Distinguished Professors,
Distinguished History
A 35-year progress report
Faculty are the lifeblood of a university. They do much more than teach.
They nurture and guide their students. They serve their communities by sharing
their expertise. They uncover new knowledge in their research.
Keeping the best faculty isn't easy. Private businesses and other universities
are quick to try to lure them with more generous salaries and attractive
perquisites.
Thirty-five years ago, the National Alumni Association saw the need to reward
and thus help retain some of UT's best professors. Historian Neal O'Steen
gives this account in his Tennessee Partners: The University of Tennessee
and its Alumni Association:
Endowed chairs were practically nonexistent at the University, and this
deficiency rankled alumni leaders. The development office at that time was
unable to induce philanthropists to make gifts for the establishment of
special chairs, but the generation of alumni gifts sufficient to approximate
the income from endowments was viewed as a means of achieving the desired
end. Five Distinguished Service Professorships, each providing an annual
salary supplement of $2,000, were proposed as an incentive to capable teachers
to remain on the University payroll.
The first five recipients, selected in 1962 by a committee of their colleagues,
were Calvin A. Buehler of the chemistry department; J. Gordon Carlson, professor
of zoology; Richard Beale Davis of the English department; E. Eugene Stansbury,
professor of metallurgical engineering; and Charles P. White, professor
of finance.
The association is still at it, now providing $3,000 annual salary supplements
to selected faculty who have demonstrated beyond a doubt that they are valuable
assets to UT. Each carries the title of Alumni Distinguished Service Professor
as long as he or she is an active faculty member.
There are other faculty awards, but the Alumni Distinguished Service Professorships
are the only ones supported by your gifts to the National Alumni Association
annual giving program. As a stakeholder, you deserve a report on this success
story that continues to help build a better University of Tennessee.
Alumni Distinguished Service Professors
Dr. Ronald Bright, small animal clinical sciences, College
of Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Joachim Burgdoerfer, physics, UTK College of Arts and
Sciences
Dr. Gordon Burghardt, psychology, UTK College of Arts and
Sciences
Dr. Gene Ezell, exercise science, health, and leisure studies,
UTC College of Education and Applied Professional Studies
Dr. Alexander Fedinec, anatomy and neurobiology, UT Memphis
College of Medicine
Dr. Bob Freeman, microbiology and immunology, UT Memphis College
of Medicine
Dr. Peter Gerschefski, music, UTC College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Mary Ann Handel, zoology, UTK College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. George Kabalka, chemistry, UTK College of Arts and Sciences,
and Robert H. Cole professor and director of research, UT Medical Center
Dr. Sheldon Korones, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology,
UT Memphis College of Medicine
Dr. James W.L. Lewis, physics, UT Space Institute
Linda Phillips, UTK University Libraries
Dr. Howard Pollio, psychology, UTK College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. George Schweitzer, chemistry, UTK College of Arts and
Sciences
Dr. William Snyder, theatre, UT Martin Division of Fine and
Performing Arts
Dr. Otis Stephens, political science, UTK College of Arts
and Sciences
Dr. Jimmy Trentham, biology, UT Martin College of Arts and
Sciences
Dr. Larry Wadsworth, textiles, retailing, and interior design,
UTK College of
Human Ecology
Dr. T. Ffrancon Williams, chemistry, UTK College of Arts and
Sciences
Dr. William Wood, pharmacology, UT Memphis College of Medicine
Previous Alumni Distinguished Service Professors
J. Gordon Carlson, Richard B. Davis, Calvin Buehler, Charles White, E.
Eugene Stansbury, Dix Noel, Aaron Sharp, Joel Bailey, Gerald Whitlock, Fred
Peebles, Charles Mangam, Richard Present, Paul Ramsey, Marian Heard, Elizabeth
Dalton, John Dicks Jr., Ronald Quintana, John L. Wood, Harry Hutson, Allison
Nelson, Martin Lee King, Paul Burns, Nathalia Wright, Robert Mildram, George
Feiwel, Milton Klein, Joseph Cozy, William Bass, Tom Waddell, Walter Herndon,
Arthur Brown, Sidney Cohn, Louis Britt, Ralph Gonzalez, Norman Sanders,
Daniel Schneider, John Morrow Jr., Earl Davis, Lester Van Middlesworth,
Joe Hall
Morris, John R. Moore, Andrew Lasslo, Dwayne McCay
