During the 2024 Faculty and Staff Convocation, Dr. Alvin Diamond was awarded the Wallace D. Malone Jr. Distinguished Faculty Award.
The prestigious award recognizes esteemed faculty members who through teaching, selfless service and research make their vision become a reality.
“It was quite unexpected, and I was totally surprised by the announcement,” said Dr. Alvin Diamond, professor of biology and director of the Arboretum. “Truthfully, I was thinking I must have misunderstood at the beginning and then that this can’t possibly be happening.”
The award consisted of a designed memorial award, a medallion to be worn with academic regalia and a $1,500 cash prize.
Diamond plans to use the cash prize to support student research by purchasing supplies for the arboretum and herbarium.
This award is granted through a $100,000 endowment by the SouthTrust Corporation and is named after Wallace Malone, who served as a chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of SouthTrust and was a Troy Board of Trustee member from 1975 to 1995.
Diamond, who is now in his 36th year of service at Troy University, says he is most proud of the students he has taught over the decades.
“Helping to provide students with the knowledge, encouragement and skills that will make them successful members of society is truly rewarding,” Diamond said. “Whether it is a student who develops an interest in and appreciation of biology for the first time, or one who goes on to pursue a career in biology, each is rewarding in its own way.
“Seeing students succeed and helping them do so in some small way is the only accomplishment that really matters.”
In recent years, the Arboretum underwent many updates to revitalize the facility.
“We have cleared over eight miles of trails, planted and identified over 500 native plant species, placed QR codes on many of the plants linking them to additional online resources, developed two half-mile-long self-guiding nature trails, established an outdoor classroom area, installed a new bridge and boardwalk at the pond, obtained an all-terrain wheel chair for use on the trails by anyone needing it at no cost, reestablished the pollinator and bog gardens, installed plantings for wildlife and developed an Interactive Arboretum website,” Diamond said.
Teaching biology and directing the Arboretum isn’t the only thing Diamond is involved in. The Troy University herbarium, located in the Math and Science Complex room 216, houses vascular plants with a collection of bryophytes and lichens.
With the collaboration of Dr. Michael Woods, they were able to get two grants from the National Science Foundation to reestablish the herbarium.
“The grants allowed us to install a compactor system and new storage cabinets, purchase a camera and computers to photograph and database our specimens, buy collecting and mounting supplies, and fund student research,” Diamond said. “These grants enabled us to increase the holdings of plant specimens from a few hundred when we began to over 53,000 specimens currently.”
Troy’s herbarium is now one of the fastest growing herbaria in the Southeast and houses the most complete collection of plants from the Wiregrass region of Alabama.
The Malone award winner also gets the privilege of carrying the University mace during all the special events that take place throughout the year.
“It is a humbling experience and also a great honor and privilege to carry the university mace, and perhaps in some small way represent all of the other faculty doing amazing things at Troy University,” Diamond said.
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