Two UHCL ‘founding fathers’ retire after combined 79 years of teaching

KELSEY CIABATTONI
THE SIGNAL

With progress comes change, and as UHCL gears up to make many new transformations next semester, it must also adjust to the retirement of two professors who have been with the university since its early years.

Considered by many to be two of UHCL’s “founding fathers,” Nick de Vries, professor of art, and John Gorman, professor of literature, will retire this May after almost 40 years of teaching on campus.

“It’s strange to think of this campus not having those two here, especially in such a great time of change on campus,” said Samuel Gladden, associate dean of the School of Human Sciences and Humanities.

De Vries began teaching at UHCL in 1975 and is credited with creating the art program along with Professor of Art Sandria Hu. De Vries wanted to establish his place on campus by building up a solid art program that placed a strong emphasis on exhibiting students’ art work, as well as by bringing outside artists onto the campus so that students could be exposed to other ways of working.

“It’s very important for students to see and understand other artists’ nature of work,” de Vries said. “Bringing in other artists and exhibitions to the university allowed me to show my students and the
university a wider experience than they otherwise might not have had.”

De Vries earned a Bachelor of Arts in biology at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, in 1966. He took a couple of art courses his senior year, and as he said, “the rest is history.” He went back to school after a stint in the United States Army in Stuttgart, Germany, as a medical service officer and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Houston in 1970 and a Master of Fine Arts with a specialty in ceramic sculpture at the University of Oklahoma-Norman in 1971.

Renowned for his work in raku, lead-glazed Japanese earthenwares, de Vries is currently creating an art piece that will be permanently installed in the courtyard area near the new art studio in the Arbor Building. He has also had more than 20 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 50 group exhibitions throughout his tenure.  Moreover, the process is underway to create a scholarship endowment fund in his name after alumni and community members pressed for its creation.

“I am very excited to see that his legacy will remain here permanently in a very visible form,” Gladden said. “He is a tireless promoter of his colleagues and of his students, and many, many people have benefitted from his wisdom and his talent.”

In addition to his successes as an artist, de Vries has also been widely recognized for his teaching capabilities, winning the university’s outstanding teacher award four times. Similarly, he was a two-time winner of the UHCL nomination for the Minnie Stevens Piper Teaching Award in 2001 and 2004 and was recognized as faculty Adviser of the Year in 2002 for his efforts with the Art Association.

De Vries credits his service to his students as the biggest achievement of his time spent at UHCL and stated that it is what he will miss the most about retirement.

“I always tried to look out for my students and determine their strengths and weaknesses and what they wanted to get out of the program,” he said. “I’m always very concerned of what happens to them after they leave the program. I always tell them, ‘You have to go after something that you really enjoy.’”

Gorman, who began teaching at UHCL when classes began in 1974, is known as the university’s unofficial poet laureate, often composing poems for special events and occasions held at UHCL. His poetry has been published in numerous journals throughout the U.S. and Canada and is collected in four chapbooks including, “The Oxford of Floodplain,” which was produced to celebrate UHCL’s 20th anniversary. He was named one of three “State Poets” at the Austin International Poetry Festival in 2012.

Gorman, who served as the keynote speaker at the 2013 December commencement ceremony, earned his Bachelor of Art’s at the University of Notre Dame in 1966, his Master of Arts in 1967 and his Ph.D. in 1975, both from the University of Virginia. He is the founder of the student-published literary magazines Bayousphere and Marrow and has also been a faculty adviser for many student organizations.

“John Gorman is a beloved teacher and a beloved colleague and very well respected by people at every level on campus,” Gladden said. “He really reaches people whenever he addresses them, whether it’s personally, one-on-one or a large group like at the commencement ceremony, he really reaches people because he understands the human condition and he speaks eloquently of it and to it.”

Reflecting back on his time spent at UHCL, Gorman says he is most proud of the university itself.

“It’s been an immense privilege to help form an institution from its beginning,” Gorman said. “I’m glad we’ve built a place with so much solid competence and such a confident, outgoing spirit. We were all recruited because we thought teaching was of the first importance and because we wanted the fields of academic discipline to enrich one another.”

Gorman also has been acknowledged for his service in teaching by being awarded the UHCL Outstanding Professor Award in October 2013 and the President’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989, and he was a two-time nominee for the Minnie Stevens Piper Teaching Award.

Gorman says he will miss the companionship of the university community most of all when he retires.

“The faculty is full of very bright, very interesting men and women; the students have been a source of constant delight,” Gorman said. “We’ve all come together in pursuit of the worthiest of purposes. These three decades have been charged with joy.”

Although these professors will not be physically present on campus after this semester, their contributions and influences will remain in the wake of their legacies.

“Among many lasting contributions is Professor de Vries’ involvement with our arts program including the UHCL Art Gallery, our Bachelor of Fine Arts program and our engagement with the broader community in the arts,”said President William Staples. “Professor Gorman’s contributions to the development of the Bayousphere as well as his recognition as the poet laureate of UHCL are most noteworthy. The professors’ impact on our students, alumni and university will be a lasting legacy for each of them and for which we are very grateful.”

The sense of culture that these two professors brought to the university will also remain long after they are gone Gladden added.

“They’ve helped create a wonderful culture that is our campus and that will be here for many, many years,” he said. “We owe these men our deepest gratitude for building a campus culture that not only makes a place for the arts but places the arts at the center of that culture.”