Susan van den Hoek Barnes
Retiring After 32 Years at Hutchins

Submitted by Debora Hammond, Hutchins School of Liberal Studies

Susan van den Hoek Barnes, Ph.D. has retired from the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies after 32 years of dedicated service to the program.

Barnes came to Hutchins in 1972 with a B.A. in English, from Rutgers University; an M.S. in Psychology, from the University of Oklahoma; and a Ph.D. in Clinical and Developmental Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco.

At the University of Oklahoma, she worked with chimpanzees, studying sexual and maternal behavior and language acquisition. Her home served as a halfway house for out-of-control home-reared chimps who needed to be taught limits, which she claims was great practice for childrearing. She has two daughters, Becky and Sarah, and is the proud grandmother of Isabel and Max.

Barnes moved to the Bay Area in 1971 and worked for Contra Costa County Mental Health at Knolls Language Development Center at the hospital in Martinez and in methadone maintenance programs in Richmond and Pittsburg. She began teaching in the Hutchins School while she was completing her dissertation on language teaching protocols at the Napa State Hospital in the autistic children's ward and was able to involve her students in this research.

During the 1980s when the threat of layoffs was looming, Barnes earned her license as a clinical psychologist, maintaining a small private practice while she taught 3/4 time. She worked as a liaison between Health Plan of the Redwoods and local psychologists and also served on committees and boards focused on community mental health and residential treatment for children and adolescents.

For the past several years, Barnes has pursued her interest in Jungian symbology through the study of Hawaiian mythology. She is currently involved in several multicultural programs on the Big Island and is in the process of building a demonstration garden for lei flowers, native plants and herbs.

In addition to teaching in the lower division program (in LIBS 102: In Search of Self and LIBS 201: Exploring the Unknown), she has offered upper division seminar on such topics as Androgyny and Discovering the Unconscious. In reflecting on her career at SSU, she notes, “I am blessed, lucky, hardworking and grateful for the thirty-two years in the Hutchins School.”

Although she still had one year remaining in the Faculty Early Retirement Program, the demands of a construction project on her home in Hawaii intervened to change her plans.

ABOVE - Susan van den Hoek Barnes