SUNY Empire Faculty Recognized at SUNY’s Distinguished Faculty Induction Ceremony

(ALBANY, NY - June 22, 2023) SUNY’s Distinguished Faculty Induction Ceremony recognized five Empire State University faculty members on June 20. Due to the pandemic, all five inductees were celebrated from past years and eligible to attend the event. The ceremony honored 2021 Distinguished Teaching Professor, School of Arts and Humanities Elaine Handley, 2020 Distinguished Service Professor, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences Alan Mandell, 2021 Distinguished Professor, School of Arts and Humanities Ian Reifowitz, and 2020 Distinguished Teaching Professor for the School for Graduate Studies Margaret (Peggy) Tally. Distinguished Teaching Professor Tina Wagle was this year’s inductee.

Created by the State University Board of Trustees as a prestigious system-level distinction, the Distinguished Faculty Rank programs recognize and reward SUNY’s finest and most accomplished faculty. The Distinguished Professorship (DP), Distinguished Service Professorship (DSP), Distinguished Teaching Professorship (DTP), and Distinguished Librarian (DL) designations constitute the highest system tribute conferred upon SUNY faculty.

Professor Emeritus in Literature and Writing Elaine M. Handley received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014, the University’s Scholar Across the College award in 2017–2018, and Outstanding Mentoring Award in 2002. Recipient of the Arthur Imperatore Fellowship for 2019–2020, she produced an art installation on the rewards and challenges of caregiving, featuring over 120 works of art and writing from veterans, teenagers, and professional and family caregivers. At New York State’s Young Writers Institute from 2006 to 2019, she co-created one of the first online writing centers in the country, which served as a model for others worldwide. She was awarded a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant in 2006 and is a three-time winner of the Adirondack Center for Writing Best Poetry Awards.

Professor in the School of Social Science and Public Affairs Alan Mandell is a pioneer in adult learning and prior learning assessment (PLA). Co-creator of SUNY Empire’s Master of Arts in adult learning and founding director of its Mentoring Institute, he held the 2008–09 Susan Turben Chair of Adult Learning and Mentoring. Co-author or co-editor of five books on PLA and adult learning, he co-edits PLA Inside-Out, an online journal. A member of the Council for Adult Experiential Learning, he has received the Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Professional Service and for Excellence in Teaching and SUNY Empire’s Excellence in Teaching Award. He received the City University of New York’s Alumni Achievement Award, the Adult Higher Education Alliance’s Eugene Sullivan Award for Leadership, and the National Institute for the Assessment of Adult Learning’s Achievement Award.

Professor of History Studies Ian Reifowitz has an international reputation for his research on the intersections of race, ethnicity, nationalism, and politics. As a public intellectual, he has provided a historical context to current public policy debates for a variety of political news sites, including France 24 News. He has authored three timely books on the contemporary political scene, works which one external reviewer called “exemplary” works of scholarship: “novel and insightful, rhetorically sophisticated, and rhetorically dexterous.” He received SUNY Empire’s Susan H. Turben Award for Excellence in Scholarship in 2009 and the Scholar Across the College Award in 2019. In addition, Reifowitz is a 2014 recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities

Professor in the School for Graduate Studies Margaret Tally is an expert in the pedagogy of teaching with special populations of inner-city working adult students. Her work with the university’s Corporate College partnership with Verizon employees helps first-generation college students succeed in higher education, and many of the program’s graduates have advanced to graduate school or to higher-level management positions. Tally has written or edited four books, 19 chapters or articles, and given over 30 presentations at national and international conferences. She led new program development, served extensively in university governance, and assumed many faculty leadership roles. She was awarded a 2002 SUNY Empire Susan H. Turben Award for Excellence in Scholarship and a 2018 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Professor of Education Tina Wagle is a founding member of the graduate education division. She launched SUNY Empire’s first teacher education program, the Master of Arts in teaching, grounding that program in ideals of social justice. She developed a clinical residency pathway to certification, created a special education program, and three master’s degrees: curriculum and instruction, adult learning, and learning and emerging technologies. She refocused the curriculum and instruction program to include the perspectives of Black Indigenous and People of Color. She writes on teacher dispositions, content cohorts, remote learning, critical pedagogy, and alternative teacher certification. She was named a 2018 SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador. SUNY Empire awarded her the Susan H. Turben Chair in Mentoring in 2019-20. She received a 2008 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service and a 2021 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.