Vic Flow

WFU gives highest award for service to Vic Flow during Founders’ Day Convocation

By Vanessa Urruela Willis
February 8, 2001

Wake Forest University presented its highest award for service, the Medallion of Merit, to Victor I. Flow Jr., chairman of Flow Lexus, during Founders’ Day Convocation this morning. University President Thomas K. Hearn Jr. presented the award during an 11 a.m. ceremony in Wait Chapel that featured speaker Mary Ann Glendon, a renowned author and professor at Harvard Law School.

Several other annual awards were also presented during the ceremony.

Wake Forest has enjoyed vital support from Flow and his wife, Roddy, for many years. In 1952, Flow earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Wake Forest. After graduation, he worked for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit and Charlotte. In 1957, just after Wake Forest relocated to Winston-Salem, Flow followed, opening his first car dealership here.

For decades, Flow’s contributions to Wake Forest have helped the university to grow, most significantly in the international studies programs. In 1988, the university established the Flow Institute for International Studies within the Babcock Graduate School of Management. In 1998, Flow helped the university buy a residential study center in Vienna which was named in his honor. Students study at the center each semester with a Wake Forest faculty member.

Flow served three terms on the university’s board of trustees and is a past member of the Babcock School’s and the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center’s boards of visitors. He is a co-chair of the university’s current capital campaign.

Flow received Wake Forest’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1989, and the Babcock School’s highest award for distinguished leadership, the Gerald H. Long Award, in 1992.

Hearn thanked Flow for his continued generosity to the university and commended his life of service and leadership as the embodiment of Wake Forest’s motto: “Pro Humanitate” – “For the good of humanity.”

In addition to the Medallion of Merit, a number of other awards were presented to Wake Forest faculty during the convocation ceremony.

Angela Hattery, assistant professor of sociology, was awarded the Kulynych Family Omicron Delta Kappa Award for Contribution to Student Life. Nina Lucas, director of the dance in the theater department, was awarded the Reid-Doyle Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Kathleen Kron, assistant professor of biology, and James Schirillo, assistant professor of psychology, received the Award for Excellence in Research. Patricia J. Roberts, a law professor, was presented the Joseph Branch Excellence in Teaching Award. Ajay Patel, associate professor of finance in the Babcock School, was presented the Kienzle Teaching Award.

Several members of the university community also received special recognition for recent accomplishments and honors. They included Maya Angelou, Reynolds Professor of American Studies, for receiving the National Medal of Arts for the Year 2000; senior Allen Trammell for winning a British Marshall Scholarship; Women’s Golf Coach Dianne Dailey for her induction into the National Golf Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame; and trustee Libba Evans for being named Secretary for the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources by Gov. Mike Easley.