Twelve from UB Receive 2000 SUNY Chancellor’s Awards

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Six faculty members, four professional staff members and two librarians at UB have received 2000 State University of New York Chancellor's Awards for Excellence from SUNY Chancellor Robert L. King.

The Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching honors those who consistently have demonstrated superb teaching at the undergraduate, graduate or professional level. Recipients are Frank V. Bright, professor of chemistry and medicinal chemistry; Todd M. Hennessey, associate professor of biological sciences; Deidre Shauna Lynch, associate professor of English; Roger W. Mayne, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering; Alfred D. Price, associate professor of planning, and Bernard A. Weinstein, professor of physics.

The Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service honors performance excellence, "both within and beyond the position." Recipients are Lawrence E. Chlebowy, manager of architectural and construction services in University Facilities Planning and Design; Roger R. McGill, assistant vice president for continuous quality improvement and campus services; Barbara Ricotta, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students, and Regina Toomey, assistant vice provost for undergraduate education and director of admissions.

The Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship recognizes "skill in librarianship; service to the campus, the university and to the field; scholarship and professional growth, and major professional achievements." Recipients are Susan Davis Bartl, associate librarian and head of the periodicals section in University Libraries Central Technical Services, and Deborah H. Koshinsky, associate librarian and head of the Architecture and Planning Library.

Frank V. Bright joined the UB Department of Chemistry faculty in 1987. His research interests are in the areas of biomolecule dynamics at and in surfaces, developing new-generation biosensors, supercritical fluid science and technology, and advanced laser-based chemical instrumentation.

The author of more than 150 scientific publications, Bright last year received the Buck-Whitney Award of the Eastern New York section of the American Chemical Society for "outstanding contributions to chemistry."

Bright, who also serves as associate chair of the Department of Chemistry, received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998.

He resides in Amherst.

A UB faculty member since 1985, Todd M. Hennessey specializes in membrane biochemistry and cell physiology. His current research focuses on the chemorepellent receptors and chemosensory adaptation in Paramecium and Tetrahymena and is funded by the National Science Foundation. In addition to his faculty position at UB, he has been a visiting scientist at several institutions.

Hennessey has published 70 chapters, articles and abstracts, and has given invited presentations at numerous regional, national and international conferences.

A reviewer for numerous scholarly journals, he received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998.

He resides in Williamsville.

Deidre Shauna Lynch joined the UB English department faculty in 1990. She has received several prestigious awards and fellowships, including the sixth annual Modern Language Association of America (MLA) Prize for a First Book for her book "The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture and the Business of Inner Meaning," published in 1998 by the University of Chicago Press.

Lynch also has received the Whiting and Mellon fellowships in the humanities, and recently was named a fellow of the National Humanities Center, one of the greatest distinctions in the humanities field.

She is an honorary member of the Golden Key National Honor Society for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

She has published numerous scholarly articles, reviews and contributions to edited collections. She currently is editing a collection entitled "Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees," to be published this year by Princeton University Press.

She resides in Buffalo.

Roger W. Mayne joined the UB engineering faculty in 1970 after working as a development engineer at Eastman Kodak. He served as chair of the UB Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from 1986-89 and from 1995-98.

His areas of research interest are systems, design optimization and mechanical design.

A fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Mayne was named Educator of the Year in 1992 by the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Graduate Student Association.

He co-authored a text, "Introduction to Engineering," and co-edited "Progress in Engineering Optimization," published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Mayne has worked as a consultant for such companies as General Electromechanical Corp. (GEMCOR); Moog, Inc., and Harrison Radiator, as well as for the U.S. Postal Service and the United Nations Development Program.

He resides in Williamsville.

Alfred D. Price joined the faculty of the UB School of Architecture and Environmental Design -- now the School of Architecture and Planning -- in 1977. In addition to faculty posts, he has held numerous administrative positions within the school, including as chair of the Department of Planning and Design, and as assistant, associate and acting dean of the school.

A Buffalo native, Price is a co-principal investigator on "The Governance Project for Buffalo and Erie County," a planning analysis of Western New York's political economy aimed at assisting regional decision-makers in evaluating local governance options.

He also has developed numerous other planning documents, including those on housing, public art, an urban cultural park and community renewal.

