Wisconsin Ag Connection - Former CALS Dean Glenn Pound Dies at Age 76

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Former CALS Dean Glenn Pound Dies at Age 76
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 07/21/2010

A third former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences has died during the month of July. The school announced that former CALS Dean Glenn Pound passed away earlier this month at the age of 96. He had been living at his retirement home in La Jolla, California.

Pound laid the groundwork for the college's current prominence in basic biological research, according to Professor Emeritus Leo Walsh, who took over as Dean when Pound retired. He said it was Pound who convinced the university to add 'Life Sciences' to its name to reflect the school's strength in fields such as genetics, nutrition, biochemistry and microbiology.

"He led the college in a way that brought the applied and basic research components together better than they had been in the past," Walsh says. "People with strong basic research capabilities were hired."

During Pound's tenure the college also took on ambitious international projects, helping to establish research and educational institutions in Nigeria, Brazil and Indonesia. Many CALS scientists worked in those nations during the 1960s and 1970s, and many students from those countries came to Madison to study.

Undergrad enrollments at the program more than tripled during his administration, with most of the growth coming from urban areas. The percentage of women students in the college also rose from eight percent to 40 percent during the same period.

Meanwhile, Pound also served a stint as Interim Chancellor of the UW-Madison from July 1977, when Edwin Young left that post to become UW System president, until Irving Shain was named Chancellor the following year.

An Arkansas native, Pound came to the University of Wisconsin to earn a Ph.D. in 1943, left for a wartime appointment with USDA, returning as an Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology in 1946. He conducted research on diseases of horticultural crops and developed several disease-resistant cultivars of cabbage, spinach and radishes. He served as department chair from 1954 until he was appointed Dean.

Also this month, the college lost former professors Dr. Dave Dickson at age 71 and Art Pope, who was 89.