UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #522
BOYLE, WILLIAM C.

BOYLE, William C. (1936- )
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
At UW: 1963-1996

Interviewed: 1998	
Series: College of Engineering
Interviewer: Paul Morledge
Length: 2.5 hours

Childhood; Undergraduate education at University of Cincinnati; Master’s degree in sanitary engineering; Doctoral program at California Institute of Technology; Hiring by UW; Interdisciplinary research; Oxygen transfer research; Academia’s over-emphasis on research; Changes in student body; Professional societies; Changes in Civil and Environmental Engineering Department; Deans Kurt Wendt, Robert Marshall and John Bollinger; Consulting work; Retirement.

April 28, 1998

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:17	WB was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and then moved to Little Rock, Arkansas where his father studied for his M.D.  After graduating from medical school WB’s father became West Point Academy’s team physician for football and baseball.

00:01:18	After WWII, WB worked for the Mayo Clinic.  Shortly after that, the family moved to Fort Thomas, Kentucky, where WB spent his high school years and met his future wife.

00:01:40	WB took several exams to help him decide which career to enter, but they were of little help. WB decided to apply to West Point and was accepted.  However, during his senior year of high school, WB broke his leg playing football, which then prevented him from passing the physical exam to enter West Point.

00:03:37	WB won an academic scholarship to study civil engineering at the University of Cincinnati.  He accepted the offer and entered the University of Cincinnati in 1955.

0:05:14	WB took part in the University of Cincinnati’s co-op program for engineering students, working as a sewer gauger for the Milwaukee Sewerage Commission.  This was WB’s first experience in the field of sanitary engineering.

00:06:43	J. V. Eye, who began the sanitary engineering department in the University of Cincinnati, was WB’s first academic mentor.

00:08:38	As a part of the University of Cincinnati’s co-op program, WB received a summer job with O. G. Loomis & Sons in Covington, Kentucky.  This job offered WB the opportunity to lead surveying crews, which, in turn, gave him a much better insight into practical civil engineering.

00:09:48	By his senior year in college, WB had decided to enter the field of sanitary engineering, so he enrolled in the master’s program at the University of Cincinnati.

00:10:01	WB worked with the US Public Health Service during and after graduate school.

00:11:29	WB applied to Ph.D. programs in sanitary engineering.  He wanted to attend the University of Wisconsin but never heard back from the UW College of Engineering.  He later learned that one of the department deans had misplaced his application.

00:13:38	WB accepted a scholarship at Cal Tech to study for his Ph.D. in sanitary engineering.

00:14:28	WB recalled working for the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) during the summer of 1959.  He spent the summer trying to define and mitigate acid mine drainage problems, which made him even more intrigued with the study of sanitary engineering.

00:19:05	WB recalls his first semester at Cal Tech as formidable.  The theoretical and mathematical approaches to engineering were more difficult than what he had seen at the University of Cincinnati.

00:21:21	WB fought his way through the Ph.D. program at Cal Tech and received his degree in environmental health engineering in 1963.  He had many offers from universities for tenure-track positions, but he chose the University of Wisconsin.

00:22:00	Jerry Rollick, who had been the dean of the Civil Engineering Department at the time, and Arno Lenz, who chaired the Department, both impressed WB as capable and personable leaders.  WB also was impressed with the practice of faculty governance on the UW campus.

00:24:59	Former College of Engineering dean Kurt Wendt also struck WB as an extremely competent leader. 

00:30:28	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:30:31	When WB began teaching at UW, there were only a handful of sanitary-oriented engineering faculty.  In 1963, sanitary engineering was located at the Hydraulics and Sanitary Laboratory on the Lake Mendota shore behind the Helen C. White Library.

00:33:32	WB had a difficult first year on the faculty.  He sensed little direction and entertained thoughts of leaving the UW.  However, when the department rehired Professor Larry Polkowski, WB learned a great deal about practical engineering from him.  

