Fifteen faculty receive emeritus status

The Bowling Green State University Board of Trustees granted emeritus status to 15 retired or retiring faculty members during the May 6 meeting.

Emeritus status is conferred in recognition of distinguished service to the University. To be designated as emeritus, individuals must have been at the University for at least 10 years and been recommended by their department for the designation.

Emerita Lecturer, humanities

Patricia Antonelli, assistant librarian at BGSU Firelands and a faculty member in the humanities department, joined the Firelands staff in 1996 and retired May 6. She brought new courses and library research instruction to students. She was actively involved in the transition to OhioLINK, and maintained strong ties to faculty in the Jerome Library on the Bowling Green campus. In the latter part of her tenure, she served as interim director of the library, a role in which she further strengthened its holdings and links to Jerome as well as services to students.

Emerita Senior Lecturer, applied sciences

Mona Burke will retire June 1 after serving as the health information management technology program director in the BGSU Firelands applied sciences department for over 30 years. Recognized many times for her excellence in teaching, she received the Distinguished Teacher Award in 1995. Burke was one of the first faculty at BGSU to offer online courses. A nationally recognized expert in her field, in 2010 she was named a fellow of the American Health Information Management Association.

Emerita Associate Professor, journalism and public relations

Dr. Nancy Brendlinger, who will retire June 1, has served as a faculty member in journalism and public relations since 1990. Known as an engaged teacher and mentor, she incorporated what she learned from her two Fulbright teaching/scholarship experiences and two BGSU faculty leaves to other countries into her teaching, expanding students’ horizons regarding international issues and relationships. She began as an assistant professor in charge of the magazine sequence and in 1995 became the first woman to chair the Department of Journalism, a position she held two more times. She was active in leading curriculum changes and in enlarging the then-School of Mass Communication into the current School of Media and Communication.

Emeritus Professor, music performance studies

Christopher Buzzelli retired in 2015. A specialist in jazz and jazz guitar, he joined the music performance studies department in 1984. In addition to teaching an array of related courses, he led student ensembles and taught summer jazz and guitar camps. A composer and arranger as well as frequent performer, he is also the author of “The Complete Book of 7-String Guitar” and co-author of numerous other books on jazz guitar. He has performed on many solo and group recordings.

Emerita Senior Lecturer, English

Lynn Campbell joined the BGSU English department as a graduate assistant in 1980 and began teaching full time in 1987. She will retire June 1. A dedicated educator, she was nominated four times for the Master Teacher Award. Campbell developed themed literature courses targeted to specific majors, such as Literature and the Natural World and The Self in Family and Marriage, strengthening students’ connections not only with their majors but with the world of literature. She was promoted to the rank of senior lecturer in 2009.

Emeritus Associate Professor, romance and classical studies

Dr. Federico Chalupa taught at BGSU from 1990 until his retirement July 1, 2015. He served as chair of the Department of Romance and Classical Studies from 2002-06 and as the director of International Studies from 2010 until his retirement. He was hired to the Spanish faculty with the mission of broadening the emphasis to include Latin American Studies and U.S. Latinos. He helped expand study abroad opportunities in Mexico and numerous other countries and recruited international students to BGSU, building collaborations with other departments such as ethnic studies. His own scholarship focused on Andean studies and includes a book, numerous book chapters and articles and directing indexing and bibliographic collections for the Modern Language Association.

Emeritus Associate Professor, communication sciences and disorders

Dr. Roger Colcord will retire June 1. A specialist in the study and treatment of stuttering in adults and children, he has taught communication sciences and disorders  at BGSU since 1982 and provides clinical supervision to students in the BGSU Speech and Hearing Clinic. Colcord has been a frequent presenter at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Ohio Speech-Language-Hearing Association meetings and other professional conferences on fluency issues and has served as an editorial consultant to professional journals.

Emeritus Vice Provost for Academic Operations

Dr. Joseph Frizado became an assistant professor of geology in 1982 and was promoted to full professor before becoming department chair from 1992-2000. His research increasingly involved the application of geospatial and computer technology to geological and geographical issues. In 2004, he served as interim director of the School of Communication Studies. His success in that role led to his being asked to serve as interim dean of the College of Technology in 2005 and again from 2009-11. He then was named vice provost for academic operations and assessment, the position from which he retired May 6.

