Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1990 [PAGE 391]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1991]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

379

Ms. Reese also announced to the board that Dr. Bacon had been the recipient of a significant grant for her clinic in Chicago and offered congratulations.

SPECIAL PRESENTATION BY THE FAMILY OF PROFESSOR JOHN BARDEEN

President Ikenberry announced to the board that Mrs. John Bardeen, the widow of Professor John Bardeen, and two of their children, William A. Bardeen and Elizabeth A. Bardeen Greytak, were present to meet with the board and convey to the board the medals awarded to Professor Bardeen for his remarkable scientific research. In welcoming the family and friends of Professor Bardeen, President Ikenberry remarked that John Bardeen exemplified what is best in the scholarly tradition of the University of Illinois. He then introduced Mrs. Bardeen, William A. Bardeen, and Elizabeth A. Bardeen Greytak. William Bardeen, representing the family, thanked the trustees for the opportunity to meet with them and indicated that he wished to make a few remarks about his father's long relationship with the University. He recalled that John Bardeen came to the University in 1951, at the invitation of Professor Fred Seitz, and spent the next 40 years at the Urbana campus as an active and vital member of the campus community. Professor Bardeen held joint appointments in physics, electrical engineering, and in the Center for Advanced Study. William Bardeen related to the trustees that these several appointments reflected his father's varied interests in fundamental developments in physics and in both fundamental and dramatic advances in technology. William Bardeen told the trustees that his father enjoyed all aspects of life at the Urbana campus; his colleagues, his students, the music and art on the campus, and the athletic teams' successes and struggles. In view of this, the Bardeen family believes that John Bardeen's honors, papers, and awards should be kept by the campus that was so much a part of his life. William Bardeen gave his father's own words to express this: "Since my work in scientific fields has been noted with diverse awards and honors and has been evidenced by various diplomas and certificates in recognition of my long tenure, I believe it is within the institution that they should be deposited upon my death. I therefore give, will, bequeath all such evidences of awards and honors which I have received to the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois to make such use of them as they like." It was reported that Dr. Bardeen's 19 honorary degrees have been conveyed to the World Heritage Museum on the Urbana campus. William Bardeen then described the four gold medals that would be conveyed today: 1. The Nobel Medal for physics, awarded in 1956 (for discovery of what was known as the transistor effect).