Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Talbot Lab [PAGE 17]

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A T R I B U T E TO A R T H U R N E W E L L TALBOT

Arthur N. Talbot, who had graduated from the course in civil engineering in 1881 and had in this interval been employed in the west in railroad surveying, construction, and maintenance. He was employed as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and continued in this department until June, 1890, when he became Professor of Municipal and Sanitary Engineering and in charge also of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. Professor Talbot's contributions to the development of the College are set forth elsewhere in this brochure. Architecture was one of the four fields in which instruction was authorized by the Trustees in 1867; but when Clifford N. Ricker, the first student in architecture, arrived on January 2, 1870, he found that no instruction was yet provided in the technical subjects of that curriculum. These he was therefore compelled to study privately; and among students the tradition ran that he selected his own subjects, taught himself, examined himself, and reported his own grades. He graduated in 1872, being then twenty-nine years old. After a year spent in practice and in travel in Europe he returned to the University in 1873 and was placed in charge of the Department of Architecture — a position which he held continuously until June, 1910; for the first year as Assistant Professor, and thereafter as Professor. He at once arranged a four-year course in architecture; one of the three then available in the United States. The department, under his leadership, became one of the foremost in the country; its present excellent library is largely due to his unremitting zeal, for it was one of his main interests. No member of the faculty of the College has ever given to it his time and effort more unstintingly than Dr. Ricker, and none was a more untiring worker. Outside of his regular duties as a professor, he designed several of our existing University buildings and supervised their construction. Until 1890 his only assistant was the foreman of the carpenter shop. When he retired in 1916, Dr. Ricker had taught in the department for forty-three years and had directed its affairs for thirty-seven; and, in addition, had served the College as Dean for twenty-seven years*

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