{"id":25610,"date":"2025-01-15T00:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T00:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/?p=25610"},"modified":"2025-01-15T17:05:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T17:05:15","slug":"25610","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/2025\/01\/15\/25610\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning About Margaret Krug Palen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a student archivist, one of my primary projects is writing biographies for the more than one thousand individuals listed in the News and Communication Services Records<\/a>. These individuals are primarily faculty and staff who were associated with Oregon State between 1940 and 2004. Oftentimes, the collection only holds an administrative document related to the individual. If I\u2019m lucky, there might also be a CV or an article related to their professional work. While I do perform additional research to fill out a brief biography meant to communicate their birthdate, academic and professional history, and association with Oregon State, as well as to differentiate individuals with the same name, I\u2019m still often left with only a snapshot of their life. I wish I could write detailed life stories for each individual in this collection, but alas, I am limited by time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret Palen is an example of the many individuals I wish to learn more about. The News and Communication Services Records hold two newspaper clippings related to her suspension and eventual termination from Oregon State in the 1970s. Reading these, I wished to understand her life beyond these events as well as share her professional accomplishments. As much as this blog post is about Palen, it is also about the privilege of doing the research and filling in the historical record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who was Margaret Krug Palen, and what more can we learn about her life? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret L. Palen (n\u00e9e Krug) was born on May 14, 1931, in Iowa. She attended Iowa State College (now Iowa State University), where she earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in home economics in 1952. After graduating, Palen was a textile chemist for one year before becoming a home extension agent in Iowa from 1953 until 1955. That year, she joined the Oregon State staff as a county extension agent for 4-H. She resigned in 1957 after her marriage to become a homemaker, working temporarily from 1958 to 1959 to aid Marion County as an extension agent. According to Palen\u2019s employment records, her supervisors found her work to be effective and of quality. Palen returned to Oregon State in 1966, becoming a home economics extension agent in Tillamook County. She also became a master\u2019s student at Oregon State in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite her tenured status, Palen was suspended, then terminated, from her job in 1972 due to ten charges filed by Lee Kolmer, head of the Cooperative Extension Service. From August-September 1972, a five-person committee conducted hearings to evaluate Kolmer’s complaints, although the members of that committee are unknown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During these hearings, several witnesses appeared before the committee. Among them were a\u00a0number of Tillamook County residents who spoke in favor of Palen\u2019s work in their community. Even so, the committee found four of the charges to be proven and just cause for dismissal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October 1972, the faculty committee recommended that the matter would be best resolved by termination. Upon hearing this decision, OSU President Robert MacVicar fired Palen. This decision is included in the article, \u201cTenured Assistant Terminated\u201d published by the Corvallis Gazette Times<\/em> on December 21, 1972.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is where the story ends in SCARC\u2019s holdings. However, Oregon court records indicate that Palen did not succeed in protesting her suspension before the faculty hearing committee. In 1974, she appealed <\/a>via the Oregon Court of Appeals, where the Board maintained that the university had just cause for dismissal. While we do not know the original seven charges, we do know these four because they were discussed in this case. They include that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n