Remembering Dr. James Gooch
As a Juniata professor and colleague, Jim was an intelligent and engaging scholar, teacher, and mentor. His quiet intensity and focus were an integral part of Juniata’s Biology department for decades.
Jim was born and raised in West Virginia and Ohio, earning a bachelor of science degree from West Virginia University and a master of science degree at Ohio State University, both in geology. Jim’s passion for biology was discovered after a summer at the Duke University marine station. He went on to complete a Ph.D. in biology at the University of Delaware.
Jim’s diverse background and his propensity for learning led him to teach a wide variety of courses including genetics, population biology, biostatistics, and his life-long favorite, invertebrate zoology. Jim and his late colleague, Bob Fisher, led students on an annual field trip to Duke Marine Laboratory for 20-some years. Jim engaged undergraduate students in several National Science Foundation-funded projects at Juniata, studying the ecological genetics of aquatic organisms. During these summer research endeavors, while proteins slowly migrated across electrophoresis gels, he enjoyed playing strategy games with his students. On occasional summer days, Jim would take his students (and exuberant faculty children) on day trips to ride aboard steam-operated railroads. Jim quipped to a new faculty member conducting research that she worked too hard; he and his students just sit around and drink Dr. Pepper all day. This was his fun style of humor. In reality, Jim published numerous research articles, many with his Dr. Pepper-consuming student colleagues as co-authors. In Jim’s last few years of teaching, the field of molecular biology exploded onto the genetics scene. In the true form of an extraordinary academic, Jim embraced the new techniques and quickly integrated them into his genetics laboratory course. Jim was an incredibly talented writer to the benefit of scores of students for whom he wrote letters of recommendation. Those who served with him on letter writing committees remember well his warnings about the failings of “plain vanilla” letters. Jim was a faithful supporter of science education and public literacy, volunteering hours with Science in Motion and the Friends of the Beeghley Library.
Jim was a brilliant and extraordinary mentor to his colleagues and many, many students.
“A teacher affects eternity. He can never be sure where his influence stops,” Henry Adams.
Jim’s influence continues to expand outward from his decades at Juniata.
—Jill Keeney, Charles A. Dana Professor of Biology
Dr. James Lee Gooch, 81, died Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, at his Huntingdon residence. He was born July 24, 1938, in Charleston, WV, to Clarence Glenwood Gooch and Nelsie (Craft) Gooch. The family resided in several towns in West Virginia and Ohio, finally settling in Parkersburg, WV, where James, an only child, graduated from Parkersburg High School in 1956. He then attended West Virginia University and Ohio State University, obtaining the bachelor of science and master of science degrees in geology. A summer spent at the marine station run by Duke University persuaded James to change majors to biology. He rounded off his formal education with a Ph.D. in biology at the University of Delaware in 1968.
In 1965, he was betrothed to Emmy Lou Denny of Washington, D.C. He is survived by his wife, Emmy Lou Gooch, and his son, Douglas Gooch. Douglas and daughter-in-law, Beth, reside in Charlottesville, Va., with Doug’s children, Ryan and Ethan.
Dr. Gooch took a teaching post in the biology department of Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa., in the fall of 1968. Over the years, he taught courses in genetics, biostatistics, population biology, and invertebrate biology, the latter a life-long interest. Many Juniata students will remember the annual field trips to the Duke University Marine Laboratory that Drs. Robert Fisher and Gooch conducted over a 20-year period.
Dr. Gooch and his family spent 1971 in Chicago under the auspices of a Ford Foundation Fellowship at the University of Chicago. During summers he researched at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Ma., and field stations in Bermuda, California, North Carolina, and elsewhere. His research area, at Juniata and away, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, dealt with the ecological genetics of aquatic organisms. About two dozen published papers resulted, including several with Juniata students as co-authors.
For a time Dr. Gooch was a member of the Marine Biology Laboratory Corporation, the advisory body to that research institution, and several professional societies. He served on three National Science Foundation panels in Washington, D.C., to evaluate research proposals, and he visited and evaluated the biology departments of several colleges, reporting his findings to the Council of Independent Colleges.
At Juniata College, Dr. Gooch served on a number of committees until retirement in 2000. He continued membership in the Friends of the Beeghly Library for many years thereafter. For several years he volunteered his time to the educational organization Science in Motion. Among other leisure activities he enjoyed pen-and-ink sketching, crafting mosaics of venetian glass tiles, amateur astronomy, and amateur radio, in which he practiced the ancient art or morse telegraphy under the call letters NA3V.