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May 30, 2003

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby, (858) 534-7404

PROVOST TOM BOND ENDS 37-YEAR CAREER AT UCSD

Ending an academic career of 37 years at the University of California, San Diego, Provost Tom Bond will be honored at several June functions by hundreds of admirers ranging from UC administrators to former Watermelon Drop queens.

Bond has served as provost of Revelle College since 1983, a 20-year term during which he worked for six different vice chancellors—and set a record on campus. He came to UCSD as an assistant professor in chemistry in 1967, after serving on the faculty at Oregon State University. He was educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and UC Berkeley and—perhaps in appropriate training for a college provost—worked in a U.S. Army ballistics research lab.

He will be honored at an “all campus celebration” on Revelle Plaza at noon June 6 following the 38th annual Watermelon Drop, to which former Watermelon Drop queens have been invited. The “Drop” originated with UCSD’s first undergraduate class, as an outgrowth of a Revelle College physics class, and has become the universities’ most enduring tradition.
Bond will be honored later at an invitation-only reception for administrators, faculty and alumni. Among speakers celebrating his achievements as an educator, an administrator and a university innovator will be UCSD Chancellor Robert C. Dynes; Marsha Chandler, senior vice chancellor, Academic Affairs; Joseph Watson, vice chancellor, Student Affairs; Patrick Ledden, provost, Muir College; Russell Doolittle, research professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry; Renee Barnett-Terry, dean of Students Affairs, Revelle College; Nancy Groves, dean of Academic Advising, Revelle College; Alex Schafgans, Revelle College senior and Revelle College Council Chair, and Armin Afsahi, Revelle College alum. Some 400 guests are expected to attend the reception on the Revelle College lawn among the Stuart Collection’s “La Jolla Project.”

Prior to the June 6 functions Bond will be honored by his staff at a June 4 luncheon.

A synthetic organic chemist, Bond decided to close his research lab upon assuming the provost position in 1983, but has continued to teach through the years. “I don’t think you can be a provost without teaching,” he says. “I just felt you had to be in the trenches, talking to students one on one.”

Bond notes that students view Revelle College’s general education requirements as the worst thing about a UCSD education, while alumni view them as the best thing. And Bond points to a cabinet full of thank you letters from former Revelle students who came to realize the value of the college’s general education requirements. One recent email from a former sociology major expressed her gratitude for being “made” to take the science courses at Revelle because in the school where she’s teaching she’s the only primary school teacher who has had any kind of science. She was awarded a special stipend and a chance to set up a science program for the school’s K-6 graders. Bond recalls a brilliant physics major who tried unsuccessfully to get out of taking the biology course requirement. He went on to graduate work at Caltech, where his biology work opened the door to his current career as a successful biophysicist.

Bond plans on travels to Mexico and Spain after his retirement, but will stay on the faculty as professor emeritus and will continue to advise the School of Medicine.