Professor's image makes for popular t-shirt

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) student chapter at Illinois chose an unmistakable image of Axford’s face etched in white on a black shirt to serve as this year’s ANS T-shirt. It’s gone over well.

“When we mentioned what the shirt was going to be at the first general meeting, everyone wanted one,” said ANS Student Chapter President Jose Rivera. “I heard people saying it was the best ANS shirt ever and how some people wanted to buy two of them.”

The student group asked Axford before using his image. Said Rivera, “When I asked Professor Axford for permission, he smiled and said okay. Later on he told me he was proud to

be on the shirt.” The Axford edition shirt has boosted sales for the ANS group. Rivera said the group usually orders 20 to 30 shirts; this year they’ve ordered 100 and have sold over half already.

Past generations of students like the shirts, too. The department presented them as gifts to alumni who returned to campus to serve on a Homecoming career-networking panel in October, and at another alumni event held in Washington, D.C., in November in conjunction with the national winter ANS Conference. “When we offered them to the alumni panel it was, again, one of those ‘I need to have this shirt!’ reactions,” Rivera said.

Axford has had a lot of years to gain the knowledge that he so effectively delivers to his students. The first person to earn a doctorate in nuclear engineering in this country, Axford began his career at Illinois in 1966. His consulting work and research at Los Alamos National Laboratory--in support of our government’s long-standing policy of developing and maintaining a credible nuclear deterrence capability--remains classified, and he is legendary in his vast web of PhD students who have gone on to conduct research in that area.

But perhaps even more impressive has been his reception by the students he teaches. Without using fancy technology or notes, Axford puts his chalk to the chalkboard, imparting scads of information that he develops from first principles and that students are encouraged to take down.

The result has been significant: He is always included on the List of Teachers Ranked Excellent by Their Students. Numerous times he has been honored with the ANS Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. He’s also received the College of Engineering Rose Award for Teaching Excellence (2008), the Graduate College Outstanding Mentor Award (2004); the College of Engineering Everitt Award for Teaching Excellence (1985); and was twice a finalist for the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (1979, 1981).

Axford said it best himself when he was interviewed for NPRE’s 50th Anniversary video in 2008: “Students are very sensitive to faculty whom (the students) can respect for knowing something. It’s the knowledge that draws their interest.”

And, if you’re really good at it, you might get your face on a T-shirt.