my classes, right? Later on he—uh, well anyway, I ended up teaching his classes. So uh, in—and in 1990, we did it again uh, when I was—the year I was promoted to full professor and—\n\nCHOUMAN: What were those, uh, research projects?\n\nCLARK: Hm?\n\nCHOUMAN: What were those research projects? \n\nCLARK: Oh the projects were uh, in 1983—in 1975, it was my dissertation on Ming-Korean relations, In 1983, it was a book on Korean Christianity—on the history of Christianity—people kept saying, “Hey you're a missionary's kid, you must know about Korean Christianity—why are there all those churches?” and I'm like, Okay, fine, I got to write a book explaining this to people, and so I did that—but that, I mean, that wasn't my field necessarily but—and I fought being, you know, doing missionary history and being a missionary kid who everybody keeps around like sort of a pet—“If anybody wants to know this subject, ask him— we don't really care.” So uh, so I wrote that book, yeah, in ‘86, and that was fine. And then in 1990 uh—at Harvard, I'd had a professor who—my major professor, the guy who mentored me","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2100.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and protected me—wanted all of us to do Joseon dynasty, 1392 to 1910, social history using classical Chinese uh, documents, you know, gazetteers, genealogies, exam records, all these kinds of basic things—I had to be interested in this or, you know, I didn't want to, you know, annoy him beyond a certain point—but there were several very extremely famous people in Asian studies at Harvard who also were mentors. I was a teaching assistant—what they call the teaching fellow—the most eminent of these arguably, and certainly on the China side, was John Fairbank. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but if you ever look up John King Fairbank, you find out that he is the Oxford educated father of Chinese studies in the United States. In 19—starting in 1936, he founded the Chinese studies field, and then he taught generations of PhD students who went on and became all the PhD professors in Chinese studies, in Chinese history, all around the United States. You name almost anybody and you will go back a couple of generations in their academic genealogy and you will find John Fairbank, right? That would be true—ask Gina Tam.\n\nCHOUMAN: I will \n\nCLARK: Well, I mean, she's not a grandchild of John Fairbank, but her professors were.\n\nCHOUMAN: Sure \n\nCLARK: Right, and I was John Fairbank's last teaching assistant at Harvard.\n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, wow. Cool.\n\nCLARK: I had the single honor of holding his Oxford gown while he stood on a stage.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: You know, I helped him into his Oxford gown—that was, you know, like the greatest honor of my academic life. So John was like, “Never mind what Wagner, the Korea guy, wants you to do, okay? Do that, but then the thing you should do is write a book—write the book on Westerners in Korea on missions and other Westerners in Korea (unintelligible) who knows that—you're the best one to do that,” he would say. And my, you know, my Korea professors—Edward Wagner was like I don't care about that, that’s— (laughs). But so I waited until I was out, and then I—and then at Trinity, they hired me because they thought I was a China guy.\n\nCHOUMAN: Oh really? \n\nCLARK: Yeah, I uh, they—I didn't come out of the closet as a Korea specialist until I had tenure.\n\nCHOUMAN: Sure, sure. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: That's why my dissertation is a chapter in the Cambridge History of China, not Korea. They said oh you're publ—So after that, then I let her rip and I worked for 15 years on this book that Fairbank had advised me to write. It came out in 2003, it's called Living Dangerously in Korea and it tells—is the history of the Western encounter in with Korea from 1900 to 1950—it stops in the smoking ruins of the Korean war—uh, everybody knows that story, but before anybody heard of korea, there was a lot of stuff going on—there were Russian emigres who were fleeing the Bolsheviks, there were all kinds of goofy American diplomats and consular officials malfunctioning, there were gold miners and adventurers, or every kind and sort, and of course, there were scads of missionaries who were—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: —were in the story, and then some, you know, like the Chevrolet dealer in Seoul, and, I mean, the story of why people end up—I was fascinated by the way people moved around in the 20th century as the result of war. I mean our family were given, like, 48 hours to pack up and get out of Korea in 1940 to live in South America, so I guess we did that too. Uh, and then we went back and spent—my parents spent the rest of their lives in Korea, but, you know, all the people around the time of the Second World War who were removed and relocated because of the—because of things in Europe uh, all—many of them were extremely sad stories. Uh, I thought these people were easy were—their stories their stories are constantly being told, it's true, and movies are being made of this—but okay, in Korea, there were such people as well, and so I wanted to tell their story and so—how they happened to wash up in this improbable little kingdom slash Japanese colony—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah.\n\nCLARK: —and how they live and, you know, implicit—I don't tell—it's not about my family, but implicit in this—the answer to how come my parents (laughs) ended up graduating from Pyongyang Foreign School \n\nCHOUMAN:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2400.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I'm wondering—what was the process like for you, writing that book and doing the research on it? Because obviously you have some of your personal experiences, but I’m sure you had to look in to, sort of—\n\nCLARK: Yeah, well my children grew up during that book, calling it the book that never gets finished. I had to—let's see where—I went all over the—I went all over the world for this book—I went to—I got some of it—the farthest place I went, I think, was Melbourne Australia, to get stories from Australians who had been part of the story, England—the public record office in London for diplomatic records—uh, Canada, and all the missionary societies in the United States, and also the State Department archives in—they were downtown, but then they moved to College Park, Maryland—and so I was often uh, in the National Archives in Maryland.\n\nCHOUMAN: Wow,wow. And you—so you're looking at missionary records of who was there—were you also looking at, sort of uh, what you could glean at like interviews and what their clearances were once they once they got there.\n\nCLARK: Yeah , oh I knew—uh, oh, great—I also went to Korea, of course, anytime, but—and had that Fulbright in 1990 for it—-uh it's—yes. I knew many of the people in the book.\n\nCHOUMAN: I bet, yeah/\n\nCLARK: And I knew where they lived, and I interviewed them, uh, before they died. So there's a—there are pages—there's several pages of names of interviewees, uh, who lived through that story—they weren't all missionaries, a lot of them were—I mean, I even interviewed some of the Russians who’ve—I found in California and uh—yeah it's a—it was a labor of love. I enjoyed writing it hugely, I didn't—really didn't want to stop writing it. Uh, I couldn't write a sequel, that won't work but uh, the process of doing it was a great uh, satisfaction.\n\nCHOUMAN: Sure.\n\nCLARK: Uh, and I, you know, put photographs in it, and I had a hard time shopping it to a publisher because—I documented it—everything, uh, so I had like, tons and tons and tons of footnotes—-it looks like a law book, some of it. And these (unintelligible) go, “Nobody's going to read these footnotes,” like, well, you know. And finally I found a publisher who would publish the footnotes. \n\nCHOUMAN: Great.\n\nCLARK: “Make them endnotes,” I said No, I want them at the bottom of the page. When I'm reading something and I see a statement, I want to look at the bottom of the page and say, Where did that crazy thing come from.\n\nCHOUMAN: I agree, it's more convenient that way.\n\nCLARK: Right. Law books do that too, but this wasn't a law book so—but yeah, it got published, and then it won a prize and then it got uh, bought by another publisher and it's in its second edition. You can still get it on Amazon.\n\nCHOUMAN: That's great.\n\nCLARK: Yeah.\n\nCHOUMAN: I'll have to check it out. Uh, I'm curious then— \n\nCLARK: Give me your address, I'll send you a copy.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah, I'd love that. I'll definitely—I'll take a look. Now I feel like I know so much about the—\n\nCLARK: A lot of copies lying around here. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) So on the topic of the sequel to the book I guess, uh, when did your parents retire from missionary work, and what was their, sort of, reflections as they were leaving?\n\nCLARK: As they retired—they retired in 1973—that was after 20 more years in Korea after the Korean war. Uh, they retired to Minneapolis and then to our family—uh, let's see—our family has often retired to a place in Los Angeles called Westminster Gardens. It's a Presbyterian retirement home for clergy, you know, clergy—I don't know if it's true now—I don't think it is, but in olden days, the clergy were paid a pittance, but they were provided with a car and a house, right? But they didn't own the house and so they never had any equity, and so they got—they had a little—the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church took care of these people when they retired and then provided them with a safe place to live, so my grandparents and my parents all lived in Westminster Gardens in Los Angeles for their—the rest of their lives. But uh, there was—there were about five years in there when they lived in Minneapolis.\n\nCHOUMAN: And when they were leaving, what, I guess, influenced their decisions to leaving, and how did they feel about uh being done—were they sort of ready to go back to the U.S., or did they have some sort of nostalgia, I guess, about leaving and everything?\n\nCLARK: You know, that's an interesting story.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2700.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Uh, let me try to distill it into something useful. I thought my parents, who had spent all that lifetime in Korea would miss it.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: They—I, for a long—for a while I thought that they—I hypothesized that actually, they didn't have any Korean friends—Not so, they had many Korean friends. So how can they leave this place and never want to go back? Uh, for a while I fooled around with an idea of, Here let's find you a place to live, like maybe on the east coast of Korea where there's a nice beach and you can—“No, we want out of here, we're leaving.”—[I’d say], How can you do that? “Well, we have, you know, we want.”—so they left and never looked back. I said, Don't you want to go back? I'm going back—we'll go together—”Nope.”—and they never did. Uh, I have an award on my wall, elsewhere in this room, uh, of my parents being recognized by the Presbyterian—retired Presbyterian Korean ministers of Los Angeles Association, you know, like—but they—anyhow, how do you break, or how do you leave behind a lifetime like that? And uh, sometimes my dad would say, “Well, you know, if we went back, they would bust their behinds to host us—there would be parties, there would be dinners, there—oh, I would have to give speeches as always, you know—they would be fawning over us, and I just can't bear it.” So he didn't do it. So here's what happens—while I uh—warning, uh, you asked me, right?\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Sure, sure, yeah.\n\nCLARK: So around the time I started doing this book, my grandmother and my grandfather and my parents, all in time, all in sequence, ran a newsletter for people who were in the missionary community in Korea in 1940 and who got kicked out, and who were evacuated—where did they go? Kentucky, Florida, Massachusetts, so, it would keep them in touch and it was a thing called The Korea Klipper, with k's—The Korea Klipper, K-klipper, Korea Klipper. So it fell to me, in about 1990, and I said, Okay I'm writing a book about this–it fell to me in about 1990 to take over the editorship of this, you know,  getting people to send me little notes about what's Johnny and Susie doing now, and when did, what’s it, how's it what's it, how's it like in Florida, and then, you know, every year they were supposed to send in, and I was supposed to compile this and I worked, you know, I worked like a slave on this thing. Every month I would send it out—people appreciated it, you know. Now in the age of the internet, it's so simple, it could be so easy—but I had to, you know, lick stamps and—anyhow the point is, that I kept up with these people and I know exactly where they were. So then I became the person that you would call from Korea if you were the princ—if you were the headmaster of a girls middle school that had been founded by missionaries back in like 1921, having an anniversary and you wanted to find the descendants of this missionary and fly them out business class to Korea to go and, you know—“Can you find them for me?” and I said, Oh yeah, I can find them for you and so I would—the descendants—and you can call somebody up in Colorado and say, Hey, the school that your grandfather that you don't remember founded for girls in, you know, Gwangju, in Korea, is having an anniversary and they want to fly you and your wife out business class and and, you know, you—all you do is just stand there, you—ornamental. Dress nicely, be ready to turn a spade and plant a tree, give a few words of greeting—but not very much, in English, they have a translator—and they will make it worth your while. They will make—give you such a great uh, such a great uh, experience and then—\n\nCHOUMAN: Your parents weren't too interested in that.\n\nCLARK: My parents wouldn't do that but I arranged this for—I don't know—how many families, missionary families, right, and they would just—call out of the blue from this guy in Texas and say Well trying to arrange a trip for you to to Korea to uh, to—and all you have to do is just—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Smile and wave and—\n\nCLARK: Make up a nice story about your grandmother. Uh, be ready to plant a tree, just look nice and be polite and you'll never forget it. So that was huge fun. Did we ever do it—oh yes, so my parents being indifferent to this possibility, my sister and I—my remaining sister","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3000.