00:35:40	WB’s first Ph.D. student, Jim Muller, took an interest in the biological aspects of sanitary control, and together they studied mass oxygen transfer in biological flock.

00:35:55	WB feels the UW has always encouraged interdepartmental research efforts.  For example, WB carried out research with faculty from water chemistry, soil science and bacteriology during the course of his years at UW.

00:41:54	WB points out that many faculty on the UW campus have a strong interest in environmental issues.

00:42:37	NASA funded one of WB’s early interdisciplinary research efforts, which focused on remote sensing technologies.  Many of UW’s science and engineering departments were involved with this project.

00:44:48	The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences collaborated with WB in the mid-1970s on issues of waste disposal from freshwater, recreational water bodies.  The state of Wisconsin has been funding the Small-Scale Waste Management Project ever since.

00:48:16	Another of WB’s ongoing research projects examines the mass transfer of oxygen in water and wastewater organisms. 

00:50:50	WB has been the chairman of the Oxygen Transfer Standards Committee of the American Society for Civil Engineering (ASCE). The Environmental Protection Agency has strongly supported both this committee and WB’s research on oxygen transfer.  WB is known as the world leader in understanding mass oxygen transfer in biological processes.

00:56:28	WB also has investigated lake eutrophication, the phenomenon of algal blooms in nutrient- rich freshwater lakes.

00:59:09	Much of WB’s research funding over the years has been from the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District. WB sees the Metro’s facilities as a great teaching venue for environmental engineering students.

00:59:25	WB says he has been very fortunate in identifying sources of research funding, much more so than many of his colleagues.

01:00:35	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

01:00:36	WB’s research articles on mass oxygen transfer have been widely acclaimed; some have even won paper-of-the-year awards.

01:01:48	WB says that when he first came to the UW, research was important but was by no means promoted.  In the mid-1960s, research was seen as more of an aid to teaching interests.

01:05:14	Because there has been fewer state funds, the pursuit of funding has become much more competitive.  WB believes this competition has been detrimental to the educational mission of the UW.

01:06:05	WB believes that the UW Physical Sciences Committee now looks for research machines instead of quality instructors.

01:07:43	WB says current College of Engineering dean John Bollinger is pushing for faculty to take more of an interest in teaching courses. 

01:08:14	WB insists that it is extremely difficult for a faculty member to be both a strong teacher and researcher in today’s academic climate. 

01:90:00	WB has designed his environmental engineering courses to emphasize the practical side of engineering, including a lot of lab work.

01:11:15	WB helped develop a summer course required of all graduate students in environmental engineering in which they are, collectively, presented an environmental problem and then required to solve it before the end of the summer.

01:14:35	WB thinks that undergraduates of the past had more educational focus than undergraduates today.  Many of today’s engineering students are rarely willing to apply basic facts and knowledge to tougher problems.

01:18:17	WB has seen significant increases in the number of female students in his engineering courses, many of whom have become student leaders.

01:19:17	There are now many more international students in engineering graduate programs, a trend that WB sees as foreboding, since few of these bright students return to their native countries to assist in national progress. 

01:23:32	WB served on the UW Physical Sciences Committee and the Graduate School Committee in the 1970s, but most of his committee service has been with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.  WB has always felt departmental committees are the most important committees on which to serve.

01:28:15	WB has served on many academic peer review committees, which are responsible for the awarding of research grants and fellowships to engineering graduate students.

01:29:47	End of side.

Tape 2/Side 2

01:29:54	WB has been active in a number of professional societies, particularly with the ASCE and its environmental and water resources divisions.

01:35:01	WB also has been very active within the Water Pollution-Control Federation, which is now called the Water Environment Federation (WEF).  WB has been a peer-reviewer of annual conference papers and has helped plan a number of WEF conferences as a member of its board-of-directors.

01:37:11	WB has organized the Madison WEF chapter’s annual educational seminar.

01:39:44	WB is currently vice-president of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEnE) and is slated to become the president within a few years.

