Gifts and endowments flow to many parts of the University of California, but until last month none had ever come to the universitywide Academic Senate. In April, however, Oliver Johnson, a professor of philosophy, emeritus and longtime Senate participant at UC, Riverside, made a substantial gift to the systemwide Senate, the earnings from which will be used to honor a faculty member for "service to the Academic Senate."
The award will be granted once every two years, with selection of the recipient made by Senate's Academic Council, and ratification of the selection made by the Universitywide Assembly. Thus, Academic Council Chair Arnold Leiman said, the first Oliver Johnson Award for Service to the Academic Senate will be given out in 1998. (Faculty serving on the Council in the three years prior to the date the award is granted will not be eligible to receive the honor in the year the award is given.)
"Professor Johnson had a distinguished record of Senate service himself," Leiman said. "It's gratifying that he has seen fit to establish a permanent award in honor of especially deserving Senate colleagues."
Johnson was chair of a number of statewide Senate committees, was divisional chair at Riverside for three years, and was chair of the Academic Council in 1981-82. Johnson came to UCR in 1953 as a founding member of its faculty and retired in 1989.
"I have a very high respect for the Senate and the Academic Council," Johnson said from his home in Carlsbad, California. "I wanted to show my respect and my appreciation by providing a gift that would honor a single person, and through this person the faculty as a whole."
The Academic Council has presented Johnson with an inscribed plaque in appreciation of his gift.