[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/greenleevol3.jpg” caption=”After nearly two years of research, retired history professor and McMaster alumnus Jim Greenlee will soon amalgamate more than 10,000 pages of his handwritten notes into a book about life at McMaster from 1957 to 1987. Photo by JD Howell. “]Jim Greenlee is writing the next chapter of McMaster's history.

After nearly two years of research, the retired history professor and McMaster alumnus
will soon begin to amalgamate more than 10,000 pages of his handwritten notes into a
book about life at McMaster from 1957 to the University's centennial in 1987.

The book will be the third volume of the University's history; professor emeritus Charles
Johnston previously published McMaster University, Volume 1: The Toronto Years and
McMaster University, Volume 2: The Early Years in Hamilton, which jointly covered the
years between 1887 and 1957. Johnston was Greenlee's grad supervisor and is now one
of his closest friends.

Greenlee earned all three of his degrees at McMaster, completing his PhD in 1975. He
retired from Memorial University in 2007 after teaching there for 30 years and had
intended to enjoy retirement with his wife while leisurely working on a book about the
Great War.

Instead, he has now dedicated several years of his life to researching and chronicling
the next volume of McMaster's history. When his friend John Weaver, a professor in the
Department of History, called to offer him the job in late 2009, Greenlee initially
refused.

“I said, 'No, I retired for a reason. I'm tired and I want to get on with the rest of what
remains of life.'”

Weaver asked him to take a few days to consider.

“Two days later, it's Peter George, the President of the University, calling me personally,
and he was very low-key but very convincing,” said Greenlee. “He asked me again to
think about it, so I did, I talked it over with my wife, and we agreed that it was an
honour.”

His goal is to get at the core of McMaster and deliver a biography of the institution. “Just
as all people have 99.9 per cent of their physical and perhaps even mental equipment in
common, still we write biographies of individuals, because they are all different,” he
said. “And the same I think holds true for universities.”

The period from 1957 to 1987 includes many milestones at McMaster such as the
transition from being a Baptist to a secular institution, the opening of the nuclear
reactor and the University's largest sit-in protest that involved 4000 students. Greenlee
has also identified the leadership of professor and President Emeritus Harry Thode and
his adoption of the McMaster interdisciplinary model as key factors in the history of the
University.

“After looking at a good deal of material, it has become clear that the McMaster we see
before us today is very much a product of the thinking of Harry Thode as to what the
University should be,” he said. “This has remained the core driving force of McMaster
and the thing that gives it its particular personality and makes it a little bit different
from some of its sister universities.

Greenlee's research has taken him from the basement archives in Mills Memorial Library
to dusty broom closets in the engineering building to boxes of old papers from the
faculty association.

While he says it is different coming back to work at the University, Greenlee has stayed
in touch with members of the McMaster community during the last three decades
working in Newfoundland. He has also returned to Hamilton for four months each
summer and hasn't missed a season of the Graduate Students' Association softball
league since 1968.

Greenlee's book is scheduled to be released at the end of 2012, to coincide with the
University's 125th anniversary. For more information, please contact the Alumni Office
at alumni@mcmaster.ca