Forget that Nobel Prize-for-physics winner and adjunct professor John Mather has only occasionally delivered a lecture and has served a nominal role as a graduate student advisor. Just having the university’s name attached is enough.
Having faculty with the prize can pay big dividends, officials said, not to mention the bragging rights as word spreads among the higher education elite. Ever since distinguished professor Thomas Schelling won last year for his work in economics, he has been a huge asset at alumni fundraisers and has seen his name used on a slew of promotional materials.
He even took a tour around the Annapolis State House, where lawmakers got a chance to rub the medal – and rub shoulders with university officials.
“These people are walking advertisements,” Provost Bill Destler said. “There’s nothing [underway] like an organized campaign to take advantage of [the Nobel prizes], but to some sense the award does that for you.”
As the university claims more Nobel Prize laureates, its reputation as a serious research university is heightened, a move officials hope will bring greater prestige. And prestige can mean better faculty, more grant money and great selling points at fundraisers. But it also makes the university a “better place to be,” said Drew Baden, chair of the physics department.
Another recent adjunct professor, William Phillips, now a full-time faculty member, won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997. After that, Baden said, the physics department had significant lobbying power over the administration.
Baden said the department and Phillips were able to attract “prestigious” scholars Steve Rolston and Luis Orozco to the university. Most recently, Phillips was influential in creating the Joint Quantum Institute, a quantum physics research organization that attracted the attention of the Commerce Department and the National Security Agency, who co-sponsored the institute.
Schelling, 85, has virtually come out of retirement since receiving his Nobel prize. On Sept. 29, The School of Public Policy invited students and professors from around the country to celebrate and discuss the influence of Schelling’s research work, and the school created the Schelling Visiting Professor position to attract distinguished economists to teach for a year.
The university has become so accustomed to the routine for when a faculty member wins a Nobel prize that they have created a contingency plan. Possible candidates are named ahead of time and, as in Schelling’s case, the university dispatches an assistant to the laureate’s house as soon as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences calls them at 6 a.m. to announce they have won.
“If someone is not looking out for these folks, they probably wouldn’t be able to handle it on their own,” said Terry Flannery, the assistant vice president for university marketing, who has helped organize Schelling’s publicity events since the morning phone call. “We try to not wear [the laureates] out, but we could make this a full time job for many people.”
Mather received the Nobel prize for his research charting the expansion of the universe, helping to prove the “Big Bang” theory. He now works at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, building the Hubble Telescope’s replacement, which has prevented him from advising graduate students and limited his role at the university. However, Baden hopes the Nobel recognition will lead Mather to teach more colloquiums and provide input in organizing the university’s physical sciences complex.
“We’ll be tickling his brains for sure,” Baden said. “This is a guy with a lot of imagination and experience. He can be a huge asset.”
Unlike with Schelling, the university does not intend to ask for Mather’s help attracting donations to the university because he is primarily affiliated with Goddard, Flannery said.
But even if they do not help raise any money, for many students to have a Nobel prize laureate as their professor or advisor is beneficial enough, said Jacques Gansler, the vice president of research.
“For someone in the astronomy field, they can say, ‘Well, I have a Nobel prize winner on my dissertation committee.’ It impresses someone reading that resume,” Gansler said.
Contact reporter Ben Block at blockdbk@gmail.com.
