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2020 L. R. Hesler Award

The L. R. Hesler Award is named for a longtime head of the botany department who also served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Hesler’s students, colleagues, and friends established this memorial award to recognize exceptional teaching and service.

Russell Crook

Russell CrookRussell Crook is the First Horizon Professor of Management in the Haslam College of Business. He teaches strategic planning and implementation, and he helped create the TakeOff program to provide support and guidance to first-generation business students from disadvantaged backgrounds. He continues to hold a leadership role in TakeOff in addition to being an active member of the college’s Diversity Council and contributing to other service initiatives within the university and community. He was recently elected to a five-year leadership track with the Southern Management Association.

What does being a Volunteer mean to you?

It means serving others. Candidly, I don’t think I could articulate it any better than the Volunteer Creed—“One that beareth a torch shadoweth oneself to give light to others.” I think it is incumbent on everyone in the Volunteer family to share light in any way they can.