Interviewed by William H. Pritchard
June 10, 2009
[0:02] William Pritchard: As you're probably aware, our man on the spot today, Peter R. Pouncey, served as president of Amherst College from 1984 to 1994, which is the main, though not the only, reason we're interested in him and his varied, distinguished career; some of which we plan to explore today through talk, a medium that, to these ears at least, Peter has been especially gifted at navigating. In his final address to the graduating class of 1984, 1994, sorry, when he's retiring, he noted at one point that he was the first president not to have any prior connection with the school for more than half a century. And I thought we might begin with a look back at some of your prior connections. There was at the very beginning, I know, the fact that it, your birth, occurred in China. And though I haven't checked, you are surely the first president of Amherst College to have been born in that land.
[1:14] Peter R. Pouncey: Probably.
[1:15] Pritchard: Do you want to say a bit about the circumstances?
[1:18] Pouncey: I was born of British parents, my mother half French actually, but basically British parents. My father, after being educated in England, went as his first professional job out to China to be, uh, eventually the, uh, English commissioner of the Chinese maritime customs. Which states with one parenthesis there: after the Boxer Riots, the great powers imposed on China, this is a colonial arrangement, that their Customs Service had to be, had to maintain a strong presence of officers from the respective nations who would protect their own trade in China. They didn't want any more looting of “go-downs,” as the Asians call them, which are warehouses I think. And so it's a very colonial arrangement. Anyway, he went there when he was about 21. And he met there my mother, who was a very rare bird. My mother was born in Shanghai in 1905, and she was the daughter of French silk merchants going back at least three generations, so almost at the start of the 19th century.
[2:47] Pritchard: When the Second World War was imminent, the plan was to move the family to Europe.
[2:53] Pouncey: Yes, back to England, back to England. [[Cross talk]]
[2:55] Pritchard: To England first, and that didn't work out.
[2:57] Pouncey: Well, the war had started in 1939, so then civilian traffic across the Atlantic was stopped. And we went instead to the safe haven of Canada, and there we spent the war, though my father had to go back to China because that's where he worked. And he was there through the war.
[3:19] Pritchard: Well, there’s something affecting to think of you and your mother and siblings,–two of them? [[Cross talk]]
[3:27] Pouncey: Two, yeah.
[3:29] Pritchard:–sort of tucked up away in this little place, in Victoria is it?
[3:34] Pouncey: Yes.
[3:34] Pritchard: In British Columbia? And I get it, that was a– Well, all our childhoods are affecting and memorable. But, you didn't feel deprived?
[3:46] Pouncey: No, not at all. It was incredibly– there was no rationing in Canada. Um, it's incredibly beautiful. This part we were in Oak Bay, British Victoria, British Columbia, looking across this bay to the horizon on which Mount Baker– which is a sort of American Fuji which is perfectly conical, permanently snow clad. Never wore an overcoat till I went to England. I was astonished at the coldness of England. So it was sort of halcyon days but very worrying for my mother whose husband was incommunicado in China. Of course, I didn't know– I had no knowledge of my father. I was too small. I was two when he went away and did not see him again for another five years. But her husband was in China incommunicado, and her brother and her father, who were both businessmen in China, were in Japanese internment camps and so that we had no news from them, and her mother was in London in the Blitz. So, my mother– our wartime, the children's, was a lovely, gentle period, but with the one anxiety of the BBC News and what it clearly did to make my mother nervous and frightened about the state of the world.
[5:21] Pritchard: Your schooling began there for your first eight years or so.
[5:26] Pouncey: Yeah, I think four years of actual schooling. [[Cross Talk]]
[5:29] Pritchard: Anything memorable about that? [[Cross Talk]]
[5:32] Pouncey: Not, not– They were good, they were good teachers. I think it was sort of stern, English pair of women who taught us well. I have very few memories, I can't remember learning to read. I have one vivid memory of Miss Cochran, the younger of the two women, writing on the blackboard and being mesmerized by the elegance–no screeching chalk or anything–but she would write out the alphabet, fitting each letter exactly on the requisite line, or between the lines, or over the lines, and so on. And as I've said elsewhere, I said it seemed to me sort of magical-like, like figure skating on black ice. [[Cross Talk]]
[6:25] Pritchard: You learned the difficult word “what”–
[6:28] Pouncey: Yes.
[6:29] Pritchard: –I remember thinking.
[6:29] Pouncey: Yes.
[6:31] Pritchard: Well, returning to England after the war, must have been rich, a rich experience. First to London, I gather and then– [[Cross Talk]]
[6:42] Pouncey: Right. Well London only for a month, and–Oh, although we did end up living there for seven years, and I love London, and uh. But my first view of London was in September ‘46: still, sadly, and in fact, conspicuously bombed, very little renovation going on, heavily rationed. Bread was rationed, everything was rationed. And uh, the natives seemed very jolly and confident that they’d won the war and everything would get back to normal, but I had never seen anything so blighted and so depressing looking.
[7:35] Pritchard: But you soon removed–were removed to the neighborhood of Oxford, Oxfordshire.
[7:40] Pouncey: Yeah, Banbury, Oxfordshire. [[Cross Talk]]
[7:42] Pritchard: Where the conditions probably were not so –
[7:44] Pouncey: Yeah, exactly. I'm not only the only president alive of Amherst to be born in China, and –probably way back–but certainly the only living president who went to school in a gas lit house, and then in Banbury with a–run by a great family, it was their home, it was sort of old Georgian manor house. And there were 55 boys. No central heating, no electric light till the last year. There was a terrific moment of great bonfire when the house went electric. In my last term in the spring of 1951, we all gathered on the playing fields above, and the great burly master electrician threw the master switch. And it was a great sort of Fiat Lux moment.
[8:40] Pritchard: “Let there be light”, yeah.
[8:41] Pouncey: And they all came, they all came, all his assistants came swarming up, like sort of conquering Edison's having transformed –
[8:51] Pritchard: [[laughter]] And this was St. Christopher's school, is that right?
[8:53] Pouncey: St. Louis. [[Cross Talk]]
[8:54] Pritchard: Sorry.
[8:55] Pouncey: Christopher was the, was–St. Christopher which died. Almost every school I've attended–Amherst should take care about this–every school I've attended, almost all of them are dead already. And some of them are sort of moot cases, but St. Christopher's–a school in Canada–actually died the day my sister and I left, it closed up. [[Cross Talk]]
[9:15] Pritchard: I see.
[9:16] Pouncey: That was the end of it after that. St. Louis died in ‘62. My English public school, Beaumont, died I think in ‘63.
[9:24] Pritchard: So at St. Louis, you began to study languages, among other things, [[Cross Talk]]
[9:30] Pouncey: Yes. Yes. Yes.
[9:32] Pritchard: –but importantly,–
[9:33] Pouncey: Right.
[9:34] Pritchard: –Greek.
[9:34] Pouncey: Greek and Latin. Uh, with this Indian army captain, who had been to Winchester–People should know that Winchester is England's brainiest public school, much more so than Eton or Harrow. It even has its own vocabulary. People have to learn the Winchester vocabulary. But he was a wonderful character and a wonderful teacher of boys, and his whole career being in the Indian Army. But basically, he taught me one-on-one for two, if not three years. And so, he made me a classicist. I mean, I was 10 or 11 when I started with him.
[10:21] Pritchard: You said–you wrote, someplace, and I want to come back to this later on with you, but you said “I cannot remember any day in my life, when I was not associated with some school.” And you go on to say, “I have come to grade the many schools I have known on one simple scale, which runs from self-absorption to openness to the world.” I don't know whether that's a claim about being associated with a school that anyone could make, or whether you find that–something distinguished or distinct about Pouncey.
