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Honors College Honorary Graduate

Rose Hamm Rowland

For her work in shepherding the then-Honors Program through tremendous growth in the 1990s, Rose Hamm Rowland has been named the 2025 Honors College Honorary Graduate.

Rose Hamm Rowland ’72 graduated from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in 1972; she continued her education at the University of South Carolina and Auburn University.

She returned to the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in 1975 as an instructor of math. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1980 and associate professor in 1987, the first female tenure-track faculty in the department.

In 1987 she was named the Director of the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Honors Program and led the program for eleven years. During her tenure, the program sustained tremendous growth—she increased the honors student population ten-fold and also developed the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Governor’s School summer program into a recruitment pipeline for some of the best and brightest students in the state.

Rose was awarded the College’s Distinguished Advising Award in 1997. Her late husband, Lloyd Hamm, was a founding member of the group SCAT (forerunner of the Cougar Club).  She established the Rose Hamm Rowland Honors Scholarship in 1991 to be awarded to those interested in math. In 2001, she established the W. Lloyd (Petie) Hamm Scholarship for Honors College students who are also athletes.