Rees & Grillo Honored by SUNY

Alfred State College Professors Jim Grillo, Hammondsport, and
Robert E. Rees, Alfred, both members of the School of Management
and Engineering Technology, were among 28 SUNY-wide faculty members recognized
by the State University of New York as Distinguished Teaching Professor and
Distinguished Service Professor, respectively. 
The designation constitutes a promotion above that of full professor.

Criteria for distinguished teaching professor include skill in teaching,
scholarship, and professional growth; service to students; academic standards;
requirements and evaluations of student performance; academic background, rank,
and length of service; as well as letters of support from colleagues, students,
and supervisors.

Grillo's
nomination read, in part:  [Professor
Grillo] "... evidences superb performance in the classroom and is flexible in his
instructional techniques.  He rewrites
his lectures, adds new material, and revises his lesson plans on a regular
basis.  Jim takes great effort to prepare
class materials in a variety of formats. 
He employs articles, visual aids, notes, charts, and handouts to present
course materials.  He encourages critical
analysis and real-world application of course concepts and issues." 

In the areas of scholarship and professional
growth, it was noted that Grillo "makes it a point to keep abreast of and
contribute to contemporary issues in his field. 
He has obtained certification by the Entrepreneurial Education
Foundation as a Premier Fast Trac instructor and administrator.  He has revised courses in business technology
to include current thinking and best practice. 
He has designed an entrepreneurship course to be delivered in a blended
(synchronous and asynchronous) format. 
He designed a business planning guide for the Micro-Enterprise
Assistance Program, developed teaching modules in supervisory development for
the Dresser-Rand Corp., and created teaching modules in management for Jones Memorial
Hospital." 

Professor Grillo's students were
loud and clear in their praise of his service to students, noting, Professor
Grillo "is generous with his personal time, accessible to his students and has shown continuous concern for the growth of his
students.  He makes it a priority to get
to know his students by name.... He treats his students with respect,
acknowledges their accomplishments, and is gentle when they fall short.  Professor Grillo is empathetic of the fact
that students have personal and family issues to address while they pursue
their degrees.  He has participated in
the mini-visitation programs for high school seniors and in summer orientation
for incoming students for many years. Grillo is the curriculum coordinator for entrepreneurship
students and advises students in the business administration transfer program."

It was also noted that Professor
Grillo "provides detailed instructions to students regarding his expectations
of their assignments and examples of exemplary work from previous
semesters.  His course syllabi emphasize
that student papers must demonstrate consistently good grammar and be free of
error in addition to being an appropriate and thorough examination of the topic
presented in an organized fashion."

Grillo has been a member of the
Alfred State College family for 35 years, serving in a variety of capacities
throughout those years. He holds two degrees from Alfred University:  a bachelor of science in business administration
and a master of science in counseling and guidance.  Additionally, he has completed an additional
24 graduate credit hours in educational administration through the University
at Albany.

Grillo began service at Alfred
State College as a residence hall coordinator in 1972.  The following year, he moved into a full-time
position in the Office of Admissions. 
Between 1978 and 1989, while the dean for Admissions, Records, and
Financial Aid, Jim taught courses in the Business Technology Department as an
adjunct instructor.  He was hired as an associate
professor in 1989, and promoted to full professor in 1992.  He was recognized by SUNY in 1980 with the
Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service, and by alumni in
both 1992 and 1993 as the Business Teacher of the Year. 

Professor Grillo's nomination to
the rank of SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor is supported by a broad
spectrum of the college community as evidenced by the numerous letters from
former students, colleagues, and supervisors, and directors of community
agencies for whom Jim has taught.   

Professor Grillo was strongly
supported for appointment as a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor by his colleagues and supervisors.  Professor Grillo's department chair, Thomas
Stolberg, believes that "Jim...[is] a true and caring leader....Jim Grillo's desire
for constant updating and improvement of the program has been infectious
[within] the department.  With regard to
the leadership of students, Jim is unsurpassed in...sincere concern for the
wellness and success of his students, whether or not they are one of his 60-plus
advisees." 