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"in 2011, we took all of our materials—my grandfather's materials, my grandparent’s materials relating to Korea—the Clark grandparent’s materials relating to—my father and mother's materials relating to Korea, and my entire Trinity library. (unintelligible) 4,000 books in Chapman Center on the shelves, and they sent a crew from Seoul and uh, and I mean, they sent a guy from Seoul to come and look at it, and he said, “We're going to take it all.” This is from the Presbyterian Theological Seminary and University—the P-U-T-S, PUTS—Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, which my—both my grandparents were president of—both my grandfathers were president of—\n\nCHOUMAN: Wow.\n\nCLARK: —in the twenties and thirties, and my father was a professor for 20 years at this seminary. So the Clark Roberts collection on Korean church and mission history—which includes my entire Trinity library and all the libraries of my ancestors—is in a special collection in an archive there—in the university library in Seoul.\n\nCHOUMAN: Wow.\n\nCLARK: Got pictures of the family and it's got pictures of the grandparents and life in Pyongyang—but the seminary used to be in Pyongyang, so uh, it's part of this. So yeah, my sister and I went out, and we gave them a symbolic book. They sent a crew in 2015 to Trinity uh, you know, with a big rental truck in the driveway, and hauled it all away (laughs). Also (unintelligible) in front of my house and took it to Korea at somebody else's expense. And then in 2018, my daughter Jennifer, who is a Dean at Ohio State, uh, and her husband Benjamin, uh, were invited out to—and they went to Korea for—on business and, and then they went and saw this thing so—she is now the bookkeeper of the story.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. Were you sad to see it all go or did it—\n\nCLARK: No, no, my wife was a university librarian—she worked for Texas University—Texas Lutheran University and she would look at all the stuff that I had, and she said, “You know, professors are so vain, they—and their families, right?” So when a professor retires, or, you know, loses his marbles or whatever—the day comes when the family shows up at the library and wants to give the books to the library—and what they really want is a tax write-off.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Yeah.\n\nCLARK: So she says, “Look at all this stuff nobody's going to want. This—it's going to end up in the dumpster someplace.” and I said, No it's not—like there's valuable stuff here. And she would say, “Well these collections from old professors always have a little bit of valuable stuff. We have to go through it and cull out of it, you know, like, 16th century manuscripts or whatever. But the rest of this, we write a nice tax receipt to the family who then, you never see again, and then it goes in the dumpster after dark.” (laughs) So she didn't live to see, you know, this all the way, you know, and put in an archive in Seoul—where I don't think probably too many people actually look at it.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: It didn't go in the dumpster.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, but at least it's respected over there and somebody— \n\nCLARK: Yeah, right, right. And my kids will go out and watch it every now and then, and go and, you know. \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure, sure. So it was all—just we're rounding out our hour here. I guess, since next time I'd love to ask you a little bit more about Trinity, just last question before we get—\n\nCLARK:(unintelligible) subject— \n\nCHOUMAN: No yeah, this is great though—this is exactly what I wanted to do today—get to know a bit about your history before we talk about, uh,  what life at Trinity was like for you. But I guess I want to hear, just very briefly, when you got to Trinity, what was sort of the state of uh, Asian studies there—I mean, did you start this library yourself pretty much? It was just you?\n\nCLARK: Yeah, no, yeah—right, the reason I had this library was that the Trinity library had nothing on Asia. The above mentioned uh, J. Norman Parmer, the academic vice president, the specialist in Malaysia, had a PhD from Cornell—which is a big Southeast Asia center—had a, had, uh,  inherited—oh this is good—had inherited from his mentor professor, his entire collection of books, right? Brought through the Trinity expense to San Antonio where he put them in the great hall of Chapman Center, in rows and rows and rows of bookshelves, and said, “This is the great collection on Southeast Asia from Professor Nouganougu.” —","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3300.0,3600.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"uh, and you know again, (unintelligible) very important collection—Dr. Parmer was able to get this—it’s not that anybody at Trinity studied Southeast Asia at all.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: So here are the names of the people—at Trinity, there was a religions professor named Makenzie Brown.\n\nCHOUMAN: Okay I've heard that name.\n\nCLARK: Two English professors named Scott Baird—who was a linguist, and Bates Hoffer, who taught Japanese literature and translation. And Letha —L-E-T-H-A, McIntyre—M-C-I-N-T-Y-R-E, who temporarily taught art history—she didn't stay long, but she was there when I got there. And then Dr. Parmer. And then I was hired to be East Asia—China.\n\nCHOUMAN: Let me make sure I get those names. You said it was Scott Baird, B-A-R—\n\nCLARK: The last name is Baird, B-A-I-R-D, B-A-I-R-D. \n\nCHOUMAN: B-A-I-R-D, got it. And then the one who taught Japanese?\n\nCLARK: The one who taught Japanese literature and translation is Bates, B-A-T-E-S. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: Hoffer, H-O-F-F-E-R. \n\nCHOUMAN: Great, thank you. \n\nCLARK: And then Letha McIntyre, I told you already, and Norman Parmer, P-A-R-M-E-R, Norman, J. Norman Parmer. And then me. So (laughs), I can give you a story which I think you can tell what it indicates. When I arrived at Trinity, there was a faculty reception for new faculty and all the department chairmen were there. And the English department chairman, who knows nothing about Asia, comes up to me and he says, “I understand that you're the one we hired to teach Nip history.”\n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, geez. Goodness. \n\nCLARK: Now, this is like my first day at Trinity. And when I left Harvard, they were saying, “You must be insane.” And—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Thinking maybe, slightly—\n\nCLARK: And when I got to Trinity, the guy says to me, “You must be the guy who he hired to teach Nip history.” \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, goodness. \n\nCLARK: I told that story because when I retired, they wrote me up in the news, in the, I don't know, on the website or something—retiring professors to get an interview. And I told that story and public relations at Trinity was so chagrined by it, they refused to put it in my interview. What I was trying to do was to give an example of how far we got from a department chairman who could say something like that to a young faculty member—who had so little knowledge or regard for my degree, but not to mention, you know, what it really represents. And how far we'd come in 38 years, with the EAST program and languages being taught and international students all over the place, and all kinds of things. But, you know, they didn't understand the story. And so they didn't put it in my exit interview, but, you know, they, uh—I was disappointed because what I was trying to say is that Trinity was a glorified high school in many ways when I got there. It didn't change because of me, but I was a young, new faculty, a young, new, ambitious, hardworking faculty member in the regime of Ronald Calgaard, who was building things like mad and making—yeah, I'll say that even though he wasn't interested much in Asia until 1990, uh, and he wasn't interested in the same things that I was, but he wanted to make Trinity a really great liberal arts school. And, uh, we had a—when I got there, we had a advising system, whereby if you'd taken a course in high school in theater, you didn't need to study the arts, because you'd already done it.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) That's all you need. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: (laughs) What the hell is this? I actually was—I was being trained in an advising session where professors let a kid check off his arts requirement because he had been on the light crew of his high school play. \n\nCHOUMAN: Wow. (laugh)\n\nCLARK: So Trinity is not such a place anymore, right? \n\nCHOUMAN: No, certainly not. \n\nCLARK: And it didn't—it hasn't been for many, many years, but that's what I'm saying. When I got there, I had my doubts. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And, uh, if it wasn't that they were generously supporting my habits, uh, I would have left. And I think like any professor, you do try to leave every now and then you try to, you know—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3600.0,3900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/transcript/92981/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"an opening at Cornell or— \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure. \n\nCLARK: Stuff happens—and so I tried to get to Seattle once and almost made it, but I didn't.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: But that's okay. I mean, Trinity remained a really great place to stay. And then once I learned some things—which I'll tell you next time, if we talk—uh, I, uh, it became quite an excellent place to be. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. Well, that's—\n\nCLARK: It is now. I mean, when I see what they're doing, what they're building, what—and of course, the East Asian studies program, but—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, that's why we're here. Full circle.\n\nCLARK: It was a hard battle for a while. Getting people who could say you were hired to teach Nip history to, uh, to take seriously— \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: —uh, Asia. I can remember—it doesn't seem to me like too long ago where people's jaws would drop when I would say, you know, you better—the best thing you can do for your children is to teach them a little Mandarin. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: Or you know, have them take a course in Chinese. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. And now it's—no brainer, definitely. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: It is to you, but really in 1995, it was—oh yeah, says he. \n\nCHOUMAN: Controversial., yeah, yeah. No, makes sense\n\nCLARK: Yeah. Right.\n\nCHOUMAN: Okay, well. I think that's a perfect place to leave off for today. Uh, is there anything else you think we should share for this session, or should we just pick up? I think I'll probably reach out to you in maybe a week or two probably and see if we can—\n\nCLARK: Sure, that'll be fine. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. Another thing that might happen maybe is, uh, we were talking about just online interviews and how they can be difficult sometimes. As random coincidence, I'm flying out to Seattle late in July, so maybe, possibly, sometime we can set up something then if we're both around, but just look out for that.\n\nCLARK: Okay, yeah, I'm not going any places. I live in a place where—I live in a retirement condo in a building where we can have visitors so far, but by that time, I mean, I can have a visitor in my apartment and send for food, but I can't take you to dinner—we have a very nice restaurant. What I normally would do is to have a leisurely lunch with you—or dinner—in the restaurant, we would talk. And maybe if you were going to interview me, find a place and go do that too. \n\nCHOUMAN:Yeah, yeah.\n\nCLARK: It's a very comfortable place to visit. I just can't get out. \n\nCHOUMAN: No worries. I'd love to come. I mean, I'm going there anyway, so I was like, what a weird coincidence, you know?\n\nCLARK: It doesn't matter if we're going to talk business or not. I would still like to see you. When you come to Seattle, give me a note or something. And we—\n\nCHOUMAN: Definitely, I appreciate that. It was really—so great to talk to you and I will—I'll definitely give you my address if you're—if you'd still able to send me a— \n\nCLARK: I'll send you a copy. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Okay, great. It'd be great to hear from you. Okay. I'll look out for my email, maybe in a week or so, but thanks so much—\n\nCLARK: (speaking at the same time) All right. \n\nCHOUMAN: (unintelligible)—with you. \n\nCLARK: Take care. \n\nCHOUMAN: Bye. \n\n[END OF INTERVIEW]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3900.0,4083.98933"}]},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Interview with Dr. Donald Clark 04-16-2026 14:58 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Introduction and Preliminary Conversation","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ryanna Chouman, introduces herself and the EAST Oral History Initiative project to Dr. Donald Clark. Chouman explains the project's dual goals: documenting the history of Trinity's EAST program and tracing East Asian influence at Trinity University. Dr. Clark asks about the project's scope and who else has been interviewed. Chouman outlines her plan for two sessions, with the first focused on Dr. Clark's personal history. Clark briefly mentions his arrival at Trinity in 1978, hired to fill a British history opening repurposed for East Asian coverage at the urging of Vice President Norman Parmer, a Southeast Asia specialist.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Shanghai Jiao Tong University","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Arrival at Trinity and Family Background","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=301.