Pfeiffer Honored with Gold Medal

Pfeiffer Honored with Gold Medal

BY DAVID D. MEDINA
Special to the Rice News
May 7, 1998

For his service to Rice, Paul Pfeiffer, professor emeritus of computational
and applied mathematics, is being honored with the Alumni Association’s Gold
Medal Award.

Pfeiffer has been at Rice for 57 years–51 as a teacher and six as a student.
He began teaching here when Edgar Odell Lovett was president and has taught
under all six Rice presidents. He retired in 1988, but continues teaching full-time
as a professor emeritus.

An award-winning teacher and author of six books, Pfeiffer is a quiet, self-effacing
man, who has a great desire to help others. He served as dean of students from
1965 to 1969. He was also interim master for Weiss College and Brown College
and won the Brown College Award for Teaching Excellence in the Sciences in 1974
and 1981. His dedication to students is legendary.

After he graduated from Rice in 1938, Pfeiffer pursued a master’s degree in
electrical engineering at Rice, but left the university to study theology.

In 1943, Pfeiffer received a bachelor of divinity from Southern Methodist University’s
Perkins School of Theology. He worked for four years as a minister but discovered
that he was "more a teacher than a preacher."

He took a job at Rice teaching electrical engineering courses while working
on his doctorate, which he received in 1952.

Pfeiffer headed the Committee on Applied Mathematics and Systems Research,
which was instrumental in forming the Department of Mathematical Sciences, now
the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics. He also was responsible
for setting up the Rice tutorial program for freshmen, and recently served as
chair of the committee on the judicial process at Rice.

His commitment to Rice has earned him the Rice University Service Award, the
Rice Student Association Lifetime Appreciation Award and the Meritorious Service
Award.