Dean John Webster Wade

John Wade began his teaching career at Ole Miss the next year after graduation from Harvard. It was a difficult initiation because many of his students were former contemporaries and all of the faculty were his former instructors. He handled this situation with natural dignity and the assurance of superior capability, yet modestly and conscientiously. Although during the next several years he was offered visiting position elsewhere, both Chancellor Butts and Dean Kimbrough found that they could not spare him.

Perhaps they would not recommend him for a leave of absence because they were afraid of losing such a prize. In February 1946 I came back to Ole Miss as Dean after eleven years' absence at Tulane. John had returned to the faculty after serving in the Marine Corps during World War II, and I had the opportunity to be associated with him as a colleague at this time. Against the better judgment of then Chancellor Butts, I recommended John for a year's leave of absence to be a visiting professor at the University of Texas.He never returned, going the next year to Vanderbilt and eventually succeeding Ray Forrester as Dean.