Brian Steel Wills
Kenneth Asbury ProfessorFamily Trips, Summer Jobs Plant Seeds for a Flourishing CareerBrian Steel Wills grew up in Suffolk, Virginia, the son of a farmer and a fourth-grade teacher. His mother, the teacher and a history buff, led the family on vacation trips to historic sites—Jamestown, Yorktown, Gettysburg. "We visited a lot of battlefields," he said. In addition to the family vacations, he spent five summers as a teenager, serving on the light artillery crew at the Petersburg National Battlefield. Dressed in a Confederate uniform, he rode a horse on a team that pulled a 12-pound, Napoleon-style cannon, and fired the cannon for park visitors. Now the Kenneth Asbury Professor of history at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, Mr. Wills is a nationally recognized Civil War historian and author of several books on Civil War topics—the most recent, Gone with the Glory: The Civil War in Cinema. He is fascinated by the ways in which movies attempt to capture reality and uses that interest to attract students to the subject. "I want them to look at movies more critically, to look at the history on which a movie is based. To learn that the times in which a movie is made often say more about the movie than the times that are portrayed." A member of the U.Va.–Wise faculty since 1992, Mr. Wills is the 2000 recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award presented by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. He also received the U.Va.–Wise Outstanding Teaching Award in 1998 and the Outstanding Research Award in 1995. In 2003, he was named the Kenneth Asbury Professor of history in recognition of his accomplishments as a scholar, teacher, and leader. Mr. Wills said the endowed professorship has had a "phenomenal impact" on his life. "It's been essential to my success in terms of scholarship," he said. "It allows me to pay the bills in the summertime. It also has given me freedom and intellectual time, the time I need to think things through." Kenneth Asbury ProfessorshipThe Kenneth Asbury Professorship was established in 2002 through a bequest by Lelia Maude Beaty Richmond. A successful businesswoman, Mrs. Richmond managed her family store, Beaty & Company, for thirty years and served on the boards of directors of the Wise County National Bank and of the Appalachian Regional Hospital. This professorship is named in honor of Kenneth Asbury, one of the founders of Clinch Valley College, now the University of Virginia's College at Wise. ChairholdersBrian S. Wills 2003–present Web Links |