Going UP
Legacy of Bud Foote
Tech ranks No. 10 in listing of top schools
Library plans sciencefiction center to house extensive collection
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hen Frankenstein's monster sprang to life in Mary Shelley's 1818 gothic novel, so did the genre known as science fiction. Georgia Tech plans to keep that genre alive and well. Tech's Library and Information Center is creating a science-fiction center named for Professor Irving F. "Bud" Foote, whose creative efforts have helped define science fiction as an academic discipline. Foote, who retired this year after a 31-year career at Tech, donated 8,000 volumes of science fiction to the library. The collection includes many first editions and some of the bestknown books by some of the most acclaimed writers over the past 181 years. The Bud Foote Center for Science Fiction will provide a unique forum for futurists, science-fiction writers, scientists and students to collaborate and discuss science fiction, scientific and technological futures and the impact of science on society, says Miriam Drake, director and dean of Libraries. Foote began teaching sci-
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GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1999
ence fiction at Tech in 1971, introducing hundreds of students to the literature and bringing many prominent science-fiction writers to campus to share their works and ideas with students and faculty. Students in his class read a book each week coupled with a weekly quiz. "I didn't make it easy for them or me," he says. Science-fiction seminars and workshops will be sponsored by the center and—in conjunction with the School of Literature, Communication and Culture—acclaimed sciencefiction writers will be brought to campus. Foote will serve as a senior adviser to the center and participate in its programs. "One of the things I enjoy most in life is read-
n its annual ranking of "America's Best Colleges," U.S. News & World Report ranked Georgia Tech No. 10 among national public universities—up from No. 13 last year—and No. 40 among the best national universities both public and private. Among the best undergraduate engineering programs, Georgia Tech is tied for 7th place with ing books and talking Cornell about them," Foote said in a Georgia Tech Alumni Maga-University and zine interview in 1994. "So Carnegie I got a job where I read books and talk about them, Mellon University. and they give me money— which seems a little imTech's DuPree College of moral." Management is ranked No. 32 among the nation's best underA native of Laconia, graduate business programs. N.H., Foote graduated "We are becoming world summa cum laude from class in a number of important Princeton University in areas," says Tech President 1952; he earned his masWayne Clough. ter's degree from the University of Connecticut. Tech also received high "We want to build a cen- marks from Black Issues in Higher Education in its annual ter that is environmentally "Top 100" list of colleges and controlled to preserve the universities that graduate the books," Drake says. "It's a most students of color. Georgia natural for Georgia Tech. Tech continued its national Our students love science leadership in minority gradufiction. They attended Bud ate education with a No. 1 Foote's classes, and he and ranking—tied with Stanford — visiting writers stimulated them. I suspect a few books in engineering doctoral degrees awarded to minority have come out of that." students, and No. 2 in Until space can be built, engineering bachelor's and the collection will be mainmaster's degrees awarded to tained in the Library's arminorities. GT chives department. GT