University of Mississippi medical school graduate Dr. Bill Ashford and his wife, Leslie, of Madison, Mississippi, made a $2 million donation to establish a named professorship in physics at Ole Miss.
With $1.5 million, the couple established the F. Douglas and Cora Beal Shields Chair in Physics Education Endowment, honoring Dr. Ashford’s former physics professor. The gift claimed a match by the UM Foundation of $500,000, elevating it to the chair level.
“Dr. Shields was an excellent physics teacher, my favorite teacher during my time at Ole Miss. He was always very well prepared with a demonstration illustrating the subject of the day, which made class very interesting,” said Dr. Ashford, who grew up in Lambert, Mississippi. “He involved the students in the learning process and had lots of interesting stories about the people who made the big advances in physics.”
Additionally, the Ashfords gave $500,000 to establish the Dr. William and Leslie Ashford Endowment in the College of Liberal Arts at Ole Miss.
“Our family has had ties to this university a very long time” Dr. Ashford explained. “My grandfather graduated from law school here in 1898. My father attended Ole Miss in the 1920s. I enrolled in 1968 and finished medical school in 1975. My son graduated from the university in 1999, and we have had two granddaughters attend, one of whom is a freshman now.
“We really appreciate what this great institution has done for our family,” he continued. “We established the friendships of our lifetimes here. I have met with Dr. (Kevin) Beach, chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department, and Dr. (Lee) Cohen, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, a number of times. Ole Miss is fortunate to have both of them.
“I am very confident that this gift in their hands will enhance the undergraduate physics instruction the students receive. We have toured the Duff Center and were very excited to see this amazing facility. The future looks very bright for students at Ole Miss.”
Dr. Ashford practiced ophthalmology in Jackson, Mississippi, beginning in 1980, and established the Eye Group of Mississippi there. He also was surgical director of the Ursic/Ashford Eye Institute in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for 28 years before retiring in 2023.
Ashford said he hopes both endowments will support the same quality of instruction he experienced as an Ole Miss med student.
“A lot of college departments are interested in their research projects, publishing and such, and teaching undergraduates is often an afterthought,” the donor said. “But I want a serious enhancement of undergraduate physics education at Ole Miss, so the students will have the opportunities I had.”
UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce expressed gratitude for the gift.
“Dr. Ashford’s incredible generosity demonstrates the profound impact an educator can have on a student’s life long after they leave the classroom,” said Chancellor Boyce. “We are incredibly grateful for his extraordinary gift that will advance physics education at Ole Miss for generations to come.”
Throughout his career, Dr. Ashford has applied the principles of physics he learned from Sheilds. He especially liked the way Sheilds taught by having students learn through experimentation — a practice the university is increasingly revisiting through its new Jim and Thomas Duff Center for Science and Technology Innovation.
“I appreciate the opportunities that Ole Miss gave me, and professors like Dr. Shields who blessed and encouraged my life more than I can say,” he continued. “I’m so grateful to Ole Miss and its faculty and I think they need to be highlighted and thoroughly thanked.”
Professor Shields’ son, Doug — a consulting hydraulic engineer, freelance engineer and on-call senior consultant for Verdantas Ecoengineering — commented on the donor’s gift.
“I am sure Daddy would feel humbled, honored and a little embarrassed by the attention Dr. Ashford’s most generous gift would draw to him, but my mother would encourage him to take it all in stride!” he said. “He came to Ole Miss to teach in 1959 with two great ideas in mind: one, universities were the greatest place to impact the world for good because they are marketplaces for great ideas and, two, at Ole Miss he found an opportunity to live out his Christian faith by influencing students who were interested in following Christ.
“Dr. Ashford said my father’s tough but fair teaching style made a difference for him in gaining entrance to medical school and eventually building an incredible ophthalmology practice that blessed thousands of patients with better eyesight,” Shields continued. “I think Daddy would hope the gift would bless future students like Bill Ashford.”
1968 was a great time to be at Ole Miss for those interested in athletics, as it was Archie Manning’s first varsity year.
“But it was also a great time to be here as a student,” Ashford said. “We had outstanding professors and coming from a very small delta town, I got a quick initiation into serious academics here Ole Miss.”
The physician said Professor Shields impressed him immediately: “He quickly seated us alphabetically and then moved right on to teach force-equals-mass-times-acceleration, which I still remember 55 years later.”
As the year progressed, Shields taught his students about optics, quantum mechanics, lasers and more — almost always accompanied by an interactive experiment.
“It never occurred to me that I’d be an ophthalmologist and use the laws of light physics every day,” Ashford said. “I learned so many things from Dr. Shields that I used all day in helping my patients.”
To make a gift to the College of Liberal Arts, click here, or contact Delia Childers at dgchilde@olemiss.edu or 662-915-3086.
By Bill Dabney/UM Foundation