President Al Bowman, Sarz Maxwell, Herman Brockman, Dan Rutherford, E. Joan Miller, Stan Rives, R. Michael Miller, Warren Harden and Dean James Payne
President Al Bowman, Sarz Maxwell, Herman Brockman, Dan Rutherford, E. Joan Miller, Stan Rives, R. Michael Miller, Warren Harden and Dean James Payne
Induction into the Hall of Fame is an honor bestowed on current, past or honorary members of the arts and sciences community. Nomination can be based on outstanding performance in one’s profession; demonstrated leadership in one’s profession and/or community; or favorable statewide, national or international recognition, among other criteria.
Herman Brockman, distinguished professor emeritus of Biological Sciences
Brockman earned his B.A. from Blackburn College in 1956, his M.S. from Northwestern University in 1957, and his Ph.D. from Florida State University in 1960. From 1958–1960 he was a National Science Foundation (NSF) predoctoral fellow. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1960–1963, supported by the NSF and the U.S. Public Health Service.
He joined the faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences at Illinois State in 1963 and was named Distinguished Professor in 1982. He was awarded a U.S. Public Health Service Special Research Fellowship at the University of Oregon for 1969–1970. In 1986 he was the Summer Distinguished Lecturer-in-Residence at Texas Woman’s University. From 1987–1990 he was a U.S. EPA Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Research Triangle Park, N.C.
His research and that of his students at Illinois State was funded for 30 years by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has published over 60 research and review articles in journals such as Science and Nature. He was an editor or a member of the editorial boards of the international journals Mutation Research and Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis.
His accomplishments in teaching, research, and service have been recognized by Illinois State University College of Arts and Sciences: Lecturer (1974); Distinguished Teacher Award in the Natural Sciences (1994); and Outstanding Researcher Award in the Natural Sciences (1996). He was profiled in the Illinois State Scholar (1995) and received the Outstanding University Teacher Award (1997). Blackburn College honored him with its Leadership Citation in 1989 and its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999.
The Environmental Mutagen Society (EMS) has been the major intellectual home of Brockman and his students. He is a charter member of this society and attended its first meeting in Washington, D.C. in 1969. In 1982 he received the Alexander Hollaender Award, one of only two major awards given by the EMS at each annual meeting. He was the first recipient of the Education Award from the EMS in 1997.
To honor him on the occasion of his retirement from Illinois State in 1998, his former students organized an Alumni Symposium. In conjunction with this symposium, the Herman E. Brockman Fund was established in the University Foundation. This endowed fund supports the Alumni Seminar Series in Genetics in the School of Biological Sciences. Since his retirement, he and his wife Marlene have continued organic farming in nearby rural Congerville.
Warren Harden, professor emeritus of Economics
Warren Harden earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa, a master’s degree from the University of Colorado, and a doctoral degree from Indiana University. He came to Illinois State Normal University in 1954 as a member of the Department of Social Sciences. During his early career he expanded the number of economics courses available to students and vigorously advocated the need for more positions in the discipline. He believed that all students should have at least one course in economics.
As chairman of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors and subsequently chairman of the University Council, he became instrumental in leading the movement to change the name of the University to Illinois State University. He was also a leader in expanding the purpose of the University and the reorganization into colleges and departments.
Harden became the first head of the Department of Economics in 1966. During this time the department experienced rapid growth in student majors and staff. Subsequently he became coordinator of Academic Planning and director of Institutional Research. He retained responsibility for Institutional Research, and in addition he assumed the duties of director of Computer Operations.
In 1983 he became the vice president for Business and Finance. During his tenure as department head, Warren and a colleague authored a monograph, “Tax Alternatives for Illinois,” which was circulated among state legislators by President Bone. The monograph was thought to have been influential in leading the state government to pass the income tax. He also created the innovative financial program used to finance the Redbird Arena; a system based upon short-term demand notes that saved the University considerable interest. No other public university had adopted such an approach prior to that time.
The unique canvas roof of the arena was also the recommendation of Harden. This roof was the first of its kind to be installed in the United States. In recognition of his service to Illinois State University and the Department of Economics, an endowed lecture series was established in his honor by family, friends, students, and colleagues. This lecture series will provide resources to bring prominent speakers in the field of economics to the campus.
Arlan Helgeson, professor emeritus of History
Arlan Helgeson received his bachelor’s degree from the La Crosse State Teacher’s College in Wisconsin in 1943. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a radio operator in England during World War II. Upon returning to civilian life, he taught at the high school in Bangor, Wis., and then entered the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he completed his work for a doctorate in history in 1951. In the same year he was hired to teach in the Department of Social Sciences at Illinois State Normal University.
