Legacy of Excellence Award
Honoring a professor emeritus
Tribute to outstanding achievement in retirement
The annual Legacy of Excellence Lecture features a professor emeritus who, in retirement, continues to make outstanding contributions to academia, the University, and the community. The WSU Emerita/Emeritus Society honors the speaker with the Legacy of Excellence Award in recognition of these achievements.
2024
Read the feature story on Professor Pierce here.
2023
Nicholas Lovrich
Nicholas P. Lovrich served as the Director of the Division of Governmental Studies & Services from 1977 to 2010 and retired to Emeritus status in 2011. He holds the rank of Regents Professor Emeritus in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs and the honor of being a Claudius O. & Mary W. Johnson Distinguished Professor in Political Science. He currently serves as an affiliate graduate faculty member of the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University. He remains active in scholarship as an affiliate researcher in both the Dept. of Political Science at the University of Utah and the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at WSU.
Lovrich was on faculty at DePauw University, in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and at Metropolitan State University in Denver prior to coming to WSU. Lovrich is the author or co-author/co-editor of thirteen books and more than two hundred peer-reviewed articles in journals in Political Science, Public Administration, and Criminal Justice. He served as the chair of 30 WSU Ph.D. dissertation committees over the course of his academic career. He served as the WSU Faculty Senate Legislative Representative for 10 legislative sessions in Olympia and was a leader in the creation of the WSU Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach (CEREO). He remains active in his retirement as a collaborator on grant-funded research projects with a number of his former doctoral students in both Political Science and Criminal Justice/Criminology.
Read the feature story on Professor Lovrich here.
2022
Nancy Magnuson
Nancy Magnuson is internationally known for her research in immunology and cancers associated with the immune system. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served on review panels for the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, and the American Cancer Society.
At WSU she launched the Distinguished Lecture Series in Immunology, bringing leading experts in the field to campus. She directed the National Science Foundation-funded ADVANCE program, which supports women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines.
In retirement, Nancy has sustained her commitment to advancing women in academia. She continues to host a summer event for the Association of Faculty Women, of which she formerly served as president. She established the Magnuson Immunology Scholarship to support students interested in pursuing careers in immunology, medicine, or public health.
Nancy’s Emeritus Society Award lecture can be seen here, along with a very special tribute from fellow Emeritus, Michael Griswold.
2021
Nick Kiessling
Nick Kiessling is an internationally recognized scholar of Medieval and Early Modern literature and culture. Since his retirement in 2000, he has shed new light on the lives and libraries of seventeenth-century antiquarian and biographer Anthony Wood and English writer Robert Burton. Nick’s 2002 The Library of Anthony Wood—a catalogue of 6,758 items—won praise as “a monumental and exemplary achievement.” His annotated edition of Wood’s autobiography adds detailed notes and a biography to Wood’s own life accounts. Nick’s research opened new perspectives on books printed surreptitiously by Catholics in England from about 1558 to 1800. His essay on the illegal transfer of some 20,000 such books out of England was awarded the UK CILIP’s History Essay Award for 2017. Since his retirement, Nick has held a visiting appointment at Université de Haute Bretagne, Rennes, France, and a Fulbright Senior Scholar appointment in Casablanca, Morocco.
Nick’s Emeritus Society Award’s lecture can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpYMfM6442g, along with a very special tribute from fellow Emeritus, Alex Hammond.
2020
Don Matteson
Don Matteson joined the WSU community in 1958 and became the first faculty member to win the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. After completing his undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, and his graduate work at the University of Illinois, Urbana, he spent one year as a research chemist at the du Pont Central Research Department. He has served on the editorial advisory board of the American Chemical Society Journal, Organometallics, and Heteroatom Chemistry. Don’s research has been cited more than 6,700 times in scholarly literature and has earned numerous patents. He was recognized by his peers with the 2013 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, one of the highest honors conferred by the American Chemical Society.
