James Kip Finch
This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2008) |
James Kip Finch (December 1, 1883–1967) was an American engineer and educator.
Personal life
James Kip Finch was born to James Wells and Winifred Florence Louise (Kip) Finch, in Peekskill, New York. He attended Columbia University, receiving a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1906 and a Master of Arts in 1911. He was a member of the Episcopal Church and, in his leisure time, a keen painter with watercolors and oils. He married Lolita P. Mollmann (d. 1964) on June 25, 1910, in Stanford, New York. They had a son, Edward E. K. Finch.
Career
Finch began teaching at Columbia after graduating in 1906, working as an instructor in the Summer School of Surveying, while also employed as an assistant engineer at the Tompkins Engineering Construction Co. He left Columbia for an interval beginning in 1907, during which he taught at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania before joining a succession of engineering firms in New York City: he was with an architectural firm, John B. Snook's Sons, during 1907, spent 1908 working for D. J. Ryan, a contractor in Brooklyn, and for List and Rose Contractors. In 1910 he carried out irrigation works and ranching in Montana. He then returned in 1910 to Columbia, becoming an assistant professor in 1915, associate professor in 1917, full professor in 1927, Renwick Professor in 1930, and chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering in 1932. He became associate dean at Columbia in 1941, and dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1941. He retired the deanship in 1950, but taught for another two years as Renwick Professor.
Finch devoted much of his career to the cause of engineering education and to research and teaching on the aesthetic, philosophical, and historical aspects of engineering. He was involved in the establishment of Camp Columbia, a summer engineering camp held near
Among other institutions, Finch was affiliated with the
References
- Finch, James Kip - ASCE life member. Obituary at the American Society of Civil Engineers.