Art Pancoe '51: Philanthropist, Mathematician and Public Advocate
By Lisa Stein
Art Pancoe sums up his theory on living a meaningful life this way: “Involve yourself in social problems that have meaning for you.” His serendipitous relationship with Northwestern has helped him make an impact in myriad areas, from national policy to major University projects.
A philanthropist, mathematician, and passionate advocate for environmental and defense issues, Pancoe first made his mark advancing the development of breakthrough drugs. He began his career at the investment firm Bear Stearns and joined Morgan Stanley in 2008. Evidence of Pancoe’s gifts to Northwestern can be found all over campus, from the Pancoe-NSUHS Life Sciences Pavilion that he and his late wife, Gladys, dedicated to their granddaughter Beth, a Northwestern student who died in 1999, and the Pancoe Chair in Mathematics.
Pancoe's connection with Northwestern started when he was a math whiz at New Trier High School in Glencoe, Ill., one of a small group selected to skip senior year and study engineering at Northwestern in an accelerated program. A year and a half later, at the tender age of 17, Pancoe enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserves and set off for the western Pacific.
After the war he returned to Northwestern and earned a master’s degree in mathematics, taking most of his courses as independent studies. “I had to,” Pancoe recalls. “I was also teaching a 7 a.m. calculus course and worked full-time for my family’s manufacturing business.”
He studied with Frank Bothwell, who later became a chief scientist at the U.S. Navy and led the group that developed the Polaris missile in 1960. Pancoe specialized in non-linear differential equations, now called chaos theory—the field of mathematics central to inventing intercontinental guided missiles. Coincidentally, the first scholars to hold the Pancoe Chair in Mathematics were professors Don Saari and Jeff Xia, two of the world’s leading mathematicians in chaos theory.
In 1969 Pancoe made headlines for a lawsuit he and Professor Jonathan Galloway of Lake Forest College filed to stop the development of the Sentinel anti-ballistic missiles system in the United States. “This suit was a factor in President Nixon’s decision to scuttle the system,” Pancoe says. Pancoe also took a stand against Commonwealth Edison’s building of a nuclear plant in Zion, and promoted now-standard catalytic converters in automobiles, which decrease air pollution.
His current philanthropy focuses on creating a memorial garden for Gladys, who died in 2010, as part of the southeast campus project. “My life’s work is so intertwined with Northwestern that it’s hard to say where it begins and where it ends.”