Although officially retired since 2008, political science professor Paul Friesema is still teaching at Northwestern, as he has been since 1968. He’s known as the former director of the environmental policy and culture program, which he helped start in 2005. However, his legacy will live on, thanks to his enormous collection of books.
“I’m actually teaching as much, even a little more than I taught before I retired,” says Friesema. “They’re just not paying me much for it anymore. And I have a small office – I used to have quite a nice, big office.”
Friesema continues to teach as a professor emeritus of political science despite his retirement, because student demand for the EPC program exceeds the staffing for the program, he says. Professor Yael Wolinsky-Nahmias, who took over as director of EPC after Friesema’s retirement, says that Friesema continues to be a valuable asset to the program.
“I think almost every student in the program knows him or has taken his class,” says Wolinsky-Nahmias. “So I think even though he’s kind of retired – we’re still not letting him go completely – he’s still part of the program in many ways. And I think the program has grown a lot in the past few years, but many of these things are really related to the seeds that he planted.”
His office in Scott Hall, the one that he jokingly complains is too small, is cluttered with books and Native American artifacts, a clear reflection of his life’s work and passion.
“I’ve been a book collector since I was in high school, maybe grade school, when my mother and dad gave me books,” says Friesema. “As I got into academics, I needed books for my own personal research, which was part of the incentive for my collection of large amounts of books.”
Over the years, his collection, which he says consists of “more [books] than any reasonable person would ever collect” has grown to over 30,000 volumes, which he keeps in a basement on North Campus, his home, his office and various storage units. Four years ago, Friesema began donating his books to the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution, giving away about 14,000 volumes.
“[My wife and I] had always had in mind that it ought to go where it would be useful to and usable by American Indian people,” says Friesema. “It really is a huge collection – it may well be one of the largest and most complex collections that exists in private hands, which isn’t in a public library already.”
Initially, Friesema intended to donate the books to a Native American college, but found that because most of them were junior colleges, they were more in need of a general library as opposed to his specialized one.
Friesema has conducted international research on the environmental activism of indigenous people through university research grants. He says he hopes to continue his research through his retirement, but he is prepared to never finish his opus as a single book.
He says he gets his books through antiquarian dealers and from used book stores, but he also gets many of his volumes through his work as a university professor.
“Publishers like me to adopt their books in class, and they send me review copies and desk copies for my use,” says Friesema. “So the occupation is where a fair amount of books come in.”
After almost 43 years as a professor, he says he’s reluctant to stop working completely and enter retirement.
“Right now I’m doing virtually the same thing I was doing before I retired,” says Friesema. “I come in every day. I don’t want to not teach. I’m not really looking forward to retirement. I’m looking for other opportunities to continue to work.”