SUNY Excellence: Four New Paltz faculty and staff receive Chancellor’s Awards for 2024
Four SUNY New Paltz faculty and staff have been recognized for outstanding scholarship, teaching and service to the campus community as 2024 Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence honorees.
The Chancellor’s Awards are conferred annually to celebrate superior professional achievement across six categories: Faculty Service, Librarianship, Professional Service, Scholarship & Creative Activities, Teaching, and Classified Service. Awardees receive a medallion and certificate commemorating the achievement, as well as a permanent stipend.
Please join us in congratulating this year’s SUNY Chancellor’s Awardees:
Andy Evans (Excellence in Teaching)
For more than two decades, Andrew Evans, Ph.D., has demonstrated extraordinary dedication to teaching, advising and mentoring students as an associate professor in the Department of History.
A scholar of German history, Evans has developed innovative teaching approaches that spark engagement and achieve ambitious learning outcomes for students in undergraduate and graduate courses and seminars (a notable example is his creation of a reenactment of the French National Assembly of 1791 for a Modern Europe class). His Student Evaluations of Instruction reflect these successes, both in their numerical ratings and narrative comments.
Beyond the classroom, Evans supports students with advising, mentoring and networking opportunities that help them advance as scholars and professionals. In his work with the international German Studies Association, he has co-founded an interdisciplinary teaching network and the German Studies Collaboratory, a digital, open-access repository of resources for teaching and research; both are examples of resources that Evans shares with students to support their success at New Paltz and after graduation.
Karl Groneman (Excellence in Classified Service)
Since joining the Sojourner Truth Library team as Library Clerk II in 2015, Karl Groneman has provided exceptional service to students and colleagues seeking support and materials for vital academic projects.
His nomination particularly recognizes his contributions as the sole full-time clerk in the Interlibrary Loan Unit since May 2023. In spite of staffing shortages, Groneman has helped keep operations running smoothly through strategic prioritization of tasks and deployment of resources. His efforts to train and develop additional student employees to support this work have earned him a reputation for outstanding interpersonal skills, leadership and mentorship of junior colleagues.
Beyond these day-to-day contributions, Groneman goes above and beyond in his role to support Library needs that fall outside his immediate job description. He has demonstrated ingenuity and problem-solving skills on projects ranging from online catalog updates to mold remediation. His nomination letter notes that “this ability to navigate challenges while upholding institutional priorities showcases Karl’s commitment to both protecting the institution and serving the University’s greater mission.”
Anne Roschelle (Excellence in Scholarship & Creative Activities)
Professor of Sociology Anne Roschelle, Ph.D., has maintained a record as an active and reputable scholar-activist while excelling in teaching, mentoring and service to the campus and broader community.
Roschelle has earned national and international recognition for exceptional scholarship through deep investigations of the intersectionality of race, ethnicity and gender and how these factors manifest in poverty, homelessness, welfare reform and immigration, among other areas of social concern. Her 1997 book “No More Kin: Exploring Race, Class and Gender in Family Networks” has garnered multiple awards and more than 500 citations since publication. More recently, Roschelle authored “Struggling in the Land of Plenty: Race, Class and Gender in the Lives of Homeless Families” (2019), based on a four-year ethnographic study in San Francisco, California.
Uniting Roschelle’s published books, chapters and peer-reviewed articles is an unwavering commitment to social justice and collaborative research that engages her subjects in the public discourse, which she also embodies through high-impact teaching practices and other interactions with New Paltz students.
Richard Winters ’08 (Excellence in Professional Service)
SUNY New Paltz alumnus Rich Winters ’08 (Political Science) has established himself as a trusted expert in community and government relations and an effective ambassador for the University since joining the president’s staff in 2013. He currently serves as Director of Community & Government Relations and Deputy Chief of Staff.
Winters demonstrates exceptional communication skills in his work, speaking and writing with a degree of clarity, tact and precision that is vital to institutional efforts to build strong and productive relationships with elected officials, community leaders and other key stakeholders.
He is likewise recognized for his talent as a project manager and event planner. He has provided leadership and insights to significant institutional undertakings in recent years, from the establishment of a county COVID-19 testing site on our campus, to the implementation of novel formats for pandemic-era Commencement ceremonies that balanced an absolute need to protect the safety of guests and participants with the compelling interest in enthusiastically celebrating our graduates. In these and other episodes, Winters has time and again demonstrated adaptability and openness to new ideas that continue to serve the institution well.