Since his retirement in 2012, Don has remained an innovator in the field of synthetic organic chemistry. His research explores two of the field’s great challenges: control of stereochemistry, or the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms and molecules, and the efficient construction of carbon-carbon bonds, important in the production of many chemicals. Matteson has developed methods for efficiently synthesizing biomolecules, enabling rapid and cost-effective production of pure biological compounds. Among compounds he has created are insect pheromones, sugars, amino acids labeled with stable isotopes, antibiotics, and boronic acids that are enzyme inhibitors. His discoveries enabled the development of a life-extending drug for patients with multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells. Don is married to Marianna Merritt, former chair of WSU’s Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures. They are active in the regional community and generous supporters of WSU in both the arts and sciences.
2019
Diane Gillespie
Gillespie is an internationally recognized scholar and editor of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British literature, in particular that of modernist-era writer Virginia Woolf. Her special interests include modern fiction and drama especially by women writers as well as relationships between verbal and visual art forms. Since her retirement in 2001, Gillespie has remained a major voice in Virginia Woolf studies. She is the author of The Sisters’ Arts: The Writing and Painting of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and editor of Virginia Woolf’s Roger Fry: A Biography and The Multiple Muses of Virginia Woolf. She has co-edited Julia Duckworth Stephen: Stories for Children, Essays for Adults, Virginia Woolf and the Arts (a selected papers volume), and Cicely Hamilton’s play Diana of Dobson’s. In addition to these six books, she has published numerous journal articles and book chapters. Her most recent essays appear in Maggie Humm’s Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and the Arts, Helen Southworth’s The Hogarth Press and the Networks of Modernism, and Virginia Woolf: Twenty-First-Century Approaches edited by Jeanne Dubino et. al.
2018
Paul Barkley
Barkley was a long-time professor at WSU before retiring in 2002. Since then, he has stayed active and productive, serving as editor of “Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm and Resource Issues.” He also co-authored two textbooks and collaborated with Oregon State University faculty to develop the Academy of Lifelong Learning program for local retirees to attend lectures. Barkley collaborated with his son Andrew Barkley, professor of agriculture and economics at Kansas State University, on two books: “Principles of Agricultural Economics” and “Depolarizing Food and Agriculture: an Economic Approach,” which won the AAEA Quality of Communications Award.
2017
No Recipient
2016
Robert E. Ackerman
Robert Ackerman, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, has earned the 2016 WSU Emeritus Society Legacy of Excellence Award, to be presented at WSU’s annual Showcase celebration on March 25th. The award is given for outstanding contributions while in retirement to academia, the university, the community and mankind.
Professor Ackerman joined the WSU faculty after completing his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961. Throughout his career, research visits have been made to Russia, Japan, Korea, and China to attend scientific conferences and to study archaeological collections from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites. Professor Ackerman’s specific research interests include the earliest evidence for the movement of hunter-gatherers into coastal and interior regions of northeast Asia and Alaska, late Pleistocene and early Holocene cultural adaptation, and further definition of the cultural phases of Arctic and subarctic prehistory.
He became a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology when he retired at the end of the spring semester in 2007. Since retirement, Bob has published seven articles, has co-edited two published monographs, and has given presentations at meetings of the Alaska Anthropological Association and the American Anthropological Association. In addition to his research activity, he continues to be a well-regarded member of our departmental community, and interacts frequently with colleagues and students.
2015
George W. Hinman
Dr. George W. Hinman has been awarded the 2015 Legacy of Excellence Award. As part of the annual WSU Showcase Celebrating Excellence, he will receive an award and have a brief tribute during the ceremony on Friday, March 28th. He will also have a separate recognition event, during which he will give a lecture on Nuclear Energy Issues in Washington State on Wednesday, March 25th, at 4:00pm in Todd 125.
George came to Washington State University in 1969 with a background in nuclear physics, engineering, and applications, strengthened by his time at Carnegie Tech and as the Chair of the Physics Department at General Atomic. While at WSU, George branched out into environmental science, becoming the director of the WSU Office of Applied Energy Studies and advising the states of Washington and New Mexico on various aspects of nuclear power production, use, and policy.
