Elroy “Roy” LaCasce Jr., a former Bowdoin College physics professor who inspired thousands of students over 60-plus years of teaching, died Tuesday at his home in Raymond. He was 92.
Mr. LaCasce was an expert on underwater acoustics and the author of numerous publications on the physics of sound. He also conducted research at Yale University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and in the Atlantic Ocean off Bermuda.
In a letter sent to the Bowdoin community, President Clayton Rose recalled LaCasce’s lifelong devotion to the college and his impact on students and alumni.
“Our community says farewell today with sadness, but also with a deep sense of gratitude for Roy, for his high standards and many contributions, and for his dedication to Bowdoin,” Rose wrote.
Mr. LaCasce, a 1944 graduate of Bowdoin, began his teaching career in the Navy’s meteorology program at Bowdoin while he was still a student there. According to his obituary, which is published in Friday’s Press Herald, he worked for a year at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. In 1945, he entered the U.S. Foreign Service and was vice consul in Beirut, Lebanon. He returned to Bowdoin as a physics instructor in 1947 and rejoined Bowdoin’s faculty in 1954, where he taught until he retired in 1993. That year, he received the college’s alumni award for faculty and staff.
Mr. LaCasce was remembered by faculty and friends Thursday as a man who inspired many to pursue advanced degrees and careers in the sciences. He was also known for staying in touch with alumni.
John Cross, secretary of development and college relations at Bowdoin, recalled the holiday letters Mr. LaCasce wrote each year to physics alumni. Cross said his file is filled with handwritten and typed notes from former students and alumni.
“There’s an extraordinary sense of connection between the physics alumni and the college,” Cross said. “The physics department in general tends to be a collegial, friendly and mutually supportive department. I think a lot of that comes from Roy.”
Another highlight of his life was figure skating. He skated for 43 years and was a test judge for the U.S. Figure Skating Association from 1961 to 1991.
Cross shared memories of seeing Mr. LaCasce skating at the college’s ice hockey rink when he was a boy.
“I remember as a child skating around the hockey rink,” he said. “In the center of the ice, Roy would carefully be figure skating with a degree of concentration as if all the chaos around him wasn’t happening. He was very precise in his skating … very focused on it.”
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