Friday’s One University Awards Ceremony to Celebrate Excellence Across the University

The One University Awards Ceremony, an annual event to honor members of the Syracuse University community who are making a difference through academics, scholarship, creative work and dedicated service, will be held Friday, April 21, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel.

“The One University Awards give us an opportunity to recognize excellence in our students, faculty, staff and community,” says Chancellor Kent Syverud. “This year’s award winners embody the best of our Orange values. Many of the faculty and staff honored have dedicated their careers to making Syracuse University a more wonderful and welcoming place. I look forward to coming together as a community to celebrate them.”

Two major awards—the Chancellor’s Medal and the Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence—will be bestowed. The ceremony will also include the presentation of the Student-Athlete Award, Judith Seinfeld Scholarship, Meredith Professorship for Teaching Excellence, Teaching Recognition Award, Diversity and Inclusion Award, William Pearson Tolley Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Lifelong Learning and Chancellor’s Forever Orange Award.

Emeriti faculty and librarians who retired in 2022 and employees who celebrated milestone anniversaries in 2022 will also be recognized. This year’s University Scholars; Senior Class and School and College Marshals; and Remembrance and Lockerbie Scholars will also be honored.

All members of the University community are invited and encouraged to attend. A reception will follow in the lobby of the Heroy Geology Laboratory.

American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) will be provided at the ceremony. For questions about accessibility or to request accommodations, contact Souher Cosselman at 315.443.2123 or sscossel@syr.edu.

The Chancellor’s Medal is the University’s highest honor and is awarded to individuals in honor of their trailblazing and extraordinary contributions to the University, to an academic body of knowledge or to society. This year’s recipient is Diane Lyden Murphy, dean of the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.

The Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions in four overarching categories:

• The award for Excellence in Student Research recognizes students who have engaged in collaborative research that has the potential to make a deep and lasting impact on greater society. This year’s recipients are Erin Matsuba, a doctoral candidate in school psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences; Evan Bode, a master’s degree student in film and media arts in the College of Visual and Performing Arts; Ana Aponte González, a junior communications and rhetorical studies major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and women’s and gender studies major in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Donyell Logan, a senior medicinal chemistry major in the College of Arts and Sciences.
• The award for Outstanding Contributions to the Student Experience and University Initiatives acknowledges faculty and staff who, through their work, enhance the undergraduate experience for students or make invaluable contributions to supporting and advancing the University’s mission and goals. The recipients are Project Advance; George Wazen, library operations coordinator in the Department of Public Safety; and Pun To (Douglas) Yung, associate teaching professor in biomedical and chemical engineering and bioengineering undergraduate program director in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
• The Faculty Excellence and Scholarly Distinction award is intended for faculty members who are collaborators in work of intellectual richness that has the potential for future impact. The work of these nominees offers possibilities for collaboration within the University and outside in partnership with others. This year’s honorees are Shannon Monnat, professor of sociology, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion and Population Health and director and senior research associate with the Center for Policy Research in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and Qinru Qiu, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and graduate program director in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
• Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence, Lifetime Achievement Award. This award honors those who have made extraordinary contributions toward advancing all four pillars of excellence over the arc of their careers while at Syracuse University and beyond. This year’s recipient is Pramod Varshney, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

The other awards to be presented are:

The Student-Athlete Award recognizes the top female and top male student athletes and are presented to the senior student-athletes with the highest cumulative grade point average over the course of their academic and athletic careers. This year’s recipients are Grace Brock, a political science major in the Maxwell School and College of Arts and Sciences and member of the women’s track and field and cross-country teams; and Arnaud Buard, a senior mechanical and aerospace engineering major in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and a member of the men’s crew team.

Seinfeld Scholarship: Each year Syracuse University honors the talents of outstanding faculty or students through an award made possible by Judith Greenberg Seinfeld ’56, a distinguished alumna and member of the University Board of Trustees. Awards are made to those who have been determined by their peers to have made outstanding contributions to the beauty of the world, to have added to human values and to ending human abuse anywhere in the world, and to have demonstrated passion for excellence, creativity and originality in academic or artistic fields. This year, the designation is bestowed upon a faculty member, Yutaka Sho, associate professor in the School of Architecture.

The Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professorships for Teaching Excellence were created in 1995 to recognize and reward outstanding teaching among faculty. The 2023-26 Meredith Professors are Azra Hromadžić, associate professor of anthropology in the Maxwell School and College of Arts and Sciences, the Dr. Ralph E. Montonna Endowed Professor and senior research associate in the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration, and Sucheta Soundarajan, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science0 and director of the computer/information science engineering doctoral program in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

In 2001, the Meredith Professorship Program was expanded to recognize teaching excellence by non-tenured faculty and adjunct and part-time instructors. Awards are given in two categories: Early Performance and Continuing Excellence. This year’s honorees in the Early Performance category are Jenny Breen, associate professor in the College of Law; Jen Cook, assistant teaching professor of neuroscience and the primary advisor to neuroscience integrated learning major students in the College of Arts and Sciences; Kyla Garrett Wagner, assistant professor of communications in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications; Matthew Grzecki, assistant teaching professor of English and creative writing coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences; Xiyuan (Lillian) Liu, assistant teaching professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and Dean’s Faculty Fellow for Academic Affairs; and Meredith Martin, associate teaching professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. The two honorees in the Continuing Excellence category are Sarah Harwell, associate teaching professor of English and associate director of creative writing in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Mel White, professor of practice of advertising in the Newhouse School.

The Diversity and Inclusion Award recognizes an individual who is integral in helping us achieve academic excellence at a university that is welcoming to all through our investments in a diverse, inclusive, accessible and equitable community. This year’s recipient is Amir Durić, Muslim chaplain at Hendricks Chapel.

The William Pearson Tolley Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Lifelong Learning is based in the School of Education and honors national or international leadership in support of lifelong learning. This year’s recipient is Linda M. LeMura, president of LeMoyne College.

The Chancellor’s Forever Orange Award recognizes individual students, faculty or staff who—by virtue of extraordinary hard work, good values and commitment to excellence—have come to embody the best of Syracuse University. This year’s recipient is Gwenn B. Judge, retired director of the Office of Budget and former acting chief financial officer.