April 25, 2005
The Lyon
College Board of Trustees announced the establishment of the Martha Heasley Cox
Endowed Chair in American Literature at its spring meeting Friday on the Lyon
campus. The board also approved the appointment of Dr. Terrell Tebbetts as the
inaugural holder of the chair.
Dr. Cox, a Batesville native and 1938 alumna of Lyon who now resides in San Francisco, Calif., made the endowed chair possible with a gift to the college. Dr. Cox previously established the Leila Lenore Heasley Prize at Lyon College in 1996 in memory of her sister and to honor other members of her family.
“We are thrilled and honored by Dr. Cox’s decision to establish this chair,” said Dr. Walter Roettger, president of Lyon College. “American literature and creative writing have long been strengths at Lyon. No one better appreciates this than Dr. Cox whose extraordinary career has inspired so many. Her gift will enable us to develop further our programs in these areas and to honor one of our most deserving faculty members. All of us at Lyon are very grateful.”
Dr. Roettger added, “Dr. Cox made it clear that it was to be filled with a teacher and scholar of national distinction. Dr. Tebbetts was the obvious choice as the first chair holder. For more than 30 years, Terrell has excelled in the classroom while earning wide recognition as a Faulkner scholar. He’s absolutely tops.”
Dr.
Tebbetts, who has served as the W.C. Brown Jr. Professor of English since 1983,
will assume the Cox Chair in fall 2005. In 1981, he became the second member of
the Lyon faculty to receive the Lamar Williamson Prize for Faculty Excellence.
In 1992, he was named Arkansas Professor of the Year by the Council for the
Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching.
“Dr. Cox’s generous gift links to both the past and the future,” Dr. Tebbetts said. “On the one hand, she is giving something back to the school where she began her wonderful career, setting an example for us all. And looking ahead, this gift will strengthen Lyon College far, far into the future.”
Dr. Tebbetts has been a member of the Lyon faculty since 1970 and is a nationally recognized scholar of American writer William Faulkner. He has published numerous articles and professional papers about Faulkner and other topics in literature and serves on the staff of the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference at the University of Mississippi, where he leads sessions on “Teaching Faulkner.”
He has a B.A. from Hendrix College in Conway, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He currently serves as faculty official sponsor for Alpha Chi, the national scholastic honor society and sits on the National Council of Alpha Chi, its governing body. He is also the Kappa Sigma fraternity sponsor at Lyon.
The chair of the college’s Language and Literature Division, Dr. Tebbetts also serves as chair of the Arkansas Governor’s Developmental Disabilities Council and on the board of directors of Wood-Lawn, Inc., convalescent center in Batesville. He writes a bi-weekly column for the Batesville Daily Guard.
The love of literature and a fondness for her hometown and alma mater led Dr. Martha Heasley Cox to establish the Cox Endowed Chair in American Literature and, before that, the Heasley Prize, which is awarded annually to a distinguished representative of American or international letters, theatre or cinema.
After graduating from Lyon College, Dr. Cox taught in secondary schools in Arkansas and Louisiana, and then earned her master’s degree and doctorate in English from the University of Arkansas. In 1955, she joined the faculty of San Jose State University, teaching American literature, composition, drama, poetry and literature through film.
Dr. Cox retired at SJSU in 1989 after a 34-year career as professor of English at the university. She currently holds the title of professor emerita of English at San Jose State.
In 1971, Cox founded the Steinbeck Research Center at San Jose State, and served as its director until her retirement. In 1997, the center was re-named the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies in her honor. The center, the largest Steinbeck archive in the world, includes a non-circulating archive of more than 30,000 items. Cox also established SJSU’s endowed Major Author lecture series, which has attracted world-famous writers and artists to the campus.
In 1999, Dr. Cox was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Lyon. In 2000, Dr. Cox received San Jose State’s Tower Award, the highest honor given by the university.
The author of numerous books and articles, she currently serves as a juror for the California Book Awards of the Commonwealth Club and is a member of the board of directors of the Steinbeck Center.