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark describes being hired at Trinity in August 1978 after choosing the position over a Foreign Service assignment as a budget officer in Peru. He discusses his Harvard education and colleagues' surprise at his choice of a small Texas school. Clark explains his preference for a close-knit academic community similar to his undergraduate experience at Whitworth College. He then recounts his family's missionary background: all four grandparents volunteered around 1900 to serve in Korea, his parents were born there, and the family later relocated to Colombia during World War II. Clark was born in Medellin, Colombia, and first saw Korea at age 10 after the Korean War.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=301.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Missionary families in Korea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Academic career decisions","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Foreign Service","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=301.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Harvard","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Whitworth College","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Norman Parmer","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Korea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Colombia","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Medellin","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Foreign Service","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Presbyterian missions","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=301.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Education, Peace Corps, and Path to Graduate School","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=901.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark discusses his Fulbright awards and travels during his Trinity career. He then backtracks to explain how he entered Asian studies: after failing the Foreign Service exam twice as a college senior due to limited knowledge of American culture, he recognized his unique upbringing as an asset. He was admitted to the University of Washington for graduate study partly due to his grandfather Charles Allen Clark's famous book on Korean religions. Clark and his wife Linda joined the Peace Corps to avoid the Vietnam draft and were stationed in a Korean village, where they gained deep immersion in Korean society and Confucian culture. Recruiters from Columbia and Harvard visited departing Peace Corps volunteers, leading to Clark's admission to Harvard's East Asian studies PhD program.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=901.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Peace Corps","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Vietnam era draft","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Graduate education","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Korean village life","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=901.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Fulbright","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Charles Allen Clark","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"University of Washington","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Peace Corps","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Harvard","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Columbia","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"John Fairbank","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Edward Wagner","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=901.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Witnessing Korea's Transformation and Semester at Sea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=1501.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark reflects on how his life parallels modern Korean history, from the postwar rubble he witnessed at age 10 through decades of brutal sacrifice and dictatorship to eventual prosperity. He describes teaching Korean history summer courses at Yonsei University in Seoul through the 1980s and 1990s, using the city as a living history lab for Korean American students. After his wife's death, Clark devoted himself to Semester at Sea from 2002 to 2018, completing three full around-the-world voyages and numerous shorter ones. He describes taking students to his grandfather's temple at Tongdosa near Busan and visiting the DMZ, noting his father's refusal to visit Panmunjeom due to the painful memory of growing up in Pyongyang.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=1501.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Korean modernization","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Teaching abroad","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Semester at Sea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Legacy","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=1501.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yonsei University","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Semester at Sea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Tongdosa","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Busan","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DMZ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Panmunjeom","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Pyongyang Foreign School","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Seoul Foreign School","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=1501.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Fulbright Research and Major Publications","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2101.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark discusses his three Fulbright fellowships and the research projects associated with each. His 1975 Fulbright supported his dissertation on Ming-Korea relations, which became a chapter in the Cambridge History of China. His 1983 Fulbright funded a book on Korean Christianity, a topic others expected him to address as a missionary's child. His 1990 Fulbright supported his major work, Living Dangerously in Korea, a history of the Western encounter with Korea from 1900 to 1950. Clark describes the influence of his Harvard mentors, particularly John Fairbank, the founder of Chinese studies in the United States, for whom Clark served as the last teaching assistant. Clark also reveals that Trinity hired him as a China specialist, and he did not publicly identify as a Korea specialist until after receiving tenure.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2101.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Academic publishing","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Fulbright fellowships","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Korean Christianity","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Western presence in Korea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2101.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Cambridge History of China","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Living Dangerously in Korea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"John Fairbank","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Edward Wagner","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Joseon dynasty","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ming-Korea relations","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2101.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Writing Living Dangerously in Korea and Family Archives","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2701.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark describes the fifteen-year process of writing Living Dangerously in Korea, including research trips to Melbourne, London, Canada, and the U.S. National Archives. He interviewed many of the book's subjects before they died, including Russian emigres found in California. Clark discusses his parents' surprising disinterest in returning to Korea after their 1973 retirement, despite a lifetime of service there. He then describes inheriting editorship of The Korea Klipper, a newsletter connecting the dispersed pre-war Korea missionary community, which led to him serving as a liaison connecting Korean institutions with descendants of missionaries for anniversary celebrations.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2701.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Oral history","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Missionary community networks","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Korean institutional memory","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Family archives","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2701.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Living Dangerously in Korea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The Korea Klipper","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"National Archives","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Presbyterian retirement","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Westminster Gardens","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=2701.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The Clark-Roberts Collection and the State of Asian Studies at Trinity","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3301.0,3900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark describes how he and his sister donated the family's accumulated Korea-related materials—including his entire 4,000-volume Trinity library—to the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary (PUTS) in Seoul in 2011, where both his grandfathers had served as president. He recounts his wife's skepticism about academic libraries wanting retired professors' collections. Clark then discusses the state of Asian studies at Trinity when he arrived in 1978, listing the small group of faculty with any Asia connection: Mackenzie Brown in religion, Scott Baird and Bates Hoffer in English, Letha McIntyre in art history, and Norman Parmer. He shares the story of being greeted at his first faculty reception by an English department chairman who used a racial slur to describe his teaching field, illustrating how far Trinity has come.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3301.0,3900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Archives and education","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Racism in American institutions","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Asian studies","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3301.0,3900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Clark-Roberts Collection","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Mackenzie Brown","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Scott Baird","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Bates Hoffer","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Letha McIntyre","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Norman Parmer","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ronald Calgaard","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Chapman Center","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3301.0,3900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Closing Remarks and Plans for Session Two","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3901.0,4050.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark and Chouman wrap up the first session. Clark reflects briefly on Trinity's transformation from a place where faculty could casually use slurs about Asian history to its current state with a developed EAST program and international student body. He notes the resistance he once faced when suggesting students learn Mandarin. They discuss plans for a potential second session and the possibility of meeting in person in Seattle, where Clark lives in a retirement community.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3901.0,4050.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Mandarin language","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Liberal arts education","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3901.0,4050.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899/index/92298/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EAST program legacy","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/307899#t=3901.0,4050.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 2 - clark-donald-20210723-session2.mp3"]},"duration":3519.3152,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/301/437/small/clark-landscape.jpg?1775749973","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-trinityuniversity.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/301/437/original/clark-donald-20210723-session2.mp3?1769697532","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":3519.3152,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Interview with Dr. Donald Clark (Session 2) [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=0.0,0.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"CHOUMAN: Let's start the recording, it should be alright. \n\nCLARK: Alright. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. So, this is an interview for the TU Treasures Oral History Project. My name is Ryanna Chouman, and today I'm interviewing Dr. Donald Clark on July 23, 2021, in his home in Seattle. Uh, today we're interviewing Dr. Clark about the EAST Department and his time at Trinity. So, just to get started with our interview—most basic question. Can you tell me why you chose to come to Trinity? We touched on it a little bit in the last interview, but, uh, specifically what it was like to make that decision—I guess maybe it sounds like it wasn't quite as much of a decision as more of a last resort, or just a little bit about that. \n\nCLARK: I, uh, went to a liberal arts college, like everybody in my family, in Washington State, with a faculty that was very close to the students in small classes. Liberal arts college, Whitworth College in Spokane. And, uh, both my wife and I are graduates of that, and two of my sisters, et cetera. And in our family, we really have regard for that kind of education—my other relatives went to McAllister in St. Paul. And although we can manage big universities, we really respect the liberal arts experience. