A weakness for adventure took Dr. David Hinds to many off-the-grid destinations in his life: the wilds of Alaska, backpacking in the Sierra, and just about any place with a body of water nearby. It was that same love for exploring uncharted territory that brought him to Bakersfield in 1970 to teach biology at the brand new college on the outskirts of town.
What he found here was a campus still coming together, a community of faculty eager to get started and students who had before them an opportunity that was unprecedented in our region: the pursuit of a college education, right here in their hometown.
When Dr. Hinds passed away Feb. 4 at the age of 82, some of those early students reached out to his wife.
“I received a couple of notes from students from back in the day who reported how influential he was in their life,” said Dr. Annette Halpern-Hinds, who taught biology at CSUB from 1974 to 2002.
“At that time, a lot of students were returning Vietnam veterans and they were really hungry for an education. They’d just been through a war and they didn’t want to go back to the stresses of that kind of living. My husband was a taskmaster, but those students were no nonsense, no excuses and wanted to be pushed because they were so appreciative of the opportunity. He admired these young men a great deal.”
The size of Cal State Bakersfield in those early days allowed for a close working relationship between professors and students, Dr. Halpern-Hinds said.
“They called it experiential learning. Students and faculty were in it together. Instead of just lecturing, there was field work, experimentation in the lab. We were such a small department back then. Often, you’d be asked to teach a course that was not your specialty. But you got the challenge of doing new things, and maybe learning one day ahead of your students.
“I think it was the smallness and the emphasis on participating in your education, being involved — not just as a listener but as a doer. Friendships were built that you just don’t get at a big institution.”
That sense of camaraderie extended to the early faculty, a mixture of academics beginning their careers and established leaders — “the vigor of youth and the wisdom of age going on at the same time.”
“The faculty was small and you knew everyone, and not just in your discipline. We met people who would become lifelong friends in English, the arts. There was lots of fun. Education wasn’t an abstraction that was separate from your life. Education was your life.”
Born on Dec. 3, 1939, in La Jolla, David Stewart Hinds enjoyed a carefree boyhood that centered around the eternal California summer: body-surfing, beach volleyball, water sports and fun in the sun. He had an early knack for mathematics and science, loved music and was the captain of the football team at Pomona College, where he also played rugby.
He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona 1969 and, degree in hand, landed the job in Bakersfield, enticed by the opportunity to help build the biology department from the ground up.
Dr. Hinds chaired the biology department from 1986 to 1988 and was recognized with several awards, including the 1997 California State University Faculty Research Award, Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to Australia, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a nomination for the 2001 Wang Family Excellence Award.
Perhaps his greatest honor, according to his wife, was his perennial invitation to the end-of-term honors event, from students who cited him as their greatest influence.
“I don’t think there was ever a year he missed being selected as their best professor,” she recalled. “And he was astonished and honored by that. I was only ever invited once.”
He retired from his 30-plus-year career at CSUB in 2002. His wife joined him in retirement a few months later, and the two began their second chapter, on the Snake River in southern Idaho, near a town called Bliss, “basically a truck stop,” Dr. Halpern-Hinds said. “But what a nice name.”
“He loved fishing, and that’s what brought us to Idaho in the first place. He fished in streams that feed the Snake,” but, like most fishermen, was secretive about his favorite spots.
“He’d say, ‘If I tell you where they are, I’d have to kill you.’”
His wife would bring a book and rock hop from spot to spot.
“I’m not a fisherman,” she said. “We decided we’d rather be married than have him help me fish. I accompanied him as a nice way to experience the outdoors.”
Dr. Halpern-Hinds said it was Dr. Hinds’ nature – as an educator and husband – to push. She called him irascible. “He could push the screw a little to get your attention.”
“I’m a coward,” she said. “He was adventurous, to the point of being foolhardy sometimes. We’d have to cross a stream by walking on a fallen log and it was slippery and scary and I’d say, ‘How am I going to do this?’ I told him, ‘It’s easy for you. You have courage.’
“And he said, ‘I don’t have courage. I know I can do it. You have courage because you’re doing it and don’t think you can.’ That’s how he was with students. I had to cross that stream myself and so did his students.”
Dr. Halpern-Hinds has no plans for a memorial service but she will honor her husband’s passion for the outdoors by scattering his ashes in the Snake River, where eventually they will make their way into the ocean that he loved from boyhood.
Along with his wife, Dr. Hinds is survived by sons Michael Shaun Hinds, Jeffrey Wayne Hinds, Patrick Halpern Hinds, their wives and children.
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