Featuring Libba Wall

First Presbyterian member Libba Wall was recognized in multiple communication pieces by the UT Foundation recently for the success of her Faculty Scholar Award Endowment for the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She named the award after her son, James Johnson Dudley, who studied architecture at UT and now practices in Charlotte.

The research enabled by the Dudley Faculty Award has allowed the study and development of refugee camps, city parks, and building design, and allowed student development and success through collaboration on these exciting projects.

“I supported faculty research because it not only enables innovations that benefit our world, but it also gives opportunity to students to assist and learn from their professors’ research,” said Wall. “As an endowment, the award will go on doing that in perpetuity.”

Libba has deep ties to the Knoxville community, as she is the great-granddaughter of James Allen Smith, the founder of White Lily Flour in Knoxville, which was established in 1883. You can view a tribute to Libba’s grandmother, Elizabeth Heiskell Smith, in the stained-glass window in the sanctuary (fifth from the pulpit on the north side) which depicts Jesus feeding the multitude. The window shows Jesus blessing the basket of fish and loaves presented by a young boy while the hungry crowds look on. His disciple, Andrew, speaks to him as he blesses the food. Lilies are a recurring motif throughout the window. The window was given in 2000 by Elizabeth Heiskell Smith’s grandchildren, Libba Wall, Katherine Lindsay Fails, and Powell Smith Lindsay.

Read more about Libba Wall and her impact at the UT College of Architecture and Design here.