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Columns::October 7, 2002
Pillar to pillar: J.W. Fanning Building will be dedicated on Oct. 10
D.W. Brooks Award winners announced
Report: Agreements insufficient to contain weapons of mass destruction
Study: Moms in poor, rural areas can rise above their surroundings
Tricia Kalivoda is named associate VP designee for public service and outreach
An ill wind: Researchers link human illness to sludge fertilizer
UGA welcomes new faculty
Sitting in judgment
Take it from the top
Campus News
Former education professor leaves UGA $1.7 million
By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
Eileen Russell was the kind of faculty member any university would like to have: dependable, hard-working, a demanding but
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Eileen Russell
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gifted teacher who was devoted to her students and her job.
She also was a private, reserved woman who lived alone in a small apartment, built her own furniture and repaired her own car. And when she retired from the UGA College of Education in 1977 and moved to Florida, colleagues assumed they would hear no more from Russell.
And few did--until she died last year at age 82. When her will was probated, UGA officials were astonished to learn that in 1994 Russell had directed that the bulk of her estate go to the College of Education--a bequest that amounted to $1.7 million.
“The gift was one of those great and pleasant surprises,” says Robert Hawkins, associate vice president for development. Russell had made one gift of $50 to the university prior to her death. She had few contacts with the university after retiring, and officials were unaware of the specifics of her will.
President Michael F. Adams says a bequest from a former faculty member carries special significance.
“We would have always been grateful to Ms. Russell for her many years of dedication to her students and service to the university,” Adams says. “But obviously something, or someone, touched her profoundly, and resulted in this remarkable testament to her faith in education and her admiration for the university, and that makes this gift very special indeed.”
As directed in her will, Russell’s bequest will be used for undergraduate scholarships and a graduate student assistantship in the department of physical education and sports studies in the college.
Russell came to UGA in 1948 to teach in what was then the department of health, physical education and recreation in the College of Education. A graduate of Sargent College in Boston, a school known for training physical education teachers, she taught basic physical education classes for female students who, at the time, took PE separately from men.
She taught softball, basketball, bowling and other common sports, but her specialty was field hockey, a game that was foreign to many Southern women. Ann Jewett of Athens, a retired former head of the physical education department, recalls that Russell made and repaired hockey sticks and other equipment.
“She was dedicated to her students and took great pride in her teaching,” says Jewett.
Rosemary McMahan, another retired colleague, says Russell “was demanding in her expectations of students, but always fair. She was something of an icon in the college.”
Russell retired with 30 years of service to the College of Education and fulfilled a long-time dream by buying a boat and moving to Florida.
Faculty salaries--especially for women--weren’t notably high for much of Russell’s time at UGA, but friends aren’t surprised she was able to accumulate a sizable estate. Never married, she was known to be exceedingly frugal. She lived in a Lumpkin Street apartment across from campus so she could walk to work. One colleague remembers she built her own bed and worked on her car.
“She evidently marshalled and managed her pennies wisely and invested well,” says Douglas Kleiber, director of the School of Human Health and Performance in the College of Education. To his knowledge, Kleiber says, Russell had no contact with the college after her retirement. “But I understand that she was an excellent teacher and committed to her students.”
Part of the bequest will support an assistantship for a female graduate student who is conducting research on women and sports. The rest will go into two scholarship funds for undergraduate students.
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