A scholar in Japanese history gave the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College a $55,000 gift earmarked for financially supporting an archivist and programming associated with the PRC’s upcoming 50th anniversary in 2025.
Dr. Terry Jackson’s gift also includes financial support for student research and assistance for sending students to visit Japan’s atomic-bombed cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Jackson, who has a Master of Arts degree and Ph.D. both in East Asian history, is on the faculty at Adrian (MI) College, where he is a recipient of the Ross Newsom Award for Outstanding Teaching.
He became familiar with the Peace Resource Center through its director, Dr. Tanya Maus, who he’s known since graduate school when they attended an intensive language program in Yokohama, Japan.
“I have been impressed with what the Center does and particularly the archives that it houses,” he said, noting he believes the PRC’s work is important and the Center has accomplished much under Maus’ leadership. Jackson explained that his parents, Bill and Lynn Jackson, passed away in January and left behind a request for a portion of their estate to be given to “good causes.”
“My father was a biochemist by profession but had a strong intellectual curiosity about the past. My mother was deeply committed to peace activism in various forms,” he added. “Their combined love of historical knowledge and peace fits well with the Peace Resource Center's mission, and so I am thrilled to continue their legacy with this gift to the Center.”
President Corey Cockerill expressed the College’s appreciation for Jackson’s gift. “We are extremely grateful for this generous donation, which will significantly enhance our efforts to promote peace and non-violence through the Peace Resource Center,” she said. "The PRC and its unique archives represent invaluable resources for both education and advocacy."
Maus said the gift from Jackson and his family’s estate “took us all by surprise in its generosity and its unconditional desire to support” the Peace Resource Center and its Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives, which places a focus on the human experience of nuclear war. “We are so excited to continue Bill and Lynn Jackson’s commitment to education and peace through the stewardship and preservation of the PRC’s archives,” she said, “as well as educating our local, regional, national and global communities of the absolute necessity to create a more peaceful world through nuclear abolition.”
The Peace Resource Center is the only academic center and archive in the United States wholly devoted to the human experience of nuclear war through the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The PRC works with Wilmington College student staff to carry out the preservation of historical materials and creates programming for the campus and community regarding the need for global peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons.