Dr. Carmen Rivera (far left) with President Virginia Horvath and Assistant Professor Michael Igoe.

The 20th President’s Awards for Excellence and Service Recognition Luncheon was held recently in the Williams Center at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Scores of employees, family and friends packed the Multipurpose Room to support and congratulate the year’s award recipients: Michael Igoe, an assistant professor of Communication, who received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning; and Dr. Carmen Rivera, currently serving as associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, who received the President’s Award for Excellence in University Service.

Mr. Igoe received his B.A. from the State University at Albany and J.D. from the University of New Hampshire. He has been a faculty member at Fredonia since 2013 and previously taught as an adjunct faculty member at SUNY Buffalo State College and United International College in China. He was also a reporter for several years, including at WGRZ-TV in Buffalo. Igoe is a Fulbright award recipient, a SUNY Global Fellow, and has been a featured speaker at Fredonia’s U.S. Constitution Day and American Democracy Project. He will present a lecture in October as a part of the Teaching and Learning honor.

Dr. Rivera received her B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico and Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina. In 2006, she was hired at Fredonia as a faculty member in Spanish and chair of what is now the Department of World Languages and Cultures. She previously taught at Wingate University in North Carolina and at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Rivera has served as associate dean at Fredonia since 2015, including a year as interim dean. She is the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Internationalism and a member of the inaugural class of Fellows at SUNY’s Hispanic Leaders Institute.

In addition to the two honorees recognized, employees marking five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 years of service to the university received service certificates and pins. Forty-two members of the faculty and staff who either retired in 2018 or will soon retire, representing collectively 1,016 years of state service, were honored during the event.

The program concluded with a musical performance by Fredonia’s student a cappella group, Some Like it Hot.