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yes. \n\nCLARK: And I always thought when I was at Trinity, as I was talking with students in my office and seeing other faculty do the same mentoring, that this is the Rolls Royce of education, you can—and so, although at Harvard, my compatriots were looking for great appointments at Yale and wherever, uh, there were a couple of us—but not many—who cast our net into, like, Carleton and places like this. \n\nCHOUMAN: (speaking at the same time) So you were already looking for a liberal arts college. \n\nCLARK: Yeah, we were looking for a liberal arts college. And, yeah, I applied to NYU and whatever, but uh, a liberal arts college that would hire me as the teacher of Asian studies, you know? \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: Which is a ridiculous concept, everything from, you know, Turkey to Yokohama.\n\nCHOUMAN:  Yeah. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: And Trinity was like that. They did, you know, Asia, you know, it's like all one thing. \n\nCHOUMAN: You would have covered it all. \n\nCLARK: So I could cover it all. And—but that wouldn't work with Yale or something. You'd be the guy down at the end of the hall. If anybody cared about your specialty, they would ask you, otherwise, you know, fight for your life. And so I went looking for a liberal arts job. And the liberal arts jobs that I interviewed all basically went to somebody else until the one that came up for Trinity. In college, I had friends in Texas and I had gone down there on vacations—my parents were out of the country. And so I had been to Texas. I can't say that I knew Texas and I never, ever did understand Texas, but—\n\nCHOUMAN: When had you been before? \n\nCLARK: Oh, I had been in 1961, ‘63, like that, visiting these friends in Denton. And so it wasn't terra incognita to me. And then when I went to Trinity on the interview, uh, I could see that it was a very well-funded place, which I had at least the discernment to know that if you are—if you have, yeah—if the place is stable and has good bones financially, it will be a better life, you know, a better career. And they may actually be able to give you tenure (laughs). So that was all a good thing—I would go back and explain this to Harvard and they would continue to—not faculty, faculty kind of understood that there were—there needed to be people like me. And they didn't want to be, but, and so, you know, liberal arts colleges were—a lot of them had gone to liberal arts colleges. So, but the—but it was my colleagues, my fellow student—my fellow PhD students who were like, you know—so anyway, yeah, I guess I told you that before that—it's the school that came up. And then the issue was uh, persuading my wife to move to Texas. She had not thought we would ever be in Texas. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) In the South. \n\nCLARK: In the South (laughs). And so I said, Oh no, it's beautiful and the campus is fantastic. Said, “Well, that's nice for you. But, you know, what about me?” And so that was always an issue in our life until she started working for Texas Lutheran, and then [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] she was a professor there and she found her own uh, rhythm. You asked me why I went to Trinity and I gave you this long winded answer, I’ve got to be more concise. It wasn't a choice as you, as you knew originally when you asked me the question that was from before. It was the only job available. Was I sorry that I went? No, never. It was a wonderful school. Could I—if I could have moved it to Seattle and picked it up and brought everybody here, I would have. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. I've heard that actually comment about Trinity before and I’ve thought it too, like, it would be nice if we could pick up Trinity and place it somewhere else sometimes. (laughs) \n\nCLARK: Right. (laughs)\n\nCHOUMAN:  Not that San Antonio doesn't have its charms.\n\nCLARK: Well, no, of all things— \n\nCHOUMAN: (speaking at the same time) It’s really grown on me.\n\nCLARK: Yes, in time, San Antonio became appreciable. It was because I spent a lot of time going through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and being in Houston for things—and I said, man, I could never live in Houston. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yes. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: But San Antonio is like—I can understand it a little bit better. \n\nCHOUMAN: That makes sense. Uh, next, can you tell me a little bit about Trinity's Asian Studies department when you arrived and sort of the environment that existed there? If it existed at the time. \n\nCLARK: Trinity had an Asian Studies program when I arrived in 1978. Uh, I think it was actually an Asian Studies major you could—\n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. \n\nCLARK: Uh, it was—it existed because the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Chief Academic Officer, a gentleman named J. Norman Parmer, who had a PhD from Cornell and had made, had, uh was a scholar of Southeast Asia with a specialty on Malaysia. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. \n\nCLARK: From Malaya, Malaysia. And he, uh, established an Asian Studies program. Others, including people in my history department, thought this was, you know, “Okay if he wants it, he's the Chief Academic Officer.” But he was able to patch it together because of the likes of Mackenzie Brown. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: And there was Letha McIntyre in art, teaching China and Japan. And Bates Hoffer teaching Japanese literature and translation. And Scott Baird teaching linguistics in the English department. But he also, uh, had a, had an interest in Japanese linguistics. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: You can talk to him, actually, about that. There was a nice lady from Baird's church, Grace Beard, who was actually Japanese, uh, who was an adjunct teacher of Japanese—\n\nCHOUMAN: (speaking at the same time) Oh, great. \n\nCLARK: —who would come to campus and there were a handful of students who would teach with, you know, study with her. Uh, Parmer, I think, taught a course on Southeast Asia. And then they hired me—I replaced the guy teaching British history. \n\nCHOUMAN: Great. (laugh)\n\nCLARK: So that was like a complete change for the history department. But I was supposed to teach the Intro to Asian Studies program. And I mean, I had to teach about India. I had to teach about Iran. And that, I know nothing about, you know. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Yeah, yeah. Because you were doing it all.\n\nCLARK: Because—yeah, we're doing it all. \n\nCHOUMAN: Doing Asia. \n\nCLARK: We're doing everything from Turkey to Yokohama. So, eventually, it—eventually, we got that under control. And then, uh, Norman Parmer, in the fullness of time, stopped being the chief academic officer, and that major stopped existing. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, really? \n\nCLARK: Yeah. Asian studies went out of business at Trinity. Uh, but it morphed, uh—in my notes to you, uh, I have written that in the early 1980s, a great deal of development effort was put into two humanities courses, especially one, which was very successful, called The Human Quest, Western Civilization—\n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: The hu—actually it was The Human Quest, but it completely omitted most of the world. It was like Europe—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Yeah.\n\nCLARK: It was like Europe. And so we mocked this and, and basically scorned their, you know, narrow view of the human race. And, uh, but it was a very good course. Yeah. It taught, you know, the Greeks and the Romans. \n\nCHOUMAN: I may have taken a, uh, the HUMA course now?\n\nCLARK: Yeah. The Huma course. Yes—This is—the—HUMA 1600. Yeah. That's the descendant of this. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. Sounds like it. \n\nCLARK: And so we revolted and made a noise about, you know, you've got to have the Human Quest Asia. So like, and we were—so then we had an inter—we were stuck with developing an interdisciplinary course on everything from Turkey to Yokohama. And then the human quest, uh, the, the other side of the earth. \n\nCHOUMAN: And what did you call it? \n\nCLARK: We called it The Human Quest, the Asian experience or something. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Okay, yeah. \n\nCLARK: Right. So it was supposed to be like a—it didn't draw anything like the crowd of, of, of human, you know, of the humanities course. And, and we were—we're dissimilar, [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=300.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] Mackenzie Brown and Bates Hoffer and I, who developed this course. We were like, “Why are we studying Haiku and Indian deities?” And, it didn't hang together very well. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. It’s a lot to string together. \n\nCLARK: Right. So, uh, it rose and fell in the 19—but that's where the Asian studies, uh, when it died, that's where it went. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. \n\nCLARK: To that course, and then the course died and that was the end of that. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) What about, uh, what is your perception of student interest at that time? \n\nCLARK: Of student interest? \n\nCHOUMAN: Student interest in Asian studies. Like why were people interested in taking these classes at the time? \n\nCLARK: Well, that was missionary work. You had to go to, uh—I have a lot of students who, uh, from that, from the 1980s, who I'm still in touch with on Facebook and occasionally other ways—who, apparently I made some kind of an impact on them. And they were interested in, enough in Asia to go on and do things with it. So some of them are in—but why the idiosyncratic interest in, in taking a course that I was teaching, for instance.\n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: In—I taught a Tuesday night three hour course on modern China. And I guess because of people's work schedules or something, I mean, they showed up and they took this course. But you know, there's several people who are still interested in China because of that course. \n\nCHOUMAN: That's great. \n\nCLARK: I have a very large album of photos. I would line all my students up with, and take a picture. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: And take them four at a time. And they would be holding blank sheets of paper and I would write their names from the sheets of paper—this time I would learn their names. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) That's nice. \n\nCLARK: And I would write all those albums. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And a couple months ago I went through them and I—and yeah, I know that actually quite a few of them are—what they're doing and, and, and that some of them are Asia related. But it was impossible to predict which ones would become interested in it, and why they took the classes. I think guys sometimes thought that, I mean, it would be about war or something. \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure. \n\nCLARK: Or, and—but over the years—you're right, it's a very good question—because over the years the interest in Asia is reflected in the appetites of students—has evolved. And so—and the language teaching pattern at Trinity does the same. Like it was thought in the 1980s that Japan was the wave of the future. My Harvard professor, Ezra Vogel wrote a book called Japan as Number One in 1988 and everybody thought, “Oh, Japan is going to be like everything, and the way they manage everything and the way the stuff they make is such good quality,” and all. And, you know, that came and went when the Nikkei collapsed in 1991. But, uh, at the same time, so then there was this rush to—so Mrs. Beard was teaching Japanese, and in 1990 we got a Japanese professor, uh, which didn't stick, but still that, that was the appetite for Japanese business and all of this stuff, so people were taking that. And China, you know, nobody was interested in that—\n\nCHOUMAN: Wow.\n\nCLARK: —off, you know, off the street. Now there were people with peculiar interests so they got interested in it. And—if it's not really too immodest to say—I think I learned pretty quickly to be a reasonably good teacher. And so—and my interest and passion for things, and I would tell stories and so those—when I think about why was I able to draw, pretty much, full classes all the time teaching about these arcane subjects, I think it has something to do with the teacher, which is exactly the reason—\n\nCHOUMAN: Definitely.\n\nCLARK: —the reason I like the liberal arts experience in the first place. Now, if you go to RateMyProfessors.com, there's some people who really hated me, but—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: (laughs) But—-\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) There always is.\n\nCLARK: Right, but at the same time, uh, I may—I thought that people did—they had requirements, of course, in the general curriculum always, and these, these were things that would satisfy the requirements. So that was also a lifeblood. It wasn't just my charisma (laughs), you know, it was—they were fulfilling a requirement. And, um, and—\n\nCHOUMAN: Sometimes you come back because of the requirements though, and I’ve had that happen too. \n\nCLARK: Well, I learned that—that if you—here's this—here's a professor story about life at Trinity, which is that, because I took these pictures and then I would remember their names. Like, I [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=600.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] wouldn't remember all of them, and I wouldn't remember them forever, but I would remember a lot of them. So I'd be on the sidewalk, or I'd be in the library, and there would be this student, you know, lurking, and I would say, Hello, Ryanna, and, you know, I hadn't seen Ryanna for, you know, a year. \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure. \n\nCLARK: And Ryanna would be in my class next semester. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, that's really nice. \n\nCLARk: Whatever it was, right? Was that because I remembered her name, and, and appeared to—uh, you know, so, I learned that that was really, really valuable. If you, and—why did I go to Trinity in the first place? I mean—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) The mentorship, right? \n\nCLARK: —that's the kind of reason, right? And then—that the student really makes a difference to me, and some of these people would become my students. They would want to be recommended for grad school, or they would come and talk for a long time, and they became part of my life as well. \n\nCHOUMAN: And I'm curious because another aspect of this research that we're doing now is looking at, uh, international students at Trinity as part of this overall process of internationalization. \n\nCLARK: (laughs)\n\nCHOUMAN: What was your impression of the, uh, presence of international students at Trinity, either Asian or just in general? \n\nCLARK: When I arrived at Trinity, it isn't that there was nary an international student—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) Yeah, I know, we've been looking through the Mirages, we’ve been really counting the — \n\nCLARK: Right, we were looking at—we would go to South Africa or France, and, uh, basically hire a tennis player. