During a visit to the U. of I. in April, ChBE alumnus John L. Anderson (MS 69, PhD 71) did what so many other alumni do when returning to campus: made a stop at Murphy’s Pub on Green Street.
Murphy’s was one of his favorite places to go as a student, Anderson said, along with Treno’s. In fact, Anderson and his friends were some of Murphy’s Pub’s earliest customers.
“I loved to play intramural sports… football, basketball and softball,” Anderson said. “I even got the faculty involved – our softball team had Professors Roger Schmitz and Jack Hudson on the team, and they were really good ball players – and in 1970, we discovered Murphy's Pub. It opened in April, and we went there in May or June. We were one of the first groups in there.”
In between his first and most recent visits to Murphy’s, Anderson has had a distinguished career at four universities as a university professor, department chair, dean, provost and president, and – currently – as president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Anderson’s journey began in Delaware, where he grew up and completed his undergraduate studies (1967, University of Delaware). Intending to earn a master’s degree in chemical engineering and enter industry, Anderson had a big decision to make: should his next step be to University of California, Berkeley, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, or Princeton University? The three schools were recommended by his advisors and represented a good geographic distribution across the country, which was appealing to the Delaware native.
In the end, he decided that Princeton was too close to Delaware. Berkeley was crossed off the list because it was too far from his girlfriend, Patricia (Pat), and he thought if he chose that option he might not see her again.
“U. of I. was kind of in the middle,” Anderson said. “They're all good schools, and [Illinois] gave me a great offer, so I said, ‘Why not?’ Well, Pat and I have been married 56 years, so it worked out pretty good.”
As a Ph.D. student, Anderson had the good fortune to be at Illinois during the golden era when eight of the nine professors were or would become members of the NAE.
“It tells you the quality of the faculty that I ran into there. It was really inspiring and astonishing.”
John Anderson
“Only one faculty member – who might have been the smartest of everybody – wasn’t elected to the National Academy of Engineering,” he said. “Eight out of nine is unparalleled. No schools have come close to having, you know, 88 percent of your faculty in the NAE. It tells you the quality of the faculty that I ran into there. It was really inspiring and astonishing.”
At Illinois, Anderson worked most closely with Professor John Quinn, on research related to diffusion of molecules through biological membranes, using synthetic models like inorganic membranes in his experiments (Anderson would eventually become one of the world’s leading experts in understanding how small colloidal particles in liquids interact with membranes in the presence of liquid flow and electric fields, and was cited for “contributions to the understanding of colloidal hydrodynamics and membrane transport phenomena” when he was elected to the NAE in 1992).
After graduation and having made the decision to stay in academia – thanks in no small part to the fact that, during the Vietnam War years, universities were willing to hold jobs for those called up for active duty while companies would not – Anderson accepted an offer to teach at Cornell University, and later Carnegie Mellon University. He stayed at Carnegie Mellon for 28 years, moving up the faculty ranks and eventually serving as department chair and dean of the engineering college. He continued in higher education leadership roles in the years that followed, serving as provost at Case Western Reserve University and president at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he stayed until retirement.
Anderson had only been retired for six months when his peers began to encourage him to interview for the role of president of the NAE. Originally resistant to the idea, he eventually let himself be convinced.
“Many colleagues nominated me and then asked me why I wouldn't want to be president,” Anderson explained. “And I said, it's a lot of work and I don't need the money. But then they said, we need sound leadership of the Academies. The pitch was service to the country, basically.”
“I thought, I want to do something good,” he continued. “It turned out to be more work than I thought even, but I'm glad I did it.”
Anderson was named NAE president in 2019. He has one more year on his term, after which he intends to retire again – for good this time. He and his wife will split their time between Chicago and Florida, and he plans to take the train from Chicago to visit Champaign-Urbana more often. His recent trip brought back a lot of good memories, he said, and he still regularly connects with Professor Emeritus Richard C. Alkire, one of his mentors. In fact, he took Alkire with him to Murphy’s on his most recent visit – Alkire’s first time – and they plan to get together again on campus to attend some events as soon as Anderson’s NAE term ends.
The reason for his recent trip to campus, though, was not just to revisit old haunts and catch up with colleagues, but to accept the 2024 Alumni Achievement Award from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS). The award is given annually to alumni who, by outstanding achievement, have demonstrated the values derived from a liberal arts and sciences education.
Anderson was one of only three alumni across all departments in the college who received the 2024 award. He said he appreciates those who nominated him, noting that you do not receive those types of awards without people putting forth the effort to nominate you.
“It feels really good,” he said. “I’m privileged and honored. I think there's 60-some-thousand alumni of that college, and to be chosen for that is a pretty good feeling. It's just a really nice thing to happen.”
Definitely worth celebrating with a visit to Murphy’s.