[11:02] Pouncey: Oh, no, no, surely not. I, well, some people are totally happy at school even if they're insulated schools, as it were. But I always liked the notion, you know, the Coriolanus line that “there is a world elsewhere.” The great, the great trouble of schools is that, being sort of self sufficient in many ways with wonderful facilities, libraries, science labs, concert halls, and all these things, that being self sufficient, they become self-absorbed, um, and St. Louis was a wonderful, open, out-looking thing. Very small in amenities but perfectly adequate. And uh, so, I like that. [[Cross Talk]]
[11:56] Pritchard: Well, when we come to Amherst College, we'll talk about self–
[11:59] Pouncey: Self-absorption, yeah. [[Cross Talk]]
[11:59] Pritchard: –self-absorption again. But there was a world elsewhere. Now, the years from between St. Louis and coming to this country in 1976, I believe. I don't know how–
[12:15] Pouncey: ‘64. [[Cross Talk]]
[12:16] Pritchard: ‘64, ‘64, okay. [[Cross Talk]]
[12:14] Pouncey: I'm way back. Right, I've been here 45 years.
[12:22] Pritchard: So there was an experience at a Jesuit Training College at some point. Is that–
[12:30] Pouncey: Yeah. More than one, there would be. [[Cross Talk]]
[12:31] Pritchard: Is that fair as well? [[Cross Talk]]
[12:33] Pouncey: Yeah.
[12:34] Pritchard: And eventually this did not work out to–[[Cross Talk]]
[12:35] Pouncey: Right. At the Jesuit college at Oxford, it’s called Campion Hall, Oxford. English Jesuits are one province of the Society of Jesus. And they ran their own house, very beautiful house designed by Lutyens, probably best known for, but not his best architecture, for the Parliament Buildings of Delhi, New Delhi. Um. Well it was a lovely place in Oxford and a group of us– never more than 24 there I would say at any time– took regular Oxford degrees with the regular Oxford tutors in various colleges. I was always very well tutored there. And in its history it had been founded in I think the late 30s, Campion Hall, Oxford– In its history, I think it had only lost one student from there, were called scholastics which is a sort of lower rank thing before ordination in the Jesuits, scholastic. 24 of us all doing Oxford degrees, and they– Over the 38 years only one person had left, I think that person was from health reasons, there wasn't any sort of crisis of faith. In my case, the year being ‘64, 11 of 24 left in the same year, which I think interestingly– with a sort of cultural diffusion, skepticisms growing everywhere– I think coincides with the Berkeley free speech movement.
[14:21] Pritchard: Well now was there a relation between coming to America? Is that– [[Cross Talk]]
[14:27] Pouncey: Well the Jesuits– I had very good Jesuit friends, several of whom were Americans who are also studying in–, they were priests, established people, they were mostly professors in Jesuit colleges in America. They were writing books and coming over. And they actually got me my first job in America. I was imported on completing my bachelor's degree in classics to Fordham University in the Bronx, for one year to fill in for someone on sabbatical. And, uh, I hugely enjoyed American undergraduates. And I've been here ever since.
[15:08] Pritchard: Someplace in maybe one of the Amherst magazines where you were interviewed and when– after you accepted the presidency, you talk a little bit about Fordham and about, uh, what must have been one of your very first experiences with what you thought were American undergraduates. And these were football players, I believe.
[15:29] Pouncey: Well, they– I don't think they were football players. They were healthy, young, American undergraduates, I mean, whether that can be applied to football players or not, but they– For some reason, I mean, no one knew me from Adam, so it certainly had nothing to do with me. I think there was probably some sort of requirement– Jesuits fairly stern and laying out basis of things– that they had to, Fordham undergrads probably had to take a course remote from the present or something. Anyway, I was– I'm an ancient historian. So I was teaching a survey course in Greek history. And for some reason, there were 60 odd people in the class. So on the first session of the class, you know, one does what one does: “These are the books we're gonna read, these are the questions we’re gonna attend to, these sources I want you to get to know well,” and so on, blah, blah, blah. And they're– they’ve been well briefed: “There'll be two papers, a midterm and a final, and–” All of which took 20 minutes. And I've always been a good one for cutting the first class short. So at the end, someone puts his hand up and says, “Do you know how to throw an American football?” And I say, “Not yet.” And the guy said, “Come outside and we'll show you. And so that was an amazing releasing thing of friendliness that never, never at Oxford– much as I love the place– would a don, after giving a lecture, be accosted in a friendly way like that. And certainly [[laughter]] never would he go out and throw and catch a football.
[17:25] Pritchard: Never happened to me.
[17:28] Pouncey: Yeah, well– But you knew, you were assumed to know coming from Johnson City. [[Cross Talk]]
[17:32] Pritchard: [[laughter]] I guess I'd remembered something about you, you confusing undergraduates who look like football players.
[17:38] Pouncey: No, I established myself in my office, which was in a sort of outhouse. It was like an old barracks leftover from World War Two was where the classics department– Whatever is the most rundown part of any plot, probably appropriately, physical plot, it's usually given to the classics department– And ours that was certainly the situation at Fordham at the time. And, so people said, “Get yourself settled. If you have any books, the bookshelf and thing, and then the cafeteria is in the next building there,” and there was a narrow path between our little Nissen hut classics department leading to this campus center where the cafeteria was. And just going down this narrow path between the gymnasium and the Campus Center– and the door was thrown open, and 40 or so humongous– the largest people I have ever seen in my life– 40 of them, all emerged in football uniforms, some wearing the helmet, some not but all huge, absolutely expressionless looking straight through you as they went by. And I assumed [[Pritchard laughs]] they were Fordham undergraduates, and it was quite a riot. I said, “Christ, I can't teach that.” And, of course, it turned out to be the New York Giants [[Pritchard laughs]] who at the time were– They played their games at Yankee Stadium, which was still being used by the New York Yankees I soon discovered, and so they didn't have any facilities to practice on and they practiced at Fordham University in the offseason.
[19:31] Pritchard: So you might have seen Sam Huffman, Dick Modzelewski, Andy Robustelli. [[Cross Talk]]
[19:33] Pouncey: I may well have, yeah. [[Cross Talk]] Yeah, right, exactly. You see you have the names, right.
[19:39] Pritchard: I do.
[19:39] Pouncey: Right.
[19:40] Pritchard: Well, when you went to Columbia very soon, what was the year? Just a year later or a couple of years later? [[Cross Talk]]
[19:46] Pouncey: No, I think I– Well, I started, yeah, I went in ‘64 to ‘64, ‘65. I liked it. I thought I wanted to stay. If I want to stay you have to have a doctorate the union card. If you're teaching it for them, you should probably get your classics degree at Columbia cuz that's near and it's good and so on. I started February of ‘66 at Columbia, and I was there a long time. And that’s my doctorate– [[Cross Talk]]
[20:17] Pritchard: But very, very quickly you got into administration, that is you became Associate Dean–
[20:26] Pouncey: Right.
[20:26] Pritchard: –pretty soon after your first couple of years there. [[Cross Talk]]
[20:29] Pouncey: “Cannon-fodder dean.” [[Cross Talk]]
[20:31] Pritchard: “Cannon-fodder dean.”
[20:31] Pouncey: Cannon-fodder dean because of riots. They– No senior person would take it. So it's like World War One, subalterns rise very fast in warfare because people are being killed off. So, um, no. I was first an Associate Dean, a couple of years after my doctorate. So I think ‘69 I got my PhD and then ‘71 I was Associate Dean and the next year, I became the full Dean. Um. And the notion was originally– when I was the Associate Dean, I was working for Carl Hovde who was a wonderful person while still alive, still as humorous and serious about serious things as anyone I know. And I think they– we agreed together that the thing to do, he told me he was going to do one more year as Dean, and I should do one year with him to learn the ropes of what the administration of Colombia, and the interactions, and what offices did what, and so on. I should do all that for a year, and then I should break in the next Dean and help him get himself acclimatized. And then he would want his own associate dean and I would go back– [[Cross Talk]]
[22:00] Pritchard: So it was clear that you weren't going to stay for a long period, that there would be– [[Cross Talk]]
[22:03] Pouncey: Yeah. But no one wanted it, so–
[22:05] Pritchard: Yeah, yeah.
