Paralegal program chair, adjunct HR management professor earn emeritus status
At the April 24 meeting of the University of Richmond Board of Trustees, Professor Porcher L. Taylor III, chair of the Paralegal Studies program, and Dr. Dennis Warmke, adjunct professor of Human Resource Management, were approved to earn emeritus status upon their retirements.
Taylor is completing his twenty-third year of service to the University of Richmond. He was one of the founding Program Chairs in the School of Professional & Continuing Studies, and in that role he designed the Paralegal Studies program from the ground up. He will be retiring from the University effective June 22, 2020. Upon his retirement, Professor Emeritus status will be conferred on Taylor.
Warmke served the University of Richmond for 25 years as an adjunct professor of Human Resource Management. In 1985, he was awarded the Itzkowitz Family Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Award, and in 2017, he received the University’s 25-year Service Medallion. Warmke retired in September 2019, and the title of Adjunct Professor Emeritus is effective immediately.
The University of Richmond Faculty Handbook outlines the process by which emeritus status is awarded.
A faculty or administrative staff member who has served the University with distinction for 20 years or more, and who remains on active status until retirement, will normally be awarded the title of “Emeritus” upon recommendation by the President, by action of the Board of Trustees. The Board may, at its discretion, award emeritus status to particularly deserving retirees who have served less than 20 years.
SPCS Dean Jamelle Wilson recommended to UR President Ronald Crutcher that Taylor and Warmke receive emeritus status. President Crutcher, in turn, recommended both to the Board of Trustees.
In Dean Wilson’s letters of recommendation, she highlighted each professor’s distinguished service to the school.
Of Taylor she wrote the following:
Since his initial appointment in 1997, Professor Taylor has touched the lives of hundreds of students, in not only the School of Professional & Continuing Studies, but also through courses he has taught in the other four schools of the University. Each year he receives positive evaluations from his students. Moreover, most recently, he took on the commitment of teaching Knowledge Management in SPCS as well as several sections of First Year Seminars for traditional undergraduate students.
Taylor is highly respected by his peers, as evidenced by his selection to receive the Distinguished Educator Award in 2006. His service to the University is extensive. He has served as a Faculty Senator, on the Presidential Search Committee, the Provost Search Committee, SCHEV Selection Committee, and has served as judge and student mentor in the TC Williams School of Law. In addition, he consistently and willingly serves on a variety of University and/or SPCS committees in a given academic year. In each of these appointments at the University, he has served selflessly.
Taylor has enjoyed robust scholarly activity resulting in 55 publications in a variety of academic journals, service on local and national professional panels and invitations to present at national professional conferences. In recent years, he has delighted in the fact that his scholarship has garnered nearly 80 citations in Google Scholar.
And of Warmke, Wilson noted the following:
Dennis Warmke received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Florida in 1974, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from The Ohio State University, completing his studies in 1979. Based on his professional experience and expertise, he specialized in teaching Human Resource Management, Organizational Psychology, and Recruitment and Retention over the course of his many years of teaching at the University. He taught at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Students have described his class as challenging and rigorous but fair, and they appreciated his teaching style and the effort he put into each class.
The faculty and staff of the School of Professional & Continuing Studies are proud to honor both professors for their decades of service to the University of Richmond.