The Office of the Provost has announced that Cliff Brown, professor of psychology, is now the new Paul Luther Keil Chair in Psychology, a position endowed by the late Rev. Paul Keil in loving memory of his parents, Luther F. Keil and Mary Ruth Slater Keil. Endowed chairs are permanently funded positions typically established through gifts from donors to support excellence in teaching and scholarship.
“Professor Brown’s passion for teaching and his commitment to each and every student’s personal and professional success have been hallmarks of his career at Wittenberg,” said Interim Provost and Professor of Psychology Mary Jo Zembar. “We are pleased to recognize his overall excellence in teaching and learning, and we know he will honor the legacy of Rev. Keil as the new holder of the Keil Chair in Psychology.”
A dedicated member of the Wittenberg psychology department for more than 41 years, Brown has taught an array of courses in the department including statistics and social psychology, as well as a special topics course titled Cruelty and Kindness. He has also been a contributor for multiple years to the team-taught, interdisciplinary course Introduction to Urban Studies: The City.
Brown has also worked with students in his senior-level research course on projects to be presented at regional and national conferences. In addition, he has regularly collaborated with colleagues at Wittenberg and beyond, including researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Together, they have produced more than 40 publications spanning a wide variety of topics such as race bias, false consensus bias, visual dominance displays in men and women, human factors engineering, and teamwork.
Widely published, Brown has had his research appear in a variety of journals including Psychology and Marketing, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. He will achieve his 100th conference presentation this academic year.
A campus and community leader, Brown has been a member of more than 30 different committees, a faculty advisor for the Gamma Omega Chapter of Sigma Kappa sorority, and a host of annual scholarship picnics. He was awarded the Panhellenic Council Outstanding Faculty Award in 1997 and 2007, the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award for 1991-92 and 1989-1990, and the Richard R. Scott Award in 2003. Beyond Wittenberg, he has served as a reviewer for textbooks, journals, grants, fellowships, and scholarships for the National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security.
Brown was nominated by his colleagues in the department of psychology and was approved to hold the chair during the Wittenberg Board of Directors’ fall meeting.
