Distinguished Alumni Recognized

Distinguished Alumni Recognized

BY DANA DURBIN
Rice News Staff
May 13, 1999

The Association of Rice Alumni has announced the recipients of the 1999 Distinguished Alumni award. Each year, the award is given to a select number of Rice alumni whose professional or volunteer activities reflect and forward the ideals of Rice University. The 1999 Distinguished Alumni are Gertrude Barnstone ’45, Griffin Smith Jr. ’63, Lazar Greenfield, Nils L. Muench ’49 and L. Henry Gissel Jr. ’58.

Gertrude Barnstone

For many years, Gertrude Barnstone has committed herself to moral causes of personal importance to her, and, in doing so, has bettered the community and the lives of others.

Perhaps only her interest in art goes back further than her role as an activist. The native Houstonian began art school at the Museum of Fine Arts when she was only 7 years old. Later in life, she made art a major pursuit while supporting herself with a part-time welding job. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston. Barnstone has a permanently displayed sculpture at the Astrodome and a piece at the Menil Collection.

Before turning seriously to art, the 1945 Rice graduate made her life her art in the 1960s and 70s.

During the 1960s, Barnstone served five years on the board of the Houston Independent School District, focusing her efforts on the desegregation of local schools.

“She was a voice of reason and compassion in forcing change in society,” wrote her nominator, Joel Ephross.

In the 1970s, Barnstone served as president and treasurer of the Texas ACLU Foundation board, during which time the Houston chapter of the ACLU was under investigation by the Houston Police Department. It was not until Barnstone’s lawsuit against the department was settled in 1983 that the police records on the backgrounds of Houstonians who were subject to investigation by the Houston Police Department were destroyed, Ephross said.

In 1995, Barnstone received the Lifetime Achievement in Civil Liberties from the Greater Houston Chapter of the ACLU.

She served as president of the Texas Chapter of Women’s Equity Action League, president of the Houston chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art and national president of the Women’s Coalition of Art Organizations.

Barnstone co-founded the Artists’ Rescue Mission, a group of artists who act in solidarity with artists who reside in troubled parts of the world by providing art supplies and everyday necessities.

Griffin Smith Jr.

Griffin Smith Jr. has brought excellence to everything he has pursued, from his writing to a career in law.

Ultimately, though, his love of journalism led to the position of executive editor of one of the South’s most influential newspapers, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a post he has held since 1992.

Smith’s involvement in journalism began during his Rice days, when he was editor of the Rice Thresher. Smith’s nominator, Douglas Harlan ’64, credited Smith with converting the student newspaper from a sleepy, rarely read rag into an “alert and substantive record of all aspects of Rice life.”

After graduating from Rice, Smith earned a master’s degree as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University. He was able to combine his penchant for writing with a career in politics and law as a research director for a gubernatorial campaign and as chief council for a legislative committee, where he wrote analyses of state issues.

That work led to his position as the first full-time writer for Texas Monthly, where he helped establish the magazine’s reputation and assure its financial stability.

Smith left Texas Monthly to become a speech writer for President Jimmy Carter and later returned to Arkansas to join his father’s law firm.

During that time, he contributed free-lance stories to the Arkansas Democrat and later became its travel editor. The Democrat later merged with the Arkansas Gazette, and Smith was named editor.

“Rice students would be well-served to know of Griffin and to have him as a role model,” Harlan wrote.

L. Henry Gissel Jr.

Henry Gissel is more than just a leading probate attorney. He is, simply, a leader.

His leadership is evident in his involvement in the professional legal organizations in which he serves and in his community service.

As a senior partner and chairman of the Trusts and Estates Department of the Houston law firm Fulbright and Jaworski, Gissel has long been recognized as one of the country’s best lawyers for trusts and estates. His honors are numerous and he is in high demand as a speaker.

Gissel has assumed positions of leadership in many organizations, including the National Association of Estate Planning Councils, the Houston Estate and Financial Forum and the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law.

“He has given generously and unstintingly of his time to furthering the interests of his profession and of the public,” wrote attorney Rodney Houghton in support of Gissel’s nomination by fellow Rice graduate John Coleman Jr. ’59.

Gissel has been a leader in public service as well. He has been involved with the Association of Rice Alumni and has been an active alum of Houston’s St. John’s School, including serving on the board of trustees.

His involvement with the Retina Research Foundation has also been significant, providing guidance and leadership to the foundation.

“Rice has many successful graduates, but Henry Gissel deserves recognition for being a distinguished alumnus of this great institution,” wrote Coleman.

Nils L. Muench

A graduate of Rice three times over, Nils Muench is truly an innovator in his field.

He has devoted himself to a career of service to American industry, government and education, distinguishing himself in both research and management.

Muench spent a large part of his career in industry at the General Motors Research Laboratory. He joined the company in 1963 as head of the physics department, rising to the position of executive director of research for all of physical sciences at General Motors, from which he retired in 1993.

He led an industrial research group that was well known in the physics and physical sciences community. He holds 15 patents in automotive and petroleum technology and was elected to fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.

Before joining General Motors, Muench was a senior research executive in the production research division of the Humble Oil Co. (now Exxon) in Houston. He later accepted the position of chief scientist at the Army Rocket and Guided Missile Agency in Huntsville, Ala., and served as a senior member of staff at the Institute for Defense Analysis in Washington, D.C.

In 1993, Muench accepted an invitation to join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served for two years as director of research of its Leaders for Manufacturing program.

He received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Rice in 1949, a master’s in physics in 1950 and his Ph.D. in physics in 1955. He later earned a law degree from the South Texas College of Law.

Muench was instrumental in the fund drive to endow the annual H.E. Rorschach Jr. Memorial Lectureship and delivered the inaugural address in the series.

“I regard Nils Muench as one of Rice’s most illustrious graduates,” wrote his nominator, G. King Walters, the Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics at Rice.

Lazar Greenfield

Included in the letter nominating Lazar Greenfield as a Distinguished Alumni of Rice University were 10 pages listing his academic appointments, surgical accomplishments and professional memberships, clearly proving his leadership in the field of vascular surgery.

If that weren’t enough, the words of his colleagues speak volumes about the quality of his work.

“In my opinion, Dr. Greenfield is one of the leaders in American medicine and surgery,” said Denton Cooley, founder, president and surgeon-in-chief of the Texas Heart Institute in the Texas Medical Center. “He is certainly a credit to Rice University and is a proud alumnus of that institution.”

Cooley made his comments in a letter supporting Greenfield’s nomination as a Rice Distinguished Alumni by James Robbins, a professional colleague.

A Rice student from 1951 to 1954, Greenfield earned a medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine with postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the National Heart Institute in Bethesda, Md.

Currently, Greenfield is surgeon-in-chief at University Hospitals in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the F.A. Coller Professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery at University Hospital, University of Michigan.

He is well known for inventing the Greenfield filter, a device that fits inside the large abdominal vein and traps blood clots that form in the legs before they can travel to the heart or lungs.

“Dr. Greenfield has obviously distinguished himself in his chosen profession, but as importantly, he has been a wonderful husband, father and community leader,” wrote colleage and friend Herman Lapin in support of Greenfield’s nomination.