01:40:07	WB also chairs the AAEnE committee responsible for accrediting environmental and civil engineering academic programs at American universities.  He has helped the UW Civil and Environmental Engineering Department stay ahead of the accreditation game in the last few years.

01:41:50	When WB arrived on the UW campus in 1963, civil engineering was composed of structural engineering, transportation engineering, surveying engineering, hydraulic engineering and sanitation engineering.  Since then all these divisions have been combined into civil engineering.  Once the environmental decade—the1970s—came along, the department divided into civil and environmental engineering.

01:44:40	The UW Civil and Environmental Engineering Department has only been accredited in civil engineering, not environmental.  WB is convinced that the younger faculty members are planning to promote the accreditation of the environmental component of the department.

01:46:08	The department has increased from 15 faculty members in 1963 to almost 30 members today. The department labs are deteriorating, and office space is now quite tight.

01:52:32	WB was chairman of the department from 1984-86.  During his term, WB was primarily concerned with budget constraints.  He also had to deal with a painful and lengthy law suit sparked by the denial of tenure to one of the department’s faculty members.  WB’s parents passed during this time, and he suffered a major heart attack that ended his chairmanship prematurely.

01:56:03	When WB first arrived at UW, the strongest division of civil engineering was surveying, which has since been taken over by the UW geography and geoscience departments.

01:58:19	For many years, the department has tried to promote construction engineering, which has since grown to a nationally acclaimed program.

01:59:04	WB has witnessed the structural engineering division deteriorate over his tenure.  He says the current College of Engineering dean, John Bollinger, does not see structural analysis as vital to a healthy civil engineering department.

02:03:05	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 3/Side 1

02:03:06	WB sees the Vietnam War as a pivotal moment in in the history of the University.

02:05:16	WB views former College of Engineering dean Kurt Wendt as the main force behind the development of the engineering program.

02:06:43	WB feels former College of Engineering dean Robert Marshall was competent in running the college but was not nearly as gifted a leader as Wendt.

02:08:09	WB describes current College of Engineering Dean John Bollinger as one who has an exclusive agenda.  WB believes that Bollinger lacks an understanding of civil engineering, but he has been very supportive of environmental engineering.  Bollinger was also instrumental in bringing a reputable construction engineering division to the department.  On the whole, Bollinger’s political engagements have greatly assisted the College of Engineering.

02:12:45	Most of the government consulting work WB has done is in the capacity of peer review for research grants.

02:13:02	Municipalities have hired WB as a technical engineering consultant.

02:15:01	WB and Larry Polkowski formed a consulting firm during the Robert Marshall era.  The firm dealt with problems in private industry that many professional engineers did not have the expertise to solve.

02:18:10	On numerous occasions, WB served as an expert court witness.  Many times engineering consultants were Boyle’s and Polkowski’s top clients.

02:19:09	WB observes that people in the private sector like to get things done in a hurry and have the money to do so.  Members of the public sector, on the other hand, usually have plenty of time to get things done, but not enough funding.

02:19:50	WB decided early in his career that he was going to retire when he was no longer having fun.  This occurred in 1996, when the economic woes of the department became too much for him to deal with anymore.

02:20:56	WB is now teaching part-time for the department but will quit doing this in the spring of 1998.  He plans to continue some ongoing research projects and to help advise graduate students. 

02:21:53	WB plans on assisting the UW Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering for an indefinite period.  He also plans on continuing his consulting work.

02:25:06	WB hopes to spend more time with his family and grandchildren during the upcoming years.

02:26:01	WB sees the future of water resource management and treatment as becoming more interdisciplinary, including geology and the geosciences.  He also believes that water management has the potential to become as big as other engineering fields, like electrical and chemical engineering.

02:28:20	WB has never found an opportunity more appealing than his situation here at the UW College of Engineering, and he has no regrets about spending his life in Madison.

02:29:55	End of side.  End of tape.

END