June 9, 1998 Contact Maureen Shine (541) 346-3145 EUGENE--The University of Oregon faculty has selected two colleagues to receive Charles E. Johnson Memorial Awards. The 1998 recipients are Helen Gernon, the Charles H. Lundquist Professor of Accounting , and the late Alan Wolfe, professor of East Asian languages and literatures. The awards will be formally presented on Saturday, June 13, at a pre-Commencement brunch and will be acknowledged again during the Commencement ceremony which begins at 12:30 p.m. at Hayward Field, 1580 E. 15th Ave. The Johnson Award, first given by the UO faculty in 1980, traditionally honors only one faculty member each year who has demonstrated exceptional service to the university and its community, and who has exemplified the principles affirmed by former UO President Charles E. Johnson. The faculty committee for the Johnson Award, among the most prestigious given to any faculty member at the University of Oregon, were unable to choose between the two recipients so chose to honor both, one posthumously. The award says those principles include that freedom of speech and assembly hold a central position among American constitutional and educational precepts; that a university can and must adapt to accelerating social change while maintaining its basic objective; and that, as Thomas Jefferson said, "...here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it might lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is left free to combat it." Gernon, head of the Department of Accounting, came to the UO 20 years ago and was promoted to full professor in 1992. She has served as associate dean, director of graduate programs and twice as department head. In 1993, she was appointed head of the university's International College. She has published extensively in academic journals, written text books and served as editor of Accounting Horizons, a journal published by the American Accounting Association. "She has served as a role model...[and] counseled, supported, championed and mentored countless undergraduate, post-baccalaureate, MBA and Ph.D. women students," says Dale Morse, dean of the Lundquist College of Business. Professor Gernon won the Ersted Award in 1985 for her exceptional teaching abilities. "She has the "ability to take the dry topic of taxation and turn it into a lesson about life. She is masterful at weaving personal tax tales in and out of the day's lesson," Morse says. A former student, Wendy Dame, who now is a manager at Coopers & Lybrand in Eugene, remembers Gernon as "extremely professional and very well organized. She came to class well-prepared and took the time needed to help any student who had questions. She seems to genuinely care about students. She was instrumental in helping me get a job with a prestigious firm and in guiding my career." "Her quiet commitment to social justice as well as her valuable service to the University of Oregon and its students make this award particularly fitting," says UO President Dave Frohnmayer. Wolfe, who died in early 1998, began his UO career in 1980 when he joined the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. In the late 1980s, he became co-director of the Japanese language program and, from 1991 to 1993, he served as resident director of the Oregon University System's Japan Study Center at Waseda University in Tokyo. Wolfe was awarded a joint appointment in the UO Department of Japanese and Comparative Literature in 1992 and became head of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures in 1995. "His research has been path-breaking in the application of Western literary theory to modern Japanese literature," says Michael Fishlen, acting head of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. He describes Wolfe's book, "Modern Japan: The Case of Dazai Osama," as "truly seminal and evoked very sincere letters of recognition and praise from top scholars in his field." Fishlen notes that Wolfe's social activism was conducted in the spirit of the Johnson Award. "As for minorities, whether racially, sexually or otherwise defined, Alan was an aggressive defender of their rights again because he insisted upon the dignity and honor of all people and because he believed discrimination was destructive of anyone who came in contact with it," he notes. Wolfe's beliefs took him to Nicaragua where he traveled for some weeks in the late 1980s as a member of a Witness for Peace delegation. He also was active on campus, participating in activities including the Ethnic Studies Committee, Assembly Committee on Multicultural, Curriculum, and Committee on the Status of Women and Concerned Faculty for Peace and Justice, "The Johnson Committee, through selecting Alan for this honor, gives all of us at the university and in the community an opportunity to honor and celebrate his lifetime of commitment to the values the university holds most dear," says Frohnmayer. "Through his scholarship, his community service and his social activism he showed his acute sensitivity to issues of status, power and marginalization and to voices that have been silenced." Johnson, for whom the award is named, died in an automobile accident in June 1969 while serving as acting UO president. Prior to becoming acting president, Johnson served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts (now the College of Arts and Sciences) for five years. A five-member faculty committee makes the Johnson Award selection from nominations submitted by UO faculty, staff and students. -30- #G-7355/Local