Professor of Business Kevin Caskey joins ranks of SUNY Distinguished Service Professors
Professor Kevin Caskey has become the 16th SUNY New Paltz faculty member and first from the School of Business to earn the title of SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest rank in the State University system.
Caskey was awarded the SUNY Distinguished Service Professorship, which recognizes extraordinary and sustained service, on and off campus, that involves the application of intellectual skills drawing from the faculty member’s scholarly and research interests to issues of public concern.
“I find service to be a key pleasure in academic life,” Caskey said. “It has allowed me to contribute beyond my school and campus. Through service, I have enjoyed working with many interesting people outside of my fields of engineering and business.”
It is difficult to build a comprehensive list of Professor Caskey’s service contributions to the campus community since his arrival at the University in 2001. Among the most noteworthy:
He has represented New Paltz at the SUNY Faculty Senate from 2012-2018 and again from 2019-present.
He served as chair of the ad hoc Committee on Governance that was formed to reinvigorate the campus faculty governance system campus in 2016-2017. His leadership was vital to the successful adoption of a new representative faculty-senate model.
He served as chair of the College Curriculum Committee twice, each for a 3-year term. This included the committee’s heavy workload as the campus updated its General Education framework.
He has supported institutionally important assessment efforts related to Middle States accreditation, and more broadly has contributed to fostering continuous improvement of the educational experience at New Paltz, including in his work on General Education revisions.
He has served on multiple key search committees, including a presidential search committee, where he has helped colleagues employ a holistic evaluation of candidates balancing scholarly prestige, leadership experiences, administrative skills and strong personal qualities.
And he has participated on other faculty service committees touching curriculum, personnel, assessment and professional development, among other topics.
His many campus contributions were recognized with a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service in 2015.
“Dr. Caskey has amassed an impressive record of service to higher education and his community,” said Kristin Backhaus, dean of the School of Business. “He believes that we all have a duty to apply our talents to make our institutions better, and he lives by that philosophy.”
Outside of SUNY New Paltz, Caskey has been an active community member leveraging his background and experience in industrial engineering and operations management to inform and enrich his service.
Within his discipline, he helped design and teach in the Ulster BOCES P-TECH Pathways program, an opportunity for pre-college students to investigate careers in technology, and taught economics to incarcerated students through the Bard Prison Initiative.
He has also frequently served as an editorial board member and as a manuscript reviewer for publications in his field. An external referee on his recommendation described Caskey as “an important player in advancing business knowledge” whose “detailed… and highly constructive comments… have enabled both established and emerging scholars to improve the quality of their papers.”
Caskey has also contributed to local businesses and organizations, including the Belleayre Mountain Ski Patrol, the Gunks Mountain Biking Patrol Association and the New Paltz Rescue Squad, for which he also serves on the board of directors.
Kevin Caskey holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington, a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University, and a Master of Science in Operations Research from the University of British Columbia.
About the SUNY Distinguished Academy
The rank of SUNY Distinguished Professor was created by the SUNY Board of Trustees in 1963. Since then, more than 1,000 faculty have been honored in one of four categories: Distinguished Professorship, Distinguished Teaching Professorship, Distinguished Service Professorship, and Distinguished Librarian.
Members of the SUNY Distinguished Academy work to encourage a renewed commitment to quality instruction, service and leadership development for newer faculty across all SUNY campuses.
Visit the SUNY Distinguished Academy website for more information.