Special Nominations & Awards:
Distinguished Alumni Award & Honorary Membership
Distinguished Alumni AwardThe Distinguished Alumni Award is selected from nominees supplied by individual chapters. The selection is made at the National Council meeting in even-numbered years. Chapters should provide a nominating letter and supporting evidence (vita, resume, publications, e.g.) to the Executive Director. The recipient is asked to accept an expenses-paid trip to the national convention for the presentation of the award in the form of a plaque and is asked to speak briefly to the convention delegates.
Dr. Robert W. Sledge, one of the most important figures in the history of Alpha Chi, is being honored as the Distinguished Alumnus of 2009. A retired distinguished professor of history at McMurry University and now historian-in-residence at the McWhiney Research Foundation in Abilene, Texas, Sledge served almost three decades of elective leadership with Alpha Chi, including twelve years as national president.
Sledge became a member of Alpha Chi in 1951 at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, home of the Texas Alpha chapter and site of the 1922 founding of the honor society that would become Alpha Chi. He graduated from Southwestern with majors in mathematics, physics, and history, then earned the B.D. degree from Southern Methodist University and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from the University of Texas.
With his historian’s skills and his connection to Alpha Chi’s birthplace, Sledge was the natural choice to be commissioned to write the book-length history, Scholarship and Character: Seventy-five Years of Alpha Chi, published in 1997 to mark the anniversary of the society’s founding in 1922.
Two years later, in 1999, he completed his third term as president of the National Council and a total of twenty-four years on that governing body, including terms as secretary and vice president as well as president. The Council immediately asked him to serve an appointment as archivist, a role he filled from 1999 to 2008.
Sledge began his career at McMurry in 1964 and became assistant sponsor of the Texas Upsilon chapter in 1967 and then head sponsor in 1968, a responsibility he held until 1991. During the 1990s he continued to work as an assistant sponsor. He also served Region I in the 1970s as vice president and president.
Among Rob Sledge’s many accomplishments as Alpha Chi’s president was the creation of awards to recognize the service of chapter sponsors and others who have contributed significantly to the society’s ideals. Little could he have expected that one day one of these awards, the Distinguished Alumni Award, would come his way.
The Distinguished Alumni Award has been awarded at every national convention since 1987.
1987 -- Dr. John Michael White, professor of chemistry, University of Texas at Austin, alumnus of Harding University (Arkansas Eta)
1991 -- Dr. Robert H. Jones, professor of surgery, Duke University Medical Center, alumnus of Harding University (Arkansas Eta)
1993 -- Dan Rather, anchor and managing editor, CBS Evening News, alumnus of Sam Houston State University (Texas Omicron)
1995 -- Dr. Mary W. Gray, professor of mathematics, American University, alumna of Hastings College (Nebraska Alpha)
1997 -- Dr. Joe Hightower, professor of chemical engineering, Rice University, alumnus of Harding University (Arkansas Eta)
1999 -- Dr. Edwin W. Gaston, Jr., professor emeritus, alumnus of Stephen F. Austin State University (Texas Sigma)
2001 -- Clayton C. Anderson, NASA astronaut and mission specialist, alumnus of Hastings College (Nebraska Alpha)
2003 -- Dr. David B. Clifford, chair of the department of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, alumnus of Southwestern University (Texas Alpha)
2005 -- Ms. Coleen Rowley, retired FBI agent, alumna of Wartburg College (Iowa Alpha)
2007 -- Dr. Tommy Hewett, AmeriPath Oklahoma City, alumnus of East Central University (Oklahoma Gamma)
Honorary Membership
The National Council may elect to Honorary Membership persons who have shown special interest or proficiency in scholarship and whose election shall be deemed to be in the interest of the Society. Individual Chapters and National Council members may petition the National Council for Honorary Membership for persons who have distinguished themselves in the field of scholarship, except that not more than one such person may be proposed by the same Chapter or National Council member in any one year. (Constitution, Article X, Section 3)
Nomination forms are mailed to chapters a few months prior to the annual meeting of Alpha Chi's National Council each spring.
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