SU to laud alumni, clubs and faculty members during Homecoming 2005November 01, 2005Carol K. Masiclatclkim@syr.edu
As Syracuse University celebrates Homecoming 2005, it will recognize the achievements of several alumni, alumni clubs and outstanding faculty members. On Nov. 11, the Office of Alumni Relations will host an awards ceremony and reception at 4:30 p.m., in the Panasci Lounge in the Schine Student Center. Chancellor Nancy Cantor and Neil Gold ’70, President of the SU Alumni Association will formally present the awards.
Recipients of Outstanding Alumni Awards will be Donald Favre ’80 and Ghaleb Daouk ’79. Outstanding Young Alumni Awards will be presented to Stacey Katz ’99 and Judy Popky ’92. Outstanding Teacher of the Year honorees will be Elletta Sangrey Callahan LAW’84 and Shiu-Kai Chin ’75, G’78, G’86. Alumni club honors will include officers and programs from the South Florida, Northern New Jersey, South Korea and Central New York clubs.
Donald Favre received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Whitman School of Management in 1980, graduating summa cum laude. He joined the Buffalo, N.Y. office of PricewaterhouseCoopers that year, transferred to its New York office in 1988 and was admitted as a tax partner in the firm in 1992. Today, he leads its International Banking Tax Practice and Metro New York Banking Tax Practice. He is a member of the American Institute of CPAs and the New York State Society of CPAs.
He chairs the Lubin School of Accounting’s advisory board and is a frequent visitor to campus as a volunteer and guest speaker. He also plays a significant role in recruitment and mentoring of SU students and alumni by PricewaterhouseCoopers, helping make them the largest employer of graduating SU students. He communicates regularly with SU alumni in his firm, and conducts a variety of New York activities on behalf of the University. His daughter began at SU this fall as a freshman in the Whitman School.
Favre was honored earlier in 2005 as the Accounting Department’s Alumni of the Year. He resides in Princeton Junction, N.J., with his wife Sharlene and two children. He chairs the Notre Dame High School advisory council and is active in church and school activities.
Though he went on to earn a medical degree from American University of Beirut and a master’s degree in management from MIT, where he also served as postdoctoral research fellow of the American Heart Association in molecular biology, Ghaleb Daouk ’79 has always remained closely associated with his undergraduate alma mater, Syracuse University.
The Phi Beta Kappa graduate with degrees in biology and chemistry served as a founding member of the SU Biology Advisory Board for nine years before becoming its chair. He has played a key role in the Life Science building initiative, from helping to develop the concept to organizing the first alumni special event in Boston, which will be used as a model for other events around the country. He also serves on the Arts and Sciences Board of Visitors, heading the Life Science campaign and serving as a liaison between the biology board and the college. In 2000, he established the Daouk-Levy Student Fund in Biology in honor of his mentor, former biology chair H. Richard Levy.
Dr. Daouk is the consulting pediatric renal specialist and Director of Extramural Medical Services for pediatric nephrology at Children’s Hospital of Boston. He was previously clinical director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Pediatric Nephrology Division, and medical director of pediatric renal transplantation. He is also, along with his wife, co-founder and former president of the Avicena Group, a technology development company in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif. Dr. Daouk has more than 25 scientific papers and abstracts to his credit, and was among the early researchers in the field of genetic engineering.
Stacey Katz, of Madison, N.J., is both an enthusiastic alum of Syracuse University and a passionate educator in Florham Park, N.J.
Katz serves as a board member of SU’s Northern N.J. Alumni Club, which she helped resurrect in 2002,where her responsibilities include writing the monthly newsletter and organizing and planning club events such as new student sendoffs, holiday events and commencement parties. Katz is also an alumni representative and participates in college fairs at area schools in New Jersey where she shares her SU pride to prospective students.
At Ridgedale Middle School in Florham Park, where an Otto the Orange flag hangs in her classroom, Katz teaches seventh grade social studies and also does in-class support for special education students in communication arts, science and math. Recently, she created a project called, “Students Helping Students,” which was a relief effort for displaced students of Hurricane Katrina. Through this project, her students were able to ship more than fifty boxes of backpacks and school supplies to Houston, Texas for children attending schools in the region, making regional news and encouraging other to do the same.
Katz earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from The College of Arts and Sciences, with a minor in environmental public policy, in 1999. This July, Katz will marry Michael Friedlander, also class of ’99.
Judy Popky, a native of Kingston, Pa., received a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 1992, graduating cum laude. She now resides in Atlanta, Ga., where she is senior vice president, media director at WestWayne, Inc., the southeast’s largest independent advertising agency.
At WestWayne, she is responsible for media management assignments for clients including Buffalo Wild Wings, Russell Athletic, SunTrust Bank, Florida’s Natural Orange Juice and the Atlanta Falcons and co-manages the 25-person media department.
Popky joined WestWayne in 2000, after eight years at Ogilvy and Mather where she was partner, assistant media director. Her experience spans a wide range of clients including retail, healthcare and utility companies.
