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IN MEMORIAM
HAROLD CHARLES BOLD
Harold C. Bold died at his home in Austin
on Friday, December 18, 1987. At the time of his death, Dr. Bold was
the C. L. Lundell Professor Emeritus of Systematic Botany in the Department
of Botany. Dr. Bold was a member of The University of Texas at Austin
faculty from 1957 until his retirement in 1978. He was an active participant
in University and scholarly affairs until he died.
Dr. Bold was born on June 16, 1909,
in New York City. He was the great-grandson of the famous painter Severin
Roesen. Dr. Bold was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Columbia University,
where he received a BA degree in biology in 1929. In 1931, he received
an MS degree from the University of Vermont. Dr. Bold earned a PhD degree
in botany from Columbia University in 1933.
Dr. Bold had a lifelong interest in
botany and plants. His first professional appointment was as an instructor
in botany at the University of Vermont, where he remained for three
years. In 1939-1940, Dr. Bold was a visiting lecturer at Barnard College,
and from 1940 to 1942, he was an assistant professor of botany at Columbia
University.
Dr. Bold's teaching responsibilities
were interrupted during World War II. From 1942 to 1945, he was on active
duty in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a lieutenant commander.
In 1945, Dr. Bold returned to teaching
and research as an associate professor of biology at Vanderbilt University.
In 1949, he was promoted to professor of biology and was in charge of
the Division of Botany. He remained at Vanderbilt University until coming
to UT Austin in 1957 as a professor of botany. From 1975 until his retirement
in 1978, he held the C. L. Lundell Professorship of Systematic Botany.
With Dr. Bold's arrival at the University
in 1957, a resurgence began in the Department of Botany. Under his leadership,
the department gained national recognition and it was consistently ranked
as the top botany department in the nation until it was dissolved in
1999. Dr. Bold was chairman of the department from 1962 to 1968.
Dr. Bold was a true scholar and he wrote
one of the most widely-used general textbooks in botany, Morphology
of Plants, published in 1957 by Harper and Brothers. This book was
translated into many languages and was the world-wide reference for
introductory botany. He wrote another very popular textbook, The
Plant Kingdom, in 1961, published by Prentice-Hall. Dr. Bold also
contributed to various encyclopedias and was the author of 80 scientific
papers.
Dr. Bold was a humanitarian, and his
students were his most important focus. Known as a true scholar and
a gentleman, Dr. Bold's courses in phycology and general botany were
taken by thousands of undergraduates. He made his classes interesting
through anecdotes used to bring the history of science into perspective.
Dr. Bold was a gifted artist and often would have the blackboard completely
filled at the end of the lecture with life cycles, plant tissues, and
cellular and organ morphology. Dr. Bold's courses were the source for
many of his graduate students, although many were recruited nationally.
Dr. Bold's teaching efforts were rewarded in 1972 with Standard Oil
(Indiana) Foundation's Outstanding Teaching Award. He used these funds
to establish the H. C. Bold Prize for Teaching Assistants in the Department
of Botany.
In the area of graduate education, Harold
C. Bold made an indelible mark, as most of his doctoral students went
on to successful careers in colleges and universities. Being a graduate
student of Dr. Bold's was like being taken under a wing. He was always
interested in teaching the student powers of observation through the
microscope, followed by editing and correcting papers. It is no accident
that Dr. Bold's students gained great insight in the art and science
of manuscript preparation. Dr. Bold gave his graduate students an early
taste for publication excellence through The University of Texas publication
series "Phycological Studies." More than eleven dissertations were published
in this series, thanks to his careful tutelage. Dr. Bold and his graduate
students discovered and described approximately 75 new species of soil
algae. During his career, Harold C. Bold directed the research of 42
doctoral students, including 31 on the UT Austin campus.
In a gesture of solidarity of support
behind their major professor, 26 of Dr. Bold's present and former students
honored him with a banquet in 1973. They presented him a book authored
by his former students entitled Contributions in Phycology. The
forward to this book gave an eloquent testimonial to his dedication
as a teacher and described his greatest strength as being ". . . his
characteristic consideration of each student as an individual whose
potential for development is and should be limited only by the student
himself." Also, ". . . the magnetism of his lectures on plants, wherein
organisms and their parts seemed to come alive from a combination of
chalk-on-blackboard finesse, along with the self confidence he instilled
in us, provided opportunities for us to pursue more rapidly the paths
to our post-doctoral goals."
This particular banquet led to the establishment
of a fund drive in the Phycological Society of America to develop the
"Bold Award," given each year to the best graduate student paper presented
at the national meetings. To this day, the "Bold Award" is one of the
highlights in the annual meetings of the society.
Fourteen years later, on August 6, 1987,
Dr. Bold's former students organized a "Harold Bold Reunion" for him
in Austin. It was a gala celebration in the Faculty Center, and when
each student presented Dr. Bold with a brief recollection of their association,
Harold "roasted" each student with "story #99d," remembering in vivid
detail some interesting aspect of the student's past. A video recording
of this event was made and was among the last recorded events of Dr.
Bold.
Dr. Bold received many national and
international awards and honors. Among these, his election in 1973 to
the U.S. National Academy of Science was one of his most cherished.
A year later, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences. He was also named "Distinguished Alumnus" of Vanderbilt
University in 1957, and he was presented a "Distinguished Service Award"
at the University of Vermont in 1979. He was a longtime editor-in-chief
of the American Journal of Botany, and president of the Botanical
Society of America. This society also conferred on him its highest honor,
the "Award of Merit." He was president and a founding member of the
Phycological Society of America. In 1983 President Peter T. Flawn, in
recognition of his teaching excellence, indefatigable research, and
good campus citizenship, bestowed the "Presidential Citation" upon Dr.
Bold.
Music was an important part of Dr. Bold's
life. He maintained an active correspondence with the Steinway brothers
who owned the Steinway Piano Company in New York City. His wife, Mary,
was an accomplished pianist and taught at Vanderbilt University. Dr.
Bold played both the piano and organ, and it was always a delight when
students and colleagues, invited to their elegant home on Duval Avenue,
experienced a concert by Harold and Mary on their two Steinway grand
pianos. Dr. Bold also was an avid fan of Charles Dickens, and he read
and carefully studied the works of Dickens and other Victorian novelists.
Dr. Bold and his wife were extensive travelers, preferring trains or
boats. They sailed to England three times in six years on the Queen
Elizabeth II.
Harold Bold was deeply religious. He
put his faith into practice. Every morning for several hours, seven
days a week, he faithfully went to Seton Hospital where he was an Extraordinary
Minister of the Eucharist, helping the Roman Catholic priest serve Holy
Communion to patients.
Harold Bold gave generously to The University
of Texas. Upon the death of his wife, Dr. Bold provided funds to establish
the Mary D. Bold Regents Professorship of Music in her honor. In addition,
he gave resources to establish the Mary D. Bold Scholarship Fund in
the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Bold cared truly for all those who
worked for him. On the occasion of the retirement of Frances Denny,
who was his secretary from 1957 to 1984, Dr. Bold wrote the following
poem:
"The years have been good to Bot. and to Denny
We would not exchange either for any
But the time has come to get her work done
She will be missed by many, many."
For all who knew Dr. Harold C. Bold, he is missed
by "many, many."
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner,
President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
This memorial resolution was prepared by a special committee consisting
of Professors R. Malcolm Brown, Jr. (chair) and Jerry Brand.
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