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: Because we were a Division One tennis for some reason. And this is very important to the alumni. So to keep that team, you know, in business, we had to recruit tennis players from far away who would take the opportunity to come to school in the United States. Uh, but other than that, if I walk around—if I would go to a faculty meeting or some committee or something, and say, We need to recruit more international students—for one thing, I was young and, you know, not particularly weighty and people—“No, we're not going to do that.” Ron Calgaard, the president, who had himself—he was an economist with a field, with a dissertation on the Chilean economy. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: And he spent time in Chile. So you’d think that I would be able to, we would be able to interest him in the recruitment of international students. But—and his attitude was, “If they can pay full tuition, we'd be happy to have them, wherever they come from.”\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Yeah. \n\nCLARK: I said, No, I mean, all international students are not like little barefoot people from wherever who need a full scholarship, but you know, they may be able to enrich the atmosphere of Trinity University. And he was—he had zero interest in that. And until he retired in 1999, there were, of course, international students, accidental international students. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, it does feel like that. Sort of random stories. \n\nCLARK: So, when he retired, he was replaced by a president named John Brazil. Now, ah, the happiest time that I had at Trinity was when I was young and building my career under the mentorship of Ron Calgaard. I am one of Ron Calgaard's people. Uh, and when Ron retired, I lost my edge. Uh, and—so there were successive presidents, but I—they had other people. And I was not one of them, right? So—but in the interstice between Ron Calgaard's retirement and John Brazil's presidency, uh, there was an interim vice president who gave me the charge to build an international programs, uh, international program. Uh, I thought that he had in mind that he had some money, but he didn't. (laughs)\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Not really.\n\nCLARK: (laughs) He just—he just wanted, he just wanted me to do—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Sounds like it's in your house. \n\nCLARK: He wanted me to do it. So, before John Brazil got there, we had established the international programs office and Michael Fischer, the vice president came at the same time, and he was also—he was of the Calgaard sort. He was—he knew that there was a world out there, but he wasn't much interested in it. And I'm saying this on tape and then—and I think that's a fact. Uh, and so, uh, I was left with this charge to build international studies as a major. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. \n\nCLARK: Uh, study abroad, a program which had, uh, versioned under a guy named George Boyd and his assistant [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=900.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] Nancy Erickson, who only recently retired. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, I know. \n\nCLARK: Uh, and we—so we had a flourishing study abroad program with students going abroad. No Trinity program studying abroad though. \n\nCHOUMAN: So that only began in the—\n\nCLARK: Oh, the Trinity study—any Trinity student—any Trinity program studying abroad is a very recent thing. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, okay. \n\nCLARK: It did not happen until the 2010s maybe. \n\nCHOUMAN:Wow. \n\nCLARK: Really. Uh, and certainly in 1999 the idea of—I mean I took groups to Asia, I've listed three of them—In 1980, '82, '86. And I got tired of it, but then there were other people who did this, like to—Terry Smart, a colleague in the history department, took groups to Russia. And so, I mean, you would do this, but it's academic credit was dubious and, uh, the business of taking a tour and trying to make it into a class I think is pedagogically shaky. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: But if it's a choice between these people never gonna get out of the state of Texas, uh, you know, I need to take them somewhere. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. \n\nCLARK: Wyoming maybe. (laughs)\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Not Wyoming, maybe. \n\nCLARK: But—and so I, you know, I—but that isn't the—that isn't the way to build a study abroad and international studies program, you know. Uh, so we hitched our wagon in the 1990s, this gentleman, George Boyd, to programs like, um, the IES program, which had centers in Beijing or London or—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, I know.\n\nCLARK: —you know, IES is one—I don't know how many—but some of them were owned by colleges and they would take students from other colleges—Associated Colleges of the South had one in Budapest. Uh, and so then we would send our students—I mean we would contribute our students to the population—populating those study abroad programs that were run by others. And, uh, that's what we got away from in the—started getting away from in the 2010s. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. And generally, this sort of, uh, internationalization process, do you—when do you view that as having started and how—what was your role in it? \n\nCLARK: Well, uh, in 1994, Ron Calgaard, uh, who liked to do big things—not the things I wanted. But in 1994, he said, \"Let's have a program of faculty seminars and let the faculty, uh, say, what would you like to study for the summer and I'll put $60,000 into doing it.\" \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay.\n\nCLARK: And so I said, I'll do it. We would like a program on internationalizing Trinity. I called it, the Japanese word, Kokusaika, which is, I don't know—\"Guo…”, anyway, \"Kokusaika,\" is—it's written on my resume in there, but \"Kokusaika,\" is the Japanese word for internationalization. And, um, and so we had a two-week seminar on campus and everybody was paid and—I don't know what—whether we traveled for it or something, but we talked about languages. Uh, we had several buckets—one was a, a bunch of people—breakouts. We, breakout—a bunch of people talking about languages across the curriculum. Uh, that became the, uh, the origin of the languages across the curriculum program, which is where you teach a business course in Chinese. Uh, I don't know if you, if LAC—Languages Across the Curriculum—still exists at Trinity. \n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) It sounds familiar, yeah. \n\nCLARK: But there were several languages. French—oh, Spanish, for instance, like, uh, Hacienda Negocios En Latinoamérica [“Doing Business in Latin America”] or, uh, a La Tienda Novela En Latinoamérica. These things. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. I think they're present, especially for business courses. \n\nCLARK: Yeah, and for business courses, that was, and—and so they would, and Chinese, Stephen Field was very big on having, uh, languages across the curriculum programs in Chinese. But it lent itself to cinema, and to drama—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) Yes, I’ve taken some. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: —and to literature, and all that. That came from the 1994 Kokusaika thing. Uh, we flew in, like, people who did it—were doing it already at other campuses, and they would tell us how they did it. Uh, and there were several other things, like study of, uh—international students—how do you recruit international students, and get more international students in the campus, and studying abroad, and what's a responsible study abroad program kind of thing. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And anyway, I can't remember the buckets that we—I have it, in very deep in a lost hard drive somewhere, but what the four or five buckets were of the Kokusaika seminar. But, they were, what shall we say, uh, seminal (laughs). My colleague, Paula, would tell us, “Every time you say seminal, you should turn around and say ovular about something else.” Right? Uh, those were ovular for, the—what later [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1200.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] became the foundations of the international studies program. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. \n\nCLARK: Languages across the curriculum, people, uh—Alida Metcalf, Nanette Le Coat, uh, and several others, were always in the room when we were, you know, arguing for, support for languages across the curriculum. So, and I, of course, was interested in study abroad, I was interested in exchange programs, so, uh, so the second year for this, around $60,000 went to taking us to Mexico, about 20 of us on a bus—or actually on a plane. And we hung out at, in Mexico City for a while, appreciating Mexico, which was really a good, you know, we were—\n\nCHOUMAN: This is professors?\n\nCLARK: Yeah, there's faculty who, like, had never been to Mexico. And then, uh, and then we spent time at Monterrey Tech, which— \n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) Yeah,  I think I've taken the descendant of this course on—in international finance, um, I've heard that it's not—\n\nCLARK: By Dante Suarez? \n\nCHOUMAN:Yes. I’ve taken that class.\n\nCLARK: Dante is from the days of our—our heyday of, uh—in fact, I think it probably is still the case that he uh, is the link with Monterrey Tech. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yes. We did, uh, we did an online project because of COVID this year, but it's still very much—\n\nCLARK: Yeah, okay. All right. Well, we went to Monterrey Tech— \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: —And we went to the campus, and we saw that it was a serious place with vast resources, and we learned, you know, we learned to respect it and develop some faculty contacts, and we had an exchange program with students, where Trinity students would go to Monterrey Tech, but they'd get Trinity credit, and vice versa. \n\nCHOUMAN: That's great. \n\nCLARK: Uh, which became a kind of a model for, for things. So, over the course of two years, the Kokusaika—the two Kokusaika seminars—now that was 1994, '95, and it took five years for us to develop an international programs office. But when we developed it in 1999, 2000, uh, the concept was these things that we had studied at—and the, and the support faculty for it, the enthusiasm for it, and the faculty, and the demand for funding came from these people who had attended the Kokusaika seminars. \n\nCHOUMAN: That's great. \n\nCLARK: Yeah. \n\nCHOUMAN: And that was—that was your idea. \n\nCLARK: Well, it was my idea in the beginning, but I mean, we had a crew of people, John Donahue in sociology, Alida Metcalf in history. There were—there were like four people who were—and then a guy named Jorge Gonzalez, who was the mentor of Dante Suarez. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm \n\nCLARK: Jorge Gonzalez in the economics department— \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: —and he was a Monterrey Tech guy through and through. He powered the whole Mexico thing in the second year of Kokusaika, so that was his baby. He and John Donahue in sociology, uh, did that one. They were—he was a Latin Americanist, uh, specialist on Bolivia. \n\nCHOUMAN: It sounds like you were very involved in, uh, I don't know, you can, you can be a professor at Trinity and they involve you at least a little. I know that professors have to do sort of a second assignment. They have to be involved in some—one other thing. Like put on, you put on a board of some kind. \n\nCLARK: Mm-hm. \n\nCLARK: But it sounds like you really were, uh, passionate about going above and beyond and involving yourself in several different buckets of campus like that. \n\nCLARK: Yeah, I was doing several different things. I was on the faculty senate, I was chair of the faculty senate while this was going on.\n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm\n\nCLARK: All of that is in my papers. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: You know, for, but, uh—\n\nCHOUMAN: Did you start out that enthusiastic or was it a sort of gradual, you had to believe in Trinity? \n\nCLARK: (both speaking at the same time) No, no, you have to do that. You can't, uh, I wanted to do it. I wanted to help make Trinity an international place. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: I was— \n\nCHOUMAN: Did you hope from the beginning? \n\nCLARK: Yes, I did. I was a little downcast when I would, you know—I told you this story about being welcomed as the, you know, welcomed as the guy who was going to teach Nip history. I don't even know if you know that epithet. Do you? \n\nCHOUMAN: I am familiar, yeah. \n\nCLARK: Nihon—Nippon is—but Nip is a word during the war—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: When you were shooting down a zero or something, and you would, you know, “Take that, you nip”, uh, kind of, uh, a thing. It's, uh, like saying Chink history or something like that. And that uh—and then—but the disinterest in—it was Mexico, big Mexico. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: But, uh, I was like, have you—are you interested in Asia? This—it was always a sorrow for me, all up until I retired, that we would—I wanted to take a Kokusaika seminar to Asia. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: Let's get 18 faculty and a couple of trustees and a few people from Trinity who've never been to Asia before— \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah.\n\nCLARK: —and then introduce them to some of the people [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1500.