Associate Professor of Political Science Ann Davies will hold the newly established Edwin F. Wilde, Jr. Distinguished Service Professorship at Beloit College starting in the fall of 2008. Lynn Franken, vice president for Academic Affairs and dean of the college, made the announcement in February. Davies is the first faculty member to receive the honor at the private liberal arts college.
Wilde taught mathematics and served as associate dean and later as vice president for planning at Beloit College during a tenure that spanned from 1955 to 1976.
The endowed professorship was established last fall by alumnus Dick Niemiec and his wife Joan Niemiec of Minneapolis to honor Wilde.
In a recent interview for Beloit College Magazine, the Niemiecs said they wanted to recognize Wilde as an outstanding teacher whose guidance and interest in undergraduates came to symbolize the high standard of teaching and close student-faculty interactions at Beloit. Mr. Niemiec, a member of the class of 1965, said Wilde was a favorite professor and mentor who steered him toward graduate school and a fulfilling career.
“I strongly believe that the same things Beloit did for me they’ve done for many other students and continue to do,” says Niemiec, a retired senior executive for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Niemiec joined the college’s board of trustees last fall.
Mrs. Niemiec is a former member of the Minneapolis City Council, who served in that capacity for a decade before moving into human resources work. She later became director of community planning for the Minneapolis Park Board. She is also retired. “Dick was fortunate to have had such a good relationship with a faculty member that most people don’t have in their lives,” she said. “We wanted to recognize and reward that.”
Holding a named professorship is an honor for a faculty member. Earnings on the funds underwrite the professor’s salary and provide additional resources for professional development, scholarship and travel.
Ann Davies has been at Beloit since 1997. A productive and highly regarded member of the Beloit College community, she most recently had a hand in setting Beloit’s long-term direction as co-chair of the college’s Strategic Planning Committee. She also chairs the college’s Academic Policy Committee and co-directs First-Year Initiatives, the college’s innovative program that introduces new students to the academic and social life of the college. She was formally recognized for outstanding teaching in 2005 when she received one of only five Underkofler Awards given annually by Alliant Energy to faculty at Wisconsin’s independent colleges. Students nominated Davies for the Underkofler, calling her “a powerful academic force” and noting her role in encouraging civil questioning and dialogue. In 2006, the Beloit Rotary Club also recognized Davies as an outstanding teacher.
Davies teaches courses in political theory and public law, serves as a pre-law advisor to students and contributes to the legal studies program at the college. Her specialty is in liberal political thought and its reflection in U.S. jurisprudence. Davies received her B.A. degree from Kenyon College and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago.
Wilde was also a respected teacher, mentor and administrator, and a primary architect of the College’s bold year-round academic program called the Beloit Plan, which launched in 1964.
In addition to teaching mathematics with a specialty in statistics at Beloit, Wilde later became associate dean and then vice president for planning. He left Beloit in 1976 to become chief academic officer at Roger Williams College (now Roger Williams University) and later was provost for the University of Tampa and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of South Carolina-Spartanburg (now Upstate). Wilde is retired and lives in South Carolina.