Ruth E. Eckert

Although Ruth Eckert consistently advanced the profession of education during her distinguished career, it was in 1973, on the occasion of her retirement, that she would break ground in two significant ways: Eckert became not only the college’s first Regents’ Professor, but also the first woman in the University’s history to be honored with this title.

After graduating from Harvard University, Eckert came to Minnesota in 1938 to study the effectiveness of General College, work that generated many questions about the value of different kinds of educational programs—a concern that strongly influenced her career.

From 1941 to 1950 she coordinated the college’s two educational research units, the Bureau of Institutional Research (BIR) and the Bureau of Educational Research (BER). Professor Robert Beck, in his book, Beyond Pedagogy, summed up Eckert’s leadership: “When one considers that she was a principal figure in the college’s program of studies in higher education while simultaneously coordinating the BER and the BIR, she assumes truly remarkable stature.”

In 1950, she focused her efforts as a professor of higher education, a position she pioneered. She became nationally recognized for establishing higher education as a field of study, and initiated the college’s graduate program, which became a national model.

Education professor emerita Mary Corcoran, a student of Eckert’s, remembers her as an editor who could sharply define an issue. Eckert advised more than 100 graduate students, many of whom went on to become national leaders in their fields.

Eckert had a wide spectrum of research interests: student testing and evaluation, school curriculum, the university as an organization, and teacher preparation. Her work touched almost every significant area of higher education.

Eckert published more than 100 books and journal articles and served in many national leadership posts, including the NEA’s educational policies commission, the first research advisory committee for the U.S. Office of Education, and the research committee for the Educational Testing Service.

She retired from the college in 1973. Upon her death in 1987, she was memorialized by the Ruth Eckert Fellowship, an annual award given to a female graduate student in higher education.

Robert Holmes Beck

“I have an abiding interest in helping people to exercise their reflections—their thoughtfulness, so that they are not simply convinced by each thing that they read.” In that sentence Robert Holmes Beck captured both the essence of thoughtful education and his gift for engaging students and colleagues alike in scholarly critical thinking.

Robert Holmes Beck, a graduate of Harvard and Yale, joined the faculty of the college shortly after World War II. His academic studies and war experience in Europe—the latter a vital component of his education and worldview—convinced him that “education was mankind’s best hope for a more humane future.”

Beck had a wide range of professional interests: philosophy, progressive education, history of ideas, education in classical antiquity and Renaissance Italy, comparative education, and vocational education. He was an expert on the history of philosophy and education. Bringing subjects together, linking themes and people not often linked, was his specialty.

A gifted educator, Beck once said, “Scholarship and teaching are not separate activities as far as I’m concerned—one keeps the other alive.” Former student and colleague George Copa admired his ability to lecture without notes, “always ending at the designated time with a ‘punch line’ or statement that summarized the lecture in brilliant fashion.”

A prolific and eloquent writer, Beck wrote, cowrote, and edited dozens of books and articles. He was asked to write Beyond Pedagogy, a history of the College of Education for the college’s 75th anniversary. He was chosen as a Minneapolis 100 Future Newsmakers in 1953, named a Fulbright Scholar two years later, and selected as a Regents’ Professor in 1976.

He retired from the college in 1989, but continued to advise students, teach, and conduct research. Beck died in 1991, and is memorialized by the Robert Holmes Beck Chair of Ideas in Education, established by Corrie Beck, his widow. The first of its kind in the country, the position will be dedicated to the scholarly study of the concepts underlying critical issues in education.

—Mary Beth Leone-Getton