The first floor of the Cecil H. Green Library will be renovated and renamed Hohbach Hall, offering improved access to curators, historians and materials that document the creation and continuing evolution of Silicon Valley.
The newly renovated space in the East Wing of the Cecil H. Green Library will be named Hohbach Hall and will include a new Special Collections classroom, as well as spaces for group study, seminars, events and exhibitions.
Harold Hohbach, who passed away in 2017, was a patent law attorney and real estate developer. A great admirer of Silicon Valley inventors and an innovator himself, Hohbach had long aspired to create a space to challenge and inspire the leaders and entrepreneurs of the future. When he learned about the vast collection and research arm of Stanford’s Silicon Valley Archives, Hohbach made a commitment to fund the renovations of Hohbach Hall and sustain the program’s efforts to capture the evolving history of the region and its contributors.
“Our library system continues to be a critical platform for discovery and research, and this very generous gift will create an intellectual hub that fosters bold thinking and sparks curiosity,” Tessier-Lavigne said.
“Harold had deep respect for the inventors he worked with during his 50 years as a patent attorney,” said Marilyn Hohbach. “It was important to Harold that the drive and passion of entrepreneurially minded students be encouraged and the accomplishments of the Silicon Valley inventors that came before not be forgotten. He saw the opportunities for the materials from the Silicon Valley Archives and his paintings to become educational tools that would inspire students to reflect and seek solutions for issues we face today and in the future.”
A new joint report from the Natural Capital Project and the World Bank offers insight into how countries can optimize use of their natural resources in ways that balance both environmental and economic goals.
Stanford Libraries has recently repurposed library space to engage users directly with collections, expert staff and new technologies. The David Rumsey Map Center, which opened on the fourth floor of Green Library in 2016, served as inspiration for Hohbach Hall. The Rumsey Map Center has created a place that fosters exploration of ideas across several disciplines.
“It is a unique archive in the sense that it is very much a living archive,” said Henry Lowood, who helped establish the Silicon Valley Archives and who will assume the curatorship named for Harold C. Hohbach. “As we assemble an archive of materials from Silicon Valley’s past, we are also actively developing new approaches to archival documentation that will chronicle the region as it is today and will be in the future.”
The gift from the Hohbach Foundation, according to Lowood, will transform the Silicon Valley Archives “from a well-used storehouse of information into a nerve center for research, study, conversation, collaboration and learning.”
Exhibition areas will be located throughout Hohbach Hall and feature such items from the Silicon Valley Archives as design documents and drawings for Douglas Engelbart’s first computer mouse prototype and early audio and video recording technology from the Ampex Corp. collection.
The Hohbach gift comes as the libraries celebrate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the expanded main library building. Jane Stanford’s decision to erect a new “grand library” just outside the Main Quadrangle was a conscious effort to attract the best and the brightest to Stanford as the university was establishing itself among its peers. The original library building she designed collapsed during the 1906 earthquake, but her notion of creating a location for knowledge communities to gather and explore took root. A new main library was opened in 1919 at its current location.“The ability of the Hohbach family to look past today and invest in our ability to offer future students and scholars new ways to engage with the library through archives and collections will stimulate the research engine beyond what we can imagine now,” said Michael Keller, university librarian and vice provost for teaching and learning. “Our loyal supporters make it possible for the libraries to both address the current scholarly needs of our users and anticipate how students and faculty will use our library system well into the future. Hohbach Hall will be a prime example of these realizations.”
Stanford Libraries has received a $25 million gift from the Harold C. and Marilyn A. Hohbach Foundation to create a vibrant collections-centered research hub and endow the Silicon Valley Archives program.
Promising new cognitive and behavioral therapies are helping patients manage and even cure PTSD without drugs, Debra Kaysen explains on this episode of The Future of Everything. He added, “Hohbach Hall will offer one of the most complete and active research collections on Silicon Valley history. Students, scholars and society all benefit when academic libraries have the ability to develop research tools, curate and organize growing amounts of content and data, and evolve their facilities and systems to improve access and delivery of information.” The spaces will allow staff to curate and display, in physical and digital forms, documents, photographs, equipment and ephemera from some of Silicon Valley’s largest companies. Hohbach had commissioned nine original oil paintings to celebrate the ingenuity that powers Silicon Valley; these paintings have been donated to Stanford and will hang in Hohbach Hall on a rotating schedule.
Since opening in 1983, the Silicon Valley Archives has supported a wide array of research projects, including partnering with economic historians to understand the technological drivers of economic growth and supporting historians of science as they pieced together the development of key ideas and technologies. Some of this research mapped cluster effects and patterns of growth in Silicon Valley by business scholars. Stanford’s Silicon Valley Archives has also supported media artists and documentary filmmakers who have sought to interpret and document the origins, spread and impact of technologies on the American and global societies.President Marc Tessier-Lavigne noted the significance of the Hohbach gift as the university and its libraries look to the future needs of students and faculty.
