Albany – The State University
of New York Board of Trustees today approved the appointments of eight faculty
to distinguished ranks. All distinguished faculty in active service within SUNY
are also members of the SUNY Distinguished Academy, established
in March 2012.
“The Board is
pleased to present these eight outstanding individuals with SUNY’s highest
distinguished ranking,” said Board Chairman H. Carl McCall. “Their commitment
to the students, faculty, and staff at their respective campuses is clearly
evident in the vast achievements they have made in their fields.
Congratulations to all of today’s honorees.”
“In bestowing its
highest faculty honor, SUNY proudly recognizes the extraordinary
achievements of these faculty and the positive impacts they have had on our
great system of higher education as well as their colleagues and
students," said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “Their achievements are
highly commendable and we thank them for their impeccable service to SUNY.”
Since the program’s inception in 1963, SUNY has appointed
950 faculty to distinguished ranks, as follows, including these most recent
appointments: 315 Distinguished Professorships; 287 Distinguished Service
Professorships; 343 Distinguished Teaching Professorships; and 5 Distinguished
Librarian Professorships. For more information about SUNY’s faculty award
program, please
click here.
The Distinguished
Professorship is conferred upon individuals who have achieved national or
international prominence and a distinguished reputation within a chosen field.
This distinction is attained through significant contributions to the research
literature or through artistic performance or achievement in the case of the
arts. The candidates’ work must be of such character that the individuals’
presence will tend to elevate the standards of scholarship of colleagues both
within and beyond these persons’ academic fields. Receiving this rank today
are:
- Francis M. Gasparini – A Fellow of the American Physical Society, University
at Buffalo Professor Gasparini is an international leader in the field
of low temperature physics. A world-renowned scholar who has been at the
forefront of his field for several decades, Dr. Gasparini is especially
well-known for his pioneering studies of phase transitions of liquid
helium in confined systems-contributions regarded as the “gold standard”
in the field. A member of UB’s Physics Department for nearly four decades,
Professor Gasparini served for 14 years as the Director of Graduate
Studies, associate chair and chair of the Physics Department and has been
instrumental in guiding the department’s unprecedented growth and rise in
stature, leading to international recognition of the Department by the
physics community. His many research and teaching honors include the SUNY
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. The author of nearly 100
research papers, since 1975, his research has been nearly continuously
funded by the National Science Foundation, with overall external funding
totaling more than $3.1 million.
- Leo N. Hopkins – Dr. Hopkins is Professor and Chair in the University
at Buffalo Department of Neurosurgery at the UB School of Medicine and
Biomedical Sciences. Professor Hopkins is also Director and founding
member of the Toshiba Stroke Research Centre – a facility that brings
together physicists, chemists, aerospace engineers, neurosurgeons,
cardiologists, and radiologists to study neurovascular circulation and
develop innovative technologies and approaches for the diagnosis,
treatment, and prevention of neurovascular diseases. Dr. Hopkins is a
physician scientist who has redefined the field of vascular neurosurgery
in the management of stroke and stenting of vascular lesions. He is one of
the founding figures of endovascular treatment for neurovascular
disorders. He is a strong believer and participant in translational
medicine, and his innovations in the field of endovascular surgery have
been the benchmark for therapeutic endovascular intervention and have
defined the field for neurosurgery. Dr. Hopkins’ work has been
transformational in every sense, and has changed the way we think about
and treat cerebrovascular disorders.
- David A. Kofke – Dr. Kofke is internationally recognized in the
field of molecular simulation. He invented the Gibbs-Duhem integration
technique that is now ubiquitous in the field and in molecular simulation
textbooks. He has developed intermolecular potentials that permit
prediction of the properties of toxic chemicals like HF, reducing the need
for dangerous experiments. He has systematically examined biases in
molecular simulation methodologies and developed a simple heuristic which
can be applied to detect bias in simulation results. University at
Buffalo Professor Kofke has created a suite of molecular simulation
modules that allow visualization of results for use in both research and
education. He continues to develop methods of calculating virial
coefficients and cluster integrals that previously could not be computed.
This represents an important step toward the goal of first-principles
calculation of fluid-phase properties. He is one of only five recipients
of the John M. Prausnitz Award for Outstanding Achievement in Applied
Chemical Thermodynamics, along with numerous other awards that include the
Jacob F. Schoellkopf Medal, the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in
Research and Creative Activity, and others.
The Distinguished Teaching
Professorship recognizes and honors mastery of teaching. For this
prestigious tribute to be conferred, candidates must have demonstrated
consistently superior mastery of teaching, outstanding service to students, and
commitment to their ongoing intellectual growth, scholarship and professional
growth, and adherence to rigorous academic standards and requirements. Further,
a faculty member must have attained and held the rank of full professor for five
years, have completed at least three years of full-time teaching on the
nominating campus, 10 years of full-time teaching in the System, and must have
regularly carried a full-time teaching load as defined by the campus at the
undergraduate, graduate, or professional level. Receiving this rank today are:
- Joanna B. Chrzanowski – In her 32-year career at Jefferson Community
College, Dr. Chrzanowski’s focus has always been on teaching.
