Walter J. Saucier – Science Education, 1942

Walter J. Saucier

B.S., Science Education, May 1942

                I enrolled at S.L.I. in the summer of 1939 and for the next six semesters.  Most pertinent recollections were:  (1) Dedicated teaching by Stokes-Sanders-Nolan (Math), Delaup (Physics), Segura (Chemistry), Boudreaux (Biology), Kelley (Geography), Long-Zernott (Education), Bancroft-Dupre (English), among others; (2) very low cost of college education, by tuition scholarship awarded on high school record, room and board $10/month (first two years at Ag Coop), the last year at Johnston Street rooming house with meals nearby given for work at the campus-corner eatery, and paid by S.L.I. for part-time work (first year as Student Center “soda jerk”, afterwards as Miss Nolan’s math paper grader); and (3) crammed course schedule, minimal finances and constrained social and extra-curricular activities.  Augmenting the science training and personal finances were summer AAA farm survey employment and varietal works on parents’ farm in Avoyelles Parish.

                WWII deterred the planned high school teaching.  The S.L.I. placement committee (Delaup-Long-Riehl) coerced my applying for Army Corps cadet meteorology training, for which I was sent to the University of Chicago, commissioned 2nd Lt. in May 1943, afterwards doing weather officer duties to May 1946 (two years in Europe).  Remaining in USAF Reserve (retired as colonel) was a most propitious decision; the fine relations with USAF’s Air Weather Service and Institute of Technology assigning students for university education in meteorology assisted my initiating meteorology academic programs for three major universities:  Texas A&M, 1952; University of Oklahoma, 1960; N.C. State University, 1969 (Fleming, editor, Historical Essays on Meteorology 1919-1995, American Meteorology Society, 1996, p546), all three soon thereafter awarding full slates of degrees Ph.D.  There is no need for modesty about my fortune of being named the first Professor of Meteorology in three states of the U.S.   Of course involved, too, in those pursuits were highly qualified colleagues attracting students and federal research funds, but my college training for science education was surely a factor for those successes.

                The WWII experience propelled my graduate education at the University of Chicago (MS ’47, Ph.D ’51) in meteorology under the tutelage of Carl Rossby (internationally renowned in education and weather system dynamics), Horace Byers, and colleagues.  The GI Bill covered my tuition costs and much of my family’s living expenses.  Appointed teaching assistant in 1946 and instructor in 1948 under Byers’ ever-encouragement, I was soon placed in charge of a basic multi-course sequence enrolling (some large, some smaller) classes of civilians, USAF assignees, and foreign students; and, advising MS theses.  The success in course teaching led to Byers and University of Chicago press coercing me into preparing a textbook (published in 1955).  Along with those, my student advisings and coordinations with federal sponsors of students provided the foundation for attracting students into the university curricula, which was later initiated elsewhere.

                Additional information can be found among some biographical listings:

                                American Men of Science, 1955; Leaders in American Science, 8th ed., 1968-69; Who’s Who in America, vol.36, 1970-71.  Among the professional memberships I held were many which were dropped in recent years:  American Meteorological Society (Fellow & Certified Consulting Meteorologist), AAAS (Fellow), American Geophysical Union, Sigma XI, AAUP, National  Weather Association, Texas Academy of Science, Oklahoma Academy of Science.