According to FedEx President Fred Smith, the keynote speaker of Tuesday’s Faculty Convocation and Shirley Raines’ Inauguration, “We are very lucky indeed to have such an accomplished leader at the helm of The University of Memphis.”
Smith’s speech came after several faculty awards and preceded the numerous greetings and encouraging remarks by various university and community leaders.
Smith highlighted Raines’ record as vice chancellor for Academic Services and dean of the College of Education at the University of Kentucky, including the foundation of a literacy bill.
Raines has served as director of Knox County Schools Head Start program and a teacher, and has been the author or co-author of 13 books.
According to Smith, The University had a boom of growth in the 1980s, but fell behind in the 1990s, and has been trying to catch up since.
“State funding in 2000 for each full-time student at the University of Georgia was $10,300,” Smith said. “At the University of North Carolina, about $9,700... and The University of Memphis, it was $5,700.”
Smith also highlighted the problem of keeping tenured professors through the financial hardships.
According to Smith, in the fall of 1998, The University had 508 tenured professors and in 2001, the number had dropped to 451.
“That kind of brain drain is untenable for a city like Memphis,” Smith said.
According to Smith, Raines significantly increased private and business donations.
“The cultivation of technology, talent and tolerance by the business and academic communities the Memphis region can begin to loosen the constraints of an underfunded higher education budget,” Smith said.
The FedEx Emerging Technologies Institute, to be opened at The U of M in 2003, is something Raines has said many times will be one way that The U of M will improve technology resources.
“It’s this type of partnership between the University of Memphis and FedEx that we believe can blaze new trails towards a truly modern educated work force,” Smith said.
In the spirit of the Celebration of Learning, awards were given to U of M professors of high achievement.
Department of Psychology professor Robert Neimeyer won $20,000 dollars through the Board of Visitors Eminent Faculty Award.
Faculty winners of the Alumni Association Distinguished Research Awards were Jerome Goldstein, Leonard Lawlor, Greely Myatt and Albert Okunade.
Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Awards went to Beverly Bond, John Peterson, Cyril Chang and Cheryl Rike.
Thomas W. Briggs Foundation Excellence in Teaching Awards were given to Melvin Beck and Charles Camp.
Distinguished Advising Awards went to Graves Enck and Carol Ferguson. President’s Allen J. Hammond Memorial Awards were given to Raymond Pipkin and Odie Tolbert.
