Thomas Francis Banchoff was born on April 7, 1938, in Trenton, New Jersey. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in 1960, his master’s degree and then his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1962 and 1964. After teaching for two years at Harvard (1964/1966) and accepting a research appointment at the University of Amsterdam (1966/1967), he began his tenure at Brown University as assistant professor of Mathematics in 1967, rising to full professor in 1973. In addition to his teaching and research at Brown, Professor Banchoff has held visiting professorships at Yale, UCLA, and the University of Notre Dame.
His fields of specialization are differential geometry and topology. His monographic publications include:
One of Banchoff's favorite books,
Professor Banchoff has received numerous teaching awards, among them the Brown University Teaching Excellence Award (1993), the Northeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America Award for Distinguished Teaching of Mathematics (1995), and Rhode Island Professor of the Year Award (1997). He has served as an associate editor of
In addition to teaching at Brown, Banchoff served as Acting Dean of Student Affairs during the 1971/1972 academic year, a time of significant organizational and social change on campus. As dean he oversaw the creation of the Transitional Year Program (which became the present Third World Transition Program in 1975).
As of July 2014, Thomas Banchoff is an emeritus professor at Brown, after 47 years of teaching. He continues to teach geometry, topology, and calculus courses at institutions such as Baylor University and Carnegie Mellon University.
The Thomas F. Banchoff papers represents Banchoff’s work as a mathematics professor and as acting Dean of Student Affairs at Brown University and covers primarily the years from 1963 through 1997. Most of the teaching material consists of professional correspondence; lecture notes, syllabi, and exams; research and review articles; and general notes. Material from his year as acting Dean of Student Affairs includes records of the newly created Transitional Year Program (now the Third World Transition Program) (Box 6, folders 25-29; Box 7, folders 1-5), correspondence and notes about contemporary campus issues such as the ROTC program, the campus strike of 1970, the Afro-American Society, and anti-Vietnam War actions. Also included in the papers are records of various faculty and university committees that Professor Banchoff served on, notably the 1968/1969 Committee of January 7 (Box 7, folders 14-18), which explored the role of the faculty in university governance, and the 1997 Strategic Task Force on Information Resources and Services (SPTFIRS) (Box 9, folders 4-9).
The papers are arranged into eight series:
Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. Researchers should note that compliance with copyright law is their responsibility. Researchers must determine the owners of the literary rights and obtain any necessary permissions from them.
There are no restrictions on access, with the exception of several boxes of student recommendations and coursework, which are restricted until 2085. The collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Thomas F. Banchoff papers, OF.1UF.2015.003, Brown University Library.
Donated by Thomas Banchoff on 15 January 2015 and on August 22, 2016.
RESTRICTED UNTIL 2055.
RESTRICTED UNTIL 2085.