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The Academy of Scholars, Wayne State
University
A Short History of the Academy [1979-2000]
The Academy of Scholars was founded
in 1979 with the enthusiastic approval of Wayne State's faculty,
administration and Board of Governors. In the spring of that
year, Professor Guy Stern, then vice-president for Academic Affairs
and Provost of the university, approached President Thomas N.
Bonner during the first year of his presidency with the idea
for an Academy. Its main purpose was to raise the scholastic
prestige of the university by bringing the most prominent academic
experts to campus under its aegis and to create a community of
scholars from among its most celebrated researchers. President
Bonner's endorsement was immediate: it was predicated in part
on the success of a similar organization at the University of
Cincinnati, "The Graduate School Fellows," where President
Bonner had been Provost and Stern an elected member of the Fellows.
President Bonner, who after his retirement was to become one
of the chief benefactors of the Wayne State Academy, charged
Provost Stern with implementing his idea. The biennial Bonner
Award established in 2000 is named in his honor.
The University Council helped structure
an organizational procedure. Four recent recipients of Wayne
State University's Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award, Professors
Marion Barnhart (Physiology), Walter Chavin (Biology), Carl Johnson
(Chemistry) and Ross Stagner (Psychology) formed one sub-group
as charter members, with an additional number to be nominated
by a committee comprised of themselves plus several professors
emeriti. This important task, coupled with that of drafting a
charter, fell to Professors Hermann Pinkus (Dermatology), Herben
Schueller (English), Mildred Peters (Education), Jose Cirre (Romance
and Germanic Languages) and Irene Beland {Nursing). The deliberations
of this committee led to the nomination of Piero F. Foa (Physiology),
Horst Daemmrich (Romance and Germanic), David Fand (Economics),
C.P. Lee (Biochemistry) and Morris Goodman(Anatomy). The Policy
Committee of the University Council quickly approved this slate.
In April 1979 the Board of Governors
adopted the Charter of the Academy. Throughout the twenty-year
history of the Academy it has been amended only once.
The drafters of the charter accorded
equal to distinguished scholarship and creative achievement.
As the highest recognition the university can bestow, the Academy
was instructed to choose for membership "the most productive
and widely recognized" members of Wayne State University.
It defined the functions of the Academy as promoting creative
achievement in scholarship by recognition and by provision of
incentives. The Academy would also serve to attract young scholars
of outstanding promise by bringing to the university distinguished
scholars from other institutions, sponsoring meetings, stimulating
intellectual activity, and by promoting intellectual interchange
at all levels.
It also envisioned that the Academy,
as a whole or through a committee, would advise the university
in intellectual and artistic concerns, act as a scholarly resource,
sponsor lectures by distinguished speakers from the WSU campus
and beyond, and, by a variety of means, stimulate interdisciplinary
exchanges between departments. The charter also stipulated that
election was for life; it outlined the internal method of nominating,
electing and inducting new members and the procedure for electing
its president. The Academy elected Walter Chavin (Biology) as
its first president.
Each president (Appendix II) added
his or her distinguished mark to the evolution of the Academy.
For example, Walter Chavin advocated and implemented the bestowal
of a framed certificate for: initiates. Carl Johnson (Chemistry)
regularized meetings, introduced agendas and kept records of
proceedings. Karl Roskamp (Economics), with the support of Provost
Sanford Cohen, regularized its budget. Jacob Lassner (Classics)
and C.P. Lee (Biochemistry) opened the meetings to presentations
of scholarly or creative achievements of its members. Paul Schaap
(Chemistry) sought and obtained the participation of the university
presidents at the annual banquet. 0.J. Miller (Molecular Genetics)
sharpened the nominating process. Thomas N. Bonner (History)
issued invitations to university officials (the Head Librarian.
the Director of the WSU Press, the Dean of the Graduate School)
to share and to resolve mutual concerns. Bonner also entertained
the Academy at his home together with promising scholars who
epitomized in their work the successful blending of liberal arts
and sciences. James J. Hartway (Music), and his committees, fully
implemented the "advisory function" of the Academy
by their helpful and constructive statement on the state and
future of the university, submitted to and welcomed by President
Irvin Reid. Ananda Prasad (Internal Medicine) became the first
to represent the Academy sui generis at an academic procession.
Beyond providing a strictly historical
account, a post-modern chronicle ought also to include less official
actions, events, anecdotes, and episodes of sad and lighter mien.
Shortly after her sure-handed presidency (1980), Marion Barhart,
an internationally acclaimed physiologist, sadly lost her life
in a car accident. Fortunately, other events were less shattering
and more routine. C.P. Lee, from her early induction to the present
day, became the group's unofficial parliamentarian, invoking
its charter and preceding actions. Carl Johnson earned gratitude
by providing meeting rooms -- and free lunches. Guy Stem (German
and Slavic Studies) resolved an "election crisis,"
when he found justification in an obscure "Rule of Order,"
allowing a candidate's initiation despite a shortfall by an infinitesimal
fractional vote.
