Wilson honored by peers for distinguished career

Dr. Bill Wilson

By Tom Cain
Staff writer

Displaying the dead-on logic of a statistician and an easy self-deprecating sense of humor, Dr. Bill Wilson, asked why he thought he won this year’s Distinguished Professor Award, said almost quizzically, “I guess I got more votes than anybody else.”

There’s no refuting that fact. From someone else, the answer could have sounded flippant. Wilson, a statistics professor and interim associate vice president of Academic Affairs, isn’t that way.

What his succinct, modest answer didn’t address was that his colleagues chose him as the 27th winner of the Distinguished Professor Award because of his many accomplishments in the areas of teaching, research and publication, and professional service.

For Wilson, being recognized by his peers made the honor especially gratifying. “I think it’s the greatest honor that faculty gives faculty,” he said. “It recognizes a career.”

Wilson came to UNF in 1975 and has a career that has spanned nearly 30 years and has included membership on nearly 40 University committees; the Outstanding Teacher Award twice; the establishment of UNF’s Institute of Statistics; and serving as the dean of graduate studies and the associate vice president for educational technology.

“Bill’s work as both a pure and applied statistician has been excellent. He was the original driving force behind our Statistics Consulting Center,” said Dr. Scott Hochwald, chairman of the Department of Mathematics & Statistics. Hochwald also spoke of Wilson’s concern for students.

“There are relatively few statistics majors at UNF. Consequently, we occasionally cancel key statistics courses due to low enrollment,” he said. “Over the years, Bill has enabled many students from these canceled classes to graduate on time by giving them independent studies. He basically does this for free.”

The son of a salesman, Wilson grew up in the south Texas town of McAllen. He graduated in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Pan American University, which is eight miles from his hometown. Wilson received a master’s in mathematics from Texas A&I University in 1970 and a doctorate in statistics from Texas A&M University in 1974.

In college, Wilson tried to make a living one summer as a door-to-door children’s photo album salesman. After a month, his company strongly suggested he seek another line of work.

“I’m a terrible salesman,” Wilson admitted. He chuckles when he recalls part of his sales pitch: “Just pennies a day.”

While he struggled trying to peddle photo albums, Wilson has starred as a statistics salesman.

“There are a lot of commonalities with sales,” Wilson said, referring to teaching. “You have to be self-motivated, be enthusiastic and you have to sell your subject.”

He also said you have to adapt your teaching style to fit each class. Part of that adapting includes the ability to think quickly on your feet. During election night 2000 in the battle for the presidency between Al Gore and George Bush, Wilson watched the returns on television with a group of students as part of a class assignment.

When the TV media prematurely announced that Gore was the new president, Wilson confidently told the students how statistics helped to predict the winner. A few hours later, when the networks declared Bush the winner, Wilson, without missing a beat, told the class that it’s not a perfect science and there’s always a chance for an error. He called it a good learning experience.

Wilson believes in having his classes participate in group projects because it teaches them to be “team players” and helps them learn to communicate. Wilson has all of his classes do some writing as another way to enhance their ability to communicate. He encourages his students, especially in the larger classes, to provide feedback on his lectures so he’ll know what topics are clear and which aren’t.

Sometimes, he gets indirect feedback that can be ego deflating. Wilson one day gave a lecture he thought was really top-notch. After class, he overheard some students talking. Calling it constructive criticism, Wilson smiles as he remembers a student’s assessment of the lecture: “One of them said, ‘Boy, that was boring.’”

What’s the most rewarding aspect of his job? Wilson answered by talking about visits from students many years after they took a class from him.

“Students come back and say, ‘What I learned in your class, I do on my job,’” he said. That is perhaps the ultimate compliment a professor can receive.