For five years she served as president and for three as treasurer and membership director of the SU Alumni Club of Georgia and has been a major force behind the club’s resurrection and revitalization. She is an alumni representative, University mentor and longtime recruiter and supporter. She hosts the annual Freshmen Send-Off at her home in Atlanta.
She has also volunteered as an advisor for the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, the Centennial Olympic Games and Super Bowl XXXIV.
In 1995, Popky was named one of Newsweek Magazine’s “100 Media Stars of the Future,” has won numerous creative media awards and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Florida, Clark Atlanta University and the Creative Circus.
Shiu-Kai Chin ’75, G’78, G’86 is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science in SU’s L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), director of the CASE Center and director of the computer engineering program in ECS’ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
His contributions to Syracuse University are numerous. In 1994, Chin received the Crouse Hinds Award for Excellence in Education from ECS in 1994. He was appointed a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence-SU’s highest teaching award-in 1997. In 2002, he received the Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Contributions to the University’s Academic Programs. He currently serves as the University’s Associate Marshal.
Prior to joining SU in 1986, Chin was a senior engineer and program manager at General Electric. During his 11 years at GE, he designed several products, including a specialized computer for radars and a memory manager for a heart imaging system similar to a CAT scanner. He is a graduate of GE’s Advanced Course in Engineering.
Chin is very actively involved in the greater Syracuse community, serving as a commissioner on the Onondaga County/City of Syracuse Human Rights Commission. He is also treasurer for WCNY, Central New York’s public broadcasting station, a trainer in the Alternatives to Violence Project at Auburn Correctional Facility and serves as an officer or board member of several community organizations
Elletta Sangrey Callahan, LAW’84, is a professor in the Department of Law and Public Policy at the Whitman School of Management. Her primary research areas are whistleblowing and academic integrity. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses, including the legal environment of business, environmental law and policy and management ethics. She has published in numerous journals, including the American Business Law Journal, the Virginia Journal of International Law and the Journal of Business Ethics.
Callahan has been recognized for her teaching, research and service with numerous awards and honors. In 2004, she was selected as an inaugural core faculty member of the Renee Crown University Honors Program and named a Gateway Fellow. Callahan was named Teacher of the Year by SU’s chapter of Undergraduates for a Better Education, Outstanding Woman Educator at SU, and has twice been recognized as a Master Teacher by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. In 1999, she received an Exceptional Service Award from the Whitman School for her efforts to improve academic integrity.
She chairs the Vice Chancellor & Provost’s Committee on Academic Integrity and has served on several university task forces and committees addressing issues including nonconsensual sexual activity, employee benefits and athletic compliance. Callahan holds a J. D. (magna cum laude) from the Syracuse University College of Law and a B. A. from Wellesley College.
The winners of Outstanding Alumni Club Officers Awards-Eric Handis ’89 and David Mironov ’84-are co-presidents of the SU Alumni Club of South Florida. Handis, a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications; and Mironov, a graduate of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, have re-invigorated the club, which has hosted numerous events including game-watching parties, professional networking events, an annual luncheon and a new student send-off party. Under their leadership, the South Florida Alumni Club strives through networking and social events, to provide a link for Palm Beach and Broward area alumni and their families to Syracuse University and other club members. They have also created a new Web site for the club at http://www.southfloridasyracuse.com/
The Alumni Club of Northern New Jersey, recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Club of the Year Award, is led by past President Brian Spector and President Ira Berkowitz. The club has undergone significant growth over the last several years, increasing membership and hosting a variety of different events. The club hosts a new student send-off party each summer, trips to watch SU sporting events, a new graduate welcome party and annual networking breakfasts as well as working with other alumni clubs in New Jersey on joint events in an effort to reach out to as many alumni as possible. The club also supports a scholarship fund to assist worthy students from New Jersey with the cost of higher education.
The Outstanding Alumni Club Program of the Year Award will be presented to the Alumni Association of South Korea, in honor of its reception and new student send-off with Chancellor Cantor. The reception attracted 150 alumni and was a joint effort of the Graduate, Undergraduate and Law Alumni Associations. Current SU students provided entertainment at the alumni event and also spoke to incoming students at the new student send-off held earlier in the day that attracted close to 100 new students, parents and alumni. The club held these events in conjunction with Chancellor Cantor’s trip to South Korea in June. Photos of the event are available on the Alumni Relations Web site athttp://alumni.syr.edu/IntlClubs2005.htm.
The SU Alumni Club’s Central New York Chapter will receive the Outstanding Community Service Award for its adoption of Ed Smith Elementary School. During the past year, the club has sought out opportunities to volunteer at Ed Smith and support programs at the school. In honor of National Orange Day 2005, in March, the club elected to continue its partnership with Ed Smith. Club board members visited the school with Assistant Vice President of Alumni Relations Donald Doerr and Dick Calagiovanni, club president, to present the school with a grant of $750. Of the grant money, $250 was for a music performance at the school by prominent jazz artist Guy Davis, and the remaining funds were for the purchase of books. Students also participated in a question-and-answer session about how they would like the Alumni Club to be more involved with their school.
For more information on Homecoming Weekend and alumni honors, contact the office of Alumni Relations at (315) 443-3258 or visithttp://alumni.syr.edu.
