Posted on Jun 20, 2006

Clarence Francis Goodheart, an award-winning Electrical Engineering professor and department chair who taught at Union for more than 30 years, passed away earlier this month, on June 4, following a long illness. He was 90.


A Californian who came to campus in 1947, Goodheart taught at Union from 1947 to1981. During that time, he was instrumental in establishing a five-year program in which undergraduates could earn dual degrees, a B.A. and a B.S. in Engineering.


He served as department chair from 1955 to1965 and again from 1974 to 1977.  He earned a number of awards for classroom excellence, including plaudits from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. 


“Clarence Goodheart was an outstanding teacher who will be remembered by all his colleagues and students for his teaching, service to the College and exceptional qualities as a person,” said Interim President Jim Underwood.


 Goodheart was born in 1916 in Porterville, Calif., and grew up in Sun Valley, a part of Los Angeles. Excelling in mathematics, he graduated from North Hollywood High School in 1932. He graduated with a B.S. in Engineering with honors from the California Institute of Technology in 1936 and earned a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University in 1938.


He taught at Texas A&M University for four years before joining the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Washington, D. C., where he was a project engineer and section head until 1947.


That year, Goodheart and his wife, Margaret Alice Barr, a registered nurse, moved to Schenectady with their son, Lawrence. Later they had a daughter, Carol. Margaret died in 1960, and Goodheart was married to Carolyn Petroske Rakoske of Schenectady from 1961 until her death in 1998. 


Goodheart co-authored, with Walter Lewis, Basic Electric Circuit Theory (1958), which was translated into Japanese. He retired from Union in 1981 as professor emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition, from 1947 to 1991, he taught the Advanced Circuits class in the General Electrical Power Systems Engineering Course. 


 “Union has always had great teachers in electrical engineering. But Goodheart would probably be considered the best by most students,” wrote Prof. EdwardCraig in his 1994 book, EE at Union 1895-1995.


In the video, A Union of People, Goodheart reflected that “students were…like children of mine.”


Goodheart was a devoted gardener and traveler who led his family on adventuresome tenting trips across the country in the 1950s. In his later years, he and Carolyn spent winters in Tierra Verde, Fla.


In January 2004, Goodheart moved from Schenectady to Falmouth House at Ocean View in Falmouth, Maine. He was predeceased by Russell, a brother, and Alice Goodheart Taylor, a sister.


He is survived by a brother, Leland, his wife and family in Sacramento; son Lawrence Barr Goodheart, his wife Ellen Embardo, and daughter Anna of Hampton, Conn.; his daughter, Carol Frances Allen of Portland, Maine, her son, James N. Allen, and his wife Jaime of Seattle; and a stepson, Paul Rakoske, of Esperance, N.Y., and his children.  


The Goodheart family announced that contributions in his memory be made to Union College for student scholarships in the Department of Electrical Engineering. The family held a memorial reception for the Union community in Hale House on June 9.