Historical society recognizes UI professor emerita

University of Idaho Professor Emerita and former Interim Provost Katherine Aiken has been selected by the Idaho State Historical Society to receive its Esto Perpetua award — hailed as the state’s highest honor in the field of history. Aiken will be honored among 14 other recipients including one organization. She said she considered the award a “culminating piece,” of her professional career.

Named after the state motto, meaning “let it be perpetual,” the award recognizes individuals and organizations for their contributions to preserving Idaho history through professional accomplishments, public service and philanthropy.

“I’m kind of unusual because I am a professional historian — I taught at the University of Idaho and wrote scholarly books,” Aiken said. “But I also am really interested in public history kinds of projects — so I think I probably got the award more for that than for my more traditional academic things.”

Aiken said these public history projects include work done with the Idaho Humanities Council and professional development work done with the state’s K-12 teachers.

She said she particularly enjoyed working with teachers and helping them to expand their content and curriculum. She said she would strive to create self-contained lessons that teachers could easily duplicate concerning subjects like women’s history in Idaho, labor history in Idaho and Idaho politics. During her retirement, she even received a grant to create an online Idaho history course — recording small lessons at various historical sites throughout the state. However, when asked if she’s an Idaho-centric historian, she hesitated.

“Most of my professional writing, a lot of it, is not about Idaho,” she said. “But it really seemed to me that if you’re going to teach at the University of Idaho and be in Idaho, you ought to know something about Idaho.”

Aiken first attended the UI as an undergraduate studying history in 1969. After earning a master’s degree from the University of Oregon and a doctorate from Washington State University, she returned to the UI as the history department’s first female faculty member.

“They didn’t know what to do with me,” she said.

“The first faculty meeting I went to in this department, they said, ‘We assume you’ll take the minutes’ and I said ‘Do you all take a turn at taking the minutes?’ and they go ‘Well, no, we just thought you’d do it because you’re the woman.’” Aiken added. “I said, ‘Well, I’ll do it for a semester if everybody else takes a turn,’ and they thought that was a pretty bizarre suggestion.”

Aiken would eventually become department chair, then dean of the college and then spend two years serving as interim provost for the entire university.

She said she tried to be an example to younger female faculty and often used her positions in university leadership to help ensure the women who came after her would not face the challenges she did.

Once the current global health crisis abates, Aiken said she is looking forward to a retirement of visiting grandchildren and writing. She said she is currently working on two books — one is a biography about Idaho’s first female member of Congress, Gracie Pfost, and the other concerns the history of her hometown, Sunnyside, Wash.

Born and raised in central Washington, and schooled throughout the region, Aiken said she traveled frequently for work but the Pacific Northwest has always been her home.

“I like being in the Pacific Northwest — I don’t mind visiting elsewhere, but I like living here,” she said. “A lot of the history of this region has been ignored, so it’s fertile ground for people to do work in and I like living in the Pacific Northwest because it’s gorgeous and my family is here.”

Scott Jackson can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to sjackson@dnews.com.