Item Aud. 218 - Oral History: Dr. Leland Asa (TJC and TWC Founding Dean of Students; TWU Board member) - January 29

Audio 218a consists of the following recording:
Title: Leland Asa – “Oral History Interview”
In this January 29, 1983, interview, Trinity Western University library staff member Lynn Wilkinson queries Dr. Leland Asa about his early life, his early adult years, his time at Trinity Western, his life circumstances in 1983, and pre-1983 happenings related to the university. The interview begins with approximately five minutes of discussion of Dr. Asa’s pre-adult years. Dr. Asa tells of his father’s occupation and of his own places of residence, varied living situations, religious activities, and salvation experience near the beginning of his teen years.
For the next six minutes, the interview shifts to his adult years between high school graduation and Dr. Asa’s employment by Trinity Western University. Dr. Asa discusses his attendance at Northwestern College, the activities of Northwestern president Billy Graham, Dr. Asa’s marriage, and the Evangelical Free Church in Nebraska. Dr. Asa also tells of his and his wife’s undergraduate and graduate study, of their residence in Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, and Wyoming, and of some of their employment, including four years assisting in the establishment of a church in Omaha, Nebraska.
The majority of the remaining section of the interview deals with Dr. Asa’s experiences at and knowledge of Trinity Western University. The discussion reveals that he started to work at Trinity in the school’s inaugural school year, 1962, serving as a faculty member. The discussion covers the first school year, the initial unrefined state of the campus, campus improvements, humourous stories, Dr. Asa’s work in development of extra-curricular aspects, and the activities and importance of various Trinity administrators, faculty, and other personnel. Dr. Asa also mentions his family’s involvement with the Johnston Heights Evangelical Free Church and his wife’s eventual activity as a realtor.
The later parts of the interview include mention of Dr. Asa’s life after his departure from Trinity in 1975. Within a continuing discussion of Trinity facts and memories, the interview reveals that Dr. Asa joined the faculty of Westmont College, an institution in Santa Barbara, California, but also was a member of Trinity’s board of governors in 1983. At approximately the 39-minute mark of the interview, Dr. Asa begins to tell of his wife’s and children’s activities as of 1983.
In the final three minutes of the interview, Dr. Asa and Lynn Wilkinson discuss the service of David Twiest, the director of the Trinity library, to the university. [Abstract and transcript provided by J. Kropf, Public History student, 2001]
Audio 218b consists of the following recording:
Title: Leland Asa – “Oral History Interview”
This recording contains an interview extremely similar to the one on Aud. 218a. Lynn Wilkinson interviews Dr. Leland Asa about his early life, his early adult years, his time at Trinity Western, his life circumstances in 1983, and pre-1983 happenings related to the university. There is a tape error at [20:18] and Lynn Wilkinson moves to adjust it. [It is possible that Aud. 218a is a second attempt at this interview?]
Audio 218c consists of the following recording:
Title: Leland Asa – “Oral History Interview”
This recording is a duplicate of the first 31 minutes of Aud. 218a. Asa is cut off in the middle of a sentence.
Audio 218d consists of the following recording:
Title: Leland Asa – “Oral History Interview”
This recording is a duplicate of the final 13 minutes of Aud. 218a and a continuation of Aud. 218c.
Notes provided by BF, student assistant, 2010/2011
Transcript of excerpt from approximately [23:00] Leland Asa, founding Dean of Students, on the origins of the school colours and the Spartans team name: One of my early satisfactions was helping to set up some of the traditions, or some of the events that would later become tradition. I helped the students to set up student government, helped them to build a constitution, helped them to select school colours. Actually, the way the school colours came -I had been at the University of Wyoming the year before, and the colours there were brown and gold, and I had a bit of partiality, and I suggested brown and gold, and that first year they designated them as school colours, and for these twenty-one years they've survived.
The students were looking for a name for their athletic teams, and they cast around and chose the name the 'Spartans' the first year. I think there were a couple of factors. One was, we were in a sort of a rough-it situation here, and we didn't have a lot of facilities and a lot of uh, plushness, and perhaps the, the name 'Spartans' came out of that. Of course there's an American team in Michigan called the Spartans. There an American university uses that name, and perhaps they were familiar with that. I couldn't say exactly; I don't know if anybody really knows why the name was adopted except that it had a nice ring to it.
Transcript of excerpt from approximately [26:22] Leland Asa: We started out with walk-a-thons. We would walk to the Peace Arch, and get pledges to raise money for special projects, such as -- I'm not sure what the projects were now. I think they were something like library books. Later it was thought by some people that instead of just walking we should do something constructive and so we had what we called work-a-thons, and the students would pledge so many hours of work in return for a contribution for a project. And then we had other work-a-thons where we would just declare a holiday on campus and do a spring clean-up of the campus, mowing grass, trimming trees. One year faculty members --Dick Walters, and Benno Friesen, Les Garrison, perhaps Cal Hanson, and I -- ran the cement in front of the chapel.