Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence Award winners

The three Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence
Award winners - Judith Eakin Baker, Barbara E. Bohen and
Paul E. Parker - will be honored next week.

The award ceremony and reception will be from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
in the Pine Lounge of the Illini Union. All interested
faculty, academic professionals and staff members are
welcome.

The individuals were chosen for their excellence in work,
personal and professional contributions.

Each will receive $2,000 at the ceremony, and their base
salary will be increased by $1,000, effective Aug. 21, 1995.
Next year, their departments will receive $1,000 to be used
at the winners' discretion to benefit their workplace.

The awards committee, made up of 10 academic professionals
from across campus, reviewed 32 nominations and forwarded
their recommendations to Chancellor Aiken.


Judith Eakin Baker, senior research chemist
Center for Microanalysis of Materials, Materials Research
Laboratory

"One of the most important facets of Judy's professionalism
is that she not only seeks to perfect the operation of the
facilities for which she is explicitly responsible, but also
that she works to improve the environment and functioning of
the center as a whole. Over the years, she has tackled a
number of major problems in the operation, management and
funding of the center. No one asks her to do this work, yet
she attacks it with great energy. Her good example makes it
easy to enlist the help of others to ensure completion of
these tasks. Even when some very trying difficulties have
arisen, she has found a way to keep herself and others
motivated."
        -Alwyn Eades, director, Center for Microanalysis of
Materials

"It is a tribute to Judy's skill in dealing with people that
this facility is one for which there have been no complaints
in all the years I have been director of the MRL. Judy
handles people superbly. She is viewed by even our most
difficult users as a person who goes out of her way to
assist them - and she does so."
         -Howard K. Birnbaum, director, Materials Research
Laboratory

"To state that the students love her does not do justice to
the case. They know they can count on her. She will fix the
instruments when they break them, often in the middle of the
night. She will stay late and come in early when they need
that last measurement just before their thesis or manuscript
is due. And she will explain the mysteries of their results
when the students have run out of explanations."
    -James J. Coleman, professor, electrical and computer
engineering


Paul E. Parker, assistant dean and director
Minority Engineering Program

"In the year that he came [1994], the college enrolled 73
minority engineering students at the undergraduate level and
fewer than 13 at the graduate level. That enrollment has now
grown to 466 minorities enrolled in the College of
Engineering at the undergraduate level and an additional 62
at the graduate level. The vast portion of this increase has
been due to the continued commitment of Paul Parker to
develop a strong minority program in the engineering
college...

"He has served as a second father to many engineering
students and this involvement has not been limited to
minorities. He is extremely well respected by all students
and many count him their very best 'executive friend.' "
-Howard L. Wakeland, associate dean emeritus, College of
Engineering

"I believe that all who know Paul will agree that while his
is a quiet brilliance, its hue is unmistakable."
-Robert M. Copeland, associate dean, College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences

"When Paul received a national award a few years ago, I
believe in
Baltimore, I was amazed to see one evening two full-size
buses departing from Engineering Hall and bound for
Baltimore. It was filled with Parker co-workers, 'Parker
students,' and 'Parker alumni.' It was one of the most
telling testimonials I have ever observed."
-William R. Schowalter, dean, College of Engineering


Barbara E. Bohen, director,
World Heritage Museum

"Barbara inherited a museum that had been threatened with
closure when she arrived in 1981. She was hired after
faculty and several administrators realized that great
universities do not close their museums and remain world-
class institutions. Not only has Barbara helped the
university avoid that fate, but she also has been so
successful in raising the image of the museum on campus that
she is on the threshold of building a new Spurlock Museum of
World Cultures."
                                         -James A. Dengate,
chair, Classics

"Without Barbara Bohen's vision and her tenacity, there
would be no Spurlock Museum. . She is a special woman, a
professional who is tough as nails, sensitive to the beauty
and the meaning embedded in either a transistor or a Greek
krater. She not only kept the World Heritage Museum alive,
but she nurtured it into a proud and positive organization
that plays an important role on our campus and in the
community."
                                -Thomas J. Riley, professor,
anthropology

"From remodeling to new displays, from lectures to dances,
from the gift store to imaginative ways to involve an
endless variety of people in support of the museum, Barbara
has worked tirelessly and effectively for the university and
the museum. There were many days when I personally
encountered Barbara with a screwdriver or paintbrush in
hand, working beside students, faculty and townspeople she
convinced to volunteer their service to the museum."
                               -Richard E. Mitchell,
professor, history