Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           
    Date: 5/9/96
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple  22

Editors: Photos accompany release
SOUTHEASTERN NAMES DISTINGUISHED TEACHING PROFESSORS
     HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University's College of Arts and Sciences has
awarded "distinguished teaching professorships" to history professor William Robison and
industrial technology professor David Buell.
     Robison, a 13-year member of the history and government department faculty and past
recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences' Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, was
named the Fay Warren Reimers Distinguished Teaching Professor. The professorship, named for
the late Mrs. Reimers, a life-long patron of the arts in Hammond, is the second of three teaching
professorships that are being created at Southeastern through a successfully-completed National
Endowment for the Humanities challenge grant. The first, the Woman's Hospital Distinguished
Teaching Professorship in the Humanities, was awarded last year to history professor C. Howard
Nichols. The professorships are awarded for three years.
     Buell, who joined Southeastern's industrial technology department eight years ago after a
four-decade career in industry, was awarded the BellSouth Distinguished Professorship in
Industrial Technology. The professorship was established through a $60,000 endowment from
BellSouth and additional funding from the Louisiana Education Quality Support Fund.
     Although Robison has taught some 20 different history courses, British history is his 
specialty. The Louisiana State University graduate and LeCompte, La., native  is co-editor of the
Historical Dictionary of Stuart England and is the author of more than a dozen published articles.
He is coordinator of the history and government department's graduate program and was
                                 (MORE) 
PROFESSORSHIP -- Add One
instrumental in a recent revision of the history department curricula. Described as
"knowledgeable, thoughtful, insightful, vigorous, demanding and humorous," Robison gained
fame early in his career at Southeastern by "advertising" his classes through catchy and comical
flyers. 
     Robison said that as the Fay Warren Reimers Distinguished Teaching Professor he plans
to find ways in which teachers of history can "tell the truth and keep the faith."
     "We need to find a way of teaching the truth of history without having our students lose
faith in society," Robison said. "College history professors have considerable power to influence
the way students think about history and about current beliefs and institutions that are rooted in
the past. It is a power that we must use wisely and responsibly. We must resist the temptation to
pander to our students by emphasizing what is salacious in our history, though of course scandal
should not be ignored. Likewise, we must avoid couching what we teach in such negative terms
that there is little reason for hope."
     "We don't want to turn out hard-boiled cynics," Robison said.
     Buell, whose teaching specialty is electronics, has a bachelor's degree from the University
of New Mexico and a master's degree from the University of Michigan. Before joining the
industrial technology faculty in 1988, he worked as an engineer and manager for Martin Marietta,
Gulf Western, Spanel and Chrysler. He holds five patents and has written numerous publications.
     Buell is full of plans for the year he will spend as the BellSouth distinguished professor.
He hopes to finish modernizing the department's electronics lab, a project that includes completing
the installation of 10 computer work stations and getting new virtual instrumentation software on
line. He also will develop classroom initiatives in electronics, optics and fiber-optics; invite
participation by area high schools, and visit other universities to examine their industrial
technology programs.
     Keeping up with technological and industrial advances "is a constant push," said Buell.
"It's been fun and it still is."
                                 -SLU-