English professor appointed to elite rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor

NEW PALTZ — Professor Harry Stoneback, director of graduate studies and Hemingway scholar in the Department of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz, has been appointed by the State University of New York Board of Trustees as a Distinguished Teaching Professor.

Sixteen faculty within the SUNY system were recognized this year as Distinguished Teaching Professors. An appointment to Distinguished Faculty rank is the university’s highest faculty designation.

“I am very pleased to congratulate our faculty members on achieving this most prestigious honor,” said Chancellor Robert L. King. “These individuals have earned the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor through their enormous contributions and dedication to the State University as scholars, educators and researchers. They serve as models of excellence for the entire university community.”

The Distinguished Teaching Professorship recognizes and honors mastery of teaching. Appointment constitutes a promotion to a rank above that of full professor, and the authority to confer appointment resides solely with the State University of New York Board of Trustees. To be appointed to this prestigious rank, 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, to be eligible for nomination 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 SUNY system, and must have regularly carried a full-time teaching load, as defined by the campus at the undergraduate, graduate or professional level.

Stoneback earned his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and has been a professor and director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English at New Paltz since 1969. His teaching and research interests include American literature, poetry and fiction. Stoneback has published seven books of criticism and poetry and more than 150 articles on a wide range of subjects. A leading Hemingway scholar of international reputation, he has two critical volumes on Hemingway in progress. Stoneback has been a senior Fulbright Scholar in China and the St. John Perse Fellow of the French-American Foundation in Aix-en-Provence, France.

“Professor Stoneback has a well-deserved reputation for bringing his thorough scholarship and personal experience to the classroom in a lively and challenging manner,” said David Lavallee, provost and vice president of academic affairs at New Paltz. “Even more impressive is the influence he has had on students beyond the classroom — encouraging and enabling students to make presentations at academic meetings, author their own scholarly articles and become well-prepared, confident scholars in their own right.”

Note to editors: A photograph of H.R. Stoneback can be downloaded from the SUNY New Paltz Web site at www.newpaltz.edu/news/images/stoneback.html.