[22:06] Pouncey: No one wanted it in ‘72, which was the last of three intervals of serious troubles on campus. I think probably the bombing of Cambodia of ‘72, Kent State was probably–
[22:21] Pritchard: ‘70.
[22:22] Pouncey: ‘70, yeah.
[22:23] Pritchard: So you got in at the right time, when the– [[Cross Talk]]
[22:24] Pouncey: Yeah, yeah, amazing. And in fact, all the troubles were over in ‘72. We had our last riot. I became Dean. Old troubles were over, so I took full credit for turning them off. It was just a matter of a little finesse here and there, and they were all reasonable, yeah [[Cross talk]]
[22:46] Pritchard: But you liked it.
[22:47] Pouncey: I was probably never happier in my life.
[22:50] Pritchard: Wow.
[22:50] Pouncey: I had good friends there. Um. And the school was aching to be back to normal. Truly, deaning being totally irrelevant. It didn't matter who was dean. It was just aching that it should function as a school. They were sick of the rhetoric. They were anxious about their future. By 1976 when I'd finished deaning, the OPEC crisis was on, universities were in freezes. But we had an interval of great liveliness and high spirits. It was terrific.
[23:35] Pritchard: And then, probably, you weren't able to pay too much attention to scholarship as you were dean, but immediately afterwards or pretty soon afterwards, you published– you finished your book on Thucydides, and–
[23:48] Pouncey: Yeah. And from the age of 14 I did– At Beaumont, my English public school, I did nothing but classics. And uh– which is probably limiting, because it doesn't give you enough grounding and elsewhere. So this notion of, English notion of early specialization is a very good thing they thought, and they still think that Americans don't actually get to learn to be masters of things till too late. The notion is you don't get broadened by having broad stuff thrown at you– this is the English notion– by having lots of things thrown at you. You get broadened from your own native curiosity. For what you need is to be– get the quality of mind of a sort of specialist. And a specialist is someone who can handle evidence accurately, who can use the evidence and make valid inferences from it and stuff like that. So that if you are a normal human being– the English assume– you will take that particular set of sort of mental equipments, and you'll– you'll apply it to all sorts of things. Other languages, going to the theater, finding something about science, or foreign religions, or something. You will do it seriously because you've been trained to think hard about things. And so they find American things slowly paced. Now, when I came to Columbia, which has the most structured curriculum left in the country– for all its riots and things, it never abolished any of its requirements. There, um, the assumption is that certain books are worth reading by everyone. They've lost the notion of “the canon,” that's all been shut out of the water long since, but here are 24 books. You know, you read the first epic and the second epic, you read both Homer's. You go to the Oresteia, that's the only surviving trilogy from Greece, the first tragedies. You go on to Herodotus’s history and then Thucydides' history and so on. You're reading stuff and none of it trivial. But I have never– and people who say, “Oh, this is repulsive, making people learn things that they haven't chosen.” I think it's absolute hogwash, actually.
[26:34] Pritchard: Well now is this the course called “Contemporary Civilization”? [[Cross Talk]]
[26:37] Pouncey: No, that is humanities. That's literary humanities. And parallel to that, but every Columbia student at the same time in the same week is reading this week Cervantes, last week Montaigne probably, the week before that the Decameron, and so on. [[Cross Talk]]
[26:55] Pritchard: And you were involved in that and even, you ran it. [[Cross talk]]
[26:59] Pouncey: Yeah. So I became a convert. Yeah, I ran “Contemporary Civilization,” which was social and political work, so you do Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, City of God and so on. And, you know, up through Erasmus, you know, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and so on onto Marx. And I only ran the second one, Contemporary Civiliz– Only Columbia would take someone who's an expert in the fifth century BC, put them in charge of a program called “Contemporary Civilization.” I only taught it first because I hadn't read the books, and that's the sort of principle error of the English assumption. That the quality of mind gets you prepared to attack anything and if you're a broad person, naturally, you'll deepen your broadness as it were. The trouble is you never get around to reading the things that might broaden you, and so I thought if I had to teach it, then I presumably have to read it first. And so I had read the Communist Manifesto and things, but I never read Marx or to read the German ideology had to read the first volume of Kapital and stuff like that. You actually, you actually end up under this system of “certain books are worth reading.” Whether in literature or whether in political or social theory, you end up reading very, very seminal texts, which have had a sort of lasting influence. [Pause] That's what I think.
[28:38] Pritchard: And you don't change your mind. You haven't changed your mind about that. I mean, since your retirement as president, you've gone back and taught– [[Cross Talk]]
[28:45] Pouncey: I've taught humanities, I love teaching it. I teach the literature now, I don't teach the contemporary. But I think I've hung it up because I want to do some more writing, but I taught– I've, for the last few years, I've taught many and some wonderful classes.
[29:01] Pritchard: Well by this time, by the late 70s, early 80s, you're an experienced teacher and a scholar of reputation. I believe the Thucydides book won a prize, an academic prize. And you come into my picture when, in 1983, for some reason I'm a member of the–
[29:25] Pouncey: Yes! You were [[Cross Talk]]
[29:26] Pritchard: Amherst College Presidential Search Committee, I was elected to it.
[29:28] Pouncey: I have a very clear memory
[29:30] Pritchard: Impossible to believe and–
[29:31] Pouncey: You look, you look to me extraordinarily skeptical as I noticed you are today. Anything I said on the day- Now remember,
[29:40] Pritchard: Not at all skeptical. In fact, I must reveal you were one of the later candidates interviewed and after each candidate was interviewed, we would go around the table and each person on the committee- trustee, faculty student, whoever- would say what they thought of Peter Pouncey. And usually there would be some dissent. In the case of Pouncy, 14, as I remember 14 strong affirmatives ending with the ending with Chuck Longsworth saying that it might be nice to have an Englishman as president. [[Laughter]]
[30:20] Pouncey: Yes.
[30:21] Pritchard: And I was surprised at that. So it didn't do you any harm, I think, to have come.
[30:26] Pouncey: I remember in the Copley Plaza Hotel, I may be the only president- This is very important for the people who use this extraordinarily valuable tape for their future researches- I think I am certainly the only president of Amherst College- and I was the 16th. I think we're now up to 19. Who had never at any point in the search procedure visited the campus.
[30:57] Pritchard: Hmm. That’s right. We should say that this search came about after the sudden untimely death of President [Cross Talk]
[31:05] Pouncey: Julian Gibbs.
[31:05] Pritchard: -Julian Gibbs in 1980, 1981. I guess it was 198-.
[31:11] Pouncey: Two.
[31:11] Pritchard: -two. You speak of, you spoke of the generous impulse. And this seems to me, this little sentence, a good example of the wit and complication of your prose, generally. The generous impulse of a search committee to embrace a total stranger was qualified when you arrived on campus. Was qualified on campus by a proper reserve and caution. A surprising number of people seemed to want you to know that they had been here a very long time indeed, some of them apparently forever, which is a, which is a-
[31:50] Pouncey: Which is most impressive,
[31:51] Pritchard: Well, you said that and you also spoke of a faculty member, a nameless faculty member saying to you while you were watching a soccer game, that he felt sorry for you because it was hard for an outsider to break into a school like Amherst, especially for a president. Uh, well, you managed- [[Cross Talk]]
[32:12] Pouncey: Right, right.
[32:12] Pritchard: Without visible strain.
[32:16] Pouncey: Right. Um. But anyway, I can remember saying, after- in the same speech afterwards, that rattling around the president's house, I think I said. I would speculate on what I saw as a smug pretension in the place and entertain myself by telling bad jokes. And I can remember I gave an example of a bad joke and it was, I would tell- I would intone in a very serious voice, “The thing to remember about Amherst College is that its name is an anagram for hamster.” And curiously enough, the faculty did not like that at all, which was absolutely fine, but the students- [[Cross Talk]]
[32:59] Pritchard: Must have been forgotten now, we don't talk about that.