Kathleen English, business
development officer of The Enterprise Center of Rural Opportunities, Inc., has
worked with Grillo for more than five years in the Microenterprise Assistance
Program which is designed to provide training, technical assistance, and loans
for eligible participants.  She wrote
that "Jim's dynamic personality and engaging teaching style have contributed to
making this program a success.  Jim
developed [a] 12-week program to assist entrepreneurs in starting or expanding
their business."  Louise Wadsworth of the
Livingston and Wyoming Counties Alliance for Business Growth directs a 12-week
program for small business owners.  Jim
has taught many sessions of this program for an average of 25 adults with a
wide range of business experience.  She
wrote that student evaluations of Professor Grillo's instruction indicate that
they were extremely satisfied with both the content and its presentation.  "They often cite his practical business
experience and teaching techniques as the aspects they found most beneficial....
He has an exceptional gift for teaching that he combines with hands-on
knowledge of the business world." 

Appointment to the rank of
Distinguished Teaching Professor is conferred upon individuals who have
achieved national or international prominence and a distinguished reputation
within a chosen field.  This distinction
is attained through significant contributions to the research literature or
through artistic performance or achievement in the arts.  The candidates' work must be of such
character that the individuals' presence will elevate the standards of
scholarship of colleagues both within and beyond these persons' academic
fields.  It must also be of such quality
that students and scholars on other SUNY campuses could and would wish to
benefit by lectures and seminars or other appropriate presentations the faculty
members might bring to them. 

Criteria for distinguished service professor include substantial and
distinguished service at the local and/or regional level and at the state,
national, or international level; academic background, rank, and length of service; as well as letters
of support from colleagues and supervisors.

Professor Rees' nomination noted
that he has "provided substantial and distinguished service to Alfred State
College, his local community, public higher education at the state level, and
his profession on the national level.  Prior
to joining the Alfred
State faculty, Rees had
worked for 10 years as a Van de Graaff Accelerator technician at a nuclear
physics laboratory and as a project engineer and electrical engineer in the
steel industry.  After earning his master's
degree, Rees taught electrical and electronics engineering technology at Vermont Technical College.

Rees has been involved in the
community throughout the 21 years he has been a member of the Alfred State
faculty.  He founded the a cappella
madrigal vocal group, Kanadadea Chorale, in 1988 which presented concerts each
year for more than 10 years and entertained area nursing home residents.  He has also been a trustee of the Union University
Church. Rees is a
competitive triathlete having attained age-group honorable mention all-American
national ranking for the past two years (top 10%).

Rees served as chair of the
Engineering Technology Taskforce during the era of the UCT (University Colleges
of Technology) in the mid-1990s.  During
this period, faculty of the colleges of technology visited each other's
campuses and exchanged aspects of their respective strengths, particularly in
the technical areas.  This alliance was
an organized response to a prior proposal to close some technical colleges.  As chair of the UCT Strategic Alliance, Rees
coordinated the formation of discipline-specific taskforces.  He provided national as well as state service
during this time.  He served as a TAC/ABET
(Technology Accreditation Commission of the
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accreditation evaluator
for electrical engineering technology visiting institutions in Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. 

Since 1999, Rees has been the ASC engineering
science transfer program coordinator.  He
advises all students intending to continue study toward a degree in engineering
after completion of an associate's degree, takes sophomores to transfer institutions,
and recommends them for acceptance to the program of their choice. 

For more than 15 years, Rees has
served on committees of the United University Professions (UUP).  He has spent over 10 years focusing on issues
pertinent to the Colleges of Technology sector. 
Rees held several terms as the UUP Alfred Chapter vice president for
academics and, for the past six years, has been the Alfred Chapter president.  He has been an ardent and successful advocate
with legislators and (SUNY) System Administration.  His collaborative efforts over several years
have resulted in additional funding for the colleges of technology.

