Remembering Professor Bruce Wheeler (1939-2023)
On Tuesday, April 9, the UT Department of History and the Knoxville History Project collaborated on an event to honor the late Professor Bruce Wheeler. Wheeler joined the department in 1970 and served the UT Knoxville campus and community for over four decades.
“No list of accomplishments can fully convey all that Bruce Wheeler meant to the UT campus and the history department,” colleague Ernest Freeberg wrote in a memorial tribute. “He will be remembered for his ability to share his love of history with a wide audience, his never-failing curiosity and good humor, and his generous support of his younger colleagues and our students.”
The program’s speakers recognized Wheeler’s many and varied accomplishments. He was a distinguished historian who wrote an important history of Knoxville; he was an engaging and innovative teacher beloved by a generation of UT students; and he generously contributed his time to help improve history education in East Tennessee public schools. During his long career, he was recognized with numerous teaching awards, and served as the head of the University’s Honors Program before his retirement in 2003.
As Aaron Purcell, one of his last doctoral students, noted, “Wheeler made a difference in the lives of countless students and I’m proud to say that I was one of them.”