In trying to fulfill one of its missions,
the enhancement of the intellectual climate on the campus and
in the community, the Academy has through the years attracted
scholars from the most varied fields to Wayne State. Illustrative
examples will reveal the variety of approximately thirty-five
guest speakers. In the arts and humanities the Pulitzer Prize-winner
Joyce Carol Oates, by reading from her poetry, presented a less-known
aspect of her creative writing. C. Walter Hodges, a world-renowned
scholar of the Elizabethan Age, presented his latest findings
on stage and stagecraft during the time of Shakespeare. In the
social sciences, Prof. Bernard Lewis, award-winning historian
of the Middle East, provided a closely-reasoned analysis of the
fluctuating power struggle in this volatile region. Nobel Laureate
Robert Solow predicted a sharpening economic rivalry between
the United States and the European Union, and a slower-than expected
economic equalization between the formerly divided parts of the
Federal Republic of Germany.
Numerous scholars from various fields
within the natural sciences equally enriched the campus community.
Emblematic of the spirit of the Academy, two of its members from
different departments joined efforts to bring Francisco Ayala,
a world leader in genetics and evolutionary history, to campus.
Herbert C. Brown, a pioneer in biochemistry, and also a Nobel
Laureate, gave a remarkable account of how basic research can
lead to unforeseen practical applications.
Concurrently with the Senior Lecture
Program the Academy developed its Junior Lecture Program. Its
purpose was to "foster research and enhance the intellectual
climate on campus...by awarding the achievements of younger faculty."
Each year one or more members of the Academy nominate two outstanding
younger scholars, one representing the natural sciences and the
other the social sciences, arts and humanities, to present their
latest research or creative achievements before the general public
and to receive certificates from the Academy. All of the earlier
recipients have since received tenured positions at this or at
other universities.
A sampling will illustrate the Academy's
broad outreach into all areas of intellectual and creative life
of campus. In the natural sciences Edward Golenberg (Biology),
a gifted biological scientist and two equally meritorious chemists,
Gang- Yu-Liu and Joseph P. Francisco presented talks at the cutting
edge of research. Professor Francisco's talk, for example, focusing
on the topical issue of the depletion of the ozone layer, commanded
the attention of a large town-and-gown audience.
In the arts and humanities Von Washington,
a stage director and theater historian and Nancy Hale, an art
historian may serve as paradigms of the gifted young faculty
within their disciplines. The same can be said of the presentations
by junior faculty from the social sciences exemplified by Susan
Fino of the Department of Political Sciences and John J. Bukowczyk
of the Department of History.
Other results of this aspect of the
Academy's work, less tangible but no less real, surfaced in an
anecdotal report by one of its past presidents. The report lauded
the interdisciplinary discussions following the reading of the
papers both in the lecture hails and, more informally, at the
round-tables at various restaurants. He concluded: "The
Junior Lecture Series, including such topics as art history,
mass spectrometry, computer-assisted musical composing and nursing
sociology, have provided an insight into the intellectual riches
of the university."
Throughout the years, at random intervals,
the Academy's monthly meetings benefited from the reports by
members about their ongoing research or creative efforts. For
example, Robert Thomas (Physics) explained "Thermal Wave
Imagining for Non-destructive Purposes." Robert Wilbert
(Art), via a slide lecture, led us into an artist's workshop
-- his own. Leonard Leone (Theatre) reported in 1998 on his initiative
in the construction of a Globe Playhouse in North Carolina. Ronald
Aronson (ISP) shared his discoveries during his research on Jean
Paul Sartre.
Towards the end of its second decade
of existence several new perspectives and goals opened up for
the Academy. Thomas N. Bonner, past president of the University
and subsequently of the Academy, and locally and nationally a
leading proponent of the maintenance and strengthening of liberal
arts and sciences programs, made a most generous donation of
$50,000 to an endowment fund. Recognizing that the availability
of an annual income opened new avenues, President Prasad charged
a sub-committee (Carl Johnson and Guy Stern) with drafting guidelines
for the appropriation of accruing funds from the Bonner donation.
They were adopted during the spring of 1999. Essentially they
fixed the name of the fund to "The Thomas N. Bonner Fund
of the Academy of Scholars; but also fixed its principal purpose,
consistent with the stipulations of its donor. "The sole
aim of the fund is the ongoing examination of the place of the
liberal arts and sciences in a modern university, including Wayne
State University. Various activities designed to identify the
place of the liberal arts and sciences and the means for their
promulgation can qualify for funding. They include support for
forums, conferences, prominent speakers, scholarly projects by
full-time members of the campus community, and the partial underwriting
of relevant publications, preferably by Wayne State University
Press." The efficacy of the guidelines was first tried out,
successfully, by a grant to Professors John Bukowczyk (History)
and Alfred L. Cobbs (Germanic and Slavic Studies) for a conference
on "The University and the City," held in spring of
1999, with scholars from around the nation, including WSU, participating.