George was able to draw on all of these and other components of his wealth of scientific knowledge in informing and guiding the GAO auditors through their reviews of the complex Hanford Cleanup process.
After retiring from WSU in 1997, George continued his work in a Professor Emeritus position. He continued to teach the ESRP Environmental Policy Class and advised undergraduate and graduate students for two years. Beyond that, he served on graduate students’ advisory committees and directed and participated in environmental research projects.
During recent years, more of George’s time and attention has come to be devoted to health care, as is the case for many of us who are well into the second decade of our retirement. In George’s case, he is the primary caregiver for Mary, his beloved wife of 62 years. He is carrying out these duties with the same high level of diligence with which he approached professional assignments during his long and successful career.
2014
Norman K. Whittlesey
Dr. Norman K. Whittlesey was raised on a farm in Western Colorado. His high school years were spent in Basalt High School. From there he received a B.S. degree at Colorado A&M, later to become Colorado State University. Serving in the army 101st Airborne Division took about three years. Then back to CSU for an M.S. degree and later to Iowa State University for a Ph.D., received in 1963.
Norm is Professor (Emeritus) of Agricultural Economics at Washington State University, where he has been since 1964. During his tenure at Washington State University he has been heavily involved in research and teaching related to production agriculture, irrigation development, water policy and environmental economics throughout the West. Studies of water value, allocation, and conservation have been central to research and policy development activities during the past two decades. He has authored over two hundred publications related to these fields. In 1987 he won the prestigious Award for Professional Excellence from the American Agricultural Economics Association in recognition of his distinguished policy contribution for work in water policy related to irrigation development in the west. In 1998 he was honored as a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association in recognition for years of path breaking research in water policy and irrigation management. He has been involved in many consulting efforts in the past. These include three (U.S. Supreme) Court cases involving disputes between states over allocation of cross border rivers. He has served on numerous regional and national committees and task forces engaged in policy development for solving problems of natural resource and environmental management.
Norm and his wife Cynthia celebrated their 60th anniversary in 2014. Norm has a daughter, Norma Bishop, and son, Craig Whittlesey, who both work in healthcare; Norm also has four grandchildren. His hobbies include wood carving, fly fishing, trail riding, bird hunting, and fishing trips to Alaska or Mexico about every year. He still engages in reviews and critiques of proposed water development projects in Washington and the PNW, trying to bring economic reality to political and bureaucratic plans for spending the public’s money. Norm also serves as one of our Emeritus Society Executive Committee members.
2013
James F. Short
Short is recognized as a pioneer in the field of juvenile gang behavior beginning in the 1950s; he published a landmark study of Chicago gang violence in 1965. His work on gangs, white collar crime, social control, violence and the sociology of risk and technology has been groundbreaking. He has authored more than 20 books.
Since retirement from WSU in 1997, Short has been an emeritus professor only in the most technical sense, says one of his nominators. He continues to contribute to the sociology department, university and internationally in the disciplines of sociology and criminology. He conducts research, mentors graduate students and publishes on violence, violence avoidance and the social aspects of risk.
He has remained active in projects and organizations in retirement, including: president of the American Society of Criminology; advisory board member for the Social Science Research Council task force on Hurricane Katrina; consultant to the national Crime Victim Survey Committee and member of the Committee on Lethal School Violence and the Committee on Law and Justice – all appointed by the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council; and guest editor of the May 2005 issue of the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice.
Short is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a past president of the American Sociological Association and past editor for the American Sociological Review. He received the WSU President’s Award for Lifetime Service in 2006. In 2009, a WSU building was rededicated as Wilson-Short Hall in his honor.
He earned his B.A. from Denison University, Ohio, in 1947 and his M.A. (1949) and Ph.D. (1951) from the University of Chicago. He joined the Washington State College sociology faculty in 1951. He served as dean of the graduate school 1964-1968 and was founding director of WSU’s Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC).
