Ewing Chinn Philosophy, Retired by R. Douglas Brackenridge
Ewing Chinn arrived in San Francisco when he was five years old not knowing a word of English. Shortly after Ewing’s birth in the village of Ho Chung in Guandong province (formerly Canton) of China, his father immigrated to the U.S. Due to restrictions on Chinese immigration, his wife and child were not permitted to accompany him. Ewing’s mother later entered as a single woman, and Ewing lived with relatives in China for five years until an uncle was able to escort him to the U.S. Educated in a neighborhood school in San Francisco where the students were Chinese and the teachers Caucasian, Chinn mastered the new language and excelled as a student. He had a penchant for math and science and enjoyed American sports, especially basketball. During a year at the University of California at Berkeley, Chinn took a philosophy course that stimulated his interest in the discipline. Chinn opted to leave familiar surroundings and transfer to a small liberal arts college in another state to cultivate his newfound interest in philosophy. A minister friend recommended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. Chinn enrolled at Macalester and graduated in 1958 with a major in philosophy. Awarded a one-year Rockefeller scholarship to Union Theological Seminary in New York for students interested in theological studies, he attended lectures by Paul Tillich and took a class from Reinhold Niebuhr. Chinn earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Southern California in 1966. In 1958, Chinn married Lucia Hsia, and the couple has two sons, Clayton, a research scientist in Washington, D.C., and Larry, who teaches and performs in a jazz band in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chinn’s first teaching position was at Bowling Green State University in Ohio in the Department of Philosophy. When he came to Trinity in 1967, Chinn was the only Asian-American professor on the faculty. Welcomed by the campus community, he continued to enjoy acceptance throughout his University career. Chinn had been attracted to Trinity because of its similarities to Macalester and the opportunities it offered to teach graduate and undergraduate students. Initially his interests were logic and the philosophy of science, but he later became attracted to Asian philosophy. Chinn was a member of the first elected Faculty Senate and served on the Faculty Research and Development Committee. Chinn’s youthful involvement in athletics and natural agility made him a valuable member of faculty-staff intramural basketball teams. An avid tennis player, Chinn maintained a high visibility on the University tennis courts. When Chinn received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to do research at Brown University, intramural director Jim Potter quipped, “We are not losing a professor; we are gaining a tennis court!” Chinn retired in 2005 after 38 years of service to the University and lives in San Antonio with his second wife, Zsuzsa Paal, a native of Hungary. The two have a strong love for animals, including their dog, Buddy, with whom Chinn is pictured above. He teaches philosophy parttime at UTSA and does research and writing in Asian philosophy and American pragmatism. When not engaged in scholarly activities, Chinn’s major avocation is spending time with family in San Antonio and the large Chinn clan mainly in the Bay Area of California. Although quintuple bypass surgery in 2012 curtailed his favorite exercise routines, Chinn keeps physically active and retains the sharp wit and upbeat demeanor he displayed throughout his Trinity career. Chinn welcomes contacts by e-mail at echinn@trinity.edu.
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