Three faculty to be honored with Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence

NEW PALTZ — Three faculty members at the State University of New York at New Paltz will be awarded the State University of New York Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence at the May 2008 Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony on Sunday, May 18.

Gerlinde Barley, librarian, received the Excellence in Librarianship Award; Dr. Katherine French, history, received the Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities Award; and Dr. Maureen Morrow, biology, received the Excellence in Faculty Service Award. They will be recognized for their awards by the visiting Interim Chancellor, John B. Clark, during the ceremony.

(left to right) Gerlinde Barley, librarian, received the Excellence in Librarianship Award; Dr. Katherine French, history, received the Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities Award; and Dr. Maureen Morrow, biology, received Excellence in Faculty Service Award.

Barley has served the Sojourner Truth Library at SUNY New Paltz for more than 38 years. Upon her recommendation for the award, the campus nomination committee noted, “She has modernized reference and instructional services to meet the complex needs of the contemporary library user. User education, user-centeredness and staff development have been her highest priorities during many transitional periods of the growing computerization and curricular reform.”

French has been with the History Department at New Paltz for more than 15 years and is one of the countries leading scholars of late medieval England (c. 1450-1550), with a particular expertise in the history of the women of that time and place, as well as of English parish life in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. She is well published in the field and has received fellowships, including grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Harvard Divinity School and the American Historical Association.

Morrow has been with the Biology Department at New Paltz for 14 years. Since that time she has consistently participated in a variety of service activities, in addition to maintaining a research program and providing quality education experience for her students. The nomination committee noted, it is Dr. Maureen Morrow’s “contribution to the recognition of undergraduate research that deserves special acknowledgement. Dr. Morrow’s work on promoting undergraduate research at SUNY New Paltz has truly exceeded the normal service workload expected of faculty.”

Barley, French and Morrow join a list of 39 other New Paltz faculty and emeriti faculty who have received the State University of New York Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence. For a complete list of the names and the award areas, visit www.newpaltz.edu/acadaff/chancellorsawards.html.