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The Rice Thresher
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by Tommy Belanger thresher staff Retired Kinesiology Professor Frank Bearden, who taught at Rice for almost 50 years, died Jan. 22 of cancer. He was 77. A professor in the Kinesiology Department since 1954, Bearden taught kinesiology, physiology, aquatics, human anatomy and seminars on special education. "Understandably, the department is saddened by his passing - it will be a great loss to this department and to everybody," Kinesiology Professor Nicholas Iammarino said. Iammarino was hired by Bearden, who served as the department chair from 1963 to 1979. Under Bearden's leadership, the number of faculty in the department, especially the number of female faculty members, increased. Bearden also opened kinesiology classes to all Rice students. "It's hard to realize the curriculum in health and physical education was limited in large part to scholar-athletes," said Dale Spence, a kinesiology professor who worked with Bearden for 38 years. "We had the opportunity to teach challenging courses in human movement ... solid courses that were of great interest to many students who weren't scholar-athletes." Bearden started Rice's swim team in 1954, taught over 35,000 people to swim and certified about 2,000 people in CPR. "The Rice community knows that Dr. Bearden's loves were aquatics and teaching young people to swim," Iammarino said. "He taught generations of Houstonians over the years. He also was an excellent professor here in the department. ... In my over 20 years here at Rice, he always had a good thing to say about everyone." Iammarino also mentioned that Bearden was one of the longest-tenured professors at Rice, having taught here for over 45 years. An award given to a distinguished Lifetime Physical Activities Program instructor was established in his honor last year. "We're going to miss him," Iammarino said. "He was a real role model to all of us." Bearden earned his master's and doctorate degrees at Columbia University's Teacher's College, served in the military during World War II and served as a civilian athletic consultant to the U.S. Army in Frankfurt, Germany, prior to his working at Rice.
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