Obituaries, Summer 2021
Faculty/Staff
William Glenn, an associate professor of educational leadership in the Virginia Tech School of Education, died Jan. 30, 2021. Glenn’s work and research focused on the effects of legal, economic, political, and school-level variables on student achievement, with an emphasis on narrowing the achievement gaps related to race, poverty status, and gender.
Robert Schulman, a professor emeritus in the Department of Statistics and a member of the Virginia Tech community since 1974, died April 27, 2021. During his career, he taught an estimated 170 classes to approximately 8,300 students. Schulman was elected to the Virginia Tech Academy of Teaching Excellence in 1980.
Easley Stone Smith ’48, M.S. ’60, associate professor emeritus of agricultural engineering (now known as biological systems engineering) at Virginia Tech and World War II veteran, died on Feb. 2, 2021. Smith was a university faculty member for 28 years. His specialty was farm machinery, and he was instrumental in the development of no-till farming.
Ryland Edwin Webb, professor emeritus and former head of the Department of Human Nutrition and Foods (HNF), died Feb. 23, 2021. In 1963, Webb joined Virginia Tech’s Department of Biochemistry as an assistant professor whose research focused on the interactions of nutritional status and pesticides and pesticide resistance and metabolism. Ten years later, he became head of HNF, serving from1973 to 1982.
Gustavus Galloway Williamson, Jr., World War II veteran and retired professor of history, died Jan. 2, 2021. He spent most of his teaching career at Virginia Tech. Williamson encouraged progressive thinking and an understanding of history with regard for both positive and negative actions of the past. He took great pride in the achievements of all the young people whose lives he touched through teaching and in scouting.
Donald Yates, an instructor in the Virginia Tech Department of Sociology, died Feb. 14, 2021. Over his 40-year career, Yates taught sociology and criminal justice in several colleges and universities prior to joining Virginia Tech in 2019.
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