The College of Education has named three new distinguished professors. E. Davis Martin received the Wayne T. Smith Distinguished Professorship, while David Pascoe and David Shannon have received Humana-Germany-Sherman Distinguished Professorships.

As a faculty member in the Department of Rehabilitation and Special Education since 2003, Martin teaches courses in rehabilitation history and philosophy, psychosocial aspects of disability and case management.  He holds national certification/licensure in rehabilitation counseling and vocational evaluation as well as diplomate status as a vocational expert. Currently, he is the project director of $2.5 million dollars of grant funds from the U.S. Department of Education. Martin is the graduate program director for rehabilitation counseling and the co-coordinator for the department's doctoral program in rehabilitation and special education.

David D. Pascoe has been with Auburn University since 1990 and has spent the last 17 years teaching at Auburn as an exercise physiologist in the Department of Kinesiology and director of the Thermal Lab.  Pasco is also the organizer/director of the Thermal Research Consortium, which integrates a diverse multi-disciplined investigative team that provides understanding through the collaborative expertise, efforts, skills, and knowledge of researchers. 

Each distinguished professorship was made possible by the generosity of our alumni and friends. The Wayne T. Smith Distinguished Professorship was established in 1996 through the generosity of the Humana Foundation and in honor of Wayne T. Smith.  Smith, the former chief operating officer of Humana, Inc., and a loyal College of Education alumnus, saw the need for the college to have such professorships to recruit, rewarded and retain outstanding professors in education.  This distinguished professorship was the first of its kind in the college, and was first presented in 1998.

The Humana-Germany-Sherman Distinguished Professorship was established in 1994, when the Humana Foundation established the Humana Challenge Grant of $200,000 to partially fund an endowed distinguished professorship.  The college was required to raise an additional $100,000 to complete the fund.  Two National Advisory Council members and their wives - Gordy ('48) and Gloria Germany, and Gordon ('57) and Miriam Sherman—generously met the challenge on the college's behalf.  The first Humana-Germany-Sherman Distinguished Professorship was awarded in 1999 and will continue to reward professors of the highest caliber for many generations to come.

With the addition of these three distinguished professors, the College of Education has honored a total eighteen faculty members with one of its three named professorships, Wayne T. Smith, Humana-Germany-Sherman and Mildred Cheshire Fraley Distinguished professorships.  The college last named a distinguished professor in 2005.