Ivan Allen College to Honor Donors Gail and Barry Spurlock, Six Alumni, and Three Recipients of the Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Awards

Posted January 29, 2018

Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts has announced the slate of honorees for its 2018 Distinguished Alumni Awards, which will be held the evening of March 28. Among those to be feted are long-time supporters of the College, Gail and Barry Spurlock.

The Awards evening begins with a networking reception and buffet dinner, then culminates in the awards program. Among this year’s alumni recipients are Kelly Orman (ECON 1995), Melody DeBussey (PP 2006), Hannah Taylor (IAML - French 2009), Johnny Jones (John Nelson Jones, Jr) (IA 2002), Susan J. Robinson (PhD DM 2015), L. Christopher Young (HTS 2000). The faculty, graduate, and undergraduate recipients of the Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Awards, endowed by Col. Stephen C. and Mrs. Pamela Hall, will be announced in February.

Gail and Barry Spurlock will receive the final award of the evening, the Dean’s Appreciation Award presented by Dean Jacqueline J. Royster. The Spurlocks have generously supported the German Program in the College’s School of Modern Languages providing financial support as well as mentorship for young students. They established the Spurlock Study Abroad Scholarship Endowment Fund in 2012. The fund enables students enrolled in the German and German Languages for Business and Technology (LBAT) programs to study in Germany for a semester.

A Georgia Tech alumnus (ME 1965), Barry Spurlock is chairman of the board of the Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta. In 2017, he was awarded the Order of Merit First Class by the president of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his outstanding philanthropic leadership fostering German-American cultural relations in the Southeastern United States.

Spurlock has said, “The future of the transatlantic relations will need to be maintained by future generations. This is why my wife Gail and I helped to underwrite a scholarship for German students at my alma mater.”