Bourland Retires After Decades of Service to Engineering School

Bourland Retires After Decades of Service to Engineering School

BY DAVID KAPLAN
Rice News Staff

For most of the last 39 years, Hardy Bourland has been a force within the George R. Brown School of Engineering. Last month he retired as associate dean of engineering but he won’t be forgotten.

His colleagues say they will miss Bourland—a man of intelligence, know-how, devotion and integrity—and are grateful for all he did for Rice.

Bourland also is remembered for what he is not. "He was not the type to blow his own horn," says Carl MacDowell, the recently retired assistant to the president. "He’d sit down and express himself at the highest levels, work a problem through to completion and didn’t care who got credit for a good decision."

"If I were starting over at Rice," MacDowell says, "I’d try to find myself a Hardy Bourland to work with as a close colleague. The Brown School of Engineering was fortunate to have him as its champion for four decades."

Bourland’s good friend Sidney Burrus, the dean of the school of engineering and the Maxfield and Oshman Professor of Engineering, agrees. "Hardy Bourland has been an immense help to all of the deans who he has worked under. He helped me move into the dean’s position and be effective in ways in which I will always be grateful. He has helped move Rice’s school of engineering into a much better place than when he came here."

Bourland leaves with fond feelings for Rice. "Love the place," he says. "I’m one of the luckiest people that ever lived, working for a series of outstanding people."

His contributions to the school of engineering are wide-ranging. As associate dean, he was responsible for undergraduate student recruitment and retention, day-to-day management of the budget and research and staff administration. For the past decade, he was director of the Rice Engineering Design and Development Institute (REDDI) and for many years he taught courses in electrical, mechanical and civil engineering. Early in his career at Rice, he played a major role in Rice’s artificial heart project.

Noting that the school of engineering has grown in leaps and bounds while he has been at Rice, Bourland says, "But we haven’t lost our focus, which is the importance of serving undergraduate students while increasing the emphasis on research.

"I’ve tried very hard to forward the interests of my colleagues," Bourland says. "I probably exceeded my authority a few times, pushing for things, but that’s because I feel very strongly about this place".

"My attitude has always been: Try to be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. That doesn’t mean you can’t challenge things and offer alternatives."