Jack Royce Woolf was an American academic who arrived at Arlington State College in 1957 as dean of the College. After one year as dean, the Texas A&M Board appointed him acting president in 1958 and president in 1959. In 1967, upon the university leaving the Texas A&M System for the University of Texas System and with the accompanying name change, Woolf became president of The University of Texas at Arlington. Woolf resigned the presidency in 1968, but continued service to the university until 1989.
Early life and education
Jack Royce Woolf was born to Jeff D. and Emily Mahaza Woolf on June 10, 1924, in Trinidad, Texas. His grandmother Woolf's family settled in the Trinidad, Texas, area after the Civil War. After graduating from Trinidad High School, Woolf enrolled in Texas A&M College in 1941, but in 1943 left A&M to enter active duty in the US Army. He was commissioned an officer in the United States Army Air Corps and served for three and one-half years. During his service he commanded an aviation engineering company that built air strips in the Philippines. After Army service, he re-entered Texas A&M and in 1948 earned B.S. and M. S. degrees in mechanical engineering. On July 10, 1948, he married Martha Lee Frazar of Strawn, Texas. They moved to Indiana where Woolf was an instructor and graduate student at Purdue University. He received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering on June 10, 1951.
Career
Upon graduation from Purdue, Woolf accepted a position as a research engineer and supervisor of propulsion research and a team member on the B-58 project with Convair in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1956, he joined Texas A&M in College Station, Texas, as a professor in mechanical engineering and assistant dean of engineering. In 1957, he joined Arlington State College as dean of the College. Soon after ASC president Hereford's death in November, 1958, the Texas A&M Board appointed him acting president and in 1959 as president. On March 13, 1967, ASC officially became The University of Texas at Arlington. At that point, Woolf became UT Arlington president, a post he resigned in 1968. During Woolf's tenure as president, Arlington State College was elevated to a four-year institution effective September 1, 1959. The College was authorized to offer seventeen bachelor's degree programs in business administration, engineering, liberal arts, and the sciences. At this time, Woolf recruited Wendell Nedderman as the first dean of engineering. By 1966, three more bachelors were added as well as teacher certification programs in seven academic departments. In 1966, in a historic move, Woolf established the graduate school with approval for six new master's degree programs: electrical engineering, engineering mechanics, mathematics, economics, physics, and psychology. The university's first doctoral program, a Ph.D. in engineering, was to come on September 1, 1969. Under Woolf's leadership, ASC was the first Texas A&M System school to integrate and the first to accept black athletes. Under his presidency, ASC/UTA expanded rapidly from an enrollment of 5,000 to 11,500. He instituted the first bachelor's and master's degree programs.
Retirement
On Sept. 1, 1968, Woolf resigned the presidency and was named President Emeritus and University Professor of Engineering and Higher Education. He continued to teach courses in mechanical engineering until retiring in 1989. In addition to his career at UT Arlington, he was a consultant to several universities and educational agencies. He was the executive director of the Association of Texas Colleges and Universities for over 10 years. Woolf was designated a "Distinguished Alumnus" of the College of Engineering of Purdue University in 1964, one of the first ten to be so honored. He also was selected to the Academy of Distinguished Graduates of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University. In 1995, UT Arlington renamed the Engineering Building, the first building constructed during his presidency, to Woolf Hall. Jack R. Woolf died on his 90th birthday on June 10, 2014, from natural causes.