2012
Donald C. Orlich
Since Donald C. Orlich’s retirement in 1995, Orlich has continued to write books, publish articles and pursue and obtain grant funding. Orlich’s nominators cited Don’s passion for science and engineering teaching as making him a remarkable candidate for the Legacy of Excellence award. They noted he is clearly recognized for his expertise as evidenced by his service on boards and advisory panels across the country. He has often been sought out by local or national press for comment on new teaching methods.
Orlich has published/co-published 17 books, most recently (2012) the 10th edition of the textbook “Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction,” and the upcoming “Developing a Winning Grant Proposal” with Nancy Shrope, who was assistant director of WSU’s Office of Grant and Research Development in 2012. He has published more than 100 papers and has been writer or co-writer of 97 competitively funded grant proposals, most recently a National Science Foundation $500,000 project with WSU’s R. C. Zollars, professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering, on summer engineering experiences for teachers.
Orlich earned his Ed.D. in science education, administration and curriculum foundations from the University of Montana in 1963; a master of science education from the University of Utah in 1959; and a bachelor of arts in biological sciences education, with a physical sciences minor, from the University of Montana in 1953.
2011
William D. Lipe
William D. Lipe, professor emeritus of anthropology, was nominated based on a career of service to and teaching of archaeology; on outstanding achievements in research into prehistoric Southwestern societies; and on continuing contributions after retirement to academia, the university and the community. Lipe was described by a nominator as “one of the founding fathers of conservation or public archaeology. His widely cited paper in the Kiva journal (I974) – “A Conservation Model for American Archaeology” – helped to articulate goals and practices for archaeology, many of which were implemented in the Society of Professional Archeology, which he helped to found, and in its follow-on organization, the Register of Professional Archaeologists.”
In the mid-1990s Lipe served first as president-elect and then as president of the Society for American Archaeology. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has held several offices. Since his retirement in 2001, Lipe continued to participate in essentially all the activities he pursued while employed at WSU, where he worked for 32 years. He continued to provide guest lectures in the graduate courses he once taught. He attended annual professional association meetings and was sought out to participate in symposia.
Among his post-retirement awards are: the 2010 American Anthropological Association A.V. Kidder Award for eminence in American archaeology, one of the nation’s most distinguished awards in the profession; distinguished service awards from the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in southwestern Colorado and from the Register of Professional Archaeologists; and the Conservation and Heritage Management Award from the Archaeological Institute of America.
Lipe earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale University in 1966 and a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Oklahoma in 1957.
2010
Clayton Crowe
Crowe’s research and teaching focused on fluid mechanics and two-phase (gas particle/droplet and solid-liquid) flows. Since his retirement in 2001, Crowe collaborated with young faculty and a graduate student to develop a turbulence dissipation model to complement Crowe’s existing turbulent kinetic energy model. This resulted in four journal papers, five conference proceedings and the honor of presenting a plenary talk at the 2009 ASME Fluids Engineering Summer Meeting. Only four plenary speakers every year are selected from among the 500 conference attendees.
Among many honors, Crowe was awarded WSU’s Sahlin Award for Research in 1998.
Crowe earned his Ph.D. in aerospace and astronautical engineering from the University of Michigan in l962; a master of science in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in l957; and a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from the University of Washington in l956.
2009
Clive Gay
Clive Gay, professor emeritus of veterinary clinical sciences, is a native of New Zealand and has been on the WSU faculty since 1979. Gay is senior author of “Large Animal Medicine,” a textbook used throughout the world, and co-author of a veterinary dictionary. His areas of research expertise include diseases of agricultural animals, neonatal calf disease and trace element deficiency.
He has been president of the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association and remained active on its board of directors during his retirement. He was awarded honorary membership in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. Gay participates in the Washington Idaho Symphony and in numerous community projects as a member of Kiwanis.
2008
Walt Butcher
2007
Tom Maloney
