Proceedings of the Board of Regents (1999-2000)

December Meeting, 1999

Ward D. Getty, Ph.D., professor of electrical engineering and computer science
in the College of Engineering, will retire from active faculty status on December 31,
1999.
Professor Getty received his B.S.E.E. (1955), B.S. (Math) (1955), and M.S.E.E.
(1956) degrees from the University of Michigan and his Sc.D. degree in 1962 from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He served as assistant professor at MIT from
1962-66, during which time he was also appointed a Ford fellow. He joined the faculty
of the University of Michigan as associate professor of electrical engineering in 1966
and was promoted to professor in 1973.
Professor Getty has been recognized for the breadth of his interests and
achievements in a field where the pressure toward narrow specialization is intense. His
research on plasma physics led to close collaboration with faculty in the Department of
Nuclear Engineering and his early work was cited as a model of interdepartmental
cooperation. He is internationally recognized for his work on radio frequency wave
interactions with magnetized plasma. He has made important contributions to the field
of plasma-fusion research by his experimental investigations of fundamental processes
in plasma wave propagation and heating. He has served as a consultant to numerous
companies.
Professor Getty was first recognized for excellence in teaching in 1968, less than
two years after he joined the faculty. He received the departmental Teaching
Excellence Award in 1997. He was an extremely versatile teacher, covering a wide
range of topics including energy conversion, communication electronics, digital
computer engineering, and circuit analysis and electronics. Professor Getty has also
made significant service contributions to the department, the College of Engineering,
and the University, serving in a wide variety of roles and on numerous committees. He
received the departmental Service Excellence Award in 1994.
The Regents now salute this faculty member by naming Ward D. Getty professor
emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science.
Irwin J. Goldstein, Ph.D., professor of biological chemistry, will retire from
active faculty status on December 31, 1999.
Professor Goldstein received his B.A. degree from Syracuse University in 1951 and
his Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1956. From 1961-65, Professor
Goldstein was an assistant professor of biochemistry at the State University of New York at
Buffalo. He joined the University of Michigan Medical School as associate professor of
biological chemistry in 1965; he was promoted to professor in 1972. From 1986-99,
Professor Goldstein served as associate dean for research and graduate studies at the
Medical School. This was a period of enormous growth in research funding, interest in the
development of technology transfer, and the strengthening of graduate programs. He
helped establish the Biomedical Core Facilities, the underpinning of the University's
research enterprise.
As a research investigator, Professor Goldstein is known for his work on the
isolation, characterization, and biomedical application of a class of carbohydrate binding
proteins known as lectins. He enjoys an international reputation for his contributions to
this field, encompassed in 250 scientific papers, books, and book chapters. Allied studies
include research on carbohydrate cleaving and synthesizing enzymes and the involvement
of complex carbohydrates in cellular adhesion. Professor Goldstein was recently
informed by the National Institutes of Health that his research project,
"Protein-Carbohydrate Interaction," a grant he has held continuously for 35 years, has
been renewed for an additional five years.

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