New Paltz employees recognized with SUNY Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence

Seven SUNY New Paltz academic, professional and classified staff members have been honored with the Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence for the academic year 2014-2015. They include: Kevin Caskey, professor of business; James DeArce, adjunct professor of sociology; John Rayburn, associate professor of geology; Stephen Rider, motor equipment mechanic; Timothy Roberson, senior web application programmer; Louis Roper, professor of history; and Patricia Sullivan, professor of communication and director of the Honors Program.

“This year’s recipients exemplify a collective commitment to excellence and dedication to the campus community,” said President Donald P. Christian. “Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on this SUNY System recognition of their work and contributions.”

The Awards are presented annually in seven categories: Faculty Service, Librarianship, Professional Service, Scholarship and Creative Activities, Teaching, Classified Service, and Adjunct Teaching. The System-level honor acknowledges and provides recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and to encourage the ongoing pursuit of excellence.

In acknowledgment of their selection, the recipients will formally receive a certificate and a Chancellor’s Excellence Medallion at the college’s first faculty meeting and the first classified staff gathering in the fall and a permanent stipend.

“The faculty and staff honored with this year’s Chancellor’s Award for Excellence have made significant contributions not only to the students they educate and the administrative staff they support, but to all of SUNY and New York State,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “We are honored to recognize their outstanding service with SUNY’s highest distinction.”

Kevin Caskey, Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service
Professor Caskey joined the New Paltz business faculty in 2001. Since then, he has assumed a number of key leadership roles at the campus level. Very early in his career at New Paltz, he became a member of the College Curriculum Committee. After serving one year, he took on the role of chair, a position he held for three years and to which he later returned for two more years. Under his leadership the committee significantly improved its internal processes and the efficiency with which it executed its charge – a clear reflection of his commitment to contributing positively to the broader campus community.

Professor Caskey’s committee service extends to the School of Business’s personnel, faculty development, and assessment committees, the latter two of which engage in work closely associated with achieving, and now maintaining, the School’s accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International). No doubt his colleagues across campus had in mind this sustained record of excellent service when they elected him as New Paltz’s University Faculty Senator and, later, campus ombudsman.

James DeArce, Excellence in Adjunct Teaching
Adjunct professor DeArce earned his master’s degree in sociology from the College in 2000, and immediately began working as an adjunct in the sociology department. Over 15 years he has taught courses that include Sociology of Families, Medical Sociology, Sociological Theory and Social Inequality in the United States.

In addition to teaching at New Paltz, adjunct professor DeArce works as a registered nurse at Kingston Hospital. He studied and later taught comparative social welfare in Germany, and also trained in disaster mental health care at Ben Gurion University in Israel through the SUNY New Paltz Institute of Disaster Mental Health.

John Rayburn, Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
Professor Rayburn joined the New Paltz geology faculty in 2007 as assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2013. Most of Professor Rayburn’s courses involve significant laboratory and/or fieldwork components, and he frequently supervises undergraduate research projects. Meanwhile, he has maintained his own professional research program, publishing an average of one peer-reviewed scientific manuscript a year. His service to his discipline and to the broader academic community has extended to “teaching the teachers” through a series of lectures on climate change for SUNY’s Master Teacher Program.

Whether teaching introductory, General Education or graduate courses, supervising student research, advising struggling students in need of extra support or promising students about graduate school possibilities, Professor Rayburn demonstrates exceptional skill at connecting with his students and sparking their interest. He is well known for his energy and enthusiasm in the classroom, and he understands the importance of making geology and earth science accessible, meaningful, and relevant to his students’ lives.

Stephen Rider, Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Classified Service
Mr. Rider joined the College in 1998 and served as a plant utilities assistant until 1999. At that time, he was appointed motor equipment mechanic. He is responsible for performing skilled mechanical work in the diagnosis of the cause of breakdowns and of faulty mechanical and electrical performance of gas or diesel powered self‑propelled and non‑self‑propelled vehicles and equipment.

The overall quality of Mr. Rider’s performance of his responsibilities is exemplary, as are his dedication and service to the campus community. He consistently puts the College and its students’ needs at the forefront and his work ethic has distinguished him as a valuable employee who has earned the admiration of both his supervisors and peers.Colleagues have stated he is one of the hardest working employees they know.

Timothy Roberson, Excellence in Professional Service
Mr. Roberson ’03 (Computer Science) joined the College’s Institutional Technology/Computer Services staff in 2004 in the newly created position of Web Application Programmer. Since that time, the College has seen rapid advances in technology on the Web and tremendous growth in our need for online support. Mr. Roberson has eagerly taken on the new responsibilities that such growth demands and has excelled in designing and implementing advanced customizations to meet the needs of a range of campus constituencies.

As a New Paltz alumnus and former student assistant, Mr. Roberson is especially sensitive to students’ needs. His systems are designed to give students the best Web experience possible, making it easy for them to conduct their college business, to excel in their studies, and to enhance their residence life and co-curricular experiences. He monitors electronic systems and student emails, addressing issues from sign-in and access problems to system errors to e-commerce problems.

Louis Roper, Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities
Professor Roper joined the New Paltz history faculty in 1993 and has held positions of increasing responsibility within the College’s Department of History, including serving as chair of the department from 2002-2009. During his tenure, Professor Roper has presented his research at numerous regional, national and international conferences. This includes organizing major conferences and co-founding and co-editing The Journal of Early American History, and establishing a related book series, The American Colonies, 1500-1830.

He has contributed book chapters based on original scholarship to edited volumes from respected academic presses such as Routledge and Brill. Seven of his peer-reviewed articles have appeared (or are about to appear) in scholarly journals, including those at the top of his field, such as The William and Mary Quarterly and The New England Quarterly. In addition, he has published two monographs: Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots, 1662-1729 and The English Empire in America, 1602-1658: Beyond Jamestown, as well as co-editing two collections of essays: Constructing Early Modern Empires: Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic World, 1500-1750 and The Worlds of the Seventeenth-Century Hudson Valley.

Patricia Sullivan, Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service
Professor Sullivan joined the New Paltz communication faculty in 1990 as an assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor in 1996 and professor in 2003. She served as chair of the Department of Communication & Media for seven years, which included 35 full- and part-time faculty and hundreds of majors across three related disciplines. She then accepted the challenge of overseeing a comprehensive assessment of the Honors Program and was named Interim Director in 2011. She was appointed Director of the Honors Program in 2013.

In 2010, she was one of four faculty to attend the Association of American Colleges & Universities’ Institute on General Education, where the AAC&U’s 2005 report on Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) provided the framework for reimagining our campus’s General Education program. She then participated in the work of the Liberal Education ad hoc task force, charged with developing a new General Education plan for campus governance consideration. Professor Sullivan also served as co-chair of the campus-wide Strategic Planning Steering Committee, where she helped lead the effort to define the goals and priorities that will guide our campus in fulfilling our educational mission through 2018. She continues to support that effort as a member of the Strategic Planning Council.