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NCHM Executive Director
Professor Ray Barnett

Broad interests inspire a vision

How did a Chinese studies scholar from Yale University end up creating a vision for a Northern California natural history museum?

"One reason I've had some success," Ray Barnett said, "is that I'm not a typical scientist." That's quite an understatement. After Yale, he studied theology for a year at Union Theological Seminary, then spent three years in the U.S. Army, including one year at the Surgeon General's Office in Headquarters, U.S. Army, Vietnam.

Upon his discharge, Barnett entered the graduate program in zoology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He received his Ph.D. in zoology in 1976 and immediately joined the Department of Biological Sciences at CSU, Chico. For the past 27 years, he has taught a variety of courses, including human anatomy, mammalogy, field biology, ecology of the Pacific Basin, and introductory biology.

While publishing scientific studies of the evolutionary ecology of mammals in an array of scientific journals, Barnett also published a historical mystery novel, Jade and Fire, set in Beijing in 1948 (awarded four stars on Amazon.com), and a study of the relationship between Taoism and the biological sciences in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. A thriller about a threatened war between China and Taiwan (averted by a handsome American) is not yet published. He has recently completed a nonfiction self-help book, In Tune with the Universe: Taoist Practices for the Modern West, combining his longtime interests in Asia and Taoism. He has traveled extensively in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea.

"My wide interests outside the biological sciences give me a keen understanding of how nonscientists approach biology," Barnett said. "I can make science fun and intelligible to the layperson." He attributed the popularity of his introductory biology class to this understanding and said the natural history museum also approaches science from a lay perspective.

"We are lucky in Northern California to have such an undiscovered, priceless heritage," Barnett stated enthusiastically, "yet no museum so far has covered this amazing area." He plans to remedy this deficiency with a first-rate, state-of-the-art museum to capture the attention of Northern California schoolchildren, scholars, and tourists. "We'll have dinosaurs!" he said. He described the full-size robotic mammoth he imagines for the Ages of Northern California exhibit and the immersion diorama walks that will allow visitors to walk through exhibits, with no glass separating them from the experience. He envisions plenty of hands-on activities, not just looking, in the new museum.

A visionary in his personal life as well, Barnett was a founder of Valley Oaks Village, the Chico CoHousing community, an "intentional neighborhood," where he lives with his wife and the two youngest of his four children.

Francine Gair