Media Contact:
Mick Kulikowski, News Services, 919/515-3470

May 5, 2003

Five NC State Professors to Receive Prestigious Holladay Medals

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The North Carolina State University Board of Trustees has awarded the Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence to five faculty members in recognition of their outstanding careers at NC State.

This year’s honorees are Drs. Eugene J. Eisen of Raleigh, William Neal Reynolds Professor and graduate administrator of animal science; Major M. Goodman of Raleigh, William Neal Reynolds Professor of crop science; John R. Hauser of Raleigh, professor of electrical and computer engineering; John N. Wall of Raleigh, professor of English; and Jack W. Wilson of Raleigh, professor emeritus of business management.

The Holladay Medal is the highest honor bestowed on a faculty member by the trustees and the university. The medals will be presented during the university’s Honors Baccalaureate and Celebration of Academic Excellence, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 15, in the McKimmon Center.

The featured speaker at the Honors Baccalaureate will be Cyma Rubin, an Emmy and Tony award-winning producer, director and writer. Curator of the exhibit “The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture the Moment,” which is scheduled for exhibit at D.H. Hill Library this fall, Rubin will also receive an honorary degree from NC State during commencement ceremonies on May 17.

The Holladay Medal is named for Col. Alexander Quarles Holladay, the university’s first president. It recognizes the contributions of faculty members in teaching, research and service. Winners receive a medal and a framed certificate, and their names are inscribed on a plaque in the NC State Faculty Senate chambers.

• Dr. Eugene J. Eisen joined NC State’s Department of Animal Science in 1964. He was named William Neal Reynolds Professor in 1988. His research centers on the mouse as a mammalian model for studying the genetic architecture of quantitative traits and testing genetic theory that can be adapted to improve
  livestock production. His productivity includes 164 refereed publications and 120 abstracts and proceedings. Eisen has mentored 14 master’s and 11 doctoral students, and he has served on the editorial board of five international journals. He received the NC State Alumni Research Award, the Biological Fellowship at Edinburgh (Scotland) University, the Rockefeller Prentice Memorial Award from the American Society of Animal Science, and he was named Fellow of the American Society of Animal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• Dr. Major M. Goodman has a 43-year association with NC State. He received master’s and doctoral degrees from NC State in 1963 and 1965, respectively, and served as research assistant and National Science Foundation (NSF) Co-op Fellow before joining the faculty as assistant professor in 1968. Since then, Goodman has compiled a distinguished record as a researcher and teacher. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and named fellow of the Crop Science Society of America in 1986, and won the University of North Carolina Board of Governors’ O. Max Gardner Award in 1987. He was named William Neal Reynolds and Distinguished University Professor at NC State in 1988. He won the Meyer Medal from the Crop Science Society of America in 1999. He has published prodigiously on the evolution of cultivated plants, plant breeding, genomics and molecular biology, especially in maize.
• Dr. John R. Hauser has given 37 years of outstanding service in teaching, research and administration to NC State. He achieved the rank of professor in 1973 and was named distinguished university professor in 1991. His research and publications have played a major leadership role in developing a nationally recognized research and education program in nanoelectronics and photonics through his own research and by serving as the director of several major research centers. He has made major research contributions in several fundamental areas of semiconductor materials and devices, and his results have been documented in two books and more than 150 refereed technical publications. He was a principal member of a group involved in the founding of the Center for Advanced Electronic Materials Processing (AEMP), where he served as director from 1996-2000. In 2002, he won the Semiconductor Industry Association’s University Research Award for outstanding contributions to semiconductor technology.
• Dr. John N. Wall has been a member of the NC State faculty for 30 years. The author or editor of more than 30 books and scholarly articles in the field of early modern English literature, he has received postdoctoral fellowships for advanced study from the Mellon Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Wolfson College of Cambridge University. Wall also has an extensive record of service to the university. In the early 1990s, he chaired NC State’s reaccreditation self-study, leading to renewed support for NCSU Libraries, for the enhancement of teaching, and for research and graduate education. He co-chaired NC State’s successful effort to bring a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa to campus and served as the first president of
  the NC State chapter. He also served for six years as director of the University Honors Council and for two years as founding director of the University Honors Program.
• Dr. Jack W. Wilson has served NC State since 1964. In his nearly 40 years at NC State, Wilson has published extensively in his fields of specialization, namely asset returns and risk, portfolio management and financial history. He headed the Department of Business Management from 1996 to 1999, and also headed the Division of Multidisciplinary Studies from 1988 to 1992. He has been honored numerous times for excellence in the classroom, winning outstanding teaching awards three times (1969, 1972 and 1981) and an outstanding advising award in 1988. He also has worked tirelessly on numerous NC State committees – many on ways of studying and improving curricula – and the Faculty Senate. In 1987 he was recognized for distinguished service by the Faculty Senate for his studies of faculty salaries.

- 30 -