Price teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses, and has received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the undergraduate Student Association.

He resides in the Central Park neighborhood of North Buffalo.

A UB faculty member since 1987, Bernard A. Weinstein conducts research in high-pressure and optical properties of tetrahedral crystalline semiconductors, semiconductor heterostructures and amorphous semiconductors.

In 1997, he was named a fellow of the American Physical Society, which cited his applications of the diamond anvil cell to semiconductor physics and experimental studies of the effects of pressure on vibrational, optical and phase-transition phenomena in semiconductors.

He has authored more than 80 scientific publications and has given numerous talks at national and international scientific conferences.

His work has been funded by Xerox Corp., the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. He also was the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.

He lives in Williamsville.

Lawrence E. Chlebowy joined UB in 1971 as a senior draftsman. He also has worked as an assistant and associate facilities program coordinator.

Chlebowy has coordinated design services and provided project management for a variety of construction projects across the campus, including the conversion of a dining hall into a high-performance computer-research facility, the conversion of a library into a teaching/training center for technology nodes, the upgrading of labs in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and the move of the Department of Chemistry in Acheson Hall and the Department of Geology in Fronczak Hall into the Natural Sciences Complex.

He resides in Cheektowaga.

A member of the UB professional staff since 1968, Roger R. McGill oversees the Campus Mail Service and University Print Service departments. He's also responsible for establishing a continuous quality improvement unit within University Business Services.

In his more than 30 years with UB, he's held a variety of positions, including assistant vice president for purchasing and campus services, interim assistant vice president for human resource services, director of the state purchasing department, director of the research services purchasing department and director of campus bus service.

He has received numerous Service Excellence Awards, and has served on many Faculty Senate, Professional Staff Senate and university-wide committees. He is a member of the university's Environmental Task Force.

He resides in Lancaster.

Barbara J. Ricotta, who joined the UB professional staff in 1984, has served as director of student life, associate director of student life and assistant to the director of student information services.

As dean of students, she's responsible for the development, implementation and evaluation of a wide range of student-services units. They include the Student Health Center, Wellness Center, Counseling Center, Disability Services, Judicial Affairs, Ombudsman Program, Career Planning and Placement, Leadership Programs, Student Union and Activities, New Student Programs, Student Multicultural Affairs and Greek Affairs.

She resides in Getzville.

Regina S. Toomey has worked in a variety of positions in the UB Office of Admissions since joining the university staff in 1977. She has served as assistant to the director for registration, associate director for application processing and associate director of admissions, in addition to her current post.

Toomey is a member of the State University of New York College Admissions Professionals, the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Offices.

She resides in Williamsville.

Susan D. Bartl, who joined the UB Libraries staff in 1984, has served as head of the Periodicals Section in Central Technical Services since 1988.

A nationally recognized expert on serials management topics, Bartl has held the presidency and other offices in the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG), the leading industry-wide organization in the field of serials whose members include librarians, publishers, vendors and journal editors.

She currently is co-chair of the NASIG Program Planning Committee, which is organizing some two dozen workshops for the organization's conference being held this month.

In addition, she is vice chair/chair-elect of the Serials Section of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, American Library Association.

Bartl has published numerous articles in refereed journals, as well as the revised edition of "Guide for Handling Library Orders for Serials and Periodicals," which she co-authored with the Serials Section Acquisition Committee of the Association of Library Collection and Technical Services.

She resides in Batavia

Deborah H. Koshinsky has been an associate librarian at UB since 1991 and head of the Architecture and Planning Library since 1995, overseeing the operations of the 26,000-volume library, including all reference service and bibliographic instruction.

She also is an adjunct associate professor in the School of Architecture and Planning; is senior editor of the school's academic journal, InterSight, and is a thesis and project advisor for graduate students.

Koshinsky organized a project to catalog and develop extensive abstracts for the entries in the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, for which the UB Libraries are the designated archive. She also organized the school's 1998 Colloquium on Frank Lloyd Wright in Western New York, and is working on a virtual Wright exhibit in collaboration with the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society and a monographic guide to local architectural treasures.

She is the author of numerous publications, including bibliographies of the architecture of Buffalo, the architecture of Toronto and "Women in Urban America."

She resides in Tonawanda.