NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

3/23/2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES- It's impossible to determine how many lives the late Clint Pine touched as a teacher. A group of Pine's former students are working to honor the long-time Northwestern State University faculty member by establishing an endowed professorship in his name in the Department of Mathematics at NSU.

A donation of $5,000 toward the endowed professorship has been made to the NSU Foundation by InControl Technologies, Inc.

Even decades after taking his classes, some of his former students remember fondly how they were affected him. A number of Pine's former students followed him into teaching.

"Mr. Pine instilled a love of mathematics in me," said Dr. John C. Young, a Northwestern graduate who is a faculty member at McNeese State University. "It wasn't only me. There were about a dozen along with me and many of them went on to be teachers. He had a great influence on me becoming a teacher."

According to Young, the principal statistician at InControl Technologies, Pine had the proper temperament for teaching, especially mathematics.

"He was an excellent teacher and a very patient man which you had to be," said Young. "He wanted you to learn and was willing to work at it to help you learn."

Pine, a native of the Gansville community in Winn Parish, was a 1957 graduate of Northwestern. He earned a master's at Florida State University and was an aerospace engineer at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center for two years before returning to Northwestern as a faculty member in 1963. Pine died in 1991.

"He was more patient than anyone I knew," said Dr. Austin Temple, a colleague of Pine's for many years, who is now dean of the College of Science and Technology at NSU. "He welcomed students into his office and went the extra mile to help students. Clint was also eager to take on new courses and challenges."

Young said an objective is to raise $60,000 to complete the endowed professorship. The $60,000 would be matched by $40,000 from the Board of Regents Support Fund to create a $100,000 endowed professorship. Interest from the professorship will be used to support faculty research and development.

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