She cares intensely about students and their success as writers, future professionals,
and people. Her teaching is imbued with the constructivist
principles and manifests itself in student-centered and active learning,
resulting in student-generated knowledge. Her teaching innovations
have kept her instruction vibrant. From the traditional classroom and
computer lab to hybrid and online courses, learning communities and
college success classes, Phi Theta Kappa students, SUNY and New York State
have recognized Dr. Chrzanowski for her excellence in teaching. Her
numerous curricular innovations at the course and program levels along
with founding and restructuring the English Department, including creation
of two English Concentrations: Creative Writing and Literature, are her
crowning achievements. Although she has vast stores of energy to give to
her students and the College, Dr. Chrzanowski extends the same guidance
and enthusiasm in mentoring her young colleagues, volunteering in the
community, presenting at conferences, and developing instructional
materials.
- Elizabeth Gaffney – Dr. Gaffney is a Westchester Community
College Professor of English, and she has been a member of the faculty
for over twenty years and is a key member of her department, which
describes her as a superb teacher, an excellent poet and a fine scholar.
She is noted for her widely published poetry and her dynamism in the
teaching of literature. She employs the latest technology available
in her classes and brings students to unimagined literary experiences. As
a holder of the Abeles Endowed Chair in Global Studies, she creates
experiences students do not easily forget. She has developed new
courses in “Images of Women in Literature” and “Reading and Writing
Poetry.” A favored teacher of courses in the College’s Honors Program, her
innovations include immersion in collaborative teaching and the
development of learning communities. She shares a course with a Psychology
Professor, “Literature and Psychology.” Professor Gaffney has been awarded
two Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence, one in Teaching and the second in
Scholarship and Creative Activities. She has been honored by the
Westchester Community College Foundation with its Award for Excellence in
Teaching. A supporter of student activities, she mentors students
preparing for the Beacon Conference and serves as Faculty Advisor to a
number of student organizations. She has also been advisor for several
scholarly student publications. She is often a featured speaker at
workshops, conferences and professional meetings. Her dedication to her
work, her students and the College makes her an extraordinary role model.
The Distinguished Service
Professorship honors and recognizes extraordinary service. Candidates must
have demonstrated substantial distinguished service not only at the campus and
the State University, but also at the community, regional and State levels.
Further, many candidates for appointment have rendered influential service
contributing at the national and international levels. Service must exceed the
work generally considered to be a part of a candidate’s basic professional work
and should include service that exceeds that for which professors are normally
compensated. It must also extend over multiple years and, very importantly,
must involve the application of intellectual skills drawing from the
candidate’s scholarly and research interests to issues of public concern.
Receiving this rank today are:
·
Steven R. Keeler – Professor Keeler is the
Director of Media Communications degree programs, and the chairperson of the Cayuga
Community College’s Humanities and Communications Division. He is known for
his leadership and innovation in media and arts education, technology, online
learning, curriculum development, and entrepreneurship education. His
commitment to the larger community is also substantial. He has taken on
leadership roles in regional and statewide organizations, including NEA/NY, the
Auburn Public Theater and Auburn Regional Media Access Center, among
others. He has been honored nationally and regionally for his
achievements. In 1999 and 2001, the Society of Broadcast Engineers honored him
as National Educator of the Year. In 2000 he received a SUNY Chancellor’s
Award for Excellence. In 2001 and 2005, he was a finalist for the American
Association of Community Colleges' David R. Pierce Faculty Technology Award. In
2005 he received Cayuga’s Faculty Award for Excellence, and in 2006, he was
named College Technology Educator of the Year by the Technology Association of
Central New York.
·
Mary Beth Orrange – Professor Orrange has been teaching at Erie
Community College for over 30 years in the Math Department. During this
time, besides the thousands of students instructed, she has had a vast array of
contributions to the College and higher education. Three examples of her
involvement in strengthening the higher education community at ECC
include: 1) Leading the implementation of the Title III Grant from
2005-2010.This grant initiative changed the front door process at the college
with improved placement testing, student support services, early alert,
web-based student information and other retention activities; 2) Professor
Orrange and the Math Unit redesigned, through comprehensive assessment, the
math remedial education at ECC. Students are now advised for math remediation
using a decision rubric focused on STEM and NON-STEM Degree Career Paths. This
has reduced the number of remedial math requirements and time to graduation;
and 3) Professor Orrange has been the Middle States Coordinator for the past
two years at ECC. She has been an evaluator for the Commission for years,
participating on many team visits. Through these activitites, Professor
Orrange’s tenacity has further enhanced the commitment to sustainability of
Institutional Planning and Assessment. She co-chairs the IPA Committtee
with the EVPAA and CAFO.
·
Raymond E. Petersen – Encouraging efficacy is at the heart of everything
that Dr. Petersen does as a Political Science Professor at Jefferson
Community College. Through his efforts in developing a prospectus for the
Center for Community Studies at JCC, coordinating its Speaker Series, and now
as the director, Dr. Petersen has helped to empower students, faculty and staff
in conducting and providing research and forums on community, regional and
international issues. Dr. Petersen’s service as delegate to the Faculty Council
of Community Colleges includes initiatives to strengthen student transfer,
academic standards and integrity, and shared governance at all the community
colleges within SUNY. He has been instrumental in strategic planning for JCC,
Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Kinney Drugs Foundation, and many non-profit
organizations. His testimony on energy policy has helped to influence
regulation of the Power Authority of New York. Through the student organization
Polis, which Dr. Petersen founded and advises, students have organized and held
forums on issues such as a daycare on campus, elections, war, budget crisis,
and healthcare reform. Professor Petersen’s service is
far reaching.
About the State University
of New York
The State University of New
York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States,
educating approximately 468,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and
certificate programs, and nearly 2 million in workforce and professional
development programs, on 64 campuses. There are nearly 3 million SUNY alumni
worldwide. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu.
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