Professor Edward Rhodes
Professor Edward Rhodes was a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1964 to 1986. Rhodes was part of the Transport Phenomena Group and conducted research in multiphase flow and boiling heat transfer. Rhodes made significant contributions as chair of the department for 11 years starting in 1976.
He was a kind and gifted administrator. His life and work influenced many students and young faculty members.
Rhodes’ career accomplishments also included his roles as Dean of Engineering at the University of Calgary, President of the Technical University of Nova Scotia and Vice President at Dalhousie University. He also served as Vice President of Technology for an international petrochemical company.
Rhodes was also known for his artistic side. He loved music and singing, often studying music on his lunch breaks!
He is remembered fondly by many former students, staff and faculty members.
Chemical Engineering Professor Alex Penlidis remembers Dr. Rhodes:
“Ted Rhodes was the department chair when I joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Waterloo in 1986. He was first and foremost a kind person and a very astute and flexible administrator. He was an exemplary chair, as he was a good researcher and teacher, kind to students and colleagues alike, and a great administrator, who was interested in resolving issues and situations quickly and effectively.
As chair of the department, he was instrumental in establishing WCPD, the Waterloo Centre for Process Development, which brought contracts to the department. I got my first major contract with industry through him. That major contract more or less launched my research career. I will always be thankful. Ted was considered the ‘Godfather’ of administrators.
One can see from his CV that he excelled as an administrator, as chair at Waterloo, VP Technology in industry, as Dean, and as Vice President and President, overseeing the amalgamation of two major universities
When I came to Waterloo the night before my interview, I went for dinner and then to a bar for a drink, with a grad student friend from WLU. Next to us was a relatively large group of people, who invited us to join them for drinks and great discussions. When I walked into the chair’s office the following day, I realized that ‘Ted’ from the previous night was ‘Professor and Chair E. Rhodes’, who was interviewing me!
When we crossed paths on my second official day at the University of Waterloo, he said to me: ‘I will buy you a computer’. On my third day at Waterloo, again as we crossed paths, he said: ‘I will pay for two URA students for you’.
These were very important and unexpected gestures, as there were no starting grants at the time for new academics.
Even a few years ago, he was exchanging e-mails with me about…what else, choirs and gardens.
They do not make academics and administrators like Ted Rhodes anymore!
My deepest condolences to his wife, Rae and family.”
Chemical Engineering Professor and Reverend Gerry Mueller remembers Dr. Rhodes:
“Ted was not only a brilliant chemical engineering educator, with a sideline in classical song, he was a caring human being who guided me at a few times in my life.
He arrived at UWaterloo when I was still an undergraduate, and when I was awarded an Athlone Fellowship for two year’s graduate study in England, he persuaded me to take those years (plus one) at his alma mater, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology’s Control Systems Centre. That shaped my graduate work, and my subsequent teaching and research back in the Chemical Engineering Department.
A few years after his appointment as Chair of the Department, he asked me to take on the office of Associate Chair-Undergraduate Studies. That had unintended consequences! It got me involved with students at a far more personal level than just lecturing, and along with some other influences contributed to my eventual conclusion that I needed to pursue a theological education. Ted supported me in that exploration of a different vocation not just in words, but by allowing me creativity with my schedule to allow part-time and some full-time seminary studies, while I was still fulfilling all my university obligations.
I was eventually ordained and left the Department, although in retrospect I never stopped being an educator. Ted and I remained friends even though contact became infrequent after he too moved on from Waterloo, and I have been and will be always grateful that he supported and facilitated my following what he might have thought was a crazy dream. As it is, I have described myself to him and others as an engineer gone wrong!”
Professor Rhodes passed away on September 5th surrounded by his family.
Professor Edward Rhodes