E
LE
TH
GE
The Magazine for Alumni & Friends of Harcum College 2007 Spring
o
Charles Hathaway Trout, Ph.D. 1935-2006 Charles Hathaway Trout was born November 3, 1935 in Seattle Washington. He grew up in Oneida, NY, but spent much of his childhood in the Philadelphia suburbs, visiting relatives and developing a love for the Bryn Mawr area. “One of my cousins is an extraordinarily gifted pianist; some of her friends actually played on the instruments that Edith Hatcher Harcum, our founder, brought to Harcum in 1915,” he said. He earned his B.A. from Amherst College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University His doctoral dissertation was titled “Boston During the Great Depression, 1929-1940,” and was the basis for his book, Boston, The Great Depression, and The New Deal (Oxford University Press, 1977). During his career he has worked in virtually every niche of higher education. He was an admissions counselor at Amherst, a history teacher at The Hill School in Pottstown, PA and later at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH. He taught history at Mount Holyoke College, and from 1973 to 1979 served as Chairman of the History Department at Mount Holyoke. He later was Provost and Dean of Faculty at Colgate University, and from 1990 to 1995 served as the 24th President of Washington College in Chestertown, MD. His accomplishments at Washington College include the development of a long-range plan, the increase in enrollment and the substantial growth of the College’s endowment. While at Washington he recognized that the surrounding Chesapeake Bay region was a natural “learning laboratory” for students. He therefore initiated the Chesapeake Regional Studies program, which was the forerunner of Washington College’s environmental studies major.
In Memoriam: The Charles Trout Initiative To Honor His Legacy
In the late 1990s, working through the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH), he taught history and English to school children in Litein, Kenya. Dr. Trout was enthralled with the assignment. Writing about the experience in the Washington College alumni magazine in 1998, he wrote: “After fifteen years on the front lines of academic administration, Katherine and I discovered another world where we could flourish, but it was a very different kind of place than any we had known. This was a world where meetings began with prayers for a successful outcome. This was a place where students stood up when we…
The Harcum Little Theatre
Alumni Spotlight
PP
oR
TUNITY
Co
L
“ Perhaps his biggest contribution to the College has been his infectious enthusiasm and optimism. Chuck made everyone a believer in the great things that Harcum can achieve.” — Mr. Dennis S. Marlo Chair of the Harcum Board of Trustees
Harcum Sport’s Success
www.MyHarcum.com