Alumni News for the Dinosaurs in the 1950’s

WHAT’S UP WITH DON POLKINGHORNE?

“Polky” graced the Phi Delt Theta house and brotherhood from 1954 -1958 and served as its President. Don was a religious studies major and played football for four years and started for three. He became an outstanding single wing halfback and against Washington Lee in his senior year, rushed for about 350 yards and scored six touchdowns. He also was active in the Campus Y and played varsity baseball.

While at WU, Don really enjoyed the camaraderie of the football team and one of his favorite courses was Roman History taught by Dr. Welton.

Polky came to WU from Normandy High School where he was President of the Student Council and Hi-Y and voted Best All Around in his senior class He ranked high academically and received a half tuition scholarship from WU. He played football, basketball and baseball in high school and was elected as one of the most popular boys as a senior, junior and sophomore.

So what happened to this academically and athletically talented

and popular Phi Delt ?

Professionally, he moved from the field of divinity to psychology and received his Ph.D. in 1972 from the Union Graduate School. Prior to this he attended Yale University for three years and attained degree in divinity with a pastoral counseling major. He then joined the Loomis School in Windsor, Connecticut, where he taught philosophy and ethics, served as the Chaplain, also helped coach football and baseball. He also found time to get a Master’s degree in psychology and then taught at Goddard College in Vermont.

With the Ph.D. in hand, Don worked at the Vermont State Hospital, then went back to WU for a year and worked in student affairs and then on to UC-Irvine to run the counseling center and be involved in the Ph.D. program.

He moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1975 to become the Academic Dean at the Saybrook Institute and then became its President for 10 years.

Don missed teaching and went back to California State –Fullerton and ended up a professor at USC beginning in 1990 in counseling psychology and eventually became the Chair of the Positive Psychology program. He was at USC for 15 years and allegedly retired in 2005. However, he still teaches and is developing new curriculum.

Family wise, Polky has a daughter and son( Debra and Kyle) from his first wife, Laura Matlock, a WU graduate, and his second wife Judith brought two additional children to their marriage. Judith is also a psychologist and worked as a consultant for RHR International, consultants in organizational development. She has retired as well.

The most troubling and humbling thing about Polky today (per the author of this report) is he weighs the same as he did in college (185 pounds). He and Judith work out on a regular basis and he still plays golf. They live in Pasadena. Several Brothers who have failed to control their weight gain over the years plan to file a Brother Abuse law suit against the fit and lithe Brother Polkinghorne. After the reunion and weigh in, it may become a class action lawsuit.

Here is Brother Don and Judith in a happy repose

Rich Hughes

Reporter At Large

9-4-12

Don will be missed especially by his wife of 40 years, Dr. Judith Blanton. 

Also mourning Don is his brother Robert Polkinghorne, daughter, Deborah Nunnink, son Kyle Johnson, step-daughter, Shanti Corrigan, sons-in-law Mark Nunninck and Seth Corrigan, grandsons Liam Corrigan and Zolly Corrigan, and in-laws Jerry and Kendra Rosander.  Don's first wife Laura Johnson grieves for Don also. 

Don loved English Springer Spaniels and is mourned by Winnie his nearly two year old puppy - a successor to other lucky and beloved canine family members who loved Don dearly including Maggie, Winston Lord Lancelot, Chelsea and Marana.

Professor Donald Polkinhorne was the Fahmy Attallah and Donna Attallah Chair in Humanistic Psychology and Emeritus Professor at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California.

Professor Polkinghorne led a long and distinguished academic career. He published groundbreaking books, including Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, Methodology for the Human Sciences, and Practice and the Human Sciences. He also published numerous article on the relationship between qualitative methods and contemporary philosophy. As a humanistic psychologist Professor Polkinghorne focused on the uniqueness of individuals in the way they experienced and lived their own lives. He was concerned that psychological studies did not include areas such as the experiences of personal agency and responsibility. Along with other humanistic psychologists Professor Polkinghorne believed that psychology should not only attend to pathologies, but to the human possibilities of creativity, growth, fulfillment and healthy personalities.

Don taught his students and colleagues to approach research as human science, rather than apply scientific methods of research to understand human problems that have individual and non-replicable characteristics. He held that the notion of best practices that work equally well for all who receive it assumes a similarity and consistency that does not exist across people. In contrast to the best practice movement, Don’s work held that individual practitioners are the primary source of the solution of human problems. The focus on practitioners as the instrument of change led him to introduce the concept of practitioner judgment and drew on the philosophical traditions of Dewey, Gadamer, Rorty, and Heidegger to explain how practitioners through their engagement in inquiry activities develop new insights and are able to change their beliefs and practices. He believed that, “The solution of individual human problems depends on the particular helper and they way they relate to the individual.” From 2000 until his retirement, he affiliated with researchers at the Rossier School of Education’s Center for Urban Education where his concepts of practitioner inquiry and judgment were adapted into tools for critical participatory action research to assist higher education practitioners assume responsibility for changing their practices in order to close racial equity gaps.

Professor Polkinghorne’s educational background includes degrees in religious studies from Washington University (St. Louis), Yale University, and Hartford Seminary Foundation. During his academic career, in addition to his appointments as professor he held several academic leadership positions including the presidency of Saybrook Instiute. Over the course of his career Professor Polkinghorne received numerous awards, including election to the Presidency of the American Psychology Association’s Division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, election as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and USC honored him with ….. Professor Guilbert Hentchke, past dean of Rossier School of Education said of Don, “he was such a wonderful, thoughtful and warm person. He was for me the epitome of what is best in a university faculty member: fully committed to his work, engaged productively with his colleagues and students, always theory-driven, and a true friend.”

DON POLKINGHORNE - FOOTBALL - 1991

A star running back on Coach Carl Snavely's famed football team, Don Polkinghorne owned the school's career rushing record (2,289 yards) for 30 years. He shattered Washington's single-game rushing record with and incredible 367 yard performance against Washington & Lee. In 1992, his 17.5 yards per carry average (21 for 367) in that game stood as the NCAA Division II and Washington U. record for highest yards per carry average in a game. The 367 yards was, at one time, the NCAA record. A member of Washington's 1990 all-Centennial Football team.