Care of the Earth Scholarship in Honor of Rudolph W. Edmund

Dr. Rudolph Edmund was a man of singular focus. He dedicated his life to caring for the earth and the gifts of creation. And he was equally committed to his faith in the Creator of the earth. For Rudy Edmund, it was all one package.

A faithful Lutheran and proud Scandinavian, Rudy Edmund earned his bachelor’s degree at Augustana College in Illinois and his master’s and doctorate in geology at the University of Iowa. He spent 18 years working in the oil industry, attaining the title of vice president and general manager of Sohio Petroleum Company where he was in charge of their worldwide oil exploration efforts. He had also taught at Augustana for 12 years, so he had a sense of his vocational calling. That led him to California Lutheran College where he came to teach in 1969.

Dr. Edmund truly made his mark upon CLU. He served as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college from 1969 to 1973. He was a professor of geology from 1974 to 1980, after which he was named professor emeritus. It was in the classroom and field work, however, that he had the greatest impact upon his students.

In 1994, 13 years after their 1981 graduation, two of his finest students, Dean Soiland and Brad Wilson, took it upon themselves to pay tribute to their former professor. They did so by establishing a scholarship endowment aptly named Care of the Earth. Initially, it was designed to support student/faculty exploration of the natural relationships and processes that sustain the gifts of creation. But as CLU’s science programs expanded and the new major of environmental science was created, it became a perfect fit for this endowed scholarship.

In 2004 the scholarship honoring Dr. Rudolph Edmund became the Care of the Earth Endowed Scholarship. It remains a tribute to a man who inspired his students to have a sense of stewardship of the earth long before the word sustainability became popular. The scholarship is awarded to upper-division students who are pursuing either a major or minor in environmental science. Recipients missed out on knowing personally the gentle man who inspired the scholarship—Dr. Rudolph Edmund—the man everyone knew simply as “Rudy.”