UB celebrates faculty, staff excellence

 In pursuing academic excellence, UB seeks to change the world and be the best. Without academic excellence, the university would not achieve its mission and goals.

That was the message delivered by Provost Charles F. Zukoski at the 2015 Celebration of Faculty and Staff Academic Excellence, held on Thursday in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.

“As an institution, we have chosen to pursue academic excellence by addressing the most significant issues and developing the most important questions of our time through impactful, interdisciplinary research and education,” Zukoski said.

“Recently, we launched initiatives like the Communities of Excellence and UB RENEW that allow us to combine our faculty and institutional strengths in order to address the major problems facing our world and region through research, education, engagement and policy development.”

Zukoski said the Communities of Excellence, RENEW and related initiatives allow UB to achieve its mission to improve the human condition.

“Through our education, scholarship, creative activities, clinical care and engagement, we strive to change practices, change understanding and change ways of being in the world.

“Because these scholars, researchers and artists are at the forefront of their disciplines — choosing to approach the most relevant topics — their work shapes the way that others approach those topics and sets the standards in their disciplines.”

UB’s Celebration of Faculty and Staff Academic Excellence honors faculty and staff members for outstanding achievement in scholarship, research and creative activity. The ceremony recognizes those individuals whose long-term contributions — whether through groundbreaking research or ensuring the smooth operation of a department or office — have made a significant impact on the people and communities around them.

Thursday’s event included recognition of four UB faculty members who recently joined the ranks of SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system:

• John M. Canty, Jr., SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Medicine.
• Michael C. Constantinou, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.
• Gene D. Morse, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice.
• Johannes M. Nitsche, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

The Office of the Provost created the UB Distinguished Professor designation to recognize full professors who have achieved true distinction and are recognized as national and international leaders in their fields. John Henry Schlegel, professor in the UB Law School, was named a UB Distinguished Professor in 2015.

In his welcome remarks, President Satish K. Tripathi noted that UB’s faculty and staff have been integral to the university’s steady rise in the ranks of the nation’s premier public research universities.

“UB is known across the nation and world as a place where the best and brightest minds from all over the nation and world come to learn, create and discover,” Tripathi said.

“The faculty and staff we celebrate today carry out this mission every day — in our classrooms, libraries, laboratories and communities.”

Tripathi told the honorees that each embodies UB’s mission as a public research university — serving the greater public good through ideas, discoveries and contributions.

“I want to thank each one of you for your contributions to making UB the great university it is today. Your impressive achievements and discoveries are an inspiration to your colleagues and spark a desire in all of us to reach higher and further in our collective pursuit of excellence.”

In addition to the SUNY and UB Distinguished Professor honorees, SUNY Chancellor’s Award winners, UB Exceptional Scholars and UB Teaching Innovators also were recognized, as were the recipients of UB Graduate and Undergraduate Mentoring, Sustained Achievement, Young Investigator and Teaching Innovation awards.

Six faculty members — four of whom are SUNY Distinguished Professors — and a staff member also were recognized for the unique achievement of completing 50 years of service to UB. A full list of the honorees can be found here.

A reception in the Slee lobby followed the celebration.