Oral History Interview, Merton Barry (514)

Abstract

In his 1997 interview, Merton Barry recounts his time as a student during the 1940s, and also his time as a professor of general engineering and director of international engineering programs spanning 1955-1988. Barry initially attended UW-Wausau but transferred to UW-Madison into the college of engineering. He mentions how taking an art class helped him with his engineering drawings, and earned him his position as a drawing instructor. He describes his transfer out of the COE and into the School of Education’s applied art program. He served in WWII, and the GI bill paid for his art education in Zurich. Upon returning to the UW, he graduated with an MS in applied arts. He speaks about his receiving of the Fulbright Scholarship after finishing his master’s degree, and his position teaching descriptive drawing in the COE a few years after finishing his PhD. He discusses UW’s experimentation with distance learning, his appointment as a part time administrator of the AID Engineering Educational Development program in India, and his later acceptance of the position as the COE’s international programs director. He details the Monterey tech program in Mexico, the Adian Development Bank project in Surabaya, the experiences of Indonesian exchange students at UW, the Indonesian General Participant Training 2 Program, and engineering programs in Egypt and Brazil. He also speaks about his time on an advisory committee to UNESCO. This interview was conducted for the College of Engineering Series of the UW-Madison Archives and Records Management Oral History Collection.