[129] MTSU Department Becomes Namesake Of Womack Family

Oct. 2, 2009
CONTACT: Joe Bales, 615-898-5818; Tom Tozer, 615-653-6209


MTSU DEPARTMENT BECOMES NAMESAKE OF WOMACK FAMILY

MURFREESBORO—This family moves mountains.
Because of the Womack family’s tremendous love and support for Middle Tennessee State University for more than 50 years and their considerable financial assistance that will ultimately provide more than a half-million dollars in faculty and scholarship support for the education program, the university has renamed the Department of Educational Leadership in their honor. The MTSU department is now known as the Womack Family Educational Leadership Department.
From the time the doors of Middle Tennessee State Normal School opened in 1911, the Womack family have influenced the look, feel and heart of the campus—and have also provided leadership across the education spectrum in the state of Tennessee.
“We greatly appreciate the Womack family’s tremendous commitment to our College of Education,” stated Dr. Sidney A. McPhee, MTSU president. “The Womack name has been synonymous with education in Tennessee, both from Dr. Bob’s long tenure in our education leadership department to Andy’s service in the state Senate as chair of the education committee. Few families have had as deep and lasting a history on our campus. We are deeply indebted to them for their generosity and are proud to recognize their service and commitment with the naming of the educational leadership department in their honor.”
“Dr. Bob, his four children and their families have made a commitment to the university both in outright contributions and in their estate planning that will easily be the largest gift to that program,” added Joe Bales, MTSU vice president for development and university relations. “This coupled with the earlier announcement of the construction of our new Education Building signifies our commitment to maintaining our College of Education as Tennessee’s preeminent education program.”
Dr. Bob, as he is affectionately called by nearly everyone on campus, is starting his 53rd year of teaching at the university that he says “feels just like home.” As a student he enrolled in what was then State Teachers College in 1941. “My family before me had come here so I gravitated in this direction,” he recalled. “And my wife was coming here, and that was another big factor. Then of course I had to take off a few years during World War II.”
The Womacks, however, go back to the very beginning. Dr. Bob’s older brother was a student when Middle Tennessee State Normal School opened in 1911 and later taught soldiers who were returning from World War I. Another brother and two sisters followed. “And then I came along,” Dr. Bob said. “I am very proud of this family, and I am very proud of this contribution to the university.”
Son Andy Womack shares his father’s sentiment. “I take a great deal of pride in the generation before me,” he said, referring to his dad and his five aunts and uncles. “And what I think is really unique in what we’re doing is that the money we are establishing is going to an endowment to enhance the faculty in the education department,” Andy noted. “We feel that oftentimes what is overlooked in the quality of education is that you have to have quality faculty. In order to recruit and retain quality faculty, we felt like an endowment that generated discretionary funds for the leadership in education to enhance the salaries and professional-development opportunities of the faculty was important.”
During Andy Womack’s tenure as chair of the state Senate Education Committee, the topography of the campus changed considerably. “I was very proud of the fact that we were able to get the mass communication building as well as the infrastructure which made possible the new business building, the new library and the renovation of the Todd Library. … When we moved back here in 1957, MTSU was just a small college. Now it has become a major university, not only in Tennessee but in the southeast and the nation.”
The university will hold a formal naming ceremony in the future; however, the renaming of the department has already been approved by the Tennessee Board of Regents, Bales said.

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With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.


PHOTO CUTLINE: The Womack Family from left: Lynn Womack, Lara Daniel, Ricky Womack, Cherry Womack, Andy Womack, Bob Womack, David Womack, Cheryl Womack, Dana Womack, Rob Sims and Marguerite Sims. Not pictured is Sara Womack, daughter of Ricky Womack.

Photo by Ken Robinson Photography