Robert C. Luippold, BA ’40, MA ’42

Robert C. Luippold, BA ’40, MA ’42, who was a UB mathematics faculty member from 1945-49 and a faculty member of the State University of New York at Albany from 1950-81, endowed this award in 1995 to provide an annual scholarship to a UB student pursuing a teaching career in mathematics.

The gift honors Luippold’s mentor, Harry Merrill Gehman, chair of the UB mathematics department from 1929-62. During World War II, Gehman trained non-mathematics faculty at UB to teach the subject to armed forces detachments stationed at UB. After the war, when interest in mathematics surged, Gehman expanded the use of graduate students in teaching fundamental courses, laying the foundation for UB’s doctoral program mathematics. In 1948, Gehman was elected secretary-treasurer of the Mathematical Association of America, making UB the national headquarters for that organization. When the young Robert Luippold was studying under Harry Gehman in 1939, he was himself the recipient of a department honor, the Scherk Award for Mathematics, which included an award of $5.