Dr. Richard C. Benson is appointed the fifth president of UT Dallas. Since then, UT Dallas has qualified for funding from the National Research University Fund, a third engineering building and alumni center have opened, and President Benson outlined goals in a new strategic plan.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education classifies UT Dallas as an R1 Institution: a classification reserved for doctoral institutions with the highest research activity.The Texas Legislature passes HB 42, authorizing UT Dallas to enroll freshmen and sophomore students. Enrollment is limited to 2,000 entering freshmen, and lower division enrollment cannot exceed 5,000 students. Dr. David Daniel is appointed fourth president of UT Dallas. Under his leadership, UTD triples its research expenditures, adds 40 new degree programs, raises $210 million in private funds, and initiated or completed $600 million in construction of new buildings and infrastructure. Eugene McDermott, J. Erik Jonsson, and Cecil Green establish Geophysical Services Inc., the corporation that will become Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) in 1951. The Dallas-based technology company is a top manufacturer of semiconductors and integrated circuits globally.The first phase of the Campus Landscape Enhancement Project begins. The project, paid for by Margaret McDermott, includes the planting of 6,000 trees, a small amphitheater and road renovations. UTD appoints Dr. Franklyn Jenifer as its third president. During his tenure, enrollment increases 61 percent. Major new facilities are constructed, including the School of Management, the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, and the Callier Center for Communication Disorders. Dr. Denise C. Park establishes the Center for Vital Longevity, a center dedicated to researching and understanding the aging brain, memory, cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Polykarp Kusch becomes the first Nobel laureate on the UT Dallas faculty in 1972. UT Dallas adds Nobel laureates Dr. Alan G. MacDiarmid and Dr. Russell A. Hulse to its staff over the years.
Dr. Robert H. Rutford becomes UTD’s second president, a position he occupies until 1994. During his tenure, the University creates the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, establishes the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, and welcomes its first freshman class.
After a competition to find a new mascot, UT Dallas decides on Temoc, “Comet” spelled backward. Alumnus Aaron Aryanpur designs Temoc, an orange-haired, blue-skinned Comet, who frequents events across campus from freshmen orientation to chess matches.
UTD alumnus Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman establishes the Center for BrainHealth. The center is home to labs with 60 fully funded research projects including youth brain injury assessment, caregiver training, law enforcement mindfulness training and adolescent reasoning training.
Philanthropist Margaret McDermott (1912-2018) helps transform UTD by establishing the Eugene McDermott Scholars Program and Graduate Fellows Program, endowing chairs for the president and provost, and paying for a total transformation of the campus. The total of her gifts surpass $154 million.The class ring features a UTD shield, a comet encircling a star and the Texas flag. The University presents the rings after sealing them in a wooden box from the Founders Building and enclosed with equipment used by NASA. A ceremony includes dunking the rings in a reflecting pool on the Margaret McDermott Mall.The GRCSW becomes the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies. The new name “expresses more accurately our emphasis on teaching at graduate and post-doctoral levels in space sciences, earth sciences, mathematics, biology and materials sciences,” said President Gifford K. Johnson.In honor of one of Texas’ most generous philanthropists, the Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building is dedicated. An inaugural concert features De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by Dr. Robert Xavier Rodríguez. In 2014, her gift of $17 million creates the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History.
UTD Athletics joins the NCAA Division III American Southwest Conference in 1998. As of 2019, the Comets amassed 29 ASC championships since 2002 — 16 of them since 2015. UT Dallas adds an esports program in 2018.
Hoping to create better higher-education opportunities in North Texas, TI founders Eugene McDermott, J. Erik Jonsson and Cecil Green establish the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (GRCSW) — the foundation for what will become The University of Texas at Dallas.
A trust created by Lena E. Callier (above) is used to establish the Callier Hearing and Speech Center, a community-based nonprofit housed at Parkland Hospital. In 1975, the Callier Center for Communication Disorders joins UT Dallas; it opens a second location in 2003 and expands in 2016.After a year of construction, the Founders Building opens its doors to a crowd of onlookers. Co-founders Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott and Cecil Green attend, and Jonsson speaks to the crowd. In honor of this extraordinary moment, Comets celebrate Founders Day every Oct. 29.UT Dallas achieves the critical benchmark criteria required to qualify for funding from the National Research University Fund, an exclusive source of research support available to the state’s emerging research universities.Since its establishment in 1996, the chess team has won the “Final Four of College Chess” four times, won the Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Championship, and made history by playing Instituto Superior de Cultura Física in the first US-Cuba chess match in 50 years.
In July, Dr. Bryce Jordan becomes UT Dallas’ first president. The former UT Austin president leads UTD through 1981, crafting its first strategic plan and awarding its first bachelor’s degrees. During those years, UTD’s faculty grows from 50 to 215 and enrollment spikes from 30 to over 7,000.
On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was scheduled to deliver a speech at the Dallas Trade Mart. His prepared remarks acknowledged the large role Texas plays in America’s space exploration efforts and saluted the newly formed Graduate Research Center of the Southwest.
Green served as vice president (1941–1951), president (1951–1955) and chairman of GSI (1955–1959). He also served as vice president and director of Texas Instruments and in 1976 was named honorary director of the company. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1970. In 1978, he was given the inaugural Maurice Ewing Medal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, its highest award. In 1979 Green and his wife were awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. In 1985, Green received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
Born in Whitefield, England, in 1900, Green and his family migrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada and San Francisco, United States, where he witnessed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where Green attended UBC for two years before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering in 1924.
One gift was the founding of the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green branch of the University of California Systemwide Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). This branch is located at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The growth of TI made Green an enormously wealthy man, and he and Ida quickly set about giving his wealth away. The Greens’ philanthropic efforts totalled over $200 million, and most of this money was given to education and medicine. He was given an honorary knighthood in 1991 (at age 91) by Queen Elizabeth II.
Some of Green’s philanthropy at the University of British Columbia (UBC) was encouraged by William Carleton Gibson, a neurologist in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Both Gibson and Green referred to Gibson as “Cecil Green’s most expensive friend” due to his encouragement to fund the Cecil and Ida Green Visiting Professorship and Green College, University of British Columbia. In 1998, the UBC Alumni Association gave Green and Gibson alumni “Lifetime Achievement Awards” in recognition of their support for the university.
