Playford Thorson and Leadership

Prof. Playford Thorson passed away this past week at age of 86.  He had been retired for several years by the time I arrived at the University of North Dakota, but his like many retired professors who stayed on in the area, he remained visible on campus at various lectures or public events.

When I was working on my Departmental History in 2007, Thorson generously agreed to have a conversation with me about his time in the Department of History. He was hired in 1960, as part of the new wave of faculty members who arrived to help manage the unprecedented growth the University experienced at that time. He was still a Ph.D. Candidate and would not completed his dissertation at the University of Minnesota until 1972, but this was not particularly unusual for that time.

His obituary in the Grand Forks Heraldhas a particularly nice testimony to his passion for learning and students, and I don’t think that I can add much in that particular area.

I can, however, point out that Thorson made several particularly significant contributions to the Department of History, particularly as the leader of a group of faculty who became known as the “Young Turks”. This group formed in the early 1960s were instrumental in the final phase of modernizing and professionalizing the university. To do this, however, they clashed with the older generation of faculty who had largely been hired before World War II and, in many cases, had seen the university through the difficult interwar years. By all accounts, Thorson was among the ringleaders of this group of reform minded faculty and they presented to President George Starcher, who had been hired in 1955, a list of demands which focused in particular in the quality of education at UND during a time of rapidly expanding enrollment. (See below for a copy of this manifesto.)

The Department was led by Elwyn Robinson and Felix Vondracek. The former led through gentle example and the latter through his position as Department Chair which he had held for over 15 years. Vondracek was largely blamed for the rapid turnover of faculty in the late 1950s, which included many up-and-coming faculty stars like Louis Geiger, George Lemmer, John Harnsberger, and Jerry DeWitt who chaffed under Vondracek’s apparently imperious style of leadership. Thorson, who came to the Department during this time of rapid turnover and discontent, stepped into at least an unofficial leadership position. In 1962, he submitted a letter to President Starcher with five other faculty signatures attached demanding the ouster of Vondracek and urging that department chairs served on a rotating basis. This appears to have coincided both with the general policies advocated by the “Young Turks” as well as the opinion of Starcher and his right-hand-man William Koenker, the first Vice President of Academic Affairs.  As a result of this letter, Starcher (or perhaps the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Robert Witmer) offered Thorson, then without his Ph.D. the position of chair. Thorson declined the position (or, according to Robinson, Witmer withdrew his offer to Thorson and offered it to Robinson when he – true to his “Young Turk” leanings – had attached to it a list of demands.)

As the University looks to get its footing in the 21st century, it is probably useful to reflect a bit on the role that people like Playford Thorson played in forcing the University to adapt to changes in the 20th century. Let’s hope that we have the same cantankerous faculty leaders now as we had back then.

View this document on Scribd