Dean Duckering

by Robert A. Perkins

Who was the namesake of the Duckering Building?

President Bunnell hired William Elmhirst Duckering in 1932 to lead the Department of Civil Engineering and Mathematics. The hiring of Duckering marked a turning point in Alaska engineering education. The University of Alaska (UA) had a civil engineering program from 1922, but the instructors generally had only bachelor’s degrees, not always in engineering, and some field experience. Duckering was to change that.

Duckering first visited Alaska during the Nome Gold rush while he was an engineering undergraduate at the University of Washington (UW). After he obtained his engineering degree in 1903, he worked building railways until 1915 when he went back to UW to get his professional degree in civil engineering. He served in WW I, teaching military engineering to West Point graduates. After the war, he taught in UW and University of British Columbia (UBC). Today’s engineering students, who do mountains of problem-solving homework each week, will be amazed that it was not always so. Instructors taught the math and physics of engineering, but the notion of student’s learning by solving textbook problems was not prominent. Ducking authored a text book in 1924, Notes and Problems for Engineering Problem Courses, implying there were engineering courses that did not have “problems.”

When President Bunnell was putting together the UA faculty in 1922, he invited Duckering to join the faculty, but Duckering declined and continued to teach at UBC. Later, following a bout of ill health that forced time off at UBC, Duckering was looking for work and this time President Bunnell persuaded him to come to UA.

Duckering led the civil engineering department from 1932 until his death in 1950. He was also the Dean of the Faculty from 1935 until he became Dean of the University in 1944. Both positions are equivalent to those of a provost in today’s university – he was principal assistant to the President [Bunnell] in academic matters, coordinating courses of study, faculty and student personnel. In 1939, the Board of Regents bestowed on him the title Doctor of Engineering. 

Dean Duckering was a force in the academic development and recognition of UA . He led the drive that obtained accreditation from the Engineering Council for Professional Development (ECPD) in 1941 (ECPD became ABET in 1980.) He also led the university to accreditation by the Northwest Association in 1945.

During an interview in 2010, our first female engineering graduate, Helen Atkinson, remembered Dean Duckering (he was always called “dean”). Noting that Duckering was a railroad engineer, Helen relates drawing bridges with ink on linen and being required to draw all the rivets – many rivets – which was very time consuming. At the dedication of the Duckering Building in 1963, Woody Johansen (who is the namesake of the freeway in Fairbanks) related being a student under Dean Duckering: "His voice was his most dominant characteristic. It was forceful, carried authority and yet it expressed the unlimited understanding necessary, that rare college professor who is able to encourage his students to extend themselves to the utmost and become a credit to themselves, their university and their county – this Dean Duckering was always able to do."

Image above: UAF Centennial