It was 1975 when he graduated, and married his fiancée Mary in Blacksburg, Va. He hoped to return to Auburn to teach. However, the civil engineering department head at the time, Rex Rainer, insisted that Benefield get some experience at another university before he would think about hiring him. Disappointed, he took a job at Mississippi State instead, although he only stayed a year.
The Mississippi State position did, however, cement his ties to a researched-focused academic career, rather than the consulting model that was prevalent at the time. Indeed, as a new assistant professor, he ran the department’s research program, which he would eventually do on a college-wide basis for Auburn.
In 1976, he and Mary moved to the University of Colorado, but he had mixed feelings about making Colorado their permanent home. In 1979 he got a call from a friend who said that a faculty position in environmental engineering had opened at Auburn. When he interviewed with Dean Vincent Haneman and Rainer, who was still department head, he was offered a position as assistant professor. Uneasy with a lateral move, he turned it down.
When Rainer countered with an offer as associate professor, Benefield accepted it, and he and Mary returned to Auburn with their six-month-old daughter Brynna. It was 1979, and only the beginning of a more than three-decade career at Auburn.
Benefield was remembered as a congenial teacher, but also one who assigned a great deal of work to his students. At the same time, he appreciated the subtleties of teaching as an art. “You can’t cram it down their throat” he once remarked. “It just serves to alienate them. Then they become resentful and upset about the workload — and then they become critical.”
Good teaching, Benefield understood, requires a tremendous amount of time in developing techniques for effectively presenting any topic you have to cover. It also required, he noted, the ability to be an entertainer, at least to some degree, as well as being a conveyor of knowledge. His skill in the classroom earned him an Alumni Professorship in the mid ’80s.
In 1989 Benefield became the college’s interim associate dean for research, a position he relinquished a couple of years later to return to teaching as Feagin professor of civil engineering, an endowed position that he would hold until 1992, when he returned to administration as associate dean for academics.
He held the latter position under engineering dean William F. Walker, who would later become provost, and ultimately, president of the institution. Benefield became a familiar sight with Walker, absorbing what he could from the dean in his office, in faculty conferences, and even as a regular lunch partner, often in their favorite restaurant in Hurtsboro, a small town across the line in Chambers County.
His tutelage under Walker would place him in good stead when his mentor moved to Samford Hall. Benefield was first named interim dean in 1998, moving into his position as dean in 2000.
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