The co-equal designations are a rank above full professorship.

Two faculty members were named Distinguished Service Professors: Saul Elkin, professor of theatre and dance, and James P. Nolan, professor of medicine. This rank recognizes extraordinary service to the community, state or nation.

The rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor was conferred upon Perry Hogan, professor of physiology, and Kenneth F. Joyce, professor of law. This designation recognizes outstanding teaching competence at the graduate, undergraduate or professional level.

Saul Elkin has established an international reputation as an actor, director and producer. As former chair of the UB Department of Theatre and Dance, he brought the department from a subsidiary program offering acting and drama courses to a full academic department.

Among Elkin's foremost services to UB and Western New York was his successful effort to save the Pfeifer Theatre in the downtown Buffalo Theatre District and acquire it for the university.

He also contributed greatly to the cultural life of the region with his founding and continuing tenure as artistic director of the summer Shakespeare in Delaware Park Festival, one of the area's top five annual cultural events for more than 20 years.

He transformed the festival from a university activity into an independent corporation funded by New York State, the City of Buffalo and corporate and private donations. The productions, often the public's only opportunity to see live theater free of charge, have become one of the region's strongest laboratories for familiarizing young actors with the professional stage.

James P. Nolan, former chair of the Department of Medicine in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is an internationally recognized expert in the area of liver research and disease, focusing on endotoxins, liver function and injury.

As chair of the Department of Medicine for nearly 20 years, his efforts in the 1970s led to a full and fair affirmative action policy and a department-wide commitment to upholding that policy.

Largely through his work, UB has been recognized as a national leader in recruiting and retaining students and faculty from traditionally underrepresented groups.

Nolan has been a member of the Governor's Council on Graduate Medical Education, chairing the Subcommittee on Consortia, and was president of the New York State chapter of the American College of Physicians. His outstanding service led to his being named a Master of the American College of Physicians, an honor awarded to only a few of the college's 80,000 members.

Perry Hogan has taught at the undergraduate, graduate and professional-school levels in the areas of cardiovascular physiology, cell-membrane phenomena and the electrophysiology of excitable cells. His main teaching assignment for many years has been instruction in the principles of cardiac and circulatory physiology to first-year medical and graduate students.

An active research mentor for graduate students, Hogan received the Louis A. and Ruth Siegel Award for Outstanding Teacher in the Preclinical Sciences four times during a 16-year period. He also has received commendations a half-dozen times for the award, which is based on medical-student nominations and a final review by a medical-student review committee and faculty involved in the first two years of medical-school courses.

Kenneth F. Joyce has taught what is believed to be the largest number of students of any member of the law faculty in what are purely elective courses.

In addition to this heavy load, Joyce has devoted much time to a radically different form of law school instruction, the clinical seminar. Since 1985, he has taught a seminar in "Law Reform Through Legislation" that provides students an opportunity to work on legislative reform projects pending before the New York State Law Revision Commission.

He has successfully combined teaching responsibilities ranging from the largest lecture class to intensive, individually supervised research and writing clinical experiences.

He has received the prize for teaching excellence from the graduating class of the UB law school 11 times since it was inaugurated in 1980.