With the University’s rapid growth in enrollment, Helgeson became involved in several of the University’s changes in the 1950s. He led a movement to supplant the old weekly “chapel” system with evening appearances of speakers and entertainers of national repute. He chaired early sessions of a Conference on Public Issues, sponsored by the Department of Social Sciences.
After his appointment as dean of the Graduate School in 1962, Helgeson had the responsibility to present to the University’s Board of Regents proposals for master’s degree programs in each of the separate disciplines represented in the various departments of the University. This led to the inauguration of a Ph.D. program in the Biological Sciences Department, and to doctoral programs in other departments as well.
In 1971 Helgeson agreed to serve, temporarily, as the acting provost of the University, first under President Berlo, then under President Budig. He returned to the History Department in 1975, resuming his special interest in working with master’s candidates in local Illinois history, and eventually with several doctoral candidates.
Helgeson is the author of “Farms in the Cutover,” published by the History department at the University of Wisconsin, and “The United States of America: A History for Young Citizens.” He has also authored several articles on Wisconsin history in the journal of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Helgeson served for several years as a member of the advisory board of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bloomington. He also served on the speaker’s committees of local organizations interested in bringing speakers of national importance to the Bloomington- Normal community. During his retirement in Arizona, Helgeson was a founding member and officer in the Central Arizona Land Trust, an organization devoted to preserving scenic areas from development.
Following the death of his wife Candace in 1997, he returned to the Bloomington- Normal community.
Sarz Maxwell ’80, Biological Sciences
Sarz Maxwell graduated from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in 1984 and completed her psychiatric residency training at Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital from 1984–1988, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic in Chicago. This may have been prophetic, as the remainder of her career has involved patients at high risk for HIV.
She fulfilled her scholarship obligation to the National Health Corps by spending the next four years practicing in rural northwest Missouri. In 1992 she returned to Chicago and began developing her clinical and research interests in addictive disorders. She has worked at many different facilities, including VA hospitals, methadone clinics, homeless shelters, addictions treatment programs, and community mental health centers. She has always been drawn towards the patients whom no one else wants: mentally ill substance abusers, multiple personalities, adults disordered by childhood trauma, and heroin addicts.
In 1994 she began volunteer work with Chicago Recovery Alliance (CRA), a needle exchange and harm reduction program. She became CRA’s medical director in 1998. In 1999 she helped CRA institute a program for distributing naloxone, an antidote for heroin overdose, directly to heroin addicts. Ten years later CRA’s program has more than 1,100 “saves”—successful uses of naloxone by drug users and their peers—and more than 50 new naloxone distribution programs have started in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
She has been active in the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and from 2004–2006 served as president of the Illinois chapter of the organization. She particularly enjoys public education with either lay or professional audiences. In 2008, she volunteered for six weeks with Family Health International and the World Health Organization to assist Vietnam and Cambodia in starting methadone maintenance programs.
Maxwell maintains her position as medical director of CRA, and also sees patients in private practice. In addition she lectures and writes extensively about clinical aspects of addiction and dual diagnosis.
E. Joan Miller, professor emerita of Geography
E. Joan Miller (Mrs. George J. Miller) is professor emerita of geography at Illinois State University. Joan holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Cambridge University, England. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A dissertation fellowship from the Society of Woman Geographers supported her field work in the Ozark Mountains. Her dissertation was based on the hypothesis that nonmaterial folk matters such as tales, songs, proverbs, superstitions, speech forms, and place names could be used as documentation in historical geography. Her findings were published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers and the Professional Geographer.
Selected by her colleagues to deliver the College of Arts and Sciences Lecture in 1975, she also served on departmental and college committees, presented papers at national meetings, and taught nearly 10,000 graduate and undergraduate students during her distinguished career. She recently completed an account of her experiences as a student in England during World War II. Her alma mater, Girton College Cambridge University, requested the information, which has become a Memoirs enterprise.
Four years of intensive research in the archives of Illinois State produced an article in the Journal of Geography that documented the work of Douglas Clay Ridgley, a famous teacher of geography at ISNU from 1912–1922. By invitation she presented the Ridgley Lecture at Illinois State in 2003.
In her retirement she has written a review of the second edition of the “Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names.” She has been actively involved in the establishment of the George J. Miller archives at Minnesota State University Mankato, writing the 50 years of history of the Normal Rotary Club, and expediting the relocation of their archives. In the college she initiated the Renaissance Retirees newsletter, which recognized the work of still active retirees.
R. Michael Miller, M.S. ’71, Ph.D. ’75
Michael Miller is senior scientist in the biosciences division at Argonne National Laboratory, one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s multidisciplinary research facilities. He has been a lecturer with the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago for the past 20 years.
