Michael Silver Appointed to the
Frederich Garrett and Helen Floor Dekker Endowed Professorship

Dr. Michael Silver of the chemistry faculty holds the Frederich Garrett and Helen Floor Dekker Endowed Professorship.

The professorship was established through the estate of Dr. Fred H. Decker and Marie V. Buranek Decker to provide financial support for a faculty member who has an established record of excellence in biophysics, biomedicine or biology. Dr. Decker was a 1921 Hope graduate.

The chair was established in the 1980s. Its first recipient, Dr. Harvey Blankespoor, was appointed in January of 1988 and retired at the end of the 2001-02 academic year.

Silver has been a member of the Hope faculty since 1983. He has received both campus and national recognition for excellence as a teacher and scholar.

In 1997, he received the college's Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching, cited not only for his work with students but also for his role as a mentor to other faculty members. In 1988, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation of New York City presented him with one of only 10 Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards nationwide for demonstrated promise and ability in teaching and performing imaginative research. In 1992, the foundation named him one of only eight recipients nationwide of an award through its Scholar/Fellow Program for Undergraduate Institutions, selecting him to mentor a post-doctoral fellow.

Silver's research emphasis is inorganic/physical chemistry, and he has also mentored more than 60 Hope students in collaborative research.

Through the years he has received more than $1 million in support of his research from external agencies, including Research Corporation, the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, the National Science Foundation and Dow Corning Corporation. He has had more than 20 publications in a variety of scholarly journals, and is co-author of a textbook, "Introductory Chemistry," which is currently in its second edition.

Silver co-founded the college's Teaching Enhancement Workshop for new members of the Hope faculty in 1987. He has also served as advisor of the college's Chemistry Club.

He was the 1998 president of the West Michigan Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS). In 2001, he was technical program director of the 33rd Joint Regional ACS Meeting.

Silver graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University with a bachelor of science degree in chemistry in 1975, and completed his master's and doctorate at Cornell University in 1979 and 1982 respectively. He was a post- doctoral fellow at Northwestern University during 1982-83.

Endowed chairs are established by donors who wish to assist the college on a permanent basis through the support of a faculty member. The gift is placed in the college's endowment fund with investment income used to support the work of the honored professor. In addition to recognizing faculty members for excellence, endowed chairs provide funding for summer research projects as well as some salary support.

Learn more about establishing an endowed professorship