GRAMBLING STATE UNIVERSITY
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
GRAMBLING, LOUISIANA
(318) 274-2560
(318) 274-3330 FAX
mediarelations@gram.edu
C/O Byron McCauley
For Immediate Release: October 21, 2008
Board of Regents presents GSU with endowed professorship matching funds
The Board of Regents presented Grambling State University with a check to
match donations for three $100,000 professorships. From left to right are
Interim Vice President for Student Affairs Stacey Duhon, Provost Robert
Dixon, GSU President Horace Judson, Commissioner of Higher Education Sally
Clausen, Board of Regents Member Bob Levy and University of Louisiana Systems
Board of Supervisors Member Mildred Gallot.
GRAMBLING-----Commissioner of Higher Education Sally Clausen praised advancements in education in Louisiana Tuesday as she presented Grambling State University with a $120,000 check, representing the state’s share of matching funds for three new endowed professorships.
“In the past, women and minorities were not encouraged to participate in math and sciences,” Clausen said. “But Grambling State University recognized that you can take a student from any background, tutor them, nurture them and watch them achieve high expectations. Today, as we present these funds to establish endowed professorships in mathematics, chemistry and biology here at Grambling State University, I’m proud of what it says about higher education in Louisiana.”
The $100,000 professorships are the Ernest Everett Just Endowed Professorship in Biology, the Percy L. Julian Endowed Professorship in Chemistry and the William W.S. Claytor Endowed Professorship in Mathematics.
Just was born in Charleston, S.C. in 1883 and became a respected biologist prior to his death in 1941. Just graduated from Dartmouth College and earned a Ph.D. in experimental embryology from the University of Chicago.
Julian, the grandson of a slave, was the second African-American to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences and was one of a small number of scientists to be featured on a postage stamp. He earned a bachelor’s degree at DePauw University, received a master’s degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. Julian’s work in chemistry yielded more than 100 patents. He died in 1975.
Claytor earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Howard University and received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1933, only the third African-American to do so at the time. Claytor’s mathematical work in the area of point-set topology attracted considerable attention throughout the mathematics community.
Clausen was joined by University of Louisiana Systems Board of Supervisors Member Mildred Gallot, GSU President Horace Judson, GSU Provost Robert Dixon, Interim Vice President of Student Affairs Stacey Duhon and Bob Levy, a member of the Board of Regents and District Attorney for Lincoln and Union Parishes. About 75 people attended the event in the Nursing School’s Auditorium.
Judson, who has been president at GSU for four years, thanked Clausen for her support dating to her tenure as head of the University of Louisiana System, and said endowed professorships enhance the university’s ability to recruit students and faculty. Grambling State University is the only historically black college or university that has an endowed chair in mathematics, he said.
Noting new construction on campus, Levy praised the development and noted that Grambling’s “exterior is starting to match its interior.”
Dixon said GSU is in the process of looking for candidates to fill the professorships.
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