April 28, 2003
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Kinston native Annette Nevin Shelby, Ph.D., Georgetown University Professor Emerita, will be honored during University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) graduation ceremonies at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 10. Shelby also will give the commencement address. Ceremonies will be held in Bartow Arena, 617 South 13th Street. Some 900 of the 1,843 May graduates will take part.
Shelby, who is widely known for her dedication to education and the public welfare, will receive the degree Doctor of Humanities. She earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in speech from the University of Alabama (UA) in 1960 and 1962, respectively. She earned her Ph.D. in speech from Louisiana State University in 1973. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi.
Shelby specializes in management communication and focuses her research on theories of influence and corporate advocacy. She began her academic career at UA in 1971. In 1979, she joined the faculty at Georgetown University, where she achieved the notable distinction of being the first woman to become a tenured full professor in the university’s McDonough School of Business. In 1991, she was named Professor Emerita. She also has been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the Helsinki School of Economics. She has been director of both the Georgetown graduate and undergraduate programs at Oxford University.
Her long and distinguished career has been recognized by numerous teaching, research and service awards, including the Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education, the Danforth Association Program Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Joseph F. LeMoine Award for Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching Excellence.
Shelby’s service awards include the University of Alabama’s Julia and Henry Tutwiler Award and Georgetown University’s Ronald L. Smith Distinguished Service Award. She also is a Fellow and Distinguished Member of the Association for Business Communication.
Shelby has held fundraising responsibilities for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington. She also has worked on behalf of the March of Dimes in Washington and been a member of the Honorary Advisory Committee for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Honorary Advisory Board for the National Osteoporosis Foundation. She was a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Healthy Women 2000 Advisory Committee.
She also has been an active member of the Tuscaloosa County Mental Health Board and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival Board. She is a member of the University of Pittsburgh Global Studies Board of Advisors, the Stillman College Board of Trustees and the University of Alabama President’s Advisory Board.
Shelby Hall, an interdisciplinary science building on the UA campus, is named for Shelby and her husband, U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama). In 2002, UAB broke ground on the Richard C. and Annette N. Shelby Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building, which is scheduled for completion in 2004.