Owen Lind and the Birth of Environmental Studies at Baylor

“The building of a better environment will require in the long term a citizenry that is both deeply concerned and fully informed. Thus, I believe that our educational system at all levels has a critical role to play.” – President Richard M. Nixon

At age 91, Dr. Owen Lind still vividly remembers the cacophony of righteous noise at the end of the tumultuous 1960s – Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement – and how a different voice quietly emerged, one that captivated the Baylor Family: A sudden awareness of the environment. Students and faculty alike turned to Silent Spring, A Sand County Almanac, Future Shock, and The Greening of America. And Baylor heard.

Lind remembers – because he was there.

The first official reference at Baylor to the “environmental movement” – a grab bag of very real concerns related to pollution, renewable energy, and overpopulation – appears in a press release citing a September 1969 report that detailed the University’s response to the need for “problem-focused education,” as outlined by President Richard Nixon’s Environmental Quality Council (EQC). The report strongly recommended that universities fund interdisciplinary environmental studies. 

Baylor was one of the first schools to respond to the EQC’s request. President Abner McCall assembled a committee of some of Baylor’s most respected professors, including David Pennington of the chemistry department, O.T. Hayward (geology), Victor Strite (English), W. Merle Alexander (physics), David McHam (journalism), Chuck Edwards (political science), Mike Morrison (law), Fred Gehlbach (biology), and Richard Scott (economics), headed by Dan McGee of the religion department. The committee was charged with creating the curriculum for what was called the Institute for Environmental Studies.

McGee’s committee proposed a new degree with classes drawn from various other majors. The degree, which also needed to be coupled with an existing major, was first offered in fall 1970. Lind, then assistant professor of biology, was named as the first director. And thus began a remarkable 50-year career at Baylor, keeping the school at the forefront of the new discipline internationally.

Lind, still exuding energy and confidence, remains engaged in the environment, particularly his lifelong passion, limnology, the study of lakes. He’s also got a mind like a steel trap, with an excellent memory for details, people, and places. 

Lind grew up in Emporia, Kansas, graduated from William Jewell College with a major in biology in 1956, and soon found himself with the Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Company in the development and final test and distribution of the Salk polio vaccine, working primarily with monkeys as test subjects. 

After four years, Parke-Davis paid for Lind to attend the University of Michigan. “They said, ‘You’ve moved about as far as you can go here with a bachelor’s degree,’” he recalled. “‘If you want, we’ll send you off to the University of Michigan for a master’s degree. Pick a master’s degree that’s quick and get back here.’”

In order to speed up his coursework, Lind said he chose to take classes at UM’s biological field station in upper Michigan on the Straits of Mackinac. After a few classes in the woods and fields surrounding Lake Michigan, Lind said he realized, “Damn, this is fun. This is a whole lot better than being chased around cages by monkeys and getting nipped on your ankles. So why should I go back there?”

After two years teaching biology at his alma mater William Jewell, his mentors at Michigan recommended that Lind pursue a doctorate at the University of Missouri, where he studied lakes acidified by the toxic drainage from mines. When he received his Ph.D. in 1966, Lind received several offers to teach, ultimately accepting the position of assistant professor of biology at Baylor.

Lind’s advocate at Baylor was another legendary professor, Dr. Fred Gehlbach, a specialist in wildlife ecology and conservation. Lake Waco had begun to be refilled in 1965-66 and Gehlbach argued that Baylor needed a limnologist. “Nobody was studying the ecology and functioning of reservoirs – man-made systems,” Lind recalled. “So this was a pretty good opportunity to start something new and build a program around an area nobody else was studying.”

Lind’s salary offer from Baylor in 1966 was a whopping $6,500, which was what he had been making at Parke-Davis before he left for graduate school several years earlier. But just before he arrived in Waco, Lind received a letter from George M. Smith, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences: “The letter said, ‘Owen, we’ve got better enrollment than usual, so we’re going to raise your salary to $7,000. We feel it’s fair to do this for you.’ 

“So that shows you how my feeling was to these people,” Lind said. “There was no push, no drive on my part at all. And it was a good place to work, a good place to be.”

At the time, research was appreciated but not required at Baylor. Lind said he remembered an early statement by McCall to the faculty: “If a student ever comes to my office and says that they can’t find you to talk with about their course, and you’re in your research lab, I’ll fire you.”

Lind’s initial teaching load included classes in introductory biology, plant physiology, biological energetics, and a new course in limnology – with any research taking a back seat.

The arrival of President Herbert Reynolds, who offered his services to Baylor gratis as a research facilitator, changed things. Reynolds invited any professor who might be interested in research to visit him at his home in Fort Worth. Lind, who had been conducting research on nights and weekends, drove to Fort Worth to meet Herbert and his wife Joy and the two men immediately hit it off. (“I may have been the only professor who took advantage of Herb’s offer,” Lind said with a smile.)

