Dean Keith Simonton

Hi, I'm Dean. No, Dean is not my title, but my first name. I know it causes lots of confusion, especially at the university where I work. It doesn't help matters that I spell out my middle name. You see, my father's given name was Dean and my stepfather's was Keith (by clairvoyant coincidence), and so I've retained both. Alas! I've actually had people introduce me at conferences and conventions as Keith Simonton, wanting to be informal and deciding (incorrectly) that they might best "drop the title." I also get many phone calls from people wishing to speak to the "Dean of Psychology." It's such a nice title, however phony, that I decided to have it placed next to my office door!

Now three points about my surname.

First, the name apparently originated when King Robert the Bruce (1306-1329) conferred the town of Symington ("Symons Town") upon a certain Thomas as a reward for the latter's service in the Scottish Wars of Independence (depicted so graphically in Mel Gibson's Braveheart). Thus assuming the name Thomas of Symington, he became the family's progenitor. The village still exists in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and in the summer of 2006 it was the location of a extended-family reunion celebrating the 700th anniversary of the surname's beginnings.

Second, since its origination it has acquired many different spellings, including my own. My version of the name is pronounced with a long i in the first syllable (as in "sigh") and with no "ing" in the second syllable (i.e., rhyming with "fun"). I have no idea how the middle syllable came to be pronounced differently from the original surname. However, it does represent a reversion to Symons Town.

Third, the Simonton Simonton is by no means a common name anywhere. According to the Census Bureau, its frequency is only around 0.001%, making it the 8,347th "most popular" surname in the United States. Not surprisingly, the Encyclopedia of American Family Names does not even list it! Some Simontons have devoted considerable effort to teasing out the lineage, and it seems that many if not all of those who carry that last name were descended from the same immigrant who arrived in the English colonies sometime in the mid-18th century. Hence, presumably the person after whom Simonton Street is named (in Key West, Florida) can count as a distant relative, along with the psychiatrist Carl Simonton, the feminist Ann Simonton, the founder of Simonton Windows, and the mid-19th century immigrant for whom Simonton, Texas, named. But that's about as far as my knowledge goes. My paternal grandfather, Prescott "Max" Simonton, abandoned his wife when my father was very young, creating a serious break in the passing down of family traditions - whatever they might have been. I never met Max, and my dad only did once.

Now some early biography: I was born in Glendale, CA, a city near downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood, but grew up in the San Fernando Valley. Despite growing up in a working-class neighborhood - my dad was a high school dropout who worked on the assemblyline in the aerospace industry - I very early became ambitious, an ambition fueled by my omnivorous reading. As an impressionable youth I encountered the maxim of an obscure 19th-century American (Joel Hawes) that became something of a personal motto: "Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself."

That saying became fully actualized when I attended John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, the second oldest school in LA (founded in 1897, and moved to its present site in 1957). Besides getting excellent grades - I was the class salutatorian - I was very active in extracurricular actitivies, including student government ("secretary of health and safety"), community service (mostly in association with the Red Cross), rock and jazz groups (as rhythm guitarist), and football ("half back"), but becoming half-time announcer for the marching band and drill team after a knee injury put me on a much more fun and less smelly bus. Also about this time I used my minimum-wage earnings as busboy to purchase the Great Books of the Western World. These volumes provide me with intellectual stimulation and amusement to this very day. (Well, sort of ... on 8/29/08 finished reading Virgil's Georgics with little enthusiasm! Didactic poetry!)

My favorite activity in high school was probably drama, where I had supporting roles in two productions ("Heaven Can Wait" and "Lost Horizon") and a lead role in another ("Berkeley Square"). Poly's drama director had delivered a few lines as "Lt. Cunningham" in the 1952 What Price Glory, staring James Cagney and directed by John Ford. (Again, coincidentally, my stepfather had conducted the orchestra for Charlie Chaplin's Limelight that was released the exact same year!)

More challenging was my role as captain of the school "knowledge bowl team" - which I eventually led to victory in a televised competition ("Scholar Quiz").  The prize? A seven-language dictionary, a slide rule (what's that?), and a quart of orange juice! All but the last I still have in my possession (the slide rule as an archeological artifact).

After graduation I got my bachelors in psychology at Occidental College, which had half as many students as my high school! Coincidentally once more, my stepfather also graduated from both "Poly" and "Oxy"!  In any case, while at Oxy I performed in two dramatic productions ("The Maids" and "Chronicles from Hell," the second of which was broadcast on KCET in LA), and served as coordinator for Red Cross activities on the campus (big brother programs, etc.).
 
 
 
 

Also when in college I decided to "see the world" (family vacations having been largely confined to water skiing and camping trips in southern and central California).

In my first summer I hitchhiked famed Route 66 from LA to Chicago to visit the Serbian side of my family and then thumbed across I-80 to San Francisco (through Haight-Ashbury), and from there down 101 to LA. The 5,000 mile solo venture included many unplanned adventures, from being nearly swept away by a flash flood in the Mohave desert (all hail to heavy backpacks) to spending a night sleeping in the Cook County jail (the same one where Roxie Hart was imprisoned in the 2002 film musical Chicago). 

