Word: fairbanks
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Woodside would rather ignore the cult that has grown up around him and his course. He is gratified by the affectionate respect of his mentor, John K. Fairbank '29, Higginson Professor of History, and the admiration of students like Dan Swanson '74, a former president of The Crimson who once wrote, "This University should belong to people like Professor Woodside." But Woodside is vaguely uncomfortable with such prominence. He'd rather just work quietly at Harvard, not dominate...
...that can happen to you." His father, a professor of Greek and Roman history at the University of Toronto, realized that Woodside had found his niche. ("My mother was a little more skeptical," he recalls.) With their blessings, he set off for Harvard to study these exotic lands under Fairbank...
Some faculty members apparently felt that such objectivity was impossible with Vietnam, and although Woodside says he has been conscious only of the support of several professors--in particular, Fairbank, John Womack Jr. '59, Ernest R. May, and H. Stuart Hughes--his appointment to a tenured position last spring reportedly ran into strenuous opposition from faculty members who did not consider Vietnamese history a serious enough field. At the executive session, Fairbank--who chuckles, calls the story "gossip," and declines to confirm or deny it--reportedly stood, told his colleagues that Vietnamese history was important and that Woodside...
Characteristically, Woodside only recently learned of this story, and seemed both personally flattered at Fairbank's praise and disappointed that there had been opposition to the Vietnamese studies he himself represents. "But the point is, got tenure," he says, adding that he has enjoyed Harvard, and was pleased to stay...
...good time to figure out what went on in Vietnam-what we were doing there, and why we did it," Fairbank said, adding. "The collection comes right up to date, and if anyone wants to study Vietnam they'll have to use this library...