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"]—like I know people in Asia and Stephen Field does too. And Oliver Lee does too, all these people. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, could make a comfortable welcoming trip for them. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: Yeah. Right. We can—we have alumni in Asia, we can go find them. And so, you know, we even did that under Dennis Ahlberg in 2011. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: Uh, we—Stephen Field and I—he can tell you about this, the anguish—non-result of this project where President Ahlberg was all, \"Oh yeah, Asia, let's get all interested. Let's go visit alumni, raise money.\" And, and so, you know, let's get to 18, 20 people. How much would that cost? And I said, well, you know, it costs $100,000, $120,000 to go to Asia for a few weeks, and then we can see and we go to Vietnam and we go to Korea—“Oh, we’re going to Korea and Vietnam?” \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Not interested.\n\nCLARK: And so—so then it ended up with, the project went from all these faculty and a Kokusaika seminar, which Ahlberg had never seen, never had any idea—I mean, Calgaard did, but he was long gone. And so it shrank and shrank and shrank. So then it was Ahlberg and, uh, his development officer, his fundraiser. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: Stephen Field in China, me in Korea. And uh, then Mrs. Lee—Ingrid Lee, Mrs. J. K. Lee, Oliver's mother—went with us. And, uh, because they had links in Korea, the Lee family had links in Korea—Oh, Oliver went too. So, uh, but where were the people? And why did we even do this if we didn't bring along these people? Well, I mean, the administration people were like, “We're going to go and find alumni with deep pockets and get—have them.” \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And—really we're—what we're trying to do is education over here. And I mean, I understand that it's costly and we—you got to raise money for education—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) Make it worth your while, yeah.\n\nCLARK: —but, you know, why do we put all this effort into this if we're actually not going to take anybody?\n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: So, those were—these were all—there are shots that I took, that eventually killed me. You know what I mean? I had to leave. Fortunately, I was 73 years old, so, when I left, so, you know, it was high time, but at the same—yeah, I resigned from international programs in 2006, just because it was such a furious battle— \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: —to, you know, get them to put a little money behind. \n\nCHOUMAN: That you fought for quite a while. \n\nCLARK: Yeah, yeah, right. Well, we were successful, but my daughter is a very—my daughter and son-in-law are very, very good, uh, and savvy academics at Ohio State, and, uh, the smartest academics that I know. And my daughter is like, \"Dad, didn't you know that you have to get your own money? You can.”\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: You have to go out and raise your own money, right? So I raised the money through the NCTA, the Freeman family. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. \n\nCLARK: And when I got that money in 2006, we hired a program associate and had an office and I was—I didn't go, Psh, to Trinity, I just said, We'll do this with—we'll now work on Asian studies and if they're gonna starve international programs and student scholarships for international students and stuff, then let somebody else experience that. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. A long journey. \n\nCLARK: And—so we started building—in 2006, we started building EAST with our own money. (laughs) \n\nCHOUMAN: Makes sense, I mean. \n\nCLARK: And we still had to ask Trinity for some things, but we couldn't, we—and a lot of the money didn't go for Trinity things, it went for busloads of teachers to go to China and stuff, right? \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: But we still benefited from it. We had a full-time staff person who did serious stuff for us. \n\nCHOUMAN: And how long did the Freeman money work out for? \n\nCLARK: The Freeman, well, Buck—oh man, yeah, Buck loved us, but he died in like 2010, he and Doreen died. And their son Graeme, uh, who took over the Freeman Foundation, which is—the Freeman Foundation is basically a porch and a house in Vermont in the summer and, uh, (unintelligible) in Honolulu in the winter, with a couple of people on it. Graeme was interested, uh, the family were interested—[0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1800.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] Buck and Doreen, were all interested in teachers, right? Uh, and pouring amazing amounts of money into the teaching of teachers. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: Uh, Graeme not so much. Graeme was like, \"Well, we can do this with, you know, MOOCs, we can do massive online, we can do this electronically, we don't have to actually see these people.\" That's not, maybe fair to Graeme, because Graeme still funds some seriously important, uh, Asian studies things. The AsiaNetwork is heavily funded by the Freemans. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, really? \n\nCLARK: Yeah, and the NCTA I think still exists, I just don't follow it anymore. I'm not sure if the—I don't think NCTA still—I think Graeme was skeptical about taking people to Asia, that there has to be a more efficient, more, you know, more bang for the buck kind of thing. But, that was when I was, uh, tuning out. Again, for NCTA while I was in my heyday, I was Mr. Korea, so whenever a group would go to Korea, I would fly out and I would conduct them through Korea. \n\nCHOUMAN: That's nice. \n\nCLARK: I had my own agent and everything. It was my own hotel and I was—it was really fun and I, and—this is how I got to Korea every year for twice a year sometimes. But, uh, (laughs) you asked me what, uh, how long did the Freeman money last? \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And so the short answer, which I never gave, it was about till 20—well, 2012—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) 2012?\n\nCLARK: —was the last time I was on a Freeman—on a Freeman trip. \n\nCHOUMAN: So it was two thousand— (unintelligible) \n\nCLARK: Yeah, I think it must have gone on for until like 2015, but I just wasn't doing it anymore. \n\nCHOUMAN: Makes sense. And then that—but a certain point you sort of had to realize, if we want to make this sustainable, we need to start going back to Trinity. \n\nCLARK: Yeah, well, yes, right. Correct. The—as Buck and Doreen got too old to run it, Graeme started saying, \"We can't be paying, you know, you can't be living off of us like you are.\" \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure. \n\nCLARK: Um, there was an occasion where we brought to San Antonio Frankie Johnson, our program associate for EAST and the NCTA East. Uh, we put on a conference in the St. Anthony Hotel in San Antonio—It's a nice hotel, (unintelligible) park—and brought in people from all over the country who were recipients—happy recipients of Freeman funds. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And we had, you know, they put them up in the hotel and had a, you know, butler passing with hors d'oeuvres and a great banquet and occasions. And, you know, and the Freeman Foundation showed up and they said, “You know, who's paying for all of this?” And I said, Well, actually this is, you know, all the people who came here, they came off of their Freeman grants. All the, you know, all the  stuff is from the Freeman grant you gave us. And, uh, Buck and Doreen were happy, but uh, the people in the office were not, and they said, “These people are living high off the hog.” (laughs) \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Yeah, the hors d'oeuvres are not included in the education.\n\nCLARK: (laughs) Oh, they were great hors d'oeuvres. Uh, fantastic shrimp. So then it started to wane. And as it waned, I could see, Okay, we're going to have to figure out a way to pay the program associate out of Trinity funds. Go to the—go to Mike Fischer, the vice president and say, We need to cost share here. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And he would say, “No, you don't, put her on half time.”—No, we need her on full time. Uh, and basically—now look, we hired her. She was totally paid for by NCTA, but she does like, two thirds of her work for Trinity and that's at no cost to Trinity. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: Now the tables have turned and they say, well, you know—\n\nCHOUMAN: You're benefiting from this, so (laughs)—\n\nCLARK: Yes. And so it didn't—well, we did get a—oh, wow, that was a hard battle. That was like 2011, 2012, 2013, I guess, and we got the position— \n\nCHOUMAN: That's good. \n\nCLARK: —on the Trinity payroll. \n\nCHOUMAN: Good. That sounds like an important one to have won. It's the first of many, like it sets a precedent for—\n\nCLARK: Yeah. Well, yes. So now—then of course, they started going to the, to—[0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=2100.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] whatever the thing is—they're building a new building in Katsuo Nishikawa and—I don't know anything about that. I saw that as it was happening. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And I was on my way out. So it's fine. \n\nCHOUMAN: Transitioning a little bit. Can you tell me a little bit about your work with the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies and how Trinity was involved with that? \n\nCLARK: Yeah. So, when I first got to Trinity, I did remember the admonitions of people at Harvard who’d say, \"You're going to disappear. No one will ever hear from you again.\" And so every opportunity that I could, I wrote a paper and delivered it at a conference somewhere, and so every organization that needed somebody to volunteer, I did. So the Southwest Conference for Asian Studies was based at—basically, at the University of Texas at Austin, but they needed a secretary, treasurer or somebody to, oh man, cash checks and—\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Push papers.\n\nCLARK: —you know, and publish their annual publication and all that stuff. So, I'll be there— \n\nCHOUMAN: Had it been around a long time before you got to it? \n\nCLARK: No, that was like, (laughs) that was like 1981, I think. I was—I became, after I'd been to a couple of Southwest Conference conferences.\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And, you know, wearing my Trinity badge and then there's this guy. (laughs) I'll—I really—I don't know about these things, but to—but when I first got to San Antonio, I did something that I—now horrifies me, but I got in touch with the people in Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: And I said, Woof, I'm here. (laughs)\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: —“So?” (laughs) I said, Yes, I'd like to come up and meet everyone. Uh, and—“Really? Okay, well.” \n\nCHOUMAN: And connect yeah.\n\nCLARK: And well—so they made an occasion for me. \n\nCHOUMAN: That’s nice\n\nCLARK: (both speaking at the same time) I drove up to Austin and found a place to park. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Good drive.\n\nCLARK: And they had coffee and donuts and everybody, you know, people came, sat around the table and they asked me who I was and what I was about. And I said, yeah, (unintelligible). (laughs) And so then people started leaving the room. I was, well—and I realized that if you're a little, fiddly assistant professor at a little college someplace, don't go advertise yourself at a major university as being, you know, uh, necessary or even—or much less useful. \n\nCHOUMAN: That's sweet that they made the whole dinner and everything, that's kind of— \n\nCLARK: Oh, they did. They—it was, it was a morning thing, like 10 o'clock. It was—but it did have donuts, you know. They invested something in me. \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure. \n\nCLARK: And then I went back several times and they had a seminar on China. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: And I would drive up for it—the seminar on China—and I would be there. And so I became like, “Okay, he cares enough, I mean.” \n\nCHOUMAN: a friend of UT.\n\nCLARK: Yeah. So then there were a few people up there. A guy named Ed Rhodes, a guy named—yeah so uh—and Ed Rhodes came from Harvard too. So he and I were like—\n\nCHOUMAN: Were you classmates? \n\nCLARK: No, we weren't. But he was, uh, senpai. He was somebody who has been there before, but we had both been students of John Fairbank. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yes. \n\nCLARK: And so, uh, as students of Fairbank, we were in some sort of sync. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: And so, uh, Ed was my, uh,was my lasting link at—anyway. So he was active in the SWCAS, in the Southwest Conference. And then—so then, he said, “How would you like to be the secretary treasurer?” And I said, Well, it sounds like a lot of work, but he said, “Well, we need you, so can you do it?” And I said, Yes. So then I tried to make myself indispensable. And I did the same thing at the same time for the Association for Asian Studies, which is the National Association for Asian Studies. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And, and, uh, volunteered to do some heavy lifting for—on the Korea side, because again, they don't—Korea scholars in the United States in that time—I think is still the case—are busy getting tenure, writing books and stuff like this. They cannot be bothered with teaching teachers, you know—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) development, and that sort of thing.\n\nCLARK: —they cannot be bothered with writing children's books, they can't be bothered with, you know, volunteering to lick stamps, you know. But I was willing to do all that stuff. \n\nCHOUMAN: Noticing a theme with you. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: So, to stay alive, right. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And so in the process of doing that, you meet people and, uh, people notice that you're a good worker and, and they occasionally, you know, think of other things for you to do.\n\nCHOUMAN: [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=2400.