Gaddis Smith sails off to retirement after 50 years

Gaddis Smith, PC '54, GRD '61, is a company man. For nearly half a century, he has belonged to Yale University. Now the well-loved Larned Professor of History is saying goodbye. The Herald sat down with Smith—his once-homey office strewn with boxes of books as he prepares for departure—to talk about Yale's past, present, and future.

JOHN YI/YH Gaddis Smith, PC '54, GRD '61, bids Yale a fond farewell after an illustrious career.

Smith arrived as a Yale freshman in 1950 and went on to graduate school here. From 1958-61 he taught at Duke, then came back to Yale as a faculty member—for good. In 1967, at the age of 35, Smith achieved tenure. Teaching mainly the history of American foreign relations, he has served in many capacities, including Master of Pierson College, chair of the history department, and head of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. He has advised 44 Ph.D. students. "I have been able to go so many places by staying in the same place," Smith said. "I have friends in business who have worked for a dozen firms, but they're always doing essentially the same thing."

Three years ago, Smith began work on a new history of the University, entitled Yale and the External World: The Shaping of the University in the Twentieth Century. The book, to be published next year, chronicles an institution's attempts to keep pace with a changing world. "It's not about what the Whiffenpoofs were doing," but about national issues that forced the University to adapt, Smith said. In his five decades, he was able to observe many of these adaptations. "Yale is a much more interesting place now than it was 50 years ago," he said. "It was an extremely homogenous place, complacent, inward-looking, and largely unimaginative."

In the 1960s, Yale phased out its antiquated policies, admitted women and minorities, ended its quotas for Jews and Catholics, and made the curriculum more challenging and diverse. "The myth of the old boy network was true," Smith said. "But the decade of the 1960s made all the difference. Look at George W. Bush [DC '68], who entered in 1964. He represents the tail end of the old system."

Student protests were a major factor in the reforms of the '60s as Yale students became more involved and sophisticated. He recalled some of the protests of his undergraduate career: in 1951, Yale abolished Derby Day, a Spring Fling-like "drunken affair" where Elis would "get bombed" on the shores of the Housatonic River with their dates. Outraged by the University's ban, the students marched on the President's House. And then there was the Ice Cream Riot of 1952. "A Good Humour truck—representing, of course, the big corporation—was threatening to push out a little guy with a pushcart," Smith remembered. "The protests practically shut the city down."

Smith has watched the recent Students Against Sweatshops (SAS) initiative with interest. "My instinctive sympathies are with the protesters, but I can't help but acknowledge that this issue—the production of Yale trinkets in, say, Thailand—is inseparable from the way the world economy is working today," he said. Smith believes Yale's reliance on sweatshop labor illustrates the University's, and society's, increasing focus on market forces. As for SAS's tactics, Smith recalled the Beinecke Plaza shantytown that students constructed in the mid-'80s to protest Yale investments in South Africa, which resulted in Yale's divesting from banks lending directly to the South African government.

Smith lauded Yale's enormous progress over the last several decades. But he acknowledged that the institution has not always been quick to evolve. "Yale has really not been a voice of social conscience. I think maintaining racial and religious discrimination for as long as they did was a mistake," he said. Smith saw a parallel sluggishness in Yale's hiring. "I am an example of `inbred' faculty, a Yale degree and Yale Ph.D.," he said. "This is part of that same conservatism—until the middle of the century, Yale didn't search the world for talent." Smith cited Yale's complicated, murky tenure process as an area where the University could improve, although he believes the alternative systems employed by other universities remain problematic.

In one area, Smith said, "Yale has been in the forefront": curriculum innovation. For example, the University created a superb African-American Studies program before most other schools had even considered such an idea. "In studies related to race and gender, Yale has been outstanding," Smith said. "Many other universities practically had to confront armed riots in creating similar programs."

Smith's studies, now that he has cast off his professorial robes, will take a direction different from most of his teaching. Maritime history is one of his passions, and retirement will free him up to pursue it in more depth. The sea is a recreational interest as well; Smith loves sailing and kayaking.

Smith looked back on 50 years at Yale with tremendous fondness. His eyes gleamed a little as he allowed himself to indulge in grateful nostalgia, saying, "I feel almost guilty about how fortunate I've been."

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