In 1998, a long-planned project of
the Academy came to fruition. Amidst a large-scale ceremony,
a plaque to commemorate all past, present and future members
of the Academy was installed in the David S. Adamany Library.
The plaque, presented by the university, will bestow permanent
recognition to those elected to the Academy.
As early as 1982 the Academy was asked
occasionally to offer advice and guidance to the university administration
on research. In that year, the Academy investigated ways in which
other institutions MM notably the University of Minnesota with
its Regents policy --honored and supported excellence in research.
Some of the details that a committee of the Academy uncovered
there, such as annual stipends, were never applied to the Academy,
but did become a part of President David Adamany's institution
of a Distinguished Professors program. In addition that same
year, at President Adamany's request, the Academy, seeking advice
from the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Law, the College
of Education, the School of Medicine, and the College of Pharmacy
and Allied Health, formulated a statement about the nature of
research.
With the accession to the university
presidency of Dr. Irvin Reid -- and with his active encouragement
-- the Academy's mission to offer "its judgment and advice
on questions of intellectual concern … to the University
community and others" was soon pursued more fully. As a
concrete indication of his encouragement, President Reid invited
the Academy to assume a prominent role during his inaugural celebration
by sponsoring a colloquium, similar to those held by other units.
Before a large audience, including President Reid, Melvin Small,
John Reed, Mark Evans, and James Hartway presented discussions
of the future of disciplines as disparate as music and obstetrics.
President Reid also honored the Academy's
invitation to attend one of its meetings in order to hear its
assessment of university affairs and its suggestions for the
future.
In April 1998 the Academy presented
him with a statement developed under the leadership of its outgoing
president, James Hartway. The Academy, by way of preface, pledged
its full support to Reid's vision statement and concluded by
stressing its advisory role through a "continuing, positive
and productive dialogue with the President and the administration."
Central to its declaration was a shared commitment to Wayne State
as a center of research, teaching and learning "to promote
development of its scholarly programs and encourage and develop
the creative activities of the faculty." The declaration
urged greater visibility for Wayne State both intellectually
and physically, enhancement of its attractiveness to the community
and beyond by highlighting the faculty's achievements and campus
activities, and the streamlining of administrative procedures
for students and faculty. It also stressed the modernization
of its facilities, and a greater reliance on full-time rather
than part-time faculty. In yet another statement, primarily concerned
with its own budget, the Academy apprised the President of an
envisioned new activity: "Based on the success of the Presidential
Symposium, the Academy is considering presenting an annual forum
for the community-at-large. This symposium will be a well-publicized
event featuring Academy members discussing current topical events."
The report also alluded to further
involvement of graduate students, a concept long championed by
Piero Foa. The aim is to stimulate thinking about issues, at
a time when knowledge is required, that demands multiple talents,
skills, and backgrounds. In the spring of 2000, the Academy launched
its series of University Forums where young faculty and graduate
students presented their research to colleagues in other disciplines.
This new and exciting program demonstrates that even after twenty
years of existence it is still an evolving, dynamic body. Since
the founding of the Academy, as with every viable organization,
it has taken on a life of its own. As of the writing of this
history [2000] it is safe to predict that in years ahead it will
chart a course that will almost certainly break new ground time
and again.
In its twentieth year in 1999, the
Academy's activities provide proof once again of its vibrancy.
Its Senior Lecture Program began with successive lectures by
two Nobel Prize winners on September 21 and 22. As a headline
in the WSU Campus News put it, "Two Nobel Winners get Academy
Year off to Smart Start." Wole Soyinka, Nigerian author,
playwright, and poet, who received the prize for literature in
1986 and is now Roben W. Woodruff Professor at Emory University,
spoke of the effect of exile on his writing and that of other
African writers. Less affected by his need to flee his homeland
because of a tyrannical government, than by the circumstances
of exile itself, he found that it changes a writer's identity:
"I was no longer African, Nigerian, Yoruban; I was
Exilant."
The following day, Ferid Murad, director
of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Texas-Houston
and the winner for chemistry in 1998, presented two campus addresses.
Speaking before a large group at Scott Hall in the afternoon,
he provided a detailed account of the work that led to the discovery
of the basic mechanisms by which nitric oxide affects dilation
of arterioles and endothelium functions. In the evening he spoke
at the Academy's annual dinner at the Renaissance Club, recalling
the expectant exuberance when one is a candidate for the Nobel
Prize.
The wealth of past activities highlights
the fact that the Academy has proven its ability to march with
the times and their changing challenges. The Academy stands ready
to meet these challenges and to respond to them in conformity
with its intellectual mission.
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