Pho. The delicious and aromatic Vietnamese noodle soup found in ubiquitous restaurants all over Tacoma.
For Dr. William Richardson, Pho is one of the many things he will miss when he leaves to go to his new position as dean of humanities in fine arts at Coastal Carolina University.
For 16 years, Richardson, 58, has been instrumental in establishing the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program at the university. In June, the University of Washington, Tacoma will lose one of its founding fathers as Richardson embarks on an adventure halfway across the country.
after teaching in Kansas for 12 years, he and 12 other founding faculty made up the Liberal Studies program that was essentially the foundation for UWT. Located downtown on A Street, the university consisted of rented offices in the Perkins building.
As director of liberal studies, he was the first administrator on site as the dean was actually at the Seattle campus at the time. According to Dr. Mike Allen, a professor in the IAS program and fellow founding faculty, Richardson had to wear many hats.
"He probably swept the floors," said Allen with a chuckle as he recalled those many hats that Richardson had to wear.
"When Bill got here, there was no phone, not at first. Not even a fax machine. He didn't have much of anything to start with," said Allen.
Steve Smith, director of community relations in the Advancement Department, echoes this sentiment.
"He (Richardson) did whatever it took to keep this place running and make it a quality institution," said Smith, "If we were holding an event, he would be there greeting people… it wouldn't be beyond him to help in any way possible."
Richardson said, "Early on there was a discussion about whether this campus should be a UW campus or a WSU campus-this was like in the late 80s… and so WSU was ready to come in and start a campus here and UW said 'no,' this was our service area and we're going to start this one in Tacoma… so it was a really good decision on the part of the university and it was really good for us. It really helped us in terms of name recognition and recruiting students…people have a lot of respect for the quality of the University of Washington."
According to Allen, Richardson would not only work the academic end, he would also work as the school's embassador to foster community support. By the end of the first academic year, Richardson received, on the university's behalf, a founder's endowment of a million dollars, thanks to community members.
Smith believes Dr. Richardson's best strength was his ability to connect with community leaders - everyone from civic leaders to local politicians - in order to gain support from the community.
"When he would speak about the vision for UWT, it was always inspiring. People would say 'Wow', I wasn't going to go to school, but can I go to school there?" said Smith. "His passion and vision was beyond measure."
"Bill was the founder's founder. He got the place up and running and set the tone," said Allen.
Richardson's remembrances from those days were clear and concrete.
"I would say that one thing we had a commitment to from the beginning was interdisciplinarity. We wanted to maintain the idea that you look at problems from a variety of perspectives and you don't just look at it from a political perspective or a economic perspective or a historical or a sociological one, you look at issues from a variety of perspectives and disciplines and that's really been the foundation I think for IAS and the campus," said Richardson.
"Our vision for the campus was the idea that you look at problems from a variety of perspectives and you don't just look at it from a political perspective or a economic perspective or a historical or a sociological one. That's really been the foundation, I think, for IAS and the campus.
Our vision for the campus was that it would grow steadily over time and that it would bring in a whole range of majors and degrees. We've added other things that we recognized the community needed. The urban studies program was a really logical thing for this campus to develop. We really wanted to be responsive to the community," said Richardson.
"We always saw ourselves from the beginning as a community-oriented campus. They would look at cleaning up the Foss Waterway or they'd look at family violence here in the community and what to do about it," said Richardson.
Certainly, CCU will benefit from an administrator like Richardson. The university is in a town called Conway, just inland from Myrtle Beach, which is famous for its 114 golf courses. CCU started out as a campus of the University of South Carolina but became independent in 1993.
"They're 50 years old as a campus but they're really only 13-years-old as a separate university," said Richardson.
With approximately 10 times the acreage of UWT's current campus, CCU contains its own golf course to compliments its golf management program, CCU will be a different environment for Richardson.
A huge draw for Richardson was the university's strong and active music, theatre, fine arts and humanities programs.
"We (at UWT) don't have any theatre and we don't have any music, we just started doing art but it is pretty limited. As I was looking ahead to my own career, I thought, I probably have about 10 years more before I'll want to retire…going there will give me a chance to sort of leapfrog 10 years because I think that in 10 years we will have those things but I'll have to retire at that point if I stay here. But if I go there I can be part of a place that is really vibrant and active (in that way)," said Richardson.
Another important factor was the total support of the community in which the university is located.
"They'll put on a play or band concert and half the audience will be people from town who just want to come to the band concert or see the play. For me that's going to be really exciting," said Richardson.
According to Richardson, a big difference between this campus and theirs is that half of their students come from out of state. Not just from neighboring states, but as far away as Florida and Ohio. And they are a residential campus.
He thinks he was an attractive candidate to the Coastal Carolina University because he understood and has experience with the teacher/scholar model. He feels it is being implemented here since the faculty not only do research and scholarships but are very good teachers who are truly committed to teaching.
"Another thing they wanted to do and they liked me for, was that they wanted to make sure their students have international experiences and that they develop lots of opportunities for their students to study abroad…they like the fact that I have done stuff here with Russia and other areas," he explained.
Since the CCU wanted to make sure that their students have international experiences, the development of opportunities for their students to study abroad through perhaps the help of Richardson was an appealing one.
"I've been lucky here because I was able to do things with Russia with both the Russian far east and with Moscow state and it will be absolutely terrific if we can still do it. We have the Cuba winter quarter program in Cinfuegos which is absolutely unique in the United States now because it is so hard for American students to go to Cuba…what I would really like to see us do is a program in China. We really owe it to our students to help them see what's happening in China," said Richardson.
A grant a couple of years ago enabled him to go to China, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong and he mentions that it was "just incredible, the changes."
Richardson, who was born in Tennessee, grew up in Southern California where he went to the University of California, Santa Barbara, then to the University of California, Berkeley, considers the Northwest his home.
"I guess I've come to think of myself as a Northwesterner now. This really is the place that I think of as home. I guess thinking about going there to South Carolina, it'll probably always seem a little strange to me. I bet I'll always think about the Puget Sound area," said Richardson.
Not to worry. He is sure he'll come back to visit since his youngest son lives in Seattle and is currently searching for a high school teaching position.
In the meantime, Richardson jokes that his hobby will be "packing boxes." In his office are several items that he will generously donate to the library and some albums he will give away -- signs of moving on.
2008 Woodie Awards
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