[33:01] Pouncey: No, and the students, but the students liked that quite a bit. I think, you know, the impulse is to be protective of one’s school, what you think of as “my school” and not just its traditions which can often get stuffy, sort of fustian. But, um, protective of the things it cares about and whether or not this president, this outsider, actually embraces it. I- people will be surprised how much I loved, you know, the various features of it. I love the fact there was a singing college. I love the fact that one in every four or five Amherst students are involved in choral singing of one sort or another, I thought it was fantastic.
[33:51] Pritchard: But really among your immediate predecessors, it was only John William Ward who did not graduate from Amherst College, so it was still in 1984- [[Cross Talk]]
[34:00] Pouncey: He was a- he had a connection because he was a faculty member [[Cross Talk]]
[34:03] Pritchard: That’s right.
[34:03] Pouncey: -when he became-. Yeah, I think we go back to Pease. After Olds. [[Cross Talk]]
[34:08] Pritchard: Arthur Stanley Pease.
[34:09] Pouncey: Yeah. Was in the 1930s, who came from Union College I don't believe he'd had a- and then went from Amherst to Harvard as a classics professor, but I don't think he had an Amherst connection. Otherwise, uh-
[34:24] Pritchard: Well, I would guess that 1984 would not be singled out as a particularly peculiarly troubled time in Amherst’s history. [[Cross Talk]]
[34:32] Pouncey: No, no.
[34:32] Pritchard: And I'm trying to think back and name, to my mind, what were some of the issues or problems that you had to deal with and you- correct me on this- but one of them was fraternities, which had just been abolished. [[Cross Talk]]
[34:47] Pouncey: Very brave. I was appointed, sort of President Elect or whatever it is, in the very beginning of August 1983, but I could not come until the following year. I had a lot of commitments at Columbia, which I'd sort of sworn onto and it was a month before the new school year started. And, so I met Armour [G. Armour Craig, acting president]. I think he was not the slightest bit impressed with what he saw.
[35:22] But he said, “Let's walk in the garden a bit, I want to ask you something,” and I said “fine.” And he said, “I am thinking that the time is ripe to abolish the fraternities. And I would like to do that in this year because I'm equipped to do it.” Now, he was uniquely equipped to do it, and I think it needed doing and it particularly needed doing in the wake of coeducation, in which the heavy, testosterone-laden sort of tone of some fraternity behavior was sort of damaging to the whole cause of coeducation. The two populations were not living naturally together. He had seen that. And the reason he could do it himself was that he'd been a student. He had been a fraternity member and head of a fraternity. He taught in the college all his life, and he saw the time was right. Williams had done it under the great Jack Sawyer, great president of Williams, oh I think 20 years earlier, maybe even longer. So, um, uh, that was a very brave thing to do, because he had one year as acting president and it could have been a wonderful Mr. Chips type of final stamp of pleasure in his great school. And I think it was that, simply because of his own status, although there was plenty of grumbling and plenty of- But he did it, which of course made it, uh, easier for me to follow up on it. Very important moment.
[37:10] Pritchard: Well, this is very close to the beginnings of coeducation. Began in ‘76, the first co-ed class of 1980. And certainly a lot of alumni out there, combining the coeducation decision, which was not pleasing to everyone, with Bill Ward's decision in 1972 to go to Westover and sit down and civilly disobey the government, which I think also many alumni were not-
[37:41] Pouncey: Right.
[37:42] Pritchard: pleased by. You- those issues were intertwined. Maybe also the question of women's studies, which eventually is going to surface in your career. And then a third or maybe a fourth, something which never came to very much, but the sense on the part of many alumni and some faculty members, not a majority, that it was time to return to some kind of a structured curriculum.
[38:16] Pouncey: [[affirmation]]
[38:17] Pritchard: And it seems to me that, as I remember, when you came in people said, “Well, Pouncey, he's from Columbia. He believes in the core curriculum. He's going to do something about this.” And did you have any illusions-? [[Cross Talk]]
[38:27] Pouncey: Well, I would have liked to, I mean, you are the last relic of, uh-
[38:33] Pritchard: The last relic?
[38:34] Pouncey: Of, uh- Well, you're well preserved. Better preserved than I am, but the, you know, that you and a small cadre of committed readers and scholars annually pick a group of texts that sit well together and you all teach them in various sections and you debate that's, it's a smaller pocket version of a core curriculum.
[39:16] And I believe in that too, to this day, I've seen nothing. I've had very recent experience of Colombia, the enthusiasm, no one has ever has, has ever questioned to me in endless years, 40 years of teaching, in Columbia's core program, “Why are we reading this book?” The importance and quality of the books they read are unchallengeable. So it's a complete mistake that somehow a great book- if because it's required- Not that it's the only great book as the argument, year by year, by over the staff of, “Is it time to drop Goethe’s Faust and do something else?” The, no that’s the only book, so I did, I do believe in that it was just- It was just clear to me, and I know why it's difficult. Uh, it's not for nothing that Columbia can maintain this system. It has in fact 58 sections of humanities, everyone reading the same book in humanities, and 58 sections the following year in Contemporary Civilization taught by another 58 different people. Sections held at 22 per section so that people can and must discuss in the classroom. That's a huge investment. Amherst is too small to do that, and especially when you go into the small print, and you notice that, in fact, the majority of Columbia sections of these courses are actually taught by graduate students.
[42:22] Pritchard: Yes.
[41:23] Pouncey: Now, we don't have graduate students.
[41:25] Pritchard: We don’t.
[41:26] Pouncey: So it's unworkable on the thing and, you know, you don't have to be any sort of genius to realize this cannot fit here. And especially as faculty and their specialties- You don't realize what a wonderfully weird, unique specimen you are. That your sort of catholicity of taste through English literature, poetry, prose and everything else. You write about it, you read it, you review it, and you teach it. But that is not a typical profile of a current faculty member.
[42:07] Pritchard: And you pretty quickly realized if you hadn't already before you came, that there was no mandate- that things were moving toward the periphery. [[Cross Talk]]
[42:17] Pouncey: No, no, I wish [[Cross Talk]]
[42:17] Pritchard: Diversification.
[42:18] Pouncey: I wish it were so, but you know more or less gonna- What the faculty member realizes and you know, those hostile to the free open curriculum stuff of colleges always say is it's sort of self indulgent. They don't want to be teaching these required courses year after year after year. They want to be free to spread the thing and follow their own curiosity. [[Cross Talk]]
[42:48] Pritchard: Do their speciality.
[42:29] Pouncey: Yeah. And so it is two separate worlds. But, you know, it's not just the great books that I'm- want to put in a paragraph here- I'm, I was here and I still, I still believe it's a shocking thing in the 21st century- it was still the 20th when I was here- that people are not required to learn some serious science in which the scientific method, it's sort of demonstrated. And there were some wonderful faculty members, Romer and Kropf putting together energy and entropy and things in which serious things about key scientific concepts were turned on. I wanted more of those, if for modern society, to be- to enter modern society without a knowledge of, of how these things operate in a different sort of intellectual frame seems to me a serious neglect.
[43:49] Pritchard: Well, I'll give you a rather more vague question, invitation. My friend, the recently dead William Kennick, Professor of Philosophy-
[44:04] Pouncey: Yes.
[44:04] Pritchard: said that when he came here to be interviewed in 1955 by President Cole,- Kennick came here from Oberlin. Cole said to him, “Mr. Kennick, you understand, do you, or I understand that at Oberlin, the faculty run the college. Here at Amherst, I run the college.” Did you run the college?
