Richard C. Roberts, a founding member of the faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a professor at the university for 25 years, died of cancer Thursday at his home in Columbia. He was 82.
Dr. Roberts was one of five division chairmen at UMBC when it opened in 1966. As head of the mathematics and physics departments, he recruited faculty, taught courses and helped set the course for the fledgling university. He was later dean of the mathematics department.
"In the formative years of the department, his vision counted a lot," said Manil Suri, a UMBC mathematics professor whom Dr. Roberts hired in 1983. "It could have easily turned out to be a teaching university, but he and some other people ensured that the department would be known for research as well."
Dr. Roberts was adept at balancing teaching and research, and instilled that sense in his faculty, his former colleagues said. They remembered him as a man who was rarely, if ever, flustered, even at the height of student activism in the late 1960s.
"You can imagine at the time things could get pretty turbulent," said Homer Schamp, who was vice chancellor for academic affairs when UMBC was founded. "And when everyone else was flustered, he was always the calm person."
Dr. Roberts was born in Akron, Ohio, and raised in nearby Cuyahoga Falls. He earned a bachelor's degree in math from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a doctorate in applied mathematics from Brown University in 1949. There, in Providence, R.I., he met his future wife, the daughter of one of his professors.
In 1949, Dr. Roberts married Evelyn T. Lindsay. They were married for 46 years, until her death in 1995.
After Brown, Dr. Roberts completed a year of postdoctoral study at the Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Maryland and then worked for 15 years at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Silver Spring, where he worked on naval weapons systems and was head of the mathematics section for aeroballistics.
Dr. Roberts, who had lived in Columbia since 1969, then joined the first group of faculty at UMBC in Catonsville. "He saw this as a very fascinating challenge, to build up a university from scratch, and he told me many times how much he enjoyed that process," said Dr. Roberts' son, David C. Roberts of Laurel.
Dr. Roberts attended the university's 40th anniversary celebrations two years ago and was proud to see how far it had come since its founding. "He was in many ways very amazed at how it had built up so much," his son said. "They started with relatively little."
Colleagues said Dr. Roberts will be remembered for his skills as a teacher and an administrator. He never hesitated to teach, they said, and he was diligent in hiring the best professors.
"He was always very careful in selecting the faculty, and he was able to attract some very good ones," said Yen-Mow Lynn, a math professor at UMBC whom Dr. Roberts hired in 1967.
After his retirement in 1991, Dr. Roberts cultivated an interest in computers and taught computer skills to senior citizens. He was a member of a computer group called the Central Maryland User Group. Dr. Roberts was a longtime supporter of the Candlelight Concert Society in Columbia and a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Howard County.
A memorial service will be at the church April 20.
In addition to his son, Dr. Roberts is survived by a brother, Henry W. Roberts of Fort Wayne, Ind.
stephen.kiehl@baltsun.com