The Legacy of R. Bedford Watkins

The expansive collection of musical compositions by retired professor R. Bedford Watkins is now catalogued and available for use at IWU’s Archives & Special Collections.

R. Bedford Watkins, an exceptional keyboardist, composer, and educator, was a prominent faculty member of IWU’s School of Music from 1956 to 1988. He earned a bachelor of music degree from Rhodes College, a master of music degree from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate from the University of Iowa. He created an impressive portfolio of compositions throughout his decades as a musician, which he donated to the University in 2019.

Watkins was prolific: his collection contains dozens of compositions, ranging from fantasies for cello to large orchestral works. His modern writing style continually questions traditional harmonic practices by embracing atonal structures. In addition to the vast collection of handwritten and original copies of his compositions, Watkins writing, correspondence, and even poetry is included. Recordings of his works are digitally available from a link to his online archive catalog. Watkins even donated his own harpsichord to the university, which can now be found at the School of Music.

Digital Commons

The Ames Library’s Digital Initiatives Team launched IWU’s electronic record storage and access system in fall 2008. Digital Commons serves as the central location for outstanding student work, faculty scholarship, University records, and campus history. It holds 3,552 works to date. To launch this repository, the archives supplied research honors theses and scores dating back to the 1960s, as well as peer-reviewed student journals.

 

Our goals are to:

  • Promote and disseminate academic and creative achievements of students and faculty
  • Ensure preservation of and persistent access to said work
  • Increase discovery of IWU scholarship and artistic expressions
  • Foster scholarly collaborations with colleagues
  • Document and record IWU’s history and progress

If you create or control documents related to University history and have been wondering how to store them electronically, leave me a comment below and I will walk you through what DC @ IWU can do for you. If you are interested in getting faculty or staff members’ scholarly or creative works into DC, or wish to recommend outstanding student scholarship from your department, contact our Scholarly Communications Librarians Stephanie Davis-Kahl: sdaviska {at} iwu.edu.