Samuel Nelson Gray Distinguished Professor Award

The Samuel Nelson Gray Distinguished Professor Award was established on October 31, 1979, at both Randolph-Macon College and Virginia Wesleyan College by the late Mrs. Virginia Clarke Gray Backus (and her children, Samuel Nelson Gray, Jr. and Virginia Lee Clay) in memory of her husband, an alumnus and former trustee of R-MC and former trustee of Virginia Wesleyan. Mrs. Gray was the sister of former Virginia Wesleyan President Lambuth Clarke.

Although called the Distinguished Professor Award, this prize was established to honor the faculty member or senior administrator selected by the president as the person who has made a distinguished contribution to the institution. Intended to be each institution's highest honor, the president solicits nominations and reviews nominees with the vice president for academic affairs and former recipients of the distinguished award.

Recipients

2022
Deirdre Gonsalves-Jackson

2021
Linda Ferguson

2020
Susan Larkin

2019
Travis Malone

2018
Taryn Myers

2017
Paul Ewell

2016
William McConnell

2015
Clayton Drees

2014
Aubrey L. Westfall

2013
Victor R. Townsend

2012
Sara A. Sewell

2011
Craig S. Wansink

2010
Rita E. Frank

2009
Kathy S. Stolley

2008
Douglas A. Kennedy

2007
William J. Ruehlmann

2006
Karen A. Bosch

2005
Thomas R. Fanne

2004
Susan Wansink

2003
Lawrence D. Hultgren

2002
Joyce B. Easter

2001
Theodore M. Vial, Jr.

2000
Douglas A.  Kennedy

1999
Neil P. Ramsey

1998
Clayton Drees

1997
Craig S. Wansink

1996
Linda L. Logan

1995
William J. Ruehlmann

1994
Steven M. Emmanuel

1993
William M. Jones

1992
Linda A. Ferguson

1991
Douglas A. Kennedy

1990
David G. Garraty

1989
Kathy Merlock Jackson

1988
Daniel W. Graf

1987
Edmund D. Carlson

1986
Betty Jefferson Harris

1985
William A. Sturm

1984
Daniel W. Graf

1983
Charles L. Kessler

1982
Edmund D. Carlson

1981
Betty L. Jefferson

1980
William R. Shealy