Like many young people, Bob Kennedy graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and a need to hit the road. Growing up in Syracuse, New York, he attended the New York State College of Forestry on the campus of Syracuse University. “I knew I wanted to do graduate work, and the Pacific Northwest seemed interesting,” he says. Thousands of kilometres of pavement, 170 miles of gravel road and three flat tires later, Bob arrived at UBC in 1953.
With both the journey and the destination in mind, Bob and his wife Averil have established a scholarship to increase awareness of forestry and the forest industry in the Canadian context. The Robert and Averil Kennedy Forestry Graduate Scholarship is open to students with an undergraduate degree from the State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry (SUNY-ESF), the largest such college in the United States.
“The program at SUNY-ESF is large and comprehensive, and offers students a wide range of opportunities,” he says. “I want students to also experience the way we do things here (at UBC) – how we are different and also how we are the same – and experience a different environment without leaving North America.”
Bob’s career is familiar to many Forestry alumni who learned wood anatomy and properties, wood chemistry, timber mechanics or microtechnique from him between 1955 and 1961, or who knew him as Dean of the Faculty from 1983-1991.
“When I came here as a graduate student, there were just six of us: four Masters and two PhDs,” he says. “We had all our desks in one large room.” After graduating, Bob was invited to teach, then encouraged to pursue a PhD, which he did at Yale University. “My wife and I left for New Haven right after we were married, on our wedding day! She thought it would be an adventure,” he says.
In 1962 Bob went to University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor of Wood Science, a position that lasted five years and was professionally fulfilling. But the pull of the west coast was irresistible, and in 1966 he returned to Vancouver to work at the Western Forest Products Laboratory (predecessor of FPInnovations) where he eventually became the Director.
He returned to teaching in Forestry in 1979. “I didn’t feel rusty at all,” he says. “I was so impressed by the advances in technology that allowed students to learn so much more in a term.” He was appointed Dean in 1983, a position he held until his retirement in 1991.
Today Bob is an active gardener, tennis player and grandfather. He is also, by his own admission, a “professional reunion-goer”. SUNY-ESF is still close to his heart, as he is attending the 60th reunion of his graduating class in early October. This time, however, he will be handing out brochures and putting up posters promoting graduate studies at UBC Forestry…and his and Averil’s award. “I want other students to have the same enjoyable experience I’ve had,” he says. “There’s so much to learn here!”