Dr. Max Stanton, Professor of Anthropology and Geography, has retired after teaching at BYU-Hawaii for the past 35 years and left Laie this evening to undertake seven months of anthropological field studies.
Stanton, who is originally from Torrance, California, first came to Laie in 1964 as a Church College of Hawaii student, so by the time he returned as a teacher in 1971, he said, "In many ways I was coming back home. I made some of my lifelong best friends here, and there were still a lot of them around."
Some of those friends were from the Polynesian Cultural Center, where Stanton — a pakeha or haole — danced in the Maori section of the evening show. That connection goes back to his freshman days at BYU in Provo where he became a member of the Kia Ora Club when Maori action songs and haka "captured my fancy right down to the core."
"After returning from my mission in Germany, I still hadn't got it out of my blood, so I came to CCH," he recalled. Because of his past associations with the Kia Ora Club, and the consent of Maori leaders at PCC, he soon joined the cast of An Evening in Paradise.
"I cannot even begin to recount the great blessing my year as a performer at the PCC has been for me," Stanton said, listing other people who are "still dear and special to me. I never felt any resistance whatsoever as a haole, and I cried when I left."
Following graduation from BYU and earning a master's degree there in sociology, and another master's in anthropology and geography from Louisiana State University, Stanton returned to Laie. In 1973 he completed his doctoral studies in anthropology from the University of Oregon.
"Nephi Georgi hired me to teach sociology. I took over that program from Hal Hunter," Stanton recalled, adding he has also taught classes in tourism geography, Polynesian history; and team-taught "evolution and human history" with Phil Bruner, and "plants and the rise of civilization" with Dr. Robert Winget.
"Over those years," he continued, "BYU-Hawaii has really raised the academic expectations of both the faculty and the students. I think we're far more academically challenging today. Today, it's also much more competitive."
"However, the camaraderie and sense of fellowship is still the same. We only had about 900 students when I came to CCH, but I still feel there's a real kinship here. We only had two wards that were part of Laie Stake. Howard Stone was our stake president. Now, of course, we have campus wards and stakes. We had Asian students, but not in the major presence they are today. We had surfers from Peru, and we still do, so that hasn't changed."
"The people in the community are also still great. I like the fact that our wards are generally set so there are very few 'faculty wards.' We're integrated into the community," he said.
"Another thing that's changed: When I first came there were only three universities on the island — Chaminade, the University of Hawaii and CCH. There were no community colleges at the time."
Asked what he's going to miss, without hesitation he answered, "My colleagues and everybody I've worked with. I miss them already. Almost everybody has stopped by. They're just fine, wonderful people; and, of course, I will miss the students."
For the next seven months, Stanton will conduct additional field studies among the Hutterites, a distinct group of people he's been working with for the last 20 years. "They're part of the Anabaptist movement, that includes Mennonites and Amish," he explained, noting "there are over 500 communities in the upper or northern Great Plains.
"They think of themselves as Mennonites. They live strictly in a communal or kibbutz 'united order.' A lot of people mistake them for the Amish, because they wear distinctive or 'plain garb.' Even a lot of Amish think they're Amish, but they're into modern technology. They speak High German in their religious services, and a Tyrolean dialect." He added he understands the former but not the latter.
He and a colleague, Dr. Rod Janzen of Fresno Pacific University, plan to co-author a book on the Hutterites. "We hope to have the manuscript into the publisher about a year from now. It will probably be published in early 2008."
Stanton said that his wife, Marge, an international student advisor who also teaches classes in sociology and sometimes EIL — whom he met as a CCH student — will join him for part of the summer and then return to BYU-Hawaii next school year. "She's also been working on the Hutterites, and they probably like her better than me," he quipped.
When they both finally retire, he said they're not sure where they'll live. They own a home in Laie and inherited a home in Portland, Oregon; but anyone can plainly see his heart's still here:
"I like having the Church, my occupation and my neighborhood kind of all together. If asked what's the one thing that's totally unique here, it's that you can live the gospel, and people expect it; you've got great neighbors, and great colleagues and students."