Herman Spieth (21 August 1905 – 20 October 1988) was an American zoologist and university administrator. He was the first
chancellor
Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...
of the
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...
from 1956 to 1964. Originally hired as a professor in the
Life Sciences
This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, ...
Department, he was responsible for administering UCR's change from a liberal arts college to a major research university. Spieth Hall at UCR is named after him.
Spieth served the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
for 20 years, first as professor of
Zoology
Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
and Chairman of the Department of Life Sciences at the newly founded UC campus at Riverside, and then as
provost
Provost may refer to:
Officials
Ecclesiastic
* Provost (religion), a high-ranking church official
* Prince-provost, a high-ranking church official
Government
* Provost (civil), an officer of local government, including the equivalent ...
and the first chancellor of the Riverside campus, and finally as chairman of the Department of Zoology at UC Davis. He retired in 1973 and devoted full-time to his research on the
evolutionary biology
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biolo ...
of
Drosophila
''Drosophila'' (), from Ancient Greek δρόσος (''drósos''), meaning "dew", and φίλος (''phílos''), meaning "loving", is a genus of fly, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or p ...
.
Biography
Early years
Spieth grew up as a farm boy in Indiana where a childhood of hunting, fishing, and farming stimulated an early interest in biology. He began his studies at
Indiana Central College where, his parents felt, a year of study would qualify him for a high school teaching position. He took to the academic life and majored in zoology. Graduating in 1926, he went on to
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...
, where he worked under
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Insti ...
studying the evolution and
taxonomy
image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy
Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...
of
mayflies
Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the order ...
, and received his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in 1931.
Career
From 1932 to 1953, (with a hiatus during the war) Spieth was at the
College of the City of New York, where he taught a diversity of courses—
comparative anatomy
Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species).
The science began in the classical era, continuing in t ...
, field biology, general biology and
parasitology
Parasitology is the study of parasites, their host (biology), hosts, and the relationship between them. As a List of biology disciplines, biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in questio ...
.
During this time he was also a lecturer in the Graduate Division at
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, where he taught a course on the biology of insects. He also taught
marine and
freshwater biology
Freshwater biology is the scientific biological study of freshwater ecosystems and is a branch of limnology. This field seeks to understand the relationships between living organisms in their physical environment. These physical environments may ...
during some summers at the
Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratories on Long Island, and was visiting professor at the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...
and the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
where he also taught summer courses. From 1932 to 1953 he was also a Research Associate with a laboratory at the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
.
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Spieth was a
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
in the
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
, serving as head of the Navigation Department at Cochran Field in
Macon, Georgia, and later as assistant director of the School for Altitude Physiology in Florida. He became friends with
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky (; ; January 25, 1900 – December 18, 1975) was a Russian-born American geneticist and evolutionary biologist. He was a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern ...
at Columbia University and
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr ( ; ; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher of biology, and ...
at the American Museum of Natural History, both of whom encouraged him to explore the mating behavior of Drosophila. At the Museum he was also associated with
Frank Beach
Frank Ambrose Beach, Jr. (April 13, 1911 – June 15, 1988) was an American ethologist, best known as co-author of the 1951 book '' Patterns of Sexual Behavior.'' He is often regarded as the founder of behavioral endocrinology, as his publicat ...
and
Edwin Colbert
Edwin Harris "Ned" Colbert (September 28, 1905 – November 15, 2001)O'Connor, Anahad ''The New York Times'', November 25, 2001. was a distinguished American vertebrate paleontologist and prolific researcher and author.
Born in Clarinda, Iowa, he ...
and others.
A new period of Spieth's professional life began with his move, in 1953, to a newly established
Riverside campus of the University of California. At UCR he organized the Division of Life Sciences and assembled its initial faculty.
In 1956 he was appointed Provost and two years later, when UCR became a general campus, Spieth became its first chancellor. During his years at UCR he taught general biology, and continued to serve as a laboratory teaching assistant even after he became chancellor. His term as chancellor was busy as he presided over the change to a general campus, directed the construction of new buildings, established the
Philip L. Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center, facilitated the development of graduate programs and successfully managed the "student problems of the 60s" which entailed the delicate task of maintaining order while protecting academic freedom.
In 1964, he stepped down as chancellor and after a sabbatical leave moved to the Davis campus where he became chair of the Department of Zoology. In this capacity he presided over the major expansion of the department, including the planning and construction of Storer Hall, the new home for the department. He also acquired undeveloped land on the campus for field research which subsequently was designated the Herman T. Spieth Natural History Preserve. While engaged in these activities, at the same time he personally participated in experimenting with new teaching methods for large classes—in his case, General Biology. Many former students from this period and back to his early years in New York City have great praise for him as a teacher.
During his career he served on a great many university committees, but his profound interest in education extended beyond his university. He was appointed to the Committee on Biological Sciences Curriculum of the
American Institute of Biological Sciences
The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is a nonprofit scientific public charitable organization. The organization's mission is to promote the use of science to inform decision-making and advance biology for the benefit of science an ...
and also served on several accreditation committees of the
Western Association of Schools and Colleges
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC ( )) provided accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Samoa and Northern ...
.
Most of Spieth's lifelong research activities were evolutionary in nature: systematics, behavior, especially
mating behavior, and evolutionary
ecology
Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...
. In his early work the organism of interest was the mayfly (Ephemeroptera). He constructed the definitive systematics of this organism while working out the basic ecology of many of the species. He then turned to the genus Drosophila. These studies were started in New York—with the collaboration of Dobzhansky and his group, and continued for the rest of his career.
He focused on mating behavior and
concomitant
Concomitance is the condition of accompanying or coexisting. A concomitant is something that accompanies something else.
Concomitant or concomitance may refer to:
* Concomitance (doctrine)
The Doctrine of Concomitance is a Eucharistic theologica ...
sexual isolation. He first worked out the basic experimental techniques for analysis and then proceeded to describe the evolution of mating behavior throughout the genus, which was a pioneering contribution to a now flourishing field. Later on he was one of the founders of the Hawaiian Drosophila project, which is now comparable to, and in some way surpasses, the evolutionary studies of Darwin's finches. He participated as guest investigator at the Genetic Foundation at the University of Texas, Austin (the initial mainland headquarters) and on numerous occasions as visiting colleague at the University of Hawaii. He contributed much to the ecological description of this species as well as applying his special expertise in describing their mating behavior and his was a substantial contribution to the synthesis of their evolutionary relationships. Most of this research was done during the Davis period and a great deal of it during his emeritus years.
His final years were spent studying the ecology of Drosophila in the
Blodgett Forest in the
Sierra Mountain Range near Davis. His last paper was a description of these findings published in the
Pan Pacific Entomologist in 1988. His first publication was also on ecology, describing the bottom fauna of
Lake Wawasee
Lake Wawasee, formerly Turkey Lake, is a natural lake southeast of Syracuse in Kosciusko County, Indiana, United States. It is the largest natural lake wholly contained within Indiana. It is located just east of Indiana State Road 13.
History
...
, Indiana. This was published in 1928. His contribution to science thus spanned 60 years.
Citations
References
*
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spieth, Herman
1905 births
1988 deaths
20th-century American zoologists
20th-century American academics
American entomologists
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
University of Indianapolis alumni
Indiana University Bloomington alumni
Chancellors of the University of California, Riverside
United States Army Air Forces officers
City College of New York faculty