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] Did you notice the conference change a lot? Or the—because you're there for quite a long time—or working with them. \n\nCLARK: Well, SWCAS is, is, SWCAS is one of those things that Stephen Field and I did differently. I mean, I would, I feel—I felt like in the 1980s I was essential to SWCAS, and I went to all the meetings and I, you know, and all this stuff. But then when Stephen came–-Stephen was SWCAS, like he came out of the—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) Oh yeah, he said he met you there.\n\nCLARK: Yeah, he was born out of the University of Texas at Austin. All these people—Ed Rhodes and all these people—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. \n\nCLARK: —who were like his people. And so then, you know, he would organize the SWCAS meeting to be held at San Antonio and he would be the big G's for—I mean, he would be the host, which is fine with me—I'm not, yeah. So, he knew all these Texas people and I didn't. I would like, go to Dallas-Fort Worth, and then I was on to the next—I was to either coast, you know. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: So—and so Stephen is much more sort of Texas oriented—Texas native, University of Texas product—and I was like, I don't even have anybody who's any, you know, nearer than Chicago. Right? So, I was always flying farther. \n\nCHOUMAN: Sure. \n\nCLARK: And so I stayed in the—I was very active in the Association for Asian Studies, the NCTA, you know—I call it the Columbia cluster in my notes— \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. \n\nCLARK: —Uh, Harvard. Uh, and, of course, in Korea all the time. Yeah. \n\nCHOUMAN:You kept busy. (laughs) \n\nClark: And on the ship. I was on the—from 2002 to 2018, I'd be on the ship all the time. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. Uh, next, can you tell me about, uh, what do you think is the most—is there any achievement or contribution that you made to the Trinity community that you feel most proud of, or particular achievement for you that stands out?\n\nCLARK: Well, there's a scholarship named for me in East Asian Studies. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: So the Donald Clark Fellowship or something. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: Uh, that's not my money but I arranged for it. Uh, is there anything that I'm proud of? Wow, it's very diffuse. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. And you were there for such a long time, it’s hard to pick one. \n\nCLARK: (both speaking at the same time) I was there for 38 years. \n\nCHOUMAN: And don't feel pressured to pick on, if you have several.\n\nCLARK: Right. No, I don't have a—I have a very satisfied recollection of it. But I can't say that—and I did a lot of things, as you know, so I don't have anything in particular. Uh, wow. I have things that I wish I'd been able to. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) You sound like your person is very—always striving for the next thing and\n\nCLARK: Yeah, we worked hard. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, that makes sense. Is there any, uh—maybe this is a better way to phrase it—any triumphs that sort of stand out to you? Any hard fought battles that you're lucky that worked out and maybe are still there today? \n\nCLARK: Well, I think, uh—I don't have any, I can't—I don't have anything in particular, but I think I don't have anything in particular. Uh, when I see that—the history, the people that we hired in various programs—I was on the search committee for Stephen Field and for various people and putting people in place. Gina Tam, uh, I'm very proud of her. And, uh, I wasn't—I was search committee chair for the person before her, Lauren Turek, but I was certainly the person in the room who knew Asia in the history department when we were interviewing for Gina and others. Uh, the fact that that's firmly planted in the history department where originally in 1978 it was, well, you know.\n\nCHOUMAN: You replaced British history, so yeah. \n\nCLARK: Yeah, right. \n\nCHOUMAN: No, it's not going anywhere, rest assured. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: (laughs) Right. So, it's an aggregate. And it doesn't—it isn't just me, it's the—it's a bunch of people who did it. But, wow, it was lonely. You know, when you mentioned Ewing Chinn, he was teaching Chinese philosophy—he had a course on Chinese philosophy, (laughs) a semester course on Chinese philosophy—and he taught about Confucius, Lao Tzu—and he [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=2700.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] must have been very lonely. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And, and all—I don't know—yeah, so never mind about philosophy departments, but they tend to be—\n\nCHOUMAN: (Both speaking at the same time) But still, it's relevant. We've talked about this as well recently. \n\nCLARK: Yeah. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. Uh, what do you think are, I don't know, is—do you think there's any ways that your experiences at Trinity—maybe being in the liberal arts environment and crafting it for so long—has influenced your personal engagement with East Asia and, uh, the sort of direction that you took? Like, did it have any influence over why you chose to do Semester at Sea and why you found yourself traveling there so often? \n\nCLARK: Semester at sea was for international, uh, for study abroad and international programs.\n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm\n\nCLARK: I realized on my first round of the world voyage on Semester at Sea that I was stuck in a post hole in Korean studies and, you know, a little (unintelligible), but I mean, I'm not credible—maybe at Trinity, but I wasn't credible in the world as a China scholar, and so I've only been to China as a tourist, uh, and occasionally for, you know, a conference or something. Uh, Semester at Sea taught me about Cuba, Brazil, South Africa, took me to Ghana, uh, my God, India. \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) All over.\n\nCLARK: I've been to Vietnam many times and most of them were on Semester at Sea. Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Costa Rica—\n\nCHOUMAN: Sounds great, and the same trip too. (laughs) \n\nCLARK: Uh—I have a whole book here, of Semester at Sea. And so it made me a much—it made me two things. It made me a much better—much better able to talk about the world—Semester at Sea’s not in there at all—but, uh, to, to talk about the world, but also I had to live with students. The ship is a dormitory—\n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: —and 24 hours a day, the students are underfoot, right? Uh, to have a door—a paper slipped under your door at one in the morning when the deadline was midnight. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, yeah. Would you accept it? (laughs)\n\nCLARK: Well, you know, I might. It depends. It—I was free not to. Uh, and—but then to have to eat with the kids and then to hang out with them, and then go ashore and travel with them—because our field trips were for a week in each port—and then you're traveling with these kids and they're maddening and they're wonderful all at the same—all at the same time. Uh, so I became a better, much better teacher. At first I hated the students.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs)\n\nCLARK: But then I began to realize that they were young—\n\n \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: —and Semester at Sea always would tell us as we were coming on as faculty that, “Look, if you're gonna hate on these students on the ship, go down on your own campus on Thursday night to the bars around your, you know, walk your—see what your students are doing. And don't, don't think it's just these kids who are on the ship.” \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Yeah. It’s life. \n\nCLARK: This is how they—this is how they live. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: This is how they live. And once I settled on that—and then I have so many friendships from Semester at Sea because it's an experience. It's one of the—you have this too—experience that other people don't understand because they didn't go through it. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And, and it's like—it's an all engulfing experience. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: Uh, so when there's a crisis on the ship or something happens, that's terrible—people sometimes die on this study—anywhere, but on campus, all right, okay, on campus where there's a death, and then everybody who went through that is very moved by it. \n\nCHOUMAN: Um-hm.\n\nCLARK: I've had—I've been on the ship when someone died in China. And, you know, natural causes, you know—\n\nCHOUMAN: It’s a collective experience.\n\nCLARK: —and so everybody went through it—an incredibly emotional experience—one of us was down. So, uh, it made me a better teacher. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: Uh, much more empathetic with students. And also on the ship, the students would show their special gifts. We had to entertain ourselves at night. And so some of them were great singers, great dancers. \n\nCHOUMAN: Really? \n\nCLARK: They were really, you know, they could do things. They were amazing athletes. They were—the ship would sometimes just pulse with energy. (laughs) And it was an exciting experience to be with—it almost made me want to—at Harvard they had—there were faculty who lived in the dorms, the houses with students. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, really? Um-hm. \n\nCLARK: And they were supposed to mentor them, and, you know, their family would live there, and their little kids would grow up—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) That’s sweet. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: —and the people would babysit them and stuff like this, and to be part of their lives in that way, and I realized that that's really a precious thing. \n\nCHOUMAN:Yeah, yeah. Uh, I think we are heading to dinner soon, but just the [0:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=3000.0,3300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/transcript/92982/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"] last couple of questions. \n\nCLARK: Right, yeah. They'll hold our reservation until 6:09. (laughs) \n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) Okay, good to know. Uh, last—just can you tell me, uh, how have you been, uh, just keeping busy after leaving Trinity? What have your reflections been like—since your retirement—on your experience? And what have you been doing in order to keep that all fresh? \n\nCLARK: Well, I live in—I completely left Texas and Trinity. I am not a person who would go back. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: And so my life in Seattle is made up of my family, my grandchildren— \n\nCHOUMAN: They live here? \n\nCLARK: It's a beautiful house on an island, where I'm not this weekend, but on Anderson Island, where the family has a house. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. \n\nCLARK: And, uh, and then they also have a townhouse and live here and they come up here and have dinner with me often. Uh, I got myself elected president of the Residence Association. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, really? Great. \n\nCLARK: So I'm president of the Skyline Residence—and then I'm reelected. Uh, and so I  spend a lot of time, uh, managing nine standing committees and, uh, quite a lot of money, (laughs) uh, in this place, and with a lot of help from people. So I'm good at that. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. Have you been going through a lot of, uh, photos and things from?\n\nCLARK: I have buckets—you know, those are all slide boxes and, and I'm trying to find a program that's good enough to do the best I can with those pictures—but slides are a problem in anybody's family, you know, there’s columns and columns and which are the ones that are the best.\n\nCHOUMAN: (laughs) I'm sure you have so much to go through.\n\nCLARK: (both speaking at the same time) I do, I do have a lot to go through. \n\nCHOUMAN: You've lived quite a full life. \n\nCLARK: I do have a lot to go through. \n\nCHOUMAN:Yeah. What are your grandchildren up to?\n\nCLARK: Uh, my little guys are—they’re eight—One just turned eight and one is five. Uh, they're going—they were just at soccer camp. Uh, right now they're with the other grandparents on the island. \n\nCHOUMAN: Sweet, you get to see them alot.\n\nCLARK: I do. \n\nCHOUMAN: That’s very nice. \n\nCLARK: I did. I mean, before COVID, I saw them all the time. \n\nCHOUMAN: Oh, yeah, yeah. \n\nCLARK: And now started seeing them again. \n\nCHOUMAN: That's good, that sounds nice. And you're happy with Seattle—I mean, you have an amazing view everyday. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: Oh, yes. I love Seattle. I wish I were mobile so that I could enjoy the city and go to restaurants and things, but this is a perfect place for me to live, I'm safe, everything I need is here—\n\nCHOUMAN: (both speaking at the same time) and family and everything—\n\nCLARK: —and my pool downstairs for my exercise—\n\nCHOUMAN: That sounds quite nice. (laughs)\n\nCLARK: —and all of that, and certainly well (laughs) enough fed. So, yeah, this is exactly the place for me. My wife found this place in 2008 when they were building it, and she didn't make it, but she would have been very happy here. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah. \n\nCLARK: The garden club, and the book club and stuff that I don't do, but, she would have hugely enjoyed this place. She loved being on the ship for much the same reason—it was like a little self contained society that, yeah—and all of that.\n\nCHOUMAN: Okay. I think we'll wrap it up. \n\nCLARK: Okay. All right. \n\nCHOUMAN: Is there anything else, just anything—final thoughts that didn't come up? \n\nCLARK: Well, nothing—in my notes I just made clear—I didn't mention, let’s say, Semester at Sea—but I did make clear the role of NCTA and the Freeman money and building. \n\nCHOUMAN: Okay, yeah. I'll look over it and if I have any other clarifying things—\n\nCLARK: (Both speaking at the same time) Yeah, run through it as you wish.\n\nCHOUMAN: I’ll for sure to—call you and stuff, but this is very, very helpful. \n\nCLARK: You can come back up and get this stuff or we can—or you can take it with you to dinner and just move on as you wish, whatever you want to do. \n\nCHOUMAN: Yeah, let me see, let me stop this recording. \n\nCLARK: Oops.