User:Labeaux/Phillip G. Hubbard

March 4, 1921 - Jan 10,2002

Philip G. Hubbard, University of Iowa emeritus Vice President and emeritus professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering.

He was born in Macon, Mo. His mother was a schoolteacher in Missouri's segregated school system. With her children in mind, she moved her family to Iowa when Philip was four, because schools there were integrated, and she took a job as an elevator operator in Des Moines. Hubbard graduated there in 1939 from North High School where he was active in band, orchestra, chorus, biology club, freshman football, and was on the National Honor Society. By the time of his graduation, he had saved $252.50 for college. This was accomplished by shining shoes for 15 cents per pair at the Hotel Savery.

He elected to attend the University of Iowa in 1940 over Iowa State, because he could shine shoes at the Jefferson Hotel in Iowa City for income. Tuition at Iowa was $50 per semester.

Black men were not allowed to live in University housing. Instead, they found black families they could live with, and in Iowa City that was often along the railroad tracks. Hubbard and his black classmates designed social events for themselves, as they were not allowed to attend University events if a white student complained about their presence. They held casual Sunday evening gatherings, as well as elegant dinner parties, and they pooled their academic strengths as they studied together.

In 1943 after three years of classes, Hubbard enlisted in the Army reserves; the following year he received Army certification in electrical engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Francis M. Dawson, Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Iowa, arranged for Hubbard's discharge from the army in 1945 so he could conduct war research at the University of Iowa. He graduated with honors June 1, 1947, with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. That same year, Hubbard became the first black faculty member at the University of Iowa. He held the position of research engineer.

Hubbard's academic career included his master's in 1949, and his doctorate in 1954, all from the UI. During a distinguished career that spanned more than a half-century, he served as: research engineer in the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research (IIHR) from 1946-66; professor of mechanical engineering from 1954 until his retirement in 1991; and vice president for student services and dean of academic affairs from 1966-89.

Hubbard was the first African American professor at the University of Iowa. His academic specialties were electronics and hydraulics, in which field he earned an international reputation as a scholar, inventor, and consultant.

He married Wynonna Griffith of West Des Moines on May 3, 1943, and the couple raised five children.

In 1951 Hubbard founded Hubbard Instrument Company, a small measurement consulting company, and he invented two instruments for measuring fluid turbulence.

He was also a leading citizen of the university community who worked diligently to create an environment in which all students and faculty would have an opportunity to succeed according to their abilities. In 1963, UI President Virgil M. Hancher appointed him to a special committee to develop the first human rights code for the university.

Hubbard was selected to become Dean of Academic Affairs on January 1, 1966, becoming the first black administrator at any of Iowa's three state universities. In order to accept the appointment, he cancelled a Fulbright lectureship, which would have taken him to the University of Chile at Santiago for the spring and summer semesters. At the time of his appointment he was the College of Engineering faculty representative on the Board in Control of Athletics. As Dean, Hubbard played a major role in keeping the University running during the anti-war protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was never afraid of the angry crowds, and in fact waded into them to communicate.

In 1971 Hubbard was named Vice President of Student Services, making him the highest-ranking minority in Iowa educational circles. He was the first black vice president at a Big Ten university. Among his many major contributions to the university community and the community at large was his leadership in the Iowa Center for the Arts.

In fall 1987, Hubbard and others founded Opportunity at Iowa, a program designed to attract and retain minority students and faculty. The program has its roots in the systematic recruitment that began in 1968.

On December 31, 1990 Philip G. Hubbard retired at the age of 69 after 43 years with the University of Iowa. As a lasting memorial to him, Union Field was renamed Hubbard Park on December 6, 1991.

In June, 1999, he published the book: "My Iowa Journey: The Life Story of the University of Iowa's First Tenured African American Professor"

In 2001, the Iowa City Human Rights Commission presented him with their first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award.

Other areas of service included but were not limited to the Board of Fellows of the School of Religion, the Iowa Coordinating Council of Post-secondary Education, as well as numerous local and statewide speaking engagements on behalf of the university and the cause of human rights.

He believed the university should be accessible to all who were likely to benefit from a college experience, and toward that end he created the Opportunity at Iowa program. In 1981 the Philip G. Hubbard Human Rights Award was created in recognition of his life-long commitment to the human rights of all people. Also, in recognition of his many years of service, Hubbard Park, south of the Iowa Memorial Union, was named in his honor in 1990 at the time of his retirement.

After his retirement, Hubbard continued to serve his university, both as consultant and through scholarly work in his academic field. In 1996 he published a book, "New Dawns: A 150-Year Look at Human Rights at the University of Iowa."

Philip Hubbard's life story begins in 1921 in Macon, a county seat in the Bible Belt of north central Missouri, whose history as a former slave state permeated the culture of his childhood. When he was four his mother moved her family 140 miles north to Des Moines in search of the greater educational opportunities that Iowa offered African American students. In this recounting of the effects of that journey on the rest of his life, Phil Hubbard merges his private and public life and career into an affectionate, powerful, and important story. Hubbard graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in electrical engineering in 1946; by 1954 he had received his Ph.D. in hydraulics. The College of Engineering extended a warm welcome, but nonacademic matters were totally different: Hubbard was ineligible for the housing and other amenities offered to white students. Intelligent, patient, keenly aware of discrimination yet willing to work from within the university system, he advanced from student to teacher to administrator, retiring in 1991 after decades of leadership in the classroom and the conference room.

Hubbard's major accomplishments included policies that focused on human rights; these policies transformed the makeup of the students, faculty, and staff by seeking to eliminate discrimination based on race, religion, or other nonacademic factors and by substituting affirmative action for the traditional old-boy methods of selecting faculty and administrators. At the same time that he was advancing the cause of human rights and cultural diversity in education, his family as growing and thriving, and his descriptions of home life reveal one source of his strength and inspiration.

The decades that Hubbard covers were vital in the evolution of the nation and its educational institutions. His dedication to the agenda of public higher education has always been matched by his sensitivity to the negative effects of discrimination and his gentle perseverance toward his goals of inclusion, acceptance, and fairness. His vivid personal and institutional story will prove valuable to this critical juncture in America's racial history.

He is also the author of New Dawns: A 150-Year Look at Human Rights at the University of Iowa.

Source: “My Iowa Journey: The Life Story of the University of Iowa’s First African American Professor,” Source: University of Iowa News Service, Jan 11, 2002 Source:the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections.