Development
College of Human Sciences Announces New Professorship
The Texas Tech College of Human Sciences has announced the creation
of the $500,000 Evelyn M. Davies Regents Endowed Professorship. The endowment
will be used to improve the research potential of the Center for the Study
of Addiction and Recovery.
Dr. Sterling Shumway, an associate professor in the Department of Applied and Professional Studies, has been named to the professorship.
The center’s nationally-recognized program has the largest number of recovering adults in one university setting. Through the new professorship, the center can hire a faculty member who will conduct research and pursue grants to develop recovery communities and explore relapse prevention. Potential research includes examining best practices for long-term recovery and the role of community and family in the recovery process of young adults.
“The data that can be obtained from students at the center will be invaluable to the entire recovery field,” says Linda Hoover, dean of the College of Human Sciences. “The center already has a national reputation for its program development and delivery. Now the center needs to develop a national reputation in the field of recovery research.”
The professorship will be established through a $250,000 gift from Evelyn M. Davies of Lubbock. It will receive one of the final matches in the Texas Tech Regents Faculty Endowment Program that provided $10 million in matching funds to create named professorships.
“The need to understand addiction and recovery has never been more pressing, and our center could not be better positioned to assume the leadership role in recovery research,” says Dr. Kitty Harris, director of the center.
Evelyn M. Davies studied English at Texas Tech before receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Chatham College in 1944 and a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of Houston in 1978. She is the former owner of her family’s Diamond M Ranch in Snyder, which she sold in 1992. She moved with her husband, Bill Davies, to Lubbock in the same year.
She currently serves on the advisory board for the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery and has – in addition to the professorship – established the Andrew Knox Memorial Scholarship Endowment for the center. She is the director of the Diamond M Foundation. In 1996, the Museum of Texas Tech University added the Diamond M Galleries wing to exhibit the collection of fine art donated by the foundation. She also established the Evelyn Davies Fund for Museum Support and the C.T. McLaughlin Endowment for the Ranching Heritage Center. Donations from the Davies established the Evelyn M. and William C. Davies Gallery of American Indian Art at the museum.
Evelyn Davies is the daughter of C.T. McLaughlin, a prominent Texas rancher, civic leader and philanthropist who served as a regent of then-Texas Technological College from 1949-1955.
- Cory Chandler