Charles O. Houston
June 14, 2001
Charles O. Houston, professor emeritus of social science, died May 18 in Ohio. He was 83.
Houston, who retired in 1984 after 19 years on the WMU faculty, originally came to campus as a member of the Institute of International and Area Studies and later became a professor in the College of General Studies.
Houston, who taught and researched around the world, earned a bachelor's degree at Miami University of Ohio and attended lectures at Tsing-Hua University in China while serving there in World War II with the Army Air Corps' Flying Tigers. He earned a doctoral degree in absentia from Columbia University in 1952 while he was teaching at the University of the Philippines. He also served as associate curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., before coming to WMU.
He was the author of numerous articles on history, ethnography and the environment.