[44:32] Pouncey: Dear old Austin Sarat, one of the few Austin statements that I will embrace, without any, without any quibble or sort of correction of nuance. He said once at a faculty meeting, “the trouble with us is, we the faculty can't run the college. And we won't let anyone else run it either.” Well, the, so, you know, to my mind the Amherst College faculty does not run the college and, but it does make very laborious work of it. I have very firm ideas about what good administration is. Good administration is in a straight line. When I was dean of Columbia College, people more or less told me, “Run the bloody school and don't give us any surprises.” They had work to do. They wrote, they taught, they, there's a sort of illusion that Amherst alone is the really committed teacher thing. That's simply not true. People teach very hard in other, even large universities. But they don't sit in committee for hours and hours and hours.
[46:02] Recently, I shall in fact bring this right up with the President. There is, with the budget crisis, open meeting after open meeting talking about, about ways of saving money - highly laudable - and you know, people wanting to protect their salaries, people wanting to protect their jobs. All of this. Good administration is, “here is the problem.” There’s no charisma, forget charisma, forget rhetorical power and, there’s no charisma about administration. This is the problem. It's a real problem, and we have to do something. It's not a false problem, in which case we would ignore it. It's a real problem. This is what people say about the problem, this side they say this and that. So then there has to be someone who says this is what we're going to do about the problem. This is what we're going to do. And then you do it, having explained why you're doing it- this reason outweighs that one - and then you get ready for the next assault. Alright? So do we have to correct our solution? Yes. But someone has to decide these things. The committee doesn't decide these things. It's still on whatever side it was. So good administration moves in a straight line, there's no charisma, just shovel the stuff in a straight line on and on and on, listening to people and then making up your mind. Whether it's the budget or not, I think. So there has to be in any institution that is made to function and not just caught in its own rituals. There has to be someone who actually decides.
[47:50] A lot of people- and I think I tend to agree- um, think that in one particular- I now agree, I didn’t agree when I was president, but I think I now agree. But the president has, at Amherst, unilateral, really, power over salaries. That he actually decides what each member- There are structures for the early ranks, but at the time of full professor, there is no structure. That is probably forcing a sort of invidious relationship between the faculty and its president. I don't know where the uh, where the strain if there is such a thing between the President and the faculty of Amherst, the presumed notion of an ongoing sort of conflict- I don't know where that came from. I used to think that it came from the difficulties with- who is the president who was- excellent great man who was fired in ‘23?
[49:03] Pritchard: Meiklejohn?
[49:04] Pouncey: Meiklejohn, Meiklejohn.
[49:04] Pritchard: Oh, Meiklejohn.
[49:06] Pouncey: Uh, but somehow there had been a sort of crisis of power between Meiklejohn’s authoritarianism and the fact that-. But Baird said actually it went about much, much back before then- there was this sort of principle of things. But Williams, which is a very similar institution, has no such thing. Has no sense of a sort of beleaguerment, of-
[49:27] Pritchard: Well you speak of strain between faculty and president. I somehow have the sense that you didn't exactly enjoy faculty meetings over the 10 years. [[Cross talk]]
[49:37] Pouncey: Well nobody enjoyed faculty meetings, I think- [[Cross Talk]]
[49:38] Pritchard: Nobody enjoyed- [[Cross Talk]]
[49:39] Pouncey: They were silly things it often seemed to me that the amount of time wasted was
[49:40] Pritchard: Somebody must enjoy them, they- [[laughter]]
[49:45] Pouncey: No, the faculty seemed to enjoy them. I mean, someone said to me, rather chastisingly, there was a time when presidents trembled at faculty meetings. You know, this notion that- and the Red Room as the bear pit. People warned me about that, before, when I, before I came here. So it was something I think the faculty rather likes.
[50:08] Pritchard: It's also true. I think that- I can, maybe I'm wrong here, but you can correct me- that unlike many of your predecessors, immediate predecessors, your ten year period did not consist of an increasing strain between president and faculty, that you- Often there's this perception that that the faculty at some point rise up and say, “No, we've had enough and it's time.” [[Cross Talk]]
[50:38] Pouncey: Yeah, I didn’t feel, I slowly got more comfortable. I think it did get more comfortable.
[50:45] Pritchard: Well, and-
[50:48] Pouncey: Uh, as time went on. But I know Gibbs found it very hard. I knew Ward found it very hard
[50:59] Pritchard: Plimpton, Plimpton, the last years of Calvin Plimpton were [[Cross Talk]]
[51:01] Pouncey: Right, Right, and even Charlie Cole, much loved.
[51:03] Pritchard: Ah,
[51:03] Pouncey: Much loved, famously. The presidents share this sort of lore of their sense that their sort that grudgingness of, or,- Let me reverse it, as a sort of false sense of entitlement that we the faculty, you know, have an administration which which works for us and raises money for us and gets our salaries, but somehow we have to be the central feature of all planning, budgetary or otherwise. Um, I mean, Cole apparently once promised, told the faculty I think in his last year, that he had persuaded the trustees that the faculty salaries of- so, you know- Why is all this always stuff in a faculty meeting?- that, persuaded the trustees that the faculty salaries of Amherst College would in fact exceed those of any other college in the country. And there was a huge protest that it should be, not only the top of all colleges, but all universities too because they were unique. And that he went home and vomited, he told somebody that- with distress, now this is the beloved Charlie Cole who did 14 or 15 years.
[52:37] Pritchard: In one of his very last meetings, the most embarrassing- my most embarrassing moment in a faculty meeting, 1959 I think it was. After he’d put his prestige behind some moderate reform of the curriculum, and the faculty had voted them down. He said “I'm disappointed in the faculty.” And George B. Funnell who was a very mannerly, quiet-spoken professor of French rose and said, “You don't need to lecture the faculty, President Cole.” That- That kind of thing I know-
[53:12] Pouncey: Well, I think we, I mean, let's face it, we have a great little school here, William. And it didn't get here out of presidential action. It did build, great college of tradition. [[Cross Talk]]
[53:33] Pritchard: Well, now, you must have, you must have told yourself a story after you retired or began to tell it while you were still here. About what you did, what happened, what the narrative was. Could you make a little quick story out of what you did in 10 years at Amherst and how you saw your contribution?
[53:54] Pouncey: I mean, the economic fortunes of these colleges are clearly things that an administration and a board should concern themselves with, and in fact Amherst over my time- magnificently taken care of by Ted Cross and succeeded by the great Hungarian, wily Peter Nadosy- not an Amherst alum.
[54:17] Pritchard: No.
[54:18] Pouncey: A Harvard alumnus. But who was very excellent. So, in fact, everyone could live in the style to which they became- had become accustomed. Ah, we did some building. Um, we encouraged interdisciplinary things, uh, women's studies, law, jurisprudence, and social thought. Ah, and some other- more emphasis on using our connection with Japan. Asian Studies. The sort of interdisciplinary things that, breaking down the barriers between departments as it were. That, you know, that intellectual disciplines should never be displayed as though they came boxed- one bought it here, one cover of the book there and the closing cover there- that they wash over into each other. And I think that broader attitude, which allows faculty to interact with each other, and there are many people who are very good at it in this college, so that was all good. And Pouncey sort of potted on and found it quite enjoyable. Good tennis with Sofield.
[55:47] Pritchard: Yeah, I think there was a- perhaps you were or were not aware of this- a perception that, at least for a while, that you were a tough guy. That the number of people who were denied tenure was perhaps more significant?
[56:04] Pouncey: Yeah. The first, the first year, um- The first year, there were nine people up for tenure and seven were denied. And that led to meetings in Johnson Chapel about the procedure, whether this new president was maintaining or doing something with the standards habitual at the college. And it was clear that that was- if this President wanted to survive, this was draconian in the extreme. I was assured at the time, because I kept asking the question: “Is this- are these the results, your results that you would expect in individual cases?” I'm not interested in the huge number, you're not doing it by proportion.
