Herman Spieth
Encyclopedia
Herman Spieth was an American zoologist and university administrator. He was the first chancellor
of the University of California, Riverside
from 1956 to 1964. Originally hired as a professor in the Life Sciences
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
for 20 years, first as professor
of Zoology
and Chairman of the Department of Life Sciences at the newly founded UC campus at Riverside, and then as Provost
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 of Drosophila
.
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
where he worked under Alfred Kinsey
studying the evolution
and taxonomy
of mayflies, and received his Ph.D.
in 1931.
where he taught a diversity of courses—comparative anatomy
, field biology, general biology and parasitology
. During this time he was also a lecturer in the Graduate Division at Columbia University
where he taught a course on the biology of insects. He also taught marine
and freshwater biology
during some summers at the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratories on Long Island
, and was visiting professor at the University of Texas and the University of Minnesota
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
.
During the war he was a Captain in the Army Air Corps
, 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
at Columbia University and Ernst Mayr
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 and Edwin Colbert 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, continuing to serve as a laboratory teaching assistant even after he assumed the post of 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 Desert Research Station, 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
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
and also served on several accreditation committees of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
.
Most of Spieth's lifelong research activities were evolutionary in nature: systematics, behavior, especially mating behavior, and evolutionary ecology
. 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 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
, Indiana. This was published in 1928. His contribution to science thus spanned 60 years.
Chancellor
Chancellor is the title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the Cancellarii of Roman courts of justice—ushers who sat at the cancelli or lattice work screens of a basilica or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the...
of the University of California, Riverside
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
from 1956 to 1964. Originally hired as a professor in the Life Sciences
Life sciences
The life sciences comprise the fields of science that involve the scientific study of living organisms, like plants, animals, and human beings. While biology remains the centerpiece of the life sciences, technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to a burgeoning of...
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
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
for 20 years, first as professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Zoology
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
and Chairman of the Department of Life Sciences at the newly founded UC campus at Riverside, and then as Provost
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
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 of Drosophila
Drosophila
Drosophila is a genus of small flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "fruit flies" or more appropriately pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit...
.
Early years
Spieth grew up as a farm boy in IndianaIndiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
where a childhood of hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
, fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
, and farming stimulated an early interest in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
. He began his studies at Indiana Central College where, his parents felt, a year of study would qualify him for a high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
teaching
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
position. He took to the academic life and majored in zoology. Graduating in 1926, he went on to Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
where he worked under Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...
studying the evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
and taxonomy
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
of mayflies, and received his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1931.
Career
From 1932 to 1953 (with a hiatus during the war) Spieth was at the College of the City of New YorkCollege of the City of New York
The College of the City of New York is the former name of New York University's undergraduate college when the university was named "University of the City of New York"....
where he taught a diversity of courses—comparative anatomy
Comparative anatomy
Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny .-Description:...
, field biology, general biology and parasitology
Parasitology
Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question, but by their way of life...
. During this time he was also a lecturer in the Graduate Division at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
where he taught a course on the biology of insects. He also taught marine
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
and freshwater biology
Freshwater biology
Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems. They include lakes and ponds, rivers, streams and springs, and wetlands. They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems, which have a larger salt content...
during some summers at the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratories on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, and was visiting professor at the University of Texas and the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
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
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
.
During the war he was a Captain in the Army Air Corps
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...
, serving as head of the Navigation Department at Cochran Field in Macon, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, and later as assistant director of the School for Altitude Physiology in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. He became friends with Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Grygorovych Dobzhansky ForMemRS was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the unifying modern evolutionary synthesis...
at Columbia University and Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...
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 and Edwin Colbert and others.
A new period of Spieth's professional life began with his move, in 1953, to a newly established Riverside
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
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, continuing to serve as a laboratory teaching assistant even after he assumed the post of 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 Desert Research Station, 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
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
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
American Institute of Biological Sciences
The American Institute of Biological Sciences is a non-profit scientific association that is dedicated to advancing biological research and education.-Overview:...
and also served on several accreditation committees of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Western Association of Schools and Colleges
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges is one of six official academic bodies responsible for the accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in the United States and foreign institutions of American origin. The Western Association of...
.
Most of Spieth's lifelong research activities were evolutionary in nature: systematics, behavior, especially mating behavior, and evolutionary ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
. 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 sexual isolation
Reproductive isolation
The mechanisms of reproductive isolation or hybridization barriers are a collection of mechanisms, behaviors and physiological processes that prevent the members of two different species that cross or mate from producing offspring, or which ensure that any offspring that may be produced is not...
. 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
Sierra Madre Mountains (California)
The Sierra Madre Mountains are a mountain range in northern Santa Barbara County, California, USA. They are a portion of the Inner South Coast Ranges, representing the southernmost part, which are themselves part of the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America. The Sierra Madre Mountains...
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
Lake Wawasee, formerly Turkey Lake, is a natural lake southeast of Syracuse in Kosciusko County, Indiana, United States. It is the largest natural lake in 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.