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GALVESTON, Texas—Dr.
Norbert K. Herzog, associate professor in the Departments of Pathology and
Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston, has been appointed to the newly created Dr. Leon Bromberg
Professorship for Excellence in Teaching.
Established by the Dr.
Leon Bromberg Charitable Trust Fund, the professorship will be presented
each academic year in honor of Dr. Truman G. Blocker Jr., the first UTMB
president. It will be granted to an outstanding faculty member in the
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS). The professorship is the
second endowed position at UTMB created by the Galveston foundation, the
first being a professorship in internal medicine.
Herzog, who joined the
UTMB faculty in 1989, is program director for the Experimental Pathology
Graduate Program and has held key leadership roles on many GSBS committees.
A member of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Tropical
Diseases, he received the Graduate Student Organization Distinguished
Teaching Award in 1998.
“The legacy I hope to
leave is not just quality research, publications and a list of grants, but
another generation of scientists who collectively will contribute much more
to science and society than I could in my lifetime,” said Herzog, who was
one of 10 nominees for the professorship. “Teaching is my passion. I am
deeply honored to be considered for the Bromberg Professorship.”
In his letter of
nomination, Dr. David H. Walker, Department of Pathology chairman,
emphasized Herzog’s significant contributions to graduate education, his
mentoring and his extensive participation in the development and
implementation of educational programs and activities. “Norbert Herzog has
demonstrated extraordinary dedication to quality education, and the success
of his own students reflects his exceptional teaching and mentoring skills,”
Walker said.
Herzog was selected by
a faculty committee chaired by Dr. Sam Baron, a professor in the Department
of Microbiology & Immunology and former department chairman. Baron said
choosing just one of the nominees for the honor was difficult.
“Every one of
the nominees deserves to be commended for excellence in teaching,” he said.
“The committee believes that the process of nomination and documentation
identified some of the graduate school’s best teachers. Their ratings were
separated by only a fraction of a point.”
The other faculty
members nominated for the Bromberg Professorship were Kenneth M. Johnson
Jr., Pharmacology & Toxicology; James E. Blankenship, Neuroscience; Lee-Nien
Lillian Chan, Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics; E. Aubrey Thompson,
Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics; Anne Hudson Jones, Medical
Humanities; Betty J. Williams, Pharmacology & Toxicology; Mary L. Kanz,
Experimental Pathology; W. Robert Fleischmann Jr., Microbiology &
Immunology, and Mary Treinen Moslen, Experimental Pathology.
Dr. Cary W. Cooper,
GSBS dean, thanked the Bromberg Charitable Trust Fund for establishing the
professorship.
“We are honored to
recognize trustees of the Bromberg Charitable Trust Fund, Charles G. Dibrell
Jr., chair, and Judge C.G. (Trey) Dibrell for their vision and commitment to
UTMB,” Cooper said. “Establishing the Bromberg Professorship in honor of
Truman Blocker provides UTMB the ongoing opportunity to pay tribute to our
legendary leader while recognizing today’s outstanding teachers and their
dedicated contribution to the future of biomedical science.”
Blocker
played a leading role in the history of UTMB for almost 50 years until his
death in 1984. During his tenure as president from 1964 to 1974, UTMB
experienced enormous growth, both in construction and new programs that
included the Institute for the Medical Humanities, the School of Allied
Health Sciences and the Marine Biomedical Institute. A 1933 UTMB graduate,
Blocker was an internationally known researcher in the field of burn therapy
and plastic surgery. He was a brigadier general in the U.S. Army Reserve, as
well as chairman of the Galveston College Board of Regents and a trustee of
Austin College in Sherman.
Blocker
was born in 1909 in West Point, Miss., and served as a military surgeon in
the U.S. Army during and after World War II. Upon his return to UTMB as a
professor at the end of the war, Blocker established the Special Surgical
Unit to help treat a large number of World War II military casualties and
the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, of which he was named
chief.
A
significant contributor to UTMB, the Bromberg Charitable Trust Fund has a
primary mission of supporting medical and educational institutions. It was
created by the will of Dr. Leon Bromberg, assistant professor of clinical
medicine at UTMB from 1955 to 1969. Born on Galveston Island in 1899, he
graduated from Ball High School with honors in 1916 and received his
bachelor’s degree with honors in 1920 from the Rice Institute in Houston.
Bromberg attended Vanderbilt University’s College of Medicine in Nashville,
Tenn., where he earned his doctorate in medicine in 1924. He developed a
distinguished career as a teacher and physician in St. Louis, Mo., and as a
captain in the medical corps of the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the
war, he returned to St. Louis to continue his practice and teaching before
moving back to Galveston in 1955. Bromberg died in 1985. |