[57:01] The larger question of whether I was a tough guy or not- When I was a little cannon-fodder dean back at Columbia, various people were sort of amused helpers of me. Meyer Schapiro was a very good supporter of me. Trilling was alive until my last year as dean, and had been on the search committee that found me and so on. Fritz Stern who became provost of the university and so on. But one of the ones I most enjoyed as the thing that- I. I. Rabi, you know, the great physicist, Nobel Prize winning physicist and the head of the Manhattan Project, he became a sort of mentor of mine, who was hugely amused at this young creature in the dean's office, and he would come and he'd sort of finished with physics. So he would turn up. I remember giving a lecture on national character and national frontiers in for an NEH conference at Columbia on Thucydides. And he came and heard that and he said, “an interesting man, your character as you describe him, he may be the only person who can actually note events as they happen. Is this true? Note events as they happen, and then make history out of them and see patterns in the history.” So he [indistinguishable]. But he told me, so this is coming back to the whether [indistinguishable]. He said just remember this, this is in one of our conversations, just remember this, first class people appoint other first class people to their departments, because they never want to be bored. But second class people appoint third class people because they never want to be intimidated. And the question of maintaining a standard of a faculty overall- I know it's sort of gospel in institutions that the faculty is uniformly terrific- but it's much harder for a small institution that- everywhere has its currents up and down. That was a good period for anthropology, say at Columbia, You know, when it had Margaret Mead and had Boaz and so on. And Ruth Benedict. It's much harder for a small college- a department with- full of- a department of five, to maintain, if the standard falls below a certain level, then in fact, it's very hard for them to get back to the high level they remember. Or they, they would like to be at. And I think that's probably true. So it seemed to me important that one should set fairly exigent standards of teaching and scholarship. And I would like a scholarship to keep going on. I don't like people to retire from scholarship. Uh, I like it to go on and on and on. And after all, that's what the faculty handbook says we should all do.
[1:00:28] Pritchard: You know, I think those exigent standards you speak of, in professional judgment, carried over are perhaps of a piece with your personality too, that- not to overuse this terrible phrase- “he doesn't suffer fools gladly.” But there was, again, a perception about Pouncey that he didn't suffer fools gladly, and that, uh, he respected or admired or liked some people more than others, even some faculty members more than others. And that is, of course, a dangerous thing for a president to put around, because one way to be a president, I should think, was to try to like everybody and be everybody's pal and you weren't perceived as that. So you had, you had your detractors, as well as your- [[Cross Talk]]
[1:01:18] Pouncey: Oh, yeah. And of course, you know, the detractors may well- very well be right. I mean, be right. I may be, in fact, inherently unlikable. That's probably irrelevant from the needs of the institution. I don't think you, um, I can be quite tender minded, you know, whether with faculty or with students. It seems to me that, you know- I know that's a great myth in the world that where on earth can there be a cushier life than those people who are living up there staring at the Holyoke range. I mean, where could it be cushier than that? When in fact there is a huge demand made on faculty members who sort of take a pledge. You know, when they sit down for their doctoral defense, the first question has been, what original contribution does this document make to the field? And in other words, you're meant to have come up with some new idea or new exposition or new arrangement of ideas to constitute originality, and they're meant to keep doing that for the rest of their lives. That's an exigent thing. It's very hard. You know, in the little introduction I wrote to a book of essays, I quoted G.H. Hardy, the great mathematician. His first line almost in his foreword to his book on a mathematician’s apology, he says, “I must apologize to my readers for the fact that, and to my colleagues, for the fact I am now reached the stage that I can no longer do important new mathematics. So I'm simply going to write about mathematics,” and he spoke of it as a huge decline. Well, that's a sense of someone losing powers. I think faculty people wrestle with that thought in their mind, are they as sharp, are they as strong, are they as insightful?
[1:03:49] Pritchard: Well, now, you remind me- You just reminded me and you modestly refrained in speaking about your time here, from mentioning the book of essays, titled Teaching What We Do, that you instigated, uh, pushed certain members of the faculty- anybody who wanted to contribute- but pushed certain members to write for. And did something that as far as I know no other president has done before or since. [[Cross Talk]]
[1:04:17] Pouncey: And my greatest pride about that is, I was good friends with Frank Oakley at Williams my- who is a Brit, Jesuit-educated president of Williams and we were sort of more or less in mesh together in our time in office together. And there was some event there at Williams and it was going to be the future of humanity- is one of these big, plummy puffballs of a question- and someone came over to me and said, “I greatly admire the book you edited.” He said, “I don't think we could do that here at Williams.” Now, I greatly admire Williams because I think they probably could do it, but I think that was- I don't know what the difficulty was. There are a lot of people who would like to say, “This is what I think of my field, and this is what I try and do in it. And this is what I try and get the students to appreciate in it.” Why is that a hard thing to do? But in fact, I think not many people have done it.
[1:05:28] Pritchard: Well, there were people here who thought this was not a good idea.
[1:05:31] Pouncey: Yeah.
[1:05:31] Pritchard:I remember at the time.
[1:05:36] Pouncey: It's turned out to be a very good book for two things. It's been a very good book for prospective students. Where, you know, parents or someone say, “Let's see what they've got teaching in this place.” And then you know, you can get the course catalog which gives you a little blurb and you see the degrees of the people in front and say, “It seems to be a professor well-qualified,” or whatever. But, you know, a piece of writing that is short and [unintelligible]. And alumni like it, too. [[Cross Talk]]
[1:06:08] Pritchard: Alumni, although not enough of them. I thought it would sell like hotcakes, but it did something less than that. [[Cross Talk]]
[1:06:14] Pouncey: Yeah.
[1:06:16] Pritchard: Well, after 10 years, were you ready to retire, or did you have that in mind before? [[Cross Talk]]
[1:06:22] Pouncey: I told Spike, I told Spike Beitzel who had appointed me when he was chairman of the board. I said, “How long do you want?” And he said, “Well, actually, we need a solid chunk because Ward did age. But Julian Gibbs died in the middle of his third year towards the end of his third year, so we need a chunk to get the thing so I'd like to do 10 to- you to do 10 to 12.” Well, 10 was pretty much the limit, maybe, maybe a year or so too long. But I said I’d do 10 and I did 10.
[1:07:01] Pritchard: But the- you then did, having been appointed not just as president of the college but as professor of classics. You then did what? Again, I don't think, I don't know my history well enough, but I don't think of very many Amherst presidents who taught. Did Pease?
[1:07:21] Pouncey: I don't know if he had here. He went off to Harvard to be a professor of classics after here.
[1:07:28] Pritchard: At any rate, you didn't become ambassador to Chile or work for the Ford Foundation and how, how was it to be? Did you go to faculty meetings?
[1:07:37] Pouncey: Yeah.
[1:07:37] Pritchard: As a, as a
[1:07:38] Pouncey: Yeah. I don't think I behaved particularly well
[1:07:41] Pritchard: For sort of two or three years, wasn't it?
[1:07:43] Pouncey: Three, three, it was actually the silliness of the commute that made me stop, but also the hover of, of presidenting. To be an ex-president is not a good fit, as it were.
[1:07:58] Pritchard: Yeah.
[1:07:58] Pouncey: In the- in the place. I was sort of, I went back to Columbia was entirely comfortable there and the teaching was, you know,
[1:08:07] Pritchard: Yeah.
[1:08:07] Pouncey: somehow more invigorating. But basically it's a commute, that when you find yourself in the middle of February on a Tuesday morning, leaving at five o'clock in the morning through horizontal sleet, to come and teach your course on Sophocles at 10, you know, sooner or later, however stupid you are, you're gonna ask the question, “Why am I doing this?” When in fact there’s Columbia a mile and a half away, which would be perfectly glad to have me back, so
[1:08:43] Pritchard: Well, there was Columbia a mile and a half away, but there was also your writing
[1:08:48] Pouncey: Right.