Shortly thereafter, Lind said he received a note from McCall: “I know you’ve been talking with Herb Reynolds. We’re thinking about bringing him down as executive vice president. What do you think of that?” 

“So, that’s how Herb and I got off to a good start together,” Lind said.

Reynolds’ arrival as executive vice president in 1969 had an immediate impact on the two departments offering a Ph.D. at the time: biology and chemistry. Lind said he then “buried” himself in his research. So much so, he said he wasn’t even aware of the new committee that had been formed to investigate – then create – Baylor’s new multidisciplinary program focused on environmental sciences.

“The next thing I know, I get a call from Herb Reynolds saying, ‘I’d like you to consider taking on the directorship of this new program.’ I said, ‘What program is that?’”

That’s how in fall 1970 Owen Lind became the director of the degree-granting Institute of Environmental Studies, believed to be only the second such program in the United States (after the University of California, Santa Barbara). 

Lind said the new program soon proved popular, with students double-majoring in environmental studies and any one of several other majors, including biology, chemistry, economics, geology, physics, political science, English, and journalism.

He was also able to re-double his research in Lake Waco and other bodies of water. Lake Waco, originally created in the 1930s, had become stagnant and nearly toxic from fertilizer run-off, wastewater, sewage, and other pollutants.

“You had a documented case of a very bad situation from the over-enrichment of nutrients that killed the old Lake Waco,” Lind said, “all of which is recorded in the lake sediments. When the Corps of Engineers came and built a new lake right on top of the old one, that gave us the opportunity to study the old lake by studying the history of its sediments. What nutrients are in there? What kind of pollutants were there? You get to study the evolution of lakes in rapid scale and in a human lifespan.”

In the early 1970s The Lariat frequently featured articles about Lind and his work – he was everywhere, promoting the new major; encouraging, addressing, and even hosting student groups interested in the environment; and taking students on field trips.

Students noticed, including Joe Yelderman. Yelderman, the son of a country doctor in tiny Needville, Texas, had originally enrolled at SMU in geology, but was uncertain of his direction. After his father visited his daughter Cynthia at Baylor in spring 1970, he brought Yelderman a copy of a Lariat article reporting on Baylor’s new Institute for Environmental Studies.

 “I was struggling to find exactly what I wanted to do,” Yelderman said. “I knew it wasn’t the traditional dinosaurs or oil in geology. I set up an appointment with O.T. Hayward from the new major’s advisory board and that conversation was all it took.”

Yelderman said he was initially drawn to geology, the study of the earth in all of its aspects, because it was already the most interdisciplinary of majors. Environmental science was clearly highly interdisciplinary as well. “So it fit well,” he said. “I was happy in my place.”

Yelderman, one of the new degree’s earliest majors, said the Environmental Studies office was a small room in the Moody Library basement, but the major was already having an out-sized impact.

“Owen, of course, was the driving force,” Yelderman recalled. “Owen was also pushing and going toward his focal goal of reservoirs and lakes – limnology was his deal. He was very, very dynamic, very committed to his field, and wanted badly to grow the area of limnology and the environment. He was instrumental in recruiting donors to help support the program.

“Owen was also pushing a lot more for research and research grants, unlike the more traditional Baylor teaching faculty model.”

According to Yelderman, Lind’s passion extended to the classroom.

“He was good,” Yelderman said. “He was a rigorous professor. He was very serious and enthusiastic about his field and things he was teaching. He was a good professor, but you had to put some effort into it. I didn’t cruise through anything he taught!”

Inspired, Yelderman said he threw himself into the field and became one of the first two students on the institute’s faculty board.

By 1974, demand was such that when Baylor offered a master’s degree in environmental studies, the school quickly received more than 350 requests for information from across the United States. Baylor’s undergraduate program had also grown to such a degree that it moved to the Glasscock Environmental Studies Building – named after its donor, the Gus Glasscock family of Houston – near the Baylor Marina in 1975. The building, which cost $313,000, housed offices, classrooms, and research centers, including one for microbiological analysis. Lind told The Lariat at the time that students would be able to study the effects of pollutants, such as mercury, on fish in large water troughs, as well as using outside research facilities where he hoped to create model ecosystems. 

Also making its first appearance in 1974 was the environmental studies van, a 1974 Pace Arrow bus, which soon became a familiar fixture around the Baylor campus. The van, paid for with a gift from the Cooper Foundation, took Lind’s students on field trips to the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere to study biological factors on lakes and streams.

While still at Baylor, Yelderman pitched longtime City of Waco planning official Bill Falco to hire him and create the first environmental atlas of McLennan County. Falco agreed and Yelderman did the work – and the atlas became Yelderman’s thesis. “They paid for it,” he said with a smile, “and they paid for me to do it.”

