Breverman, Creeley Recognized as Top SUNY Researchers

BUFFALO, N.Y -- Two University at Buffalo faculty members were honored recently by the State University of New York at a dinner held in Albany to recognize some of the system's top researchers.

Harvey Breverman and Robert Creeley, both SUNY Distinguished Professors in the UB departments of Art and English, respectively, were among 25 researchers in the humanities, arts, social sciences and the professions honored at the dinner.

"These researchers have studied diverse fields, including leadership development, West African culture, women's studies, art conservation and child language acquisition," said SUNY Chancellor Robert L. King. "Honorees include one of America's most important poets, an accomplished visual artist and one of the foremost pianists of this generation. We are deeply proud of these faculty and the service they perform for the State University and the people of New York."

King has championed research in the SUNY system, setting the goal of doubling sponsored research within five years -- to $1 billion annually.

A similar dinner was held earlier this year honoring top researchers in science and medicine. Among the attendees at the January dinner were Christina Bloebaum, professor and chair of the UB Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Bruce A. Holm, senior associate vice president for research in the health sciences at the university.

A UB faculty member since 1961, Breverman ranks among some of the most important artists of the 20th century. His prints, paintings and drawings are included in the permanent collections of more than 150 museums and galleries worldwide, including the British Museum in London, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. He has had more than 70 solo gallery exhibits.

A member of the National Academy of Design, he has been the recipient of the academy's Leo Meissner Prize in Graphics. He represented the United States in the 4th International Print Biennial at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the SAGA '90 exhibition in Paris and the 14th Spanish Print Internacional.

Breverman resides in Amherst.

Creeley -- pioneering American poet and Samuel P. Capen Chair in Poetry and the Humanities at UB -- has been a member of the university's faculty for more than 30 years. As the 1999 recipient of the Bollingen Prize in Poetry from the Yale University Library -- one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world -- he joined an elite group that includes W.H. Auden, e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, Robert Penn Warren, James Merrill and John Ashbery.

One of the most influential poets of his time, Creeley was an originator of the "Black Mountain" school of poetry, which established a new and anti-academic poetic tradition that has been reflected in the work of many poets who have come to occupy significant places in the 20th-century literary canon.

Creeley is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and of the Board of Chancellors of the American Academy of Poetry (AAP). In 1988, he received the Walt Whitman Citation from the New York State Writers' Institute and, in accordance with the citation, was named New York State Poet Laureate for 1989-91.

He resides in Buffalo.