The Woodward Alumni Hall of Fame Association
Dr. Edward G. Voss Inducted 1984 - Class of 1946
After his graduation from Woodward in 1946, Edward Voss went on to earn bachelor’s degree in biology from Denison University, a master's degree in biology from the University of Michigan, and a PhD degree in botany from Michigan in 1954. Beyond those degrees, his work in his chosen field has earned him a world-wide reputation as a botanist.
While still a student in the graduate school at Michigan, Dr. Voss served as graduate assistant, teaching assistant, teaching fellow, and research associate. On the University of Michigan faculty he has been assistant professor of botany,1960-1963; associate professor of botany, 1963-1969, and professor of botany since 1969. Since 1961 he has been curator of vascular plants at the University of Michigan Herbarium.
A prolific writer on botanical subjects, Dr. Voss is the author of "Michigan Flora," a projected three-volume study which provides the only complete guide to the conifers and flowering plants of the
state.
At the time of the publication in 1972 of Part I of "Michigan Flora," the state Senate passed a resolution, an "accolade of tribute," which said in part : "Dr. Voss, a recognized authority on Michigan plant life who as a small boy had amazed professors with his knowledge of flora in the northern regions of the state, worked persistently over the past 16 years in co-operation with the University of Michigan's Botany Department and Herbarium and the members of the Botanical Club examining nearly 80,000 specimens during the development of this outstanding publication which describes and illustrates every aspect of Michigan's botanical heritage."
Dr. Voss has been completing work on Part II of "Michigan Flora." The work somehow has to be squeezed in among numerous other writings. He has an extensive bibliography on botanical subjects; he was editor of Volumes 1-15 of The Michigan Botanist, published by the Michigan Botanical Club; on the international scene, he was secretary from 1969 to 1981 and has been chairman since 1981 of the editorial committee for the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. In this last connection he had much to do with preparation and editing of the codes adopted by the Twelfth International Botanical Congress in Leningrad, U.S.S.R., in 1975, and by the Thirteenth Congress in Sydney, Australia, in 1981.
His work and studies have taken him far afield. On invitation of the U.S. Forest Service, he conducted botanical surveys in the Sylvania Recreation Area, Ottawa National Forest, in Michigan, in 1967, 1968, and 1970. There have been field work and collections in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and northern Manitoba; in the Pacific Northwest, northern California, and the Black Hills of South Dakota; in the Karelian Republic and Kola Peninsula of Soviet Russia; in New South Wales, Australia.
Dr. Voss is a life member of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters and of the Ohio Academy of Science, a charter and-or life member of along list of scientific organizations, plus, as he puts it, "about 20 local, regional, and national conservation or natural history organizations."
All this is just a sprinkling of Dr. Voss' activities and achievements as a scientist. No less busy was his career at Woodward, where he received the Tattler Achievement Cup in 1946. "More important," he writes, "is what I received from not only my science instructors at Woodward but also those in other fields. . . It was a very happy and helpful time in my life, and I recall that I didn't really want to leave."