About the Author:    

    Born in 1930, Joseph Quinn was raised in Southern California where he spent his formative years body surfing some great waves (then they installed a breakwater and spoiled it all).  He served in the Korean War in the U.S. Navy, much of it spent on aircraft carriers with the VA-125 squadron out of Mira Mar, California. 

    A year and half of civilian employment in the South Pacific (a dream job) was followed by going to Mexico in 1956.  His undergraduate work was at Mexico City College, where he received his B.A. in Business Administration, 1959.  His active areas of interest in Mexico were art and archeology.  His Masters in Theatre Arts is from Washington State University, 1970.

    Much of Quinn’s career has been in theatre as a designer, director, playwright and producer.  He has taught theatre courses at Oregon State University and the University of Portland.  He has designed productions for Gonzaga University, the Seattle Opera Association, the Portland Opera Association, the State Ballet of Oregon, and numerous community and regional theatres and ballet companies.  He has served as Trustee for the Theatre Northwest, Inc., a University of Washington playwriting group.  Quinn was the founder-director of the Northwest Arena Theatre, Inc. (later the NW Actors Theatre, Inc.), the Oakland Gaslight Players, and the Umpqua Actors Community Theatre.  He has sponsored and toured over a dozen out-of-state professional ballet companies into Oregon, including the Repertoire arm of the New York City Ballet Company.   

    In his career Quinn’s artistic endeavors include painting, working in oils, acrylics and watercolor, print making and baroque scroll wood carving. He resides in Independence, Oregon, with his chest of wood carving chisels, jars of paint brushes and trays of tube paint.

About writing “The Mexico City College Story: The History 1940-1963” 

                   
     This project of writing the history of Mexico City College came about because of a lack of related resources, typical being a 70-word paragraph in an early Universidad de las Americas, Puebla publication.  The web sites, including the Universidad de las Americas, A.C. web site, offered little more.  There were many unanswered questions, most regarding the transition from a college into a University.  In 1996 I started contacting alumni, asking questions and researching data.  Many, including myself, did not know the difference between the two universities, UDLAP and the UDLA, A.C.  The two institutions are not related, but both are claiming Mexico City College as its predecessor.  One alumnus in an email asked, “To which institution are we an alumnus?”  Over the years all of my correspondence with the UDLA,A.C. institution has gone unanswered; the Puebla institution early correspondence was, at best, evasive, usually referring me back to one of their one-paragraph digests.  My “History” probes that reluctance and the academia politics involved.       

     “The Mexico City College Story: The History 1940-1963” is not a work of scholarship.  If it had been, my name would not have been attached to it, for among my dwindling pretensions there is no pretense of scholarship.  If the shortcomings of this part-time, decade-long project remain within tolerable limits, this is due to the many friends, colleagues, academia and strangers who have permitted me to tax their kindness with inquiries, requests for suggestions, and discussions of doubtful points.  I am particularly indebted to Joseph M. Quinn for his own patience and perseverance.  If I had more sense and wisdom, I would not have attempted this work.

    This web site, www.mexicocitycollege.com is my first attempt at my late age to learn HTML programming code and creating a presence for “The History:” Please tolerate any scrambled pixels.  The site is best viewed in IE, with a monitor resolution set at 1024 x 768 or higher.