Emeritus Distinguished University Professor of mathematics and statistics

Dr. Arjun Gupta’s career at BGSU began in 1976 and ended with his retirement May 6. He was highly regarded as a teacher and mentor who inspired many graduate students to successful careers in mathematics and statistics. Also a talented administrator, Gupta helped build the department’s undergraduate and graduate programs in statistics. He was named Distinguished University Professor in 1995 and received BGSU’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, the Distinguished Service Award in 2004, and the Olscamp Research Award in 1990. He is a renowned researcher in the international statistical community, and served as editor of numerous journals and as a consultant.

Emerita Associate Professor of popular culture

Dr. Marilyn Motz, who retired in the summer of 2015, joined the Department of Popular Culture  in 1980 as an instructor, eventually becoming department chair, where she served for 10 years. She helped shape the study of popular culture and the department through her editing of popular culture journals and her publications. Two of those were considered seminal collections: “The Future of Popular Culture Scholarship in the 21st Century” (1994) and “Popular Culture Theory and Methodology” (2006). Early in her career, she wrote “True Sisterhood: Michigan Women and Their Kin, 1820-1920,” published by the State University of New York in 1983, and since then has produced journal articles and book chapters on such topics as women’s material culture, women’s diaries and visual autobiographies.

Emeritus Professor of music performance studies

Dr. Alan Smith retired in 2015 after more than 30 years of teaching cello in the College of Musical Arts. He began his career as a cellist with the U.S. Air Force Band and Symphony in the late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming a faculty member at BGSU in 1980. In addition to his teaching duties, he served in a number of administrative roles in the college: as associate dean from 2002-08, summer dean from 2002 until his retirement, and interim assistant and associate dean. A frequent performer with orchestras and chamber music groups throughout the United States and internationally, he had a long collaboration with BGSU violinist Vasile Beluska in the Guarneri Duo. Smith also served as music director and conductor for the local Bowling Green Symphony Orchestra from 1994-2004.

Emerita Associate Professor of music education

Dr. Sandra Stegman, who will retire May 31, has been in music education her entire career. She joined the department in 2002 and has conducted the University Women’s Chorus (for which she commissioned works by three composers), the A Cappella Choir and the Collegiate Chorale, and has toured with all three groups. In addition to her undergraduate teaching, she has supervised student teachers, a topic on which she published a book. Stegman has been an active clinician and guest conductor with school choirs and has three times directed the Ohio Music Ambassador Choir. For 12 years, she taught at the Interlochen National Music Camp.

Emeritus Professor of construction management

Dr. C. Wayne Unsell has been an administrator and faculty member in the College of Technology, Architecture and Applied Engineering since 2006 and plans to retire Aug. 1. He served as dean of the college (then called the College of Technology) from 2006-09, and has 35 years experience teaching civil engineering, construction management and engineering technology and 19 years experience in industry and consulting. He is the founder and HUB director of Falcon BEST Robotics, a national community outreach program for schoolchildren.

Emerita Lecturer in intervention services

Judy VandenBroek will retire July 1. Her association with the School of Intervention Services goes back to 1977, when she joined the faculty as an instructor for two years. After leaving that position, she worked in early childhood and special education until returning to the University as a lecturer in 1993, bringing that practical experience with her. Since then, she has had a profound effect on hundreds of students, and has taught virtually every course in the Intervention Specialist program. She also served as faculty adviser to the Student Council for Exceptional Children. VandenBroek played an important part in developing the college’s new Inclusive Early Childhood program.

Emerita Professor of library teaching and learning

Elizabeth (Bess) Wood retired from the University Libraries Dec. 31, 2015. Over the course of her career with the libraries she served in many administrative capacities, always keeping the libraries moving ahead and staying current with services and technologies. She came to BGSU in 1979 as the business reference librarian, a position she held until 1992, when she moved into a new role as reference and instruction librarian. In that role her responsibilities included overseeing development of the reference library collection. That year she also took on the position of head of information services, where she served until 2003. Wood also served as coordinator or interim coordinator of a number of areas in the libraries during her tenure.