Teachers College Faculty and Emeriti Collections

Joan Dye Gussow (October 4, 1928 – March 7, 2025) served as Professor of Nutrition Education at Teachers College from 1975 until her retirement in 1995, when she was named Professor Emeritus. She was chair of the Department of Nutrition Education from 1975 to 1985 and was named Mary Swartz Rose Professor of Nutrition Education in 1988. Gussow's scholarly and professional activities focused on issues concerning the safety and sustainability of the food supply, children and nutrition, consumerism and food, dietary guidelines, and women's relation to food. Her scholarly interests included food policy generally; specifically, issues related to the environmental necessity of, and practical barriers to, the relocalization of the food supply. She designed and implemented a ourse called "Nutritional Ecology"  and shared the information developed in that course with the rest of the world in her book, This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader (2001). Gussow wrote other books on the topic, including The Feeding Web: Issues in Nutritional Ecology (Bull, 1978),Chicken Little, Tomato Sauce and Agriculture: Who Will Produce Tomorrow's Food? (Bootstrap Press, 1991), and Growing, Older: A Chronicle of Death, Life, and Vegetables (Chelsea Green, 2010). From 1980 to 1983, Dr. Gussow served on the Diet, Nutrition and Cancer Panel of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). In 1984, she was simultaneously appointed to the Board of the National Gardening Association and to the Food and Nutrition Board of the NAS — a symbolic reflection, she felt, of her professional goal of linking food growing to nutrition science. She completed a five-year term on the National Organic Standards Board where she worked to help shape the regulations that determine the quality of foods USDA certified as organic.

The Joan Dye Gussow Papers cover a period from 1972 to 1994 and consist of 2.5 linear feet of materials. The papers include professional correspondence documenting her association with colleagues in the field of nutrition and food studies, and also document her involvement with a number of professional organizations, government agencies, and foundations (1972-1994). Also included are drafts of speeches Gussow delivered before various professional audiences (1972-1985), newspaper articles written by or referring to Gussow, and syllabi and materials for nutrition courses at Teachers College . The papers are arranged alphabetically and chronologically.

Several documents from Joan Dye Gussow's papers have been digitized and are available through the Teachers College Digital Collections.

Collections Held at Teachers College

• Archives of the Department of Nursing Education
• Alice Rines Collection
• Mary Swartz Rose Collection
• Office of the President (P. Michael Timpane, 1984-1995)

Collections Held at Columbia University

• Lawrence A. Cremin Papers, 1932-2007

Collections Outside of Teachers College

• Food, Agriculture, and Resources in Place at Michigan State University Libraries
• Women, Food, and Power at University of Montana Libraries

The accession number for RG 28: Joan Dye Gussow Papers is 950508. The collection was initially accessioned and processed by Bette Weneck in 1995.