\n\n[END OF INTERVIEW]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=3300.0,3519.3152"}]},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Interview with Dr. Donald Clark 04-16-2026 15:30 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Why Trinity: The Liberal Arts Decision","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark explains his decision to come to Trinity University. He describes his family's deep regard for liberal arts education, rooted in his undergraduate experience at Whitworth College in Spokane. While his Harvard PhD peers sought positions at major research universities, Clark deliberately sought a liberal arts college that would hire him to teach Asian studies broadly. Trinity was the only such position available, but he never regretted the choice, valuing its financial stability, small class mentorship, and close faculty-student relationships. He also discusses the challenge of persuading his wife, Linda, to move to Texas, noting that she eventually found her own career at Texas Lutheran University.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"liberal arts education","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Job market","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Faculty life","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Whitworth College","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Harvard","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Carleton","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Texas Lutheran University","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Linda Clark","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=0.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Asian Studies at Trinity: Origins and Decline","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=301.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Clark describes Trinity's Asian Studies program as it existed when he arrived in 1978. The program was largely the creation of Vice President J. Norman Parmer, a Southeast Asia specialist with a Cornell PhD. Clark lists the faculty involved: Mackenzie Brown in religion, Letha McIntyre in art history, Bates Hoffer teaching Japanese literature, Scott Baird in linguistics, and Grace Beard as an adjunct Japanese instructor. When Parmer stepped down as chief academic officer, the Asian Studies major ceased to exist. It was replaced by an interdisciplinary humanities course called The Human Quest: The Asian Experience, developed by Clark, Brown, and Hoffer as a counterpart to the Western-focused Human Quest course. This Asian version also eventually failed due to the difficulty of coherently covering the entire continent.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=301.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Asian Studies","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interdisciplinary curriculum","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Humanities education","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=301.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"J. Norman Parmer","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Mackenzie Brown","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Bates Hoffer","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Scott Baird","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Letha McIntyre","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Grace Beard","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Human Quest","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=301.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Student Interest, Teaching Methods, and International Students","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=601.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Clark reflects on student interest in Asian studies during the 1980s and 1990s. He describes how shifting perceptions of Japan and China affected enrollment, noting the enthusiasm for Japanese studies following Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One (1988) and its decline after the Nikkei crash of 1991. Clark attributes his consistently full classes to passionate teaching and personal attention, describing his practice of photographing students with name cards to learn their names, which he credits with building enrollment through personal connection. He then discusses the near-absence of international students at Trinity under President Ron Calgaard, who would accept them only if they paid full tuition. Clark characterizes the few international students as accidental, many recruited primarily as Division One tennis players.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=601.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Student recruitment","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Teaching pedagogy","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Japan economic bubble","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"International students","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=601.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ezra Vogel","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Nikkei","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ron Calgaard","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RateMyProfessors","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Division I","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=601.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The Kokusaika Seminars and Building International Programs","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1201.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Clark describes his central role in Trinity's internationalization. In 1994, President Calgaard funded faculty seminars, and Clark proposed one on internationalization, using the Japanese term Kokusaika. The two-year seminar series produced several lasting initiatives: Languages Across the Curriculum (LAC), which enabled courses taught in foreign languages including Chinese under Stephen Field; a faculty trip to Mexico City and Monterrey Tech that established an exchange program; and the groundwork for what became the International Programs Office in 1999-2000. Clark lists key collaborators including Alida Metcalf, Nanette Le Coat, John Donahue, Jorge Gonzalez, and Dante Suarez. He also describes the study abroad landscape, noting that Trinity-run study abroad programs did not exist until the 2010s, with students previously enrolling in programs run by organizations like IES and Associated Colleges of the South.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1201.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Internationalization","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Faculty development","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Study abroad","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Curriculum development","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1201.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Kokusaika","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Languages Across the Curriculum","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Monterrey Tech","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"IES","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Alida Metcalf","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"John Donahue","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Jorge Gonzalez","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dante Suarez","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"George Boyd","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Nancy Erickson","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1201.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Building EAST with Freeman Foundation Money","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1801.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Clark describes the frustrating 2011 attempt under President Dennis Ahlberg to take faculty to Asia, which shrank from a full Kokusaika-style seminar to a small fundraising trip with only Clark, Stephen Field, the Lee family, and administrators. Disillusioned with institutional support for international programs, Clark resigned from international programs in 2006 and pivoted to building EAST with external funding from the Freeman Foundation through the NCTA (National Consortium for Teaching about Asia). This money funded a full-time program associate, Frankie Johnson, and allowed Clark to lead teacher groups to Korea. He describes the Freeman family—founders Buck and Doreen and their son Graeme—and the eventual decline in Freeman support as Graeme shifted priorities toward digital delivery. Clark recounts the difficult multi-year battle (2011-2013) to get Trinity to absorb the program associate position onto its payroll as Freeman funding waned.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1801.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"External funding","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EAST program development","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Administrative challenges","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Freeman Foundation","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1801.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dennis Ahlberg","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Freeman Foundation","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"NCTA","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Frankie Johnson","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Buck Freeman","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Doreen Freeman","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Graeme Freeman","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Oliver Lee","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ingrid Lee","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Michael Fischer","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=1801.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Southwest Conference on Asian Studies and Professional Networks","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=2401.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Clark describes his strategy for maintaining professional visibility from his isolated position in San Antonio. He volunteered as secretary-treasurer of the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies (SWCAS) and served the Association for Asian Studies and the NCTA on Korea-related initiatives. He recounts an early, humbling visit to UT Austin where he introduced himself to the Asian Studies faculty, who received him politely but with limited interest. He built a lasting connection through Ed Rhodes, a fellow Fairbank student at UT. Clark contrasts his national and international networking orientation with Stephen Field's deeper Texas roots, noting that Field eventually became the primary SWCAS host at Trinity. Clark reflects on his proudest contributions as an aggregate rather than a single achievement, citing the Donald Clark Fellowship in EAST, his role on search committees for Stephen Field and Gina Tam, and the firm establishment of Asian history in Trinity's history department.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=2401.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Professional associations","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Academic networking","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Faculty hiring","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Legacy","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=2401.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SWCAS","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Association for Asian Studies","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ed Rhodes","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"John Fairbank","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Stephen Field","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Gina Tam","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ewing Chinn","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donald Clark Fellowship","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=2401.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Semester at Sea, Retirement, and Reflections","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=3001.0,3519.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Clark discusses how Semester at Sea broadened him beyond Korean studies, taking him to Cuba, Brazil, South Africa, Ghana, India, Vietnam, and many other countries. He describes the transformative experience of living with students aboard the ship as a floating dormitory, which made him more empathetic and effective as a teacher. He reflects on retirement in Seattle, where he lives in a residence community his late wife Linda found in 2008 before her death. Clark serves as president of the Skyline Residence Association, managing committees and budgets. He discusses spending time with his grandchildren, ages five and eight, and sorting through decades of slide photographs. The interview concludes with Clark noting he has no single proudest achievement but rather a diffuse satisfaction with his 38 years at Trinity.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=3001.0,3519.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Semester at Sea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Teaching philosophy","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Retirement","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Legacy","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Subjects"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=3001.0,3519.0"},{"id":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437/index/92299/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Semester at Sea","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Seattle","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Skyline Residence","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Anderson Island","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Linda Clark","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}},{"type":"TextualBody","value":"COVID","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Keywords"]}}],"target":"https://trinityuniversity.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2913/collection_resources/140515/file/301437#t=3001.0,3519.0"}]}]}]}