Late professor’s bequest to support URI oceanography research

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – A new permanent endowment for biological oceanography research at the University of Rhode Island has been funded with a $255,000 bequest from the late professor emeritus Theodore A. Napora.
The Napora Fund for Biological Oceanography at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography will support research and educational activities of graduate students pursuing biological oceanography, according to Oceanography Dean Bruce Corliss.
Corliss earned his Ph.D. from the graduate school in the 1970s when Napora was assistant dean for students. He recalled the closeness Napora enjoyed with his students and the impact he made on their personal and professional lives and on the graduate school.
Napora died in 2014 at the age of 86.
“He was instrumental in laying the foundation for a program that has existed the last 50 years,” he said. “The graduate program has been one of the most prolific in the country and he played a significant role in developing it. His gift will serve as a tribute to his life’s work.”
Napora also maintained many lifelong relationships with former students, Corliss said.
Napora came to URI as a research associate in 1959 and was named an instructor the same year. He became assistant professor in 1964, associate professor in 1972 and retired in 1991. He was named GSO’s first assistant dean for students in 1968, a post he held until 1987.
Arthur Gaines, of Falmouth, Mass., who did graduate course work with Napora in the late 1960s and early 1970s, remembered that Napora would host a daily meeting for students over coffee and tea.
“When you are an undergraduate, your job is to go to class and take notes,” Gaines said. “As a graduate student, you’re part of the team, learning and discovering new things no one knew before. You are a producer of knowledge, not just a consumer … Ted was very comfortable with that transition in people’s lives. With his personality he made it seem all very natural.”

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