Pitt Chronicle

Above: Woodruff visited Pitt in October 2006 to be honored during Homecoming events, including the African American Alumni Council’s Awards Night. From left, AAAC President Linda Wharton Boyd (CAS ’72, FAS ’75, ’79); Woodruff; Roger Kingdom (CGS ’02), gold medalist in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games; and Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg.

Pitt alumnus John Woodruff, whose dramatic victory in the 800-meter run during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin made him the first African American to win a gold medal in the 1936 games and helped to spike the Nazi myth of Aryan racial superiority, died Oct. 30 in Fountain Hills, Ariz. He was 92.

Woodruff, who earned a BA in sociology at Pitt in 1939, was the last survivor of the 12 U.S. men who won track and field gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, according to The New York Times.

The University of Pittsburgh has received $3 million from Bettye and Ralph Bailey to establish the Bettye J. and Ralph E. Bailey Deanship in the School of Arts and Sciences. This gift has established an endowment that will be used by the dean as a discretionary fund to support the development and enhancement of programs throughout the School of Arts and Sciences. N. John Cooper, dean of Arts and Sciences since 1998, will be the inaugural holder of the Bailey Deanship.

University of Pittsburgh plastic surgeon J. Peter Rubin received the 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE) during a ceremony Thursday in Washington, D.C. The PECASE is the nation’s highest honor for scientists who are early in their research careers.