NSU Honors College gets new name and a renewed sense of mission

NORFOLK
Persons attending the 100th NSU commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 6, heard some “breaking news.” Henceforth, the university’s Honors College shall be called the Robert C. Nusbaum Honors College, or the “R.C. Nusbaum Honors College.”

According to Dr. Page Laws, who heads the Honors College, perhaps no one was more surprised at the announcement than Mr. Nusbaum, who was sitting with his wife, Linda, and her sister, Betty, in the VIP section of the Norfolk Scope enjoying the day’s events.

Laws said anyone who has known Nusbaum for years can “already testify to what he has done for us. Others may be less aware of his quiet but extraordinary contributions of time and treasure.”

In a Board of Visitors Resolution justifying the naming, the university’s governing board highlighted Nusbaum’s support and efforts on behalf of the college, dating back to 1993 when the general honors program in its current form started. Dr. Laws served as its director and, starting in 2008, as the Honors College dean. Laws said without his support, “we might never have become an honors program, much less an honors college.”

“ As a member of the Parsons Foundation (later Parsons Fund) and other groups, Mr. Nusbaum has either contributed personally or had a hand in raising virtually every cent in our endowments and has thereby provided us with almost all of our non-state operating funds for almost a quarter of a century! He has also been steadfast in his support of our students and the overall Norfolk/Hampton Roads community since way back to the late 1950s when he took a public stand against massive resistance).”

Laws called Nusbaum “a great, long-time patron, mentor and supporter who very richly deserves our thanks, our affection, and this special, unsought-for honor.”

Before his retirement from the active practice of law, Bob Nusbaum was an attorney in the Business Section at Williams Mullen.