Bill Murphy 2001 Barrier Buster Award
une 16, 1949 - January 4, 2001
Bill Murphy Tribute
Bill was a leader in distance and continuing education nationwide. Murphy's work included many firsts for Extension. He designed the first national auction and sale of feeder cattle via satellite and audio technologies and developed and produced the first graduate class for Extension field personnel that was distributed on a national network.Bill was also heavily involved in the first Extension Technology Conference, held at Virginia Tech in 1987 and served on the planning committee for the next several conferences. This conference is now the major educational event for technology enthusiasts in Cooperative Extension nationwide.
Murphy's work won many national awards, and he received the Award of Excellence in Teleconferencing from the Agricultural Communicators in Education and the Most Distinguished Program award from the National University Teleconference Network for his program, "Aids - A Burning Issue: Community Education and Action."
He was a member of the program/operations council of Ag*Sat and was a major contributor to the early successes of this consortium, now called ADEC.
Bill began his career as a high school science teacher at Roanoke in 1973. After serving as 4-H Extension agent in Floyd County from 1977 to 1982, he joined the faculty at Virginia Tech and continued his graduate work. He was assistant director of resident instruction for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, an Extension specialist in computing resources, distance education specialist and coordinator of the Extension Program Development Unit during his career.
Bill was devoted to his wife Marcia and two sons Ben and Geoff.
2001Barrier Buster Awardee
Dan Cotton, University of Nebraska-LincolnAs a member of the ADEC Program Panel since 1995, first representing the University of Illinois and now the University of Nebraska, Dan has given his time and talent to numerous ADEC activities. Dan has been a real advocate for the vision and mission of ADEC and has been an avid contributor at the Program Panel and ADEC Board levels. He has taken the lead on a number of projects and provided not only his time and effort, but that of his staff at the University of Nebraska Communications and Information Technology unit.
Many of the projects Dan has been involved with have been at an early stage of development, whereby he is called upon to use his creativity, knowledge, skills, and experience to originate new knowledge or create new applications.
Dan always seems to be on the cutting edge in his work and has the uncanny ability to adapt the appropriate technology to enhance the learning experience or to improve the way things are done. Dan is continuously busting barriers. He works feverishly to do good work. Dan is especially deserving of the ADEC Barrier Buster Award this year for his hard work in partnership with the President of ADEC in breaking down barriers in order for ADEC to be successful in obtaining the $4.3 million NSF wireless grant.
Dan had to make some tough decisions and use good judgement at a critical time in the grant development process. He was tenacious in the negotiations and worked evenings and weekends, even missing his son’s baseball game in order to meet the deadline. This all came at a time when he was extremely busy at his full-time job at the University. But, he was intent on not letting the consortium down and his feeling of responsibility was overwhelming.
As testimony, the following is a statement provided by Janet Poley, President of ADEC:
“Dan Cotton worked tirelessly with Internet2 staff, Tachyon, ADEC staff, and institutions to assure that we got the NSF wireless grant in place. He organized the pre-test for the internet by satellite test - he and his staff programmed the server sent to the Tachyon Gateway, and participated in regular audio conferences developing the testing processes and procedures.
He and his colleagues implemented this work flawlessly. Dan also developed and delivered major presentations with ADEC colleagues at the national EDUCAUSE meeting, Great Plains Network meeting at UNL, and the EPSCoR meeting in Nevada. Cotton will serve as applications coordinator for the project and will continue to be an essential core player in implementing the main project and developing companion initiatives in Nebraska and across the country.”
In addition, Dan and his staff were instrumental in the testing of the wireless internet technology. Once a week Dan and the other states involved in testing the technology met by conference call where they exchanged notes and worked out problems. All the hard work payed off when NSF awarded the grant to ADEC. This will be one of those milestone events as one looks back on the history of ADEC, and Dan Cotton was a big part of that success.