The next summer my girlfriend and I rode our pack-laden bicycles from England (London to Salisbury and Stonehenge, then Brighton), through France (via Dieppe, Rouen, Paris, Chartres, Orléans, Blois, Toulouse, and Carcassonne), a sidetrip to Spain (Barcelona, under the Franco regime!), back briefly to France (Nîmes and the Riviera, including Monaco and Nice), then to Italy (Firenze, Roma, San Marino, Ravenna, Venezia, Milano, and Como), Switzerland (Grindelwald and Luzerne), Germany (Heidelberg, the Rhein to Bonn and Köln), and finally to the Netherlands (Amsterdam). OK, OK, I confess, we put our bikes on a ferry, boat, or train from time to time!

From Oxy I went straight to Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. There I devoted a considerable amount of time to exploring an environment very different from Southern California - visiting museums, attending concerts, sculling up and down the Charles River, bicycling hither and yon, hiking and backpacking in the Green and White Mountains, and touring the East Coast from Maine to Virginia. Despite the many pleasant distractions, I received my PhD in social psychology four years later, submitting my dissertation while loading up a U-Haul truck to move to my first job at the University of Arkansas. The remainder of the story is part of my academic vita.

Well, maybe not quite: I'm also happily married to a fellow university professor and blessed with a talented daughter who is currently a university student. But all that stuff is best left to private diaries and family albums! Here I will only reveal what's already on the web for Kazie and Bree.

Here some URLs which will give you a better idea about my interests and values.

Music? What could be better than something by Ludwig van Beethoven? My favorite radio station is KXPR, which plays classical music and the live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera.

Who do I admire? Well, what about Albert Einstein for a starter? Or Charles Darwin?  Or Benjamin Franklin or Leonardo da Vinci? When I applied to Oxy it was Franklin who was the subject of the required essay "Who do I most admire and why?" So, in a sense, he got me into college!

How about a non-English tongue? Try some Spanish! One of the world's great languages! I still practice my Spanish every day, and have been a subscriber/student/aficionado of Puerta del Sol since 1994!

What organizations do I support? Dozens ... but among the most important are the Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, Nature Conservancy, Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife, National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, National Parks and Conservation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, California Wilderness Coalition, California State Parks Foundation, Californians Against Waste Foundation, Marine Mammal Center, and Performing Animals Welfare Society.

Here's something interesting: On the side I do "container junk art." It's made of found objects placed within or around old containers. I say it's "interesting" because when I show my art to people for the first time, that's what they say, "Interesting!" It's nice that everyone's so polite! Little children are somewhat less so, one even braking down in tears at the horrible sight! Some photos available right here.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot: If you want to cozy up to the fireplace to read a good book, try my Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity, which was published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It received the William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. In addition, it was chosen as a selection by the Quality Paperback Book Club (part of the Book-of-the-Month Club) and made the "Recommended Reading" list in Phi Beta Kappa's Key Reporter.  McLaughlin, of the TV program The McLaughlin Group, had this to say "All right, sit back. I'll give you a little erudition here. Most Original Thinker of 2000, Dean Keith Simonton, author of Origins of Genius, his ground-breaking treatise that links the Darwinian concept of evolution to the social purpose behind genius; a remarkable book in which I've personally found great help." In 2002 the book was translated into Portuguese for a Brazilian edition.

While I'm at it, I might as well mention that my research and writing has acquired considerable media attention over the years. I have appeared on TV programs covering genius, creativity, and leadership for the Discovery Channel, the Arts and Entertainment Channel ("The Mystery of Genius"), the Public Broadcasting System ("The Creative Spirit"), CNN ("Anderson Cooper Show"), VPRO in the Netherlands ("Bonobo-bo" pictured at left), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (on "Lateline"), the other ABC (on "Good Morning America"), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)/National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and Sacramento's CBS local affiliate KOVR (Channel 13 "10 O'clock News"). I have also done numerous radio interviews for National Public Radio ("Performance Today," "The Infinite Mind," "Whad'Ya Know?," etc.), eYada.com's "Psychology Today ... Today," CBC ("Definitely Not The Opera"), Sirius Satellite Radio ("The Good Life Show"), and various NPR, CBS, BBC, BBC Scotland, ABC, and local radio stations in various English-speaking nations from Australia to Scotland. Finally, my work has been featured in such print media as Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, The New Yorker, Psychology Today, Psychologies, Fortune, Business Week, USA Weekend, Parade Magazine, The Economist, Discover Magazine, Elle, Men's Health, The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, the New York Times, the Sunday Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, internet media like ABCNews.com, LATimes.com, and PopPhoto.com, and and such non-English publications as Der Welt, Pravda, Super Interessante, La Vanguardia, and Valor Econômico.
 

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Last revised: September 18, 2008