During his 34-year tenure at Argonne, his research has focused on quantifying the contributions of mutualistic mycorrhizal fungi to plant fitness, plant community dynamics, and soil sustainability. His research has addressed issues concerning the environmental consequences of energy extraction, ecosystem restoration, and in more recent years quantifying the ecological impacts of forcing factors driving climate change. His research was one of the first to identify mycorrhizal fungi as a major contributor to the stabilization of a soil structure.
As senior member of the Terrestrial Sciences Group he and his colleagues are involved with research ranging from landscape measures of carbon flux to the use of soil metagenomics for elucidating metabolic pathways associated with carbon sequestration in soils. His breadth of experience has allowed him to serve on panels and advisory committees including the US-NSF, USDA, US-DOD, US-EPA, NASA and the US-DOE, as well as consulting with foundations such as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the National Geographic Society.
He has been invited to lecture in Sweden, Japan, China, and India, and has served on advisory panels directed at issues of biodiversity, land-use, and climate change for government organizations in Canada, Europe, and Asia.
The Terrestrial Ecology Group has been one of the primary places to learn the craft of working with soil structure, roots and mycorrhizal fungi. Over the years Miller has shared his experience and tricks with many passionate and energetic, but definitely overwhelmed, undergraduate and graduate students on the mysteries of working with enigmatic mycorrhizal fungi. Today many of these same students are his peers and send their own students to his laboratory for advice. He has mentored over 130 undergraduate interns, and advised six Ph.D. candidates and five postdoctoral scholars. Miller’s service to mentoring earned him the Outstanding Mentor Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Undergraduate Research Programs in 2008.
Miller has over 100 publications in scholarly journals, book chapters, reviews, and technical reports.
Stan Rives ’52, M.S.E. ’55
Stan Rives is president emeritus at Eastern Illinois University (EIU). He earned his B.S.E. and M.S.E. degrees from Illinois State University, and holds a Ph.D. in rhetoric and public address from Northwestern University.
From 1958–1980 he served at Illinois State as a professor of speech communication, director of forensics, and dean of undergraduate instruction. In 1981 he was appointed provost and vice president for academic affairs at Eastern Illinois University (EIU). He was named acting president and then president in 1983.
During his administration EIU completed five major campus expansion projects; increased the assets of the University Foundation and its endowment; developed a new, integrated core general education program; and worked with business and government to foster economic development. In 1990 EIU was featured in Money magazine’s “America’s Best College Buys,” as one of the top 100 public universities in the nation.
He served with distinction on several boards and commissions, including the Illinois Blue Ribbon Committee on the Improvement of Teaching, the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce Board, the NCAA President’s Commission, the EIU Foundation Board, and the State Universities Retirement System Board of Trustees. In 1998 he was recognized with an Illinois State University Alumni Achievement Award.
In 2006 the Stan and Sandy Rives Excellence in Undergraduate Education Award was established at Illinois State University in honor of Stan’s longtime commitment to an undergraduate program of the highest quality, and for his contributions to Illinois State as dean of undergraduate instruction. He and his wife Sandy are the parents of two children, Joe and Jackie, who are both Illinois State alumni.
Dan Rutherford ’78
Dan Rutherford is a state senator. He began his career as a legislative assistant in Springfield following his graduation from Illinois State, where he served as student body president. Rutherford served as the state-wide executive director of Illinois for Ronald Reagan in his first election as president.
Following Reagan’s inauguration he served as liaison between the Thompson administration in Illinois and the Reagan White House for executive branch appointments. Rutherford became head of the International Business Division of the Illinois Department of Commerce, overseeing trade and promotions offices. Later he joined the ServiceMaster Company, where he continues to serve today.
Rutherford was first elected to the Illinois Senate in 2002 following a 10-year term in the Illinois House of Representatives. As a member of the senate, he is the ranking Republican serving on the Financial Institutions Committee, and he also serves on the Environment and Energy Committee and the bi-partisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. He is currently serving as assistant Republican leader of the Senate.
Rutherford has sponsored and shaped legislation intended to help some of Illinois’ most fragile citizens. He was a leading sponsor of legislation that changed the formula for reimbursing nursing homes. Reimbursement rates are now based on the medical needs of the resident, instead of a resident’s geographic location in the state. The new system creates better health care and services for Illinois’ elderly community. He was named the Long-Term Care Legislator of the Year by the Health Care Council of Illinois for his commitment to quality care for Illinois seniors.
Rutherford has accomplished the goal he set for himself long ago of visiting all the continents of the world. He has backpacked across Europe, led safaris in Kenya, and competed in regattas off the coast of Melbourne, Australia. Rutherford’s passion is scuba diving. He is an Advanced Certified Diver with over 200 dives. Rutherford serves as a member of the College of Arts and Sciences Community Advisory Board.