[1:08:48] Pritchard: which you pretty quickly turned yourself to in a fairly intensive way. And the major product of that so far has been your novel Rules for Old Men Waiting. And I happen- just happened to have reread it as research for this with increased admiration if anything. Wonderful book, beautiful book, densely written page-by-page as anybody who knows it will agree. Had that been on the boil for a long time?
[1:09:25] Pouncey: Yeah.
[1:09:25] Pritchard: or simmering, or what?
[1:09:26] Pouncey: Yeah. Well yeah, but not as, not as a novel. I, I wrote I thought quite seriously for about 20 years sometimes just doing a character sketch of somebody, sometimes a short story or a few, and there really was no intention to, to weave them all into a novel, but the time I had, my guess is I put them all in a sort of little wooden chest, threw them in there and it was it was relaxation, that you weren't preoccupied with the budget. You weren't doing any of the inanities of what the president's job entailed that- The thing is doing something for yourself. And, uh, and, you know, I think the volume of stuff in there rose, I think, well over 1000 pages, I don't know how many, of totally disparate stuff. But out of the mess, I could remember a couple of characters. I could remember the bullying sergeant.
[1:10:34] Pritchard: Braddis.
[1:10:34] Pouncey: Braddis, yeah. And you, you know, you fool around. I don't know if you've noticed in that book, that the four principal characters, you sort of tease your reader, and this is clearly for, just to amuse myself. But they have, the four characters, it's clear that MacIver, the author of the book within the book
[1:11:02] Pritchard: Yeah.
[1:11:02] Pouncey: had no names for them, and he just called them ABCD at first. So you have Alston, Braddis, Callum, Do-
[1:11:11] Pritchard: I missed it.
[1:11:11] Pouncey: Callum, Dodds.
[1:11:13] Pritchard: Dodds.
[1:11:13] Pouncey: So that, so that people can sort of yawn and say, “Oh, he's fiddling with that,” but anyway, that’s sort of some other thing. But anyway, I had the characters and then they, then they shaped, I wanted a big bluff man who takes stock of his life as it were, which and that, you know, signal moments in his life which corresponded to the wars. I had a very feisty agent, Molly Friedrich. I can remember the first time I met her, she's very feisty, and she said, well, and so there’s a love story. The wars and stuff on nature. “Read all that before and what have you done with it?” And I said, this is not a sort of woman you should only try and hit a single against. You had to put it out of the park so I said, “I've written a bloody tour de force. I've got the whole of the 20th century inside 200 pages”
[1:12:27] Pritchard: 200 pages.
[1:12:28] Pouncey: And she yelled at the top of a voice that people's heads came out of their offices and said “That's what you've done!” But, but that was clearly part of the notion that you would have World War One, World War Two, and the Vietnam War as sort of big, studied moments in the
[1:12:45] Pritchard: School gets in there, too. I was struck
[1:12:49] Pouncey: Oh, by, there’s some teaching.
[1:12:51] Pritchard: Yeah. And at some point near the end of the book when you're, when McKeever MacIver McKeever is speaking against the notion of the habit of single-mindedness, and the following: “The fact is that we do learn from each other, especially those we admire or love. That is perhaps why we have schools. We can come, if we are blessed if we are blessed, to see things differently, because we've been shown a better look.” I kind of missed that the first time through but put it along with your, your sense of never having been without a school somehow and, and the belief that
[1:13:36] Pouncey: Good.
[1:13:36] Pritchard: that within, and, and that also, I wanted to ask you about this return to the business of the school, being graded, running on a scale from self-absorption to openness to the world. And it seems to me just to speak in contemporary terms that openness to the world is what's getting talked about around Amherst at the moment and everybody is supposed to be very responsive to that. But self-absorption, which sounds as if it could be bad, something we want to get out of, provinciality, navel-gazing at the worst, that would involve learning from each other
[1:14:23] Pouncey: Well-
[1:14:24] Pritchard: Within the school, no?
[1:14:26] Pouncey: Well, let's think if whether or not I agree with that.
[1:14:28] Pritchard: Yeah.
[1:14:28] Pouncey: The openness to the world is, you know if you take someone like Theodore Baird, who I didn't know well, but you did you know, the intellectual curiosity he had in sort of any essay topics he shaped, showed that he’s not tied to one particular methodology. He's not always asking the same question of the sa- you know, the same type of literature, things. He's sort of turning it to see different facets about it. So, openness to the world is largely what I would like to think of as the sort of the spiritual, the aesthetic, the intellectual currents of the world more than public events and things because I think, I think those are, are um, things that sort of inform other movements which are more ephemeral.
[1:15:41] And it's an astonishing thing that as we look at sort of world problems at the moment, that I would say you and I looking at the state of Palestine and Israel would agree grimly that that has reached the status of a truly insoluble, perpetual problem now. And then one thinks of, I, I think back to the problem of Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, which I know, um, you know, from England next door, I viewed as a totally insoluble problem. The Brits all wedded to their, the Northern Irish, or wedded to their connection to England, right down to the question of amenity that they had English health care, which was better than Irish health care, the jobs were better, and so on, and that they weren't interlopers at all. They were members, full members of the Union. And the Catholics whose island it was, I thought it was insoluble and yet it seems to have been solved.
[1:17:01] I think, you know, someone like Baird, that there is a great puzzle there of, where does intractability get unbudgeable, and where does what are the sort of small currents of change or difference of thought? In Northern Ireland thing, almost everyone seems to agree it was the women, actually the mothers, particularly, of Irish and Catholic families, who had seen enough carnage, and their revulsion at it suddenly started infecting wider and wider circles. We don't, we don't that's, that's what being open to the world is, the, is the push these, these great puzzles. I mean, what is going to happen in the Far East, what is going to happen to the various kinds of extremism? And how much longer are we embroiled in it? I mean, we're clearly educating each other, we hope, to address these things seriously and not pretend they're not there. So that's what I think being open to the world is. “Self-absorbed” is a “boo” word in my regard as opposed to a “hooray” word. “Open to the world” is a “hooray” word. It's not that we have to do more multi-culti things necessarily. It's not that at all. It's that there are sort of human challenges thrown at one of great seriousness in the world. And we need to make gains against. So it's not a sort of idle topic, I think. We need to make gains against.
[1:18:50] Self-absorption is, is not that we're going to love all our brethren with great intensity and that will produce wonderful things. Self-absorption is doing the same thing and only seeing it one way all the time and then projecting that onto the institution which holds you and nurtures you, that pays you and so on. And this institution should always keep doing it this way because it's the right, the right way. I think some flexing and breathing large and so on is a highly desirable thing. Institutions should grow in themselves even if they're, the numbers stay, stay the same.
[1:19:39] And like people, and you know, we have all been taught by people, and I love Oxford dearly. I was taught by some people at Oxford who were stupendous figures. My ancient history teacher, AJ Holiday, fellow of All Souls, and mentored me stupendously. But
[1:20:04] Pritchard: But there were some dons who were tremendously self-absorbed, too? [[cross-talk]
[1:20:07] Pouncey: Self-absorbed and lecturing out of the same yellow notes year after year
[1:20:11] Pritchard: But, but who, who became, who stayed confident in their eccentricity if you will?
[1:20:18] Pouncey: Eccentricity and a little more than that: in their status. They assume somehow, and your friend, Baird
[1:20:26] Pritchard: Oh, I'm thinking of him.
[1:20:29] Pouncey: Yeah, but I think he was- Are you thinking of him as, as stuck, or are you thinking of?
[1:20:34] Pritchard: I’m thinking of him as someone that anyone from the outside would say, “My, he's a strange man. My, he's eccentric.”
[1:20:42] Pouncey: Right.
[1:20:42] Pritchard: “My, he's” But not stuck. Not stuck.
[1:20:45] Pouncey: No, open, open.
[1:20:47] Pritchard: But, but intensely self-absorbed.
