Directors create new honor to showcase career achievement for students

In an effort to recognize notable accomplishments by people in the mid-range of their careers who can serve as role models for current students, Wittenberg University’s Board of Directors has established the Wittenberg Fellows Program.

Wittenberg named and honored its first two “fellows,” Douglas Brown, professor of economics at Georgetown University, and A. Scott Voorhees, one of the nation’s top air pollution scientists with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), based in Durham, N.C., during the Wittenberg Series 1999-2000 Opening Convocation, Sept. 1.

“We have two outstanding examples for our students this year,” said Robert James, president of the Wittenberg Board of Directors.

According to James, the criteria for selection as a Wittenberg Fellow included significant contribution to human welfare and significant academic achievement and/or noteworthy achievement in a chosen field of endeavor.

The fellows were nominated by members of the Wittenberg faculty, and each received Wittenberg medallions at the convocation.

Brown has combined excellence in teaching with a highly productive research program that emphasizes the application of economic theory to contemporary problems.

He has studied the effectiveness of public middle and senior high schools and the redistribution of income from younger to older persons in the last 35 years.

A 1964 graduate of Wittenberg, Brown earned his master’s degree from The Ohio State University in 1966 and his Ph.D. from West Virginia University in 1969.

He is a member of the American Economic Association and the Southern Economic Association. Since 1995 Brown has been a member of Wittenberg’s Board of Directors.

Voorhees is a specialist in international environmental issues, especially air and water problems in the China, Russia and Japan.

He has published more than a dozen articles and has received several honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Japan and three Bronze medals for service from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

An East Asian Studies and biology major, he graduated with honors from Wittenberg in 1978. Voorhees earned a master’s degree from Miami (Ohio) University in 1983 and is now completing a Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo.

Since 1984 he has worked for the U.S. EPA focusing on developing air pollution control regulations, predicting the risks of pollution exposure, and overseeing the development and implementation of a new regulatory system for major sources of air pollution.