Back in the Classroom

LSU Engineering Professor Chooses Teaching over Retirement

By Laurie Smith Anderson, Advocate staff writer
(as it appeared in The Advocate, May 26, 2000)

When Frank R. Groves, Jr., was five years old, an older cousin brought a chemistry set to his home and made green fire.

"I was hooked," laughed Groves, a 71-year-old adjunct professor at LSU's chemical engineering department who retired from his full-time job in 1994 but kept his office and soon returned to what he doe best--research and teach.

"I feel lucky, not special" to still be working, he said. "I get bored with golf and fishing and I have a horror of sitting home watching soap operas. I'd just rather be here," he said, gesturing to the stacks of textbooks in his small office on the second floor of the chemical engineering department.

"He's amazing; he can teach any course in our curriculum," said department head Carl Knopf. "He's teaching senior lab now with one-on-one with students and, with his knowledge and experience, that's invaluable. He's quiet and assuming, but he's a true scholar." He also advises students and faculty on research projects and continues to do his own research for a modest stipend.

"I grew up in New Orleans during the Depression," Groves said. "I went to public schools there and was always in interested in math and science. I liked to figure out how things worked. At Tulane [University], I probably would have gone on to study chemistry, but my father encouraged me to go into chemical engineering. He thought it would be more practical, and he was right."

After graduating in 1950, Groves took a job as a teaching assistant at Tulane, where he pursued his master's degree in chemistry. Then he went to the University of Wisconsin to earn his doctorate and worked in several jobs in industry for a while.

In 1958, he came to LSU as one of five professors in the chemical engineering department under Jesse Coates, with teaching as his primary responsibility.

"I love teaching. When you teach a subject, you have to really learn it yourself, and you also get new insights from your students."

One thing Groves said he does, as a teacher, is to take the more complex and abstract principles of chemical engineering and give everyday life examples as analogies.

In fact, he did that in the interview for this story. In explaining his own work in devising automatic control systems for chemical engineering processes, he used the human body as an analogy.

"If you are lying down and rise quickly, your blood pressure will drop. In order to keep you from passing out, your body will automatically increase its heart rate to compensate. In the same way, automatic control systems use sensors to adjust for variables and keep operations, such as flow and pressure, constant.
Groves' research later moved into thermodynamics. As the department grew and he was promoted to full professor, he was able to spend more time on research.

Chemical engineering has changed over the years, he said, pointing to the proliferation of computers in the laboratory. "I still have my slide rule somewhere, but I can't remember the last time I used it."

The department has at least tripled in size, and the student body today includes more women and minorities than it did when Groves started there.

"Professor Groves stood by our side for three to hour stretches and explained everything thoroughly," said Cynthia Duncan, a senior in chemical engineering. "We could always count on him. He was here early for every class."

The professor's personal life has evolved through his career, too. He met Margaret Hodge when he was working in Dallas, and they were married for 40 years before she died last year. Their son, Frank D. Groves, is an assistant professor teaching epidemiology at a medical college in South Carolina.

In his spare time, Groves said he enjoys traveling, reading, and going to plays and operas. He also tutors high school students in math and science once a week at St. John's United Methodist Church.

Retirement meant a slight change of pace for Groves, who decreased his teaching load and now only does research that interests him personally. "It means I don't have to go to faculty meetings anymore, and except for my class commitment, I can come and go as I please. But I continue to come in every day, even in the summer, No one who knows me was really surprised that I stayed on. This is where I want to be. It keeps me young.

"Frank Groves is the best teacher I have ever seen," said Ron Rousseau, a well-known chemical engineer who wrote the most widely-used college textbook on the subject and was inducted in the department's Hall of Distinction in 1991.

"Groves wasn't flashy ... however, at the end of the semester, we would be astounded at the ground we had covered. I'll never forget the semester I took graduate thermodynamics. We covered everything from classical first- and second-law material to phase equilibria to statistical thermodynamics, and we never felt rushed. How did he do that? If I could only answer that question, perhaps my students would appreciate my teaching the way I do Frank's."

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