University of California: In Memoriam, 1986
Sarah Carolyn Fisher, Psychology: Los Angeles
| 1889-1985 | |
| Professor Emerita |
Carolyn Fisher was born in Connecticut, where she received her elementary and secondary school education. Subsequently, the family moved to Illinois, where she attended Lombard College, receiving the AB in 1909. The next year she transferred to the University of Illinois, earning the M.A. in 1910. Continuing her graduate education at Clark University, she became a Ph.D. at the tender age of 24. She had already published an experimental research article a year earlier (1912) under the title “Arithmetic and reasoning in children” .
As a scientist, Dr. Fisher was endowed with critical talent of a high order and its effectiveness was buttressed by careful and wide Scholarship. The evidence came early in her doctoral thesis, titled “The process of generalizing abstraction and its product, the general concept” , published as a 213-page monograph. It was an impressive piece of experimental work, embedded in a framework of an exhaustive and critical review of previous research in the field. Subsequently it was to inspire experimental investigation on the formation of concepts by Hull and others. Her interest in concept formation continued for some years, as reflected in published papers by several of her students. One psychologist refers to her thesis (1916) as a classic. Although she did not become a prolific contributor to professional publications, what she wrote was always thorough and analytical, and reflected her wide and deep scholarship. Two examples from her later years are the papers “The psychological and educational work of G. Stanley Hall,” written at the request of E.B. Titchener, the dominant figure in structural psychology, and “A critique of insight in Kohler's Gestalt Psychology.”
Fisher's first appointment was at Wellesley College, 1913-1914. In 1915 she accepted a position on the west coast at what was then known as the Los Angeles State Normal School, eventually to become integrated as part of the University of California system and to be known officially as the University of California, Los Angeles. She was to remain at UCLA the
The average student in Fisher's classes did not consider her to be a stimulating lecturer. This was certainly due in part to the size of the classes she was frequently assigned to teach; her talents were more analytical and tutorial than oratorical. It is, however, of interest to learn that in her undergraduate days she participated in an intercollegiate oratorical contest, in which her oration was rated outstanding in quality and internal organization, but was awarded second prize. The writer of the newspaper account of the event felt justified in commenting that the judges were probably swayed in their opinion by the delivery. On the other hand, it is significant that some students came away from her classes with important new insights and ideas. As one of her distinguished students put it in later years: “I'm beginning to think that that idea for the research I did was the outgrowth of what Fisher said.”
An important part of Fisher's life transcended the narrowly academic. In an era when more and more time and energy is required merely to keep abreast of one's field, academicians become increasingly provincial in their interests and competencies. Carolyn Fisher, on the other hand, took the view--although she didn't express it--that one should be a civilized person. She was an intellectual in the broadest sense. Her knowledge of literature, music and art was impressive. She was equally at home with Rabelais and Shakespeare. She could be annoyed by the perfunctory performance of some very seldom played composition written by a famous composer or make a case for the superiority of the work of one modernistic painter over that of another.
Another aspect of her life was her “civic mindedness” in its local, national and international contexts. Letters found in her files from the Los Angeles mayor, presidents of labor unions, senators, cabinet members, United States vice presidents, thanking her for her interest or support in some matter or another, attest to her well-informed and unflagging interest in social problems.
Carolyn Fisher's death marks the disappearance of a Renaissance woman.
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb767nb3z6&brand=oac4
Title: 1986, University of California: In Memoriam
By: University of California (System) Academic Senate, Author
Date: 1986
Contributing Institution: University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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