In 1959, Bob Hamrdla was part of the second Stanford cohort to go overseas, to Beutelsbach, Germany. “I did it as a whim, and it was by far the most important part of my entire education at Stanford,” he said in a 2011 oral history. He completed his math major, then earned a master’s in history, pursued a doctorate in German studies, and embarked on a lifetime of teaching and service to his alma mater.
Photo: Courtesy Sigma Alpha Epsilon
An academic adviser to thousands, assistant to two university presidents, and secretary to the Board of Trustees, George Robert Hamrdla, ’59, MA ’64, died on April 21, at 87.
Hamrdla was born in 1937 in Kansas City, Kan., and moved to the Bay Area when he was 10. Apart from 18 months in the Army and stints directing Stanford’s overseas programs in Germany and Poland, he lived near campus for the rest of his life.
His professional path can be traced through the 314 Stanford Daily articles that mention him. From 1964 to 1970, Hamrdla worked for the overseas studies program as it opened locations in Italy, France, Austria, and Great Britain. “Bob loved being with students overseas,” says history professor emeritus and Stanford in Germany alum Norman Naimark, ’66, MA ’68, PhD ’72. Students “become much more aware of the complexity of the human community,” Hamrdla told the Daily in 1966, “and yet also of the paradoxical similarities in all its members.”
In 1970, Hamrdla became the assistant dean of undergraduate studies, where he inaugurated Stanford’s advising center. He became assistant to the president in 1977, serving Richard Lyman and then Donald Kennedy. His duties ranged from taking meetings on behalf of the president to making statements to the Daily to answering student questions about why winter break 1987 was two weeks instead of three. Hamrdla also taught freshman writing courses and served for two years as a resident fellow in Larkin House.
Hamrdla never lost the travel bug, co-leading 54 Travel/Study trips and making personal journeys to world war battlegrounds. “He went first class,” says longtime friend Craig Falkenhagen, ’74, MS ’75, MBA ’89. “I don’t think he really could afford it, but he managed. You could look for him in seat 1A, drinking champagne.”
In 1992, Hamrdla left Stanford to become executive director of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and Foundation. The Daily mentions then cease—until 2010, when Hamrdla wrote a letter to the editor correcting a claim that Florence, Italy, was the first overseas program site. That distinction, he said, belonged to Beutelsbach.
Tracie White is a senior writer at Stanford. Email her at traciew@stanford.edu.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
