MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science EECS Great Educators

Professor Bowles came to MIT in 1920 with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. Two years later he received the S.M. degree and then moved up through the academic ranks to a full professorship in 1937. He became Professor Emeritus in 1963 and passed away in 1990, in his 93rd year.

It was during the early years of his career that Bowles' extraordinary leadership had a profound influence on the Department. In the early 1920s radio communication was beginning to have an important impact on everyday life in America. It became clear that, for the department to maintain a preeminent position in the education of electrical engineers, its established program in electric power and machinery would need to be accompanied by an equally strong program in electrical communications. Professor Bowles was chosen to develop this new program.

Once given the charge, he lost no time in bringing the new technology to the fore in the department. He and a few colleagues mapped out an integrated program of study that spanned the spectrum from telegraphy and telephony to radio communications. New classroom subjects were developed, class notes were prepared, and a communications laboratory was designed and equipped -- all under his supervision. In 1922 radio communications was only a small part of a subject in telegraphy and telephony, but by 1925 no fewer than nine undergraduate and graduate subjects on this topic were available. By 1928 the Department was offering two undergraduate options: Course VI, the Power option and Course VI-C, the Electrical Communications option.

Professor Bowles also recognized that a vigorous research program in high-frequency communications would be needed to move this newly emerging field forward and to provide research opportunities for an increasing number of graduate students. Together with Col. Edward H. R. Green, a local philanthropist and friend of MIT, he planned an elaborate research facility at Round Hill, Col. Green's estate in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Starting in 1926, this facility supported basic and applied research in radio wave propagation, electromagnetic field intensity measurements, radio aids to air navigation, and the basic structure of fog banks and the use of radio waves as a fog bank countermeasure.

As director of this facility, Professor Bowles had a major influence on the organizational structure of future research centers at MIT. He was a strong proponent of interdisciplinary centers where research is conducted jointly by members of several departments. Professor Bowles was successful in bringing together researchers from the Physics, Aeronautics and Meteorology departments as well as from his own EE department. Moreover, he had an uncanny knack for attracting and inspiring the most promising young graduate students in these departments. Among them were Julius A. Stratton, MIT's eleventh president, William H. Radford, director of the Institute's wartime radar school and later director of Lincoln Laboratory, and Henry Houghton, longtime head of the MIT Meteorology department.

At the onset of World War II Professor Bowles interrupted his MIT career to serve as a full-time consultant on radar and communications to Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and to Generals George Marshall and H. H. Arnold. He served with such distinction in this capacity that at the close of the war he received the Distinguished Service Medal from President Harry S. Truman.

Upon his return to the Institute, Professor Bowles was appointed Consulting Professor in the Electrical Engineering department and in the Sloan School of Management. In this new role he was instrumental in getting computer-oriented EE faculty members to teach subjects in the Sloan School, thereby assuring that the Sloan School curriculum had a strong technological component.

Professor Bowles' sterling qualities have been recognized far beyond MIT. At his undergraduate alma mater, Washington University, visitors may walk across the Bowles Plaza to reach the Bowles Laboratory of the Institute for Biomedical Computing. These two landmarks are lasting tributes to this man's greatness as an educator and his ability to lead and inspire students and professionals alike.