Old Main Foyer Named for Faculty Member Walter L. Brown

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas held a dedication for the naming of the Walter L. Brown Foyer in Old Main at 4 p.m. Friday, May 1. Brown was an esteemed member of the University of Arkansas history faculty from 1954 to 1990 in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Known for his inspired teaching, he instilled in his students a love of learning that lasted far beyond the time they spent on campus. He also secured the university’s reputation as the state’s flagship institution for Arkansas studies.

“Dr. Brown was a tremendous member of the Fulbright College faculty,” said Bill Schwab, interim dean of Fulbright College. “His love for Arkansas history has been contagious in and out of the classroom, and he has had a significant impact on the way we learn about our state. We always try to recognize individuals who go well above and beyond the call of duty, and this is one way we can forever honor a professor, researcher and author who has made a difference.”

For more than 30 years, Brown promoted the study of Arkansas history as a professor, as editor of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly from 1958 to 1990 and as secretary-treasurer of the Arkansas Historical Association from 1955 to 1990. Brown made the Arkansas Historical Quarterly a full-time scholarly journal, ensuring that it kept abreast of new interests and methodologies in history while never wavering in its devotion to Arkansas and its people. Under his leadership, the Quarterly published some of the earliest scholarship on Arkansas’ African American and civil rights history. A respected scholar himself, Brown wrote the definitive biography of Albert Pike, a colorful figure of central importance to the politics and culture of antebellum and Civil War-era Arkansas.