Eugene Gilden, professor of psychology, is retiring from Linfield after 30 years.

“[Since] my very first day on campus one of the things that has remained is how attractive the campus is,” Gilden said. “It really looks like how a college campus ought to look.”

Before coming to Linfield, Gilden worked at various research positions and at Oregon Health & Science University in the medical psychology department.

When Gilden first began working at Linfield, he was not sure if this was where he really wanted to be working for the rest of his career. However, he ended up falling in love with the campus and the people.

“I had the thought that this would be okay for a first job, and I guess I was kind of right about that,” Gilden said. “It was my first full-time academic position.”

Gilden received his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, his masters degree from California State of Los Angeles and his Ph.D. from the University of Houston.

Although he began college as an anthropology major, after about a year, he found psychology to be more interesting and switched majors.

Gilden also knew as soon as he started college that he wanted to work in an academic career. Because Gilden has always been a disciplined self-starter, he thought that working in an academic job would be perfect for him, he said.

“It’s kind of interesting because there’s a combination of constraint and freedom at the same time,” Gilden said. “You’re constrained by the boundaries of the academic calendar and the semester and things like that, but at the same time between each of the days within those constraints, you have a lot of freedom of how you’re going to spend your day.”

Although Gilden is ready to move on from Linfield, he will miss the opportunities and relationships he’s had with people in all departments and areas on campus.

“I think at a lot of schools there are less opportunities for cross-talk among different departments and different parts of the faculty, but I came here at a time when there’s a lot of interaction between people,” Gilden said.

Having past students furthering their careers and lives because of things that Gilden taught them or helped them with will also be something that Gilden will miss after retiring, he said.

However, Gilden said he is looking forward to traveling, working with new research opportunities and participating in music opportunities.

“The top thing I’m looking forward to is being able to pick up and go from September through the end of May if I want to,” Gilden said. “Time will tell.”

Samantha Sigler/News editor

Samantha Sigler can be reached at [email protected].