07.06.05

Dr. Bill Junkin

Longtime physics professor leaving

Longtime Erskine professor Dr. William F. Junkin III is leaving Erskine College this summer after 31 years of service. Junkin, who joined the Erskine faculty in 1974, has served the college not only as a professor of physics, but also as dean for learning and technology.

Beginning Aug. 1, Junkin will become director of instructional technology at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla.

But it is not the lure of a new position that's causing Junkin and wife Peggy to pack up 30 years worth of memories and leave Due West.

"There are two small reasons I'm planning to go," Junkin said. "One's six years old, the other's four years old."

The professor is talking about two of his six grandchildren, who live with his daughter, Anne Cox, and her husband in St. Petersburg. Anne is associate professor of physics at Eckerd College, a private coeducational liberal arts and sciences institution on the Florida Gulf Coast.

The decision to leave Erskine was a difficult one, Junkin said.

"Our children grew up together here and we have a lot of fond memories," Junkin said. "Erskine College has been very wonderful to me. I've enjoyed interacting with and teaching students who have come through here. Erskine has supported me in essentially everything I've wanted to do."

Dr. Donald Weatherman, executive vice president and dean of the college, said Junkin would be sorely missed. "He's had an extraordinary career in teaching," Weatherman said. "He's won almost every teaching award there is in South Carolina.

"He's one of those people who has the ability and capacity to do research, but also has a passion for teaching."

Weatherman said he'd miss having Junkin on campus and in the community. "I understand the pull of grandchildren," he added.

A graduate of King College in Bristol, Tenn., Junkin earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Junkin said as he as reminisced about his years at Erskine, "the changes in the areas I've been associated with have been pretty amazing."

When he joined the Erskine faculty, Junkin said there was no physics major at the college. "Half of my teaching load was to teach physics to chemistry majors and the other half was to teach mathematics," he said.

The physics major was established several years after his arrival and has flourished, particularly since the relocation of the physics department from Reid Science Hall to the Daniel•Moultrie Science Center.

Junkin has been the point man for many of Erskine's technological advances, although he said the college had a good technological foundation when he arrived on campus.

"We had a network in place," he said. "The concept of the PC was hardly in existence in 1974. I've had fun playing with computers, the Internet and technology ever since."

Junkin's "playing" with technology has included the development of BQ software, which allows instructors to poll students on course content and receive real-time responses on computers, PDAs (personal data assistant) and wireless phones. The wireless phones work like a combination computer-telephone-PDA.

The backbone of Junkin's software is the premise that when students feel the freedom to express their answers electronically, the professor will have a better understanding of what each student is thinking.

The Air Force Academy and other schools have used the technology. Junkin developed BQ specifically for education and for several years shared the software without cost to other educational institutions, non-profit and non-commercial groups.

In late 2003, Erskine signed a contract with Solutience, an information technology consulting company based in Greenville, to market the software.

Erskine College was cited with the Innovation in Education Award in 2002 for Junkin's software.

Junkin's faith has been at the core of all his endeavors and in 2004, he received the "Science as a Christian Vocation" award from the Presbyterian Association on Science, Technology and the Christian Faith during the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Junkin said he never imagined he would stay at Erskine for three decades when he arrived here in 1974. "My parents were missionaries, which meant that by the time I was 15 or 16 years old, we must have lived in 30 different places," he said. "I enjoy traveling — I love it — and that pattern continued through graduate school. I thought I'd stay here five or six years and move on, but every time I thought about it, another opportunity arose."

Another factor in Junkin's long stay was that his children were growing up. "Due West was a wonderful place for them to grow up," he said. "It's a caring community and you don't have to worry as much about crime and safety as in places with a higher density of population."

Also, Junkin said he initially came to Erskine because he wanted to work at a small college "where I'd have a lot of contact with students. I wanted to be able to share both my knowledge of physics and an understanding of the world we live in."

The move to Erskine did have its pitfalls, chief of which was the lack of job opportunities for wife Peggy. "Fortunately for me, her and the community, she was able to make good contributions in a number of areas," Junkin said, including as dean of students at the college and director of social services at the Due West Retirement Center.

Not surprisingly for someone looking back at a 31-year time period in one community and one college, Junkin was unable to pinpoint a single memory that stands out in his mind. "I've had thousands of fond memories, personally and associated with the school," he said.

June 30 was Junkin's last official day as a member of the Erskine community.

Junkin said he hopes to maintain some sort of relationship with the college, primarily through his interaction with the information technology department.

Weatherman echoed the hope that Erskine and Junkin will maintain some type of relationship. "He and I are going to try to work out some kind of affiliation to utilize his talents to some extent," Weatherman said.

So don't look for Junkin to disappear completely from the Erskine landscape, even if he's not living in Due West.

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