Ira L. Baldwin, scientist and administrator, will receive the 1997 Distinguished Service Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

The 102-year-old Baldwin, professor emeritus of bacteriology and former dean of the College, will receive the award during the College”s Honorary Recognition Banquet, Oct. 24, at the Memorial Union on the UW-Madison campus. The award is given annually to a CALS faculty or staff member for exceptionally meritorious contributions to the College, University and people of Wisconsin. (For information on attending the banquet, please call Lee Gottschalk at the CALS conference office, (608) 263-2421.)

“Ira Baldwin”s connection to the College extends back to 1925 when he enrolled as a graduate student,” said CALS Interim Dean Neal Jorgensen. “He joined the faculty in 1927 and was an exceptional microbiologist who helped discover, for example, which bacteria improve crop yields.

“Within five years of his appointment, Dr. Baldwin became an assistant dean in the College. His skill as an administrator and the respect others had for him brought him a series of administrative promotions and tasks in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. A quiet, self-effacing leader, Ira Baldwin built an impressive record of service to Wisconsin, the University, the nation and the world.”

Born in Oxford, Indiana in 1895, Baldwin served as a second lieutenant in the field artillery in World War I. He received his bachelor”s and master”s degrees in agriculture from Purdue University in 1919 and 1921, respectively.

At the UW-Madison, Baldwin”s scientific interests included general and soil microbiology, industrial fermentation and microbial physiology. Along with co-authors Edwin B. Fred and Elizabeth McCoy, Baldwin wrote “The Root Nodule Bacteria of the Leguminosae,” a pioneering treatise on the bacteria that make it possible for legumes, such as alfalfa, clover and soybeans, to take nitrogen from the air and use it for growth.

During World War II, Baldwin was a consultant to both the Army and Navy and conducted research on tropical diseases. He served as chairman of the bacteriology department from 1941 until 1944, and dean of the graduate school from 1944 to 1945. He became dean of the College in September, 1945. Baldwin held the position for almost three years before then UW President Edwin B. Fred appointed him the University”s Vice President for Academic Affairs.

As the fifth CALS dean, Baldwin directed the College during its transition to peace-time operations. One of his first directives to a faculty exhausted by the war-time pace was for each member to take a substantial, non-working vacation. In his brief tenure as dean, Baldwin worked to strengthen several key departments drained by faculty resignations and retirements. He also approved the appointments of such notables as artist Aaron Bohrod and geneticist Joshua Lederberg. Bohrod succeeded John Steuart Curry as the College”s artist in residence. Lederberg”s research on the inheritance of mutations in bacteria led to his Nobel Prize, the first Nobel Prize earned for research done at the UW-Madison.

Baldwin was the University Vice President for Academic Affairs for 10 years. In 1959, he became special assistant to the president and devoted most of his time to the theory and practice of building educational and research institutions in the United States and throughout the developing world.

Baldwin”s interest in agriculture and developing countries continued after his retirement from the University in 1966. From 1964 to 1968 he directed a nine-university study of efforts to build institutions that serve rural development and agriculture. From 1968 to 1971, he administered another multi-university effort, this one to improve agricultural education, research and public service in Indonesia.

Baldwin lives in Tucson, Ariz., with his wife of 43 years, Ineva Reilly Meyer Baldwin. Mrs. Baldwin was assistant to the dean of women at the UW-Madison from 1941 to 1942, and assistant dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1946 to 1954.