Pearl Eugene Doudna
Years at the college:1896 - 1900
Pearl Eugene Doudna (1868-1900) was born on a farm in Wisconsin, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1894. In 1895 he came to Colorado Springs for his health, and the following year was appointed Instructor in Mathematics at Colorado College. He was an applied mathematician, and took charge of the meteorological work at the College. His researches into fluid dynamics were published in the Colorado College Studies, with a lengthy historical introduction suggesting the influence of his colleague Florian Cajori. He died shortly after being promoted to Associate Professor. He seems to have been widely loved, and was greatly mourned. The moving obituary in the CC student newspaper 'The Tiger' records his support for poor students, noting that "His sympathies have always been with boys struggling to secure an education" and ends by saying "The students will long remember him, his ability, his tenderness, his faithfulness, his earnestness. They need not be told how well he performed his duty even when physically feeble and in bodily pain; they have seen in him a hero."
Some measure of his stature, despite the cruelly abbreviated time he spent at the College, is that he is one of five faculty members to whom President Slocum paid special tribute in his final report to the Trustees in 1917, when he described Doudna as "a man of teaching fervor and personal devotion who, though a great invalid, gained a hold upon students which gave an ideal of service to the individual that will never be forgotten."
References:
'The Tiger', vol. ii no. 15; January 10, 1900; p.1
P E Doudna, 'Equations of motion of a viscous liquid',
Colorado College Studies vii (1898), 30-48; viii (1900), p. 1-20
C. B. Hershey, Colorado College 1874-1949, pp.156-7