CROUCHJAMES

Interview with James E. Crouch, 1986

 

1986-06-24

 

Interviewer: Olsson, Lyn

Crouch joined the faculty of San Diego State College in 1932 and progressed through the various levels of teaching and faculty affairs to the position of Chairman of the Division of Life Sciences. Along the way he served as Chairman of the Zoology Department, Faculty Chairman of the Senate, and President of the AAUP.

James Crouch started life in an academic environment, having been born on the campus of the University of Illinois, while his father was the farm manager. He attended Cornell University through the master's degree, where his thesis was on the natural history of the cedar waxwing. His PhD was earned at the University of Southern California, where his dissertation was on the natural history of another bird, the phainopepla. His interest in ornithology and natural history made him a valuable staff member of the Audubon Society's summer camps in California and Wyoming.

Much of Professor Crouch's national reputation came from his ability to put life into his writing about human and comparative anatomy. Two of his laboratory manuals (including Functional Human Anatomy) enjoyed wide adoption across the country, and he also published a cat anatomy and two human anatomy texts for use in colleges and universities. His natural history movies have been shown at meetings of the National Audubon Society and of the Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San Diego Audubon Societies. Crouch retired in 1973 and died in 2000.

James E. Crouch; Lyn Olsson; Interviews; Oral Histories; Mary Crouch; Everett Gee Jackson; Student employment; Field trips; Great Depression; Myrtle Johnson; Walter Phillips; Dudley Robinson; Walter Hepner; Academic tenure; Calvert E. Norland; Charles Leonard; San Diego State Teacher's College; Robert Hardwood; Mission Bay Aquatic Center; San Diego Zoo; College enrollment (World War II); Lauren Post; Quonset huts; Bookstores; Faculty-Staff Club; Works Progress Administration; WPA; Charles E. Peterson; Mary Mendenhall; Research grants; Academic politics; Phi Sigma Psi; Aesculapians for Aesculapius; Donald Walker; Furniture restoration; Pieces of Eight (faculty group); Faculty Senate; Ambrose Nichols; Human anatomy courses; Functional Human Anatomy (book); Text-Atlas of Cat Anatomy (book); Audubon Society; Audubon Camps; Sugar Bowl Lodge; The Wilderness Society; Nature Conservancy; People for the American Way; American Civil Liberties Union; Sidney Gulick

5500 Campanile Drive

California - San Diego - San Diego State University

© San Diego State University. All rights reserved.

 

 

English

 

Audiotape

02:01:33

Yes

CROUCHJAMESTRANS

see CROUCHJAMESTRANS; continuing keywords from the transcript: San Diego Natural History Museum; Roy Ernest Cameron; Sabbaticals; Convair; Max Lerner; Phillip Island; Transportation (San Diego); Young Men's Christian Association

 

Audio

MP3

144.29 MB