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Memorial Jan. 23 for Dean Emeritus Vernberg
January 6, 2009
Winona B. Vernberg
A memorial service for Winona B. Vernberg, an award-winning scholar, an originator and longtime-dean of the USC School of Public Health, will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Jan. 23 at Rutledge Chapel.
Dr. Vernberg, 84, died Dec. 29, 2008, in Saluda, N.C. where she moved after she and her husband, Dr. F. John Vernberg retired from the university.
“Old-timers remember her strong leadership, high intellect, iron will, and never-tiring compassion for others less fortunate,” said Dr. Tom Chandler, acting dean of the school now named for patron Norman J. Arnold.
Vernberg’s USC career spanned 28 years: eight as a biology professor, two years as acting dean and 17 years as dean of the School of Public Health.
She planned to retire along with her husband in 1996, but remained an additional year after USC President John Palms asked her to serve as provost and interim vice-president for academic affairs.
Vernberg is widely credited as a driving force behind the school of public health that admitted its first students in 1975.
It was a humble beginning, Vernberg recalled in a 2006 newspaper interview.
“Scrounging was one of the things we did best back then. We encountered some resistance from other units on campus because there was not a lot of money. Our budget was low at that time.
“We started out in the nursing building and were grateful if we had eight or nine rooms. We thought it would be astounding to be in a building of our own; when we got one, we outgrew it very quickly,” she told the Columbia Star.
A native of Kansas, Vernberg earned a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State College of Pittsburg in 1944. She earned a master’s degree from DePauw University in 1947 and a doctorate in Zoology from Purdue University in 1951. She served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-45.
Winona and John Vernberg
She married in 1945, an event that also linked the careers of two talented people. Her husband, Dr. John Vernberg was the was the first director of the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine Biology and Coastal Research and the first dean of the university's School of the Environment.
“The Arnold School has a long history of productive collaborations with Baruch -- many of these were jointly spearheaded by Winona and John via their personal reputations in science and their carefully cultivated friendships with Washington,” said Dr. Chandler.
The Vernbergs also were a research/writing team. In 2001, they collaborated on a book, The Coastal Zone, which The Post and Courier of Charleston praised as a “concise and timely review of coastal ecology, its past and its prospects in the face of coastal growth and continuing shift of the nation's population to the coast."
Besides the book, Vernberg also published 127 papers in scientific journals and reports. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Fulbright-Hayes fellow to Brazil, winner of the Russell Award for Research in Science, and was a recipient of the William S. Proctor Prize for Scientific Achievement, Sigma Xi in 1983.
She served on the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere (1974-1976), the Science Advisory Committee for PRIMA, Program of the National Science Foundation (1977-1979), the executive committee, Science Advisory Board EPA (1978-1982), the National Advisory Council, NASA (1979-1982), and president of the Council on Education for Public Health (1984-1986).
The Arnold School’s Alumni Association also sponsors an annual event, the Winona B. Vernberg Distinguished Lecture, in her honor. She also was named distinguished professor emerita and dean emerita.
Surviving besides her husband are, daughters, Amy Beekman of Tampa, Florida and Marcia Verberg of North Augusta; and son, Eric Vernberg of Lawrence, Kansas.
She also has three granddaughters, Haley Beekman, Amanda Snoddy, and Amy Godfrey; three grandsons, Scott Lewis, Stefan Vernberg, Drew Beekman; and three great-granddaughters, Courtney and Caroline Lewis, and Lizzie Snoddy.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggest memorials be made to the Winona Vernberg Bicentennial Fellowship Fund, USC Development Office, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208.