[1:20:50] Pouncey: Well, let's, yes, this is, this is good, William. This is, this is exactly what we should, we should think of. The, see, the last essay, I once, I don't tell this- Probably told you it before, this is not a great moment for president policy, but we, I think because I'd heard so much about Baird from you and from Ken Bacon, who was one of his regular correspondents, and from several other alumni and, of the importance of Baird, and I, I thought it was time, as he was approaching 90 at the time. We gave him an honorary degree. So I can remember taking it round, taking the thing I wrote it in, in what I hoped was good English, and so taking it round to tender the offer of an honorary degree from Amherst at the next commencement, and he wrote the loveliest and most gracious letter back saying, “It’s a great honor, but there are various reasons I cannot accept it. And it's, first of all, I've been already hugely rewarded by the students I taught and my ongoing connection with them” And he did maintain a huge correspondence with people he taught. “And secondly, I went to Hobart, and Hobart offered me an honorary degree, and I turned that down. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to be seen as turning my alma mater down to accept one from Amherst. And thirdly, I, I've always had a sort of ambivalent relationship with institutions.”
[1:23:00] So I was in a pissed-off mood that day anyway. So I wrote back. And it seemed to me the last one was a sort of weakness Baird would’ve, the last reason was a weakness Baird would have lept on himself. And I said, “You know, I hate to do this too, but I certainly accept your very, very graceful declination, declining of our offer. I understand perfectly, but I do think you're wrong on the last point, that, you know, we all think we're more independent than we are, in fact, probably, we think we are. But the fact is, you are a professor of English. And professors of English are only found in institutions. They don't exist out there in the-” And I sort of regretted the curmudgeonliness, but I think I did a Bairdism on him
[1:23:57] Pritchard: Yeah.
[1:23:59] Pouncey: in the doing. But he wrote the most lovely final essay in a book that, that Gar Cross, Jerry Cross produced and you edited, I think.
[1:24:10] Pritchard: Yeah.
[1:24:11] Pouncey: The loveliest essay about, “You know when I came to school there were all these Mr. Chips figures around, when I came to teach in college. All these Mr. Chips people, and they always seem to be pompous and self-preening and slightly ridiculous and out of it in terms of what was going on intellectually in the world. Probably the sort of people who teach out of their own yellowing notes. And yet I would meet alumni year after year, who would tell me that these very people I was so busy despising, were in fact people who changed their lives.” And then in a wonderful flash of sort of self-disparaging and self-awareness, I think, he said, “and I'm aware, I'm actually now in some quarters revered and people keep telling me I changed their lives. But I know to the new people coming on, I must be a silly old fart.” Pritchard laughs.]]
[1:25:28] So what is it? What is it, as it were? You know, I suppose in Freudian terms it's a case of sort of transference that the young student with the aspiring mind latches on to the seasoned, thoughtful, older professor and projects him to sort of an altitude that he never justly earned in anyone's heads.
[1:25:56] Pritchard: Baird had a way of putting an end to those relationships.
[1:25:59] Pouncey: Yes.
[1:26:00] Pritchard: Cutting the student loose.
[1:26:01] Pouncey: Yeah, I didn't, I, you know, I didn't have that. But it was a wonderful sort of with a diminuendo in, at the end of his book. This, this essay, a sort of epilogue of reflections on teaching.
[1:26:16] Pritchard: Yeah.
[1:26:16] Pouncey: But one's not it for aggrandizement. I think that's the danger of, of self absorption, is that we’re, one’s not in it, in it that the, that somehow, you know, you hope to produce a decent text yourself on anything, whether it's a review or an essay, or an article for a book or a book. You hope to do that, but the stuff you're writing about is basically, in a sense, outside yourself. Self-absorbed and somehow locked in what one always knew. And I don't, I don't think that's a good advertisement to anyone that sets out to teach.
[1:26:59] Pritchard: Do you want to say a word about your self-absorption as a writer now? Now and in the future?
[1:27:06] Pouncey: Now, I’m [[inaudible]]
[1:27:06] Pritchard: You have plans and that?
[1:27:09] Pouncey: Yeah, I'm writing a memoir, it’s like pulling teeth. The other, the other was a romp, actually. I wrote-
[1:27:14] Pritchard: The novel.
[1:27:14] Pouncey: The novel I wrote in seven and a half weeks, but I think I, I think I, it's, it was having all that 20 years of [[inaudible]]. But this is like pulling teeth, but it, I'm enjoying it. And there will be a chapter on Amherst.
[1:27:35] And, uh, but basically, I'm, I'm, I like playing with the notion of what was, what was taught. What one actually learned is one question. What is it you actually take away from this set of teachings that you're on the receiving end of? I mean, is there anything of yourself or are you a pale or am I a pale reflection of AJ Holiday, who taught me ancient history?
[1:28:03] What is it that you did with it, the stuff he gave you? Is one question. And the other is, is the big question of, of faith. And that, you know, my mother was a very devout Catholic. My father, small, Northern Ireland [[inaudible]], was the son of an Anglican rector and very devout Anglican himself. The two sometimes came close, and sometimes their religions were a sources of big divides. But, but anyway, my own falling away of faith from having sort of thrown all my chips into that particular career initially and then found that that it sort of fell empty for me. Really asking the question, you know, when you lose your faith, what is it you still believe in? And my, I think I told you this before, my very good friend Ken Bacon, very quiet, very intelligent, the best of Amherst, Ken Bacon. First rate.
[1:29:12] Ken Bacon, when I told him that he had sort of a little sad smile as he listened, he said, “Whenever I hear someone use the phrase ‘losing their faith,’ it always seemed to be tinged with a small note of nostalgia,” he said, “like losing your grandfather's watch.” So this sense of, you know, it's, it's a commonplace, that, you know, that when you have your faith, you then, the world was totally intelligible to you because, you know, there is an answer to this. “Why is this happening?” “Well, God allows it to happen, but in the end, everything is made right.” You know, but if you don't believe that, if you come not to believe that, then, then what is the way to look at the world? So I hope it won't be too, too tortured, but I'm, I'm finding it very difficult, but I'm enjoying writing it.
[1:30:08] Prichard: Maybe that's a good place to leave it. I, I don't think we've wrapped anything up here
[1:30:12] Pouncey: No, we haven’t!
[1:30:14] Prichard: in smug or complacent ways, let's hope, but
[1:30:16] Pouncey: Right.
[1:30:17] Prichard: perhaps even explored a few things and not answered some questions about
[1:30:22] Pouncey: Right.
[1:30:23] Prichard: you and life and Amherst.
[1:30:25] Pouncey: Well
[1:30:25] Prichard: So.
[1:30:26] Pouncey: I'm, I think we should encourage everyone that if you have questions about this interview, please direct them all to Bill [[Prichard laughs]] because he actually answers letters.
[1:30:36] Prichard: He's, he’s a very
[1:30:36] Pouncey: And he's very thoughtful,
[1:30:38] Prichard: very humorous, very humorous man, Peter. Thank you. Thank you.
[1:30:43] Pouncey: Thank you, Bill. [[looking behind camera]] And thank you, Mark.
Peter R. Pouncey served as president of Amherst College, from 1984-1994, and as Edwin F. and Jessie Burnell Fobes Professor in Greek (Classics). Born in China, he relocated with his family to England and graduated from Oxford University. He was a faculty member at Columbia University in the Classics Department and later served as dean of Columbia College before coming to Amherst. He is the author of The Necessities of War: A Study of Thucydides; Pessimism and his novel Rules for Old Men Waiting won the McKitterick Prize in 2006.
William H. Pritchard, class of 1953, the Henry Clay Folger Professor of English, graduated from Amherst with a degree in philosophy. After earning his Ph.D. in English from Harvard, he returned to Amherst as an instructor in 1958. Pritchard's academic interests lie in American and British 20th-century fiction, poetry, and criticism.
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