After graduation, Yelderman had a couple of jobs, including one working for a uranium mining company in South Texas, which sparked an interest in hydrogeology. He completed his Ph.D. in hydrogeology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and accepted a position at Baylor in fall 1983, returning with the opportunity to work with Lind once again. 

“I knew I wanted to teach. I wanted to be a professor,” Yelderman said, “and I liked Baylor. I liked the philosophy of it.”

By 1983, Lind, who had stepped down as chair of the environmental studies department several years earlier, was studying bodies of water from Michigan to Mexico, including the endangered Lake Chapala in Mexico, funded by a National Science Foundation grant. Accompanied by his wife, Laura Davalos-Lind – also a scientist – Lind traveled to Lake Chapala and took thousands of water samples in an attempt to unravel the “biological Gordian knot” of what was killing the lake.

Lind retired in 2016 to a host of awards and nationwide recognition, including Emeritus Professor. One of the honors he said he’s proudest of is being recognized as a Distinguished Mentor by the Association of Graduate Schools. The second was recognition by the National University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, for his contributions to the development of limnological science in that country. The relationship has meant that there has been a steady pipeline of students in environmental science from Mexico at Baylor. Other awards include becoming the Texas Academy of Science’s Distinguished Texas Scientist in 2009, and Outstanding Professor (Scholar) at Baylor in 2002, to go along with nearly 50 publications and 31 dissertations directed.

How influential has Baylor’s legacy been nationally? Since 1973, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement has been akin to the Nobel Prize in environmental studies, a $250,000 gift awarded annually by Farmers Insurance Group founders John and Alice Tyler. Lind was on the award’s original executive committee and served for nearly 50 years. 

Today the Department of Environmental Science is another legacy of Lind and the original institute. The department, with Dr. George Cobb as chair, is one of Baylor’s largest and includes research in environmental and human health, biomedical sciences, and environmental quality, and offers both master’s and doctoral degrees.

Another legacy from the earliest limnology classes and research is the multi-disciplinary Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research (CRASR), with biology professor Dr. Thad Scott serving as the director. Scott said he nurtured his love for the environment by “swimming and boating” on the rivers and lakes around Brownwood. “But as a first-generation college student,” Scott said, “I had no idea that these waterbodies of my youth were filled with tiny green microorganisms that would inspire my passion for biology.”

It was at Baylor, Scott said, that he discovered the endlessly fascinating intersection between ecology and water chemistry, with Lind as one of his mentors. After receiving his Ph.D. in biology and joining the faculty at the University of Arkansas, Scott returned to Baylor – ironically – when Lind’s retirement left an opening in the department. The Baylor position was a better fit professionally, but Scott said it was an easy call to make anyway because of the “strength of the program that Owen had left behind in water and limnology” that has become “so well-known nationally.”

CRASR is internationally recognized for its research facilities on the 174-acre Lake Waco Wetlands environmental mitigation project on the North Bosque River that came about as the result of negotiations in 2001 by the biology department’s Dr. Robert Doyle, who was then the director of CRASR. The 6,000-square-foot facility’s Research and Education Center had its grand opening on August 27, 2004. 

According to Dr. Bryan Brooks, the longest-serving professor in the department, the Institute of Environmental Studies formally changed its name to the Department of Environmental Science in fall 2007.

Today, Owen and Laura have fully retired and continue their lifelong passion of travel – particularly “trying to whittle down the bucket list,” Owen said, “and cruising around the world as much as we can.”

Looking back on Lind’s ongoing impact, two of his former students – Yelderman and Scott – agreed that his life’s work is an indelible part of Baylor past and present:

Yelderman, who has also had a long and distinguished career, became chair of Baylor’s influential Department of Geosciences on June 1, 2021. Yelderman called Lind “a great early leader” of the department.

“As the first director, Owen was very instrumental,” Yelderman said, “because he had to convince people and get things started. His personality was that way and he was very good at that. As a limnologist, he stayed true to his area and really did everything he possibly could to grow these programs. 

“And in the field of limnology, Owen’s impact has been phenomenal [in part] because he has mentored Ph.D. students that have gone on to make great contributions and his ability to direct Baylor’s emphasis in the CRASR program – more so than anybody else.”

Scott said that Lind, as one of the longest-serving professors in Baylor history, has had an extraordinary impact on the University.
“He has had a huge, huge legacy in terms of the footprint he left behind at Baylor of just pursuing all sorts of different subdisciplines within ecology and limnology and environmental science,” Scott said.

“Internationally, his work on reservoirs is still extremely well-cited. He was a pioneer in studying man-made lakes – that’s a huge legacy in our field.

“Finally, every time his book, Handbook of Common Methods in Limnology, first published in 1974, comes up, people ask me about it. To this day, people will still ask me, ‘Do you have any copies of that book?’ and they want Owen to sign them.”