SUNY honors four Potsdam faculty members with Chancellor's Awards

POTSDAM — Four SUNY Potsdam faculty members were honored recently by State University of New York interim Chancellor John R. Ryan with 2008 Chancellor's Awards for Excellence. The awards are given to provide systemwide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and to encourage the ongoing pursuit of excellence.

Sergei Abramovich, professor of curriculum and instruction, was given the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. He has been a faculty member since 1998 in the school of education. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and conference papers during his career as a mathematician and a mathematics educator. Since coming to Potsdam, he has written or co-authored 60 publications internationally.

Mr. Abramovich has made 25 national presentations and 30 international presentations at conferences in the United States, Canada, China, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Norway, Russia, the Bahamas and the United Kingdom. He has presented papers at international forums such as the International Congress of Mathematical Education, the International Conference on Mathematical Modeling and Applications and a United States-Russia Joint Conference on Mathematics Education.

He has contributed to scholarly journals and conferences worldwide as either an editorial board/program committee member or a professional reviewer. He recently made important contributions toward the success of SUNY and St. Petersburg State University, Russia, by signing an agreement in cooperation in research.

Caroline Downing, professor of art, was given the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has been a member of the faculty since 1990 in the department of art. She has been director of the Teaching Circles Program, a member of the Honors Council, director of the General Education Program, director of Learning Communities and a co-author of a recent publication titled "Ideas That Work in College Teaching."

Aside from her two awards as Distinguished Honors Professor of the Year, she received a SUNY Potsdam President's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2005, and in 2007 she was recognized with a Students' Choice Award from the Office of Student Support Services.

In the past three years, she has been selected for inclusion in "Who's Who in America," "Who's Who in American Education" and "Who's Who of American Women." She was elected to Delta Kappa Gamma Society International in 2003 and to Phi Kappa Phi International Academic Honor Society in 2002.

Gary Galo, instructional support specialist in the Crane School of Music, was given the Chancellor's Award for Excellence for Professional Service. Mr. Galo has been a member of the SUNY Potsdam family since 1976 as audio engineer. He has recorded hundreds of concerts, trained and coordinated teams of students, archived concerts, made copies of performances and distributed them to the artists and maintained and upgraded sound equipment in Crane on his own time.

Among his accomplishments are custom design, production and installation of new audio equipment for all of the Crane Music Library listening areas.

Mr. Galo has served as president of the Crane Faculty Association. Since 1996, he has presented papers and chaired conference sessions more than 19 times. His list of publications is more than 250 articles, reviews and columns since 1986.

Professor of Art Mark Huff was given the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. Mr. Huff has been a member of the SUNY Potsdam faculty since 1998 as the chairman of the department of art. He has worked to enhance enrollments in art studio and history. The number of art majors has grown from 127 to 219.

He advises all students interested in the art program and maintains a regular load of 80 advisees. He meets with prospective students and their parents to talk about the programs, regularly conducts tours of the facilities and open houses for visitors, visits high schools and has adjudicated high school art shows. Mr. Huff successfully proposed a bachelor of fine arts degree in studio art that has attracted more students to the program.

He has made major contributions to the Middle States self-study, the Visioning and Re-Vision Process and several search committees. He chairs the Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtables and serves on the Faculty Senate Admissions Committee and the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee.

He is adviser for the Kappa Pi Art Honorary Society and is a fellow of the First-Year Experience program. He developed and oversees the arts floors in the residence halls and he coordinates art studio first-year interest groups. Mr. Huff is also a practicing artist of distinction and one of his works was the Purchase Award winner at the 2007 North Country Regional Art Show at the Roland Gibson Gallery.