History of the Stoops Lecture
by
Dr. Emery Stoops
9/10/04
Who in the World of Authors.
Emery Stoops was
initiated into the USC Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa in the spring of 1932. Dr. Trilling was chapter president and chose Emery
as Newsletter Editor, who with an assistant captioned each article with a cartoon. He also developed a short film, OUR TEACHER
MARY DEAN, which was purchased by most of the chapters in PDK. This film, shown at the next National Council, led to nomination
of Emery as Vice President. But instead, Osman Hull, Dean at USC appointed Emery to Chair the National Committee on Teacher
Recruitment, followed by election as district 11 Representative.
California
was hurting from a lack of teachers, and the Recruitment Committee urged school districts to send representation to major
colleges in the east and Midwest. Incidentally, Dr. Joyce King Stoops credits her many years in education
to a recruitment visit by the Long Beach School
assistant superintendent in her last weeks at Northern Illinois
University. She became a teacher, vice principal, and then principal in Long
Beach. Finally, she spent 23 years as a professor of education at USC.
Emery had gone from teacher recruitment in District II Representative and paid for his life membership in PDK. He believed
that PDK should become international, and that leading state colleges should be eligible for PDK chapters. During his two-year
term as District Representative he doubled the number of chapters from 7 to 14. Among the new chapters was Hawaii,
the first college off the continental limits of the United States,
and the first public school chapter - San Diego State College.
Emery went through the ranks of PDK elected offices and became the only National-International President. He called
all of his officers together and said, “You want another building committee? You’ve got one. You’re it!” He demanded they chose a site, build the building, and celebrate the 50th PDK
Anniversary. His short dedication speech for the dedication of the new building was brief and given from the upstairs porch,
with the United States Secretary of Education among many others. The speech was published and buried under the cornerstone
of the new building.
Since the time of the 1956 dedication of the
PDK International Office in Bloomington Indiana, the annual
Stoops lecture has been delivered at Emery’s home chapter-USC.