Professor Rees' committee
memberships have included the UUP Statewide Elections and Credentials
Committee, the NYS/UUP Joint Labor Management Campus Grants Committee, and the
2002-04 and 2006-07 UUP Negotiations Teams. 
Rees has served four years on the UUP Statewide Executive Board, has
co-chaired the NYS/UUP Joint Labor Management Health and Safety Committee, and
was recently appointed to the NYSUT Health & Safety Task Force.  As a member of the NYSUT Health & Safety
Task Force, Rees has played a role in addressing concerns of more than 300,000
K-16 members statewide. 

Rees began his distinguished career
with SUNY in 1986 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering
technology.  He became an associate professor
in 1990 and attained the rank of professor in 1996.  Rees served two terms (1993-99) as chair of
the Electrical Engineering Technology Department including two years also
chairing the Mechanical Engineering Technology Department, and six months
(September 1996-February 1997) as interim dean of Information Technology.

In 1992, Rees received the SUNY
Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Professor Rees earned both the bachelor
of science and master of science degrees in electrical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.  He is a registered Professional Engineer in
the states of Pennsylvania
and Vermont.  He is a member of the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) and of the SUNY Two-Year Engineering
Science Association.  Rees'
research area is human visual perception of form with particular interest in
pattern analysis, recognition, and machine intelligence.

Professor Rees has the support of
colleagues at Alfred
State and at the
statewide level in his nomination for promotion to the rank of Distinguished
Service Professor.  UUP President William E. Scheuerman has worked with Rees for over a decade
in many capacities at UUP. 

Scheuerman credits Rees with being "an influential member of
the UUP Negotiations Team that brought in one of our best contracts in the
state.  In fact, Bob played a jugular
role in getting state negotiators to recognize the many tough issues facing
SUNY's tech sector colleges." 

Scheuerman also reports that, in
over 30 years at SUNY and more than 20 years as a UUP activist, he has never
met a more deserving candidate for the honor of SUNY Distinguished Service
Professor than Robert Rees.  He affirms
that Rees has played a leading role at the state level.  "After serving effectively on the A-31
Committee, a joint NYS/UUP committee created during negotiations to identify
institutional issues at these under-funded institutions, Bob accepted the
position of chair of the Tech Sector Committee. 
The committee was charged with resolving the issues identified by A-31,
i.e., the need for higher salaries and more training opportunities for faculty.  Under Bob's pragmatic and effective
leadership, UUP worked closely with campus presidents in developing a long-term
solution to both issues."

Craig Clark, ASC interim vice
president of academic affairs, also supports Rees' nomination, recommending him
highly.  Clark
has worked with Rees for more than 15 years and says, "He will always volunteer
for the tough job if it benefits the [College]."  Clark credits
Rees with the success of several TAC and ABET accreditation visits indicating
that the preparations were always handled professionally and in a timely
manner.  "Bob is truly a leader who is
committed to making SUNY, Alfred State College, and all the students the best
that they can be.  He is a great example
of the SUNY Distinguished Service Professor...."

The Distinguished Service Professorship honors and
recognizes extraordinary service. 
Appointment can be conferred solely by the SUNY Board of Trustees.  Candidates must have demonstrated substantial
distinguished service not only at the campus and the State University
levels, but also at the community, regional, and state levels. To be considered
appropriate, service must exceed the work generally considered to be a part of
a candidate's basic professional work and should include service that exceeds
that for which professors are normally compensated.  It must also extend over multiple years and
must involve the application of intellectual skills drawing from the
candidate's scholarly and research interests to issues of public concern. In
addition to the selection criteria for the Distinguished Service Professorship,
to be nominated,
a faculty member must have held the rank of full professor for five years, have
three years
of full-time service at the nominating institution, and have completed at least
10 years of full-time service for SUNY.