‘I am where I am because of you’: Saint Michael’s professors honored at annual ceremony

Each year, Saint Michael’s College honors faculty members who have reached milestones in their careers and who go above and beyond to support students both inside and outside the classroom.  

The Academic Convocation, which was held Sept. 20, annually serves as the official kick-off of the academic year as faculty reflect on the past year’s accomplishments and look forward to the new semester.  

A representative from the Student Government Association speaks during the ceremony every year to give insight into the important role faculty play in the lives of students at Saint Michael’s. This year, SGA Vice President Aidan Finnegan ’25 expressed his gratitude for the things Saint Michael’s professors have done to help him overcome obstacles during his time as a student. Finnegan is a Political Science major with minors in French and Philosophy & Ethics who hails from West Roxbury, Massachusetts.  

Aidan Finnegan ’25 speaks at Academic Convocation on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sophie Burt ’26)

Saint Michael’s professors became especially important to Finnegan’s academic – and personal – journey after he suffered a traumatic brain injury while playing rugby. That injury-induced epilepsy caused Finnegan to, at some points, suffer eight to 10 absence seizures per day, resulting in frequent hospitalization.  

“I was emotionally devastated having to leave the game I love behind,” Finnegan added. “I did not think I would ever recover — I even thought about dropping out. My grades started to slip, my attendance declined. I was struggling.”  

At that point, he remembered a message that Saint Michael’s professors frequently impart to their students: “You can come to me with anything.”  

“It’s one thing to say it. It’s another thing to mean it,” Finnegan said. “And I can say with absolute certainty today that here at St. Mike’s, all of you, mean it.  When I finally worked up the courage and brain power to get in contact with my professors, there was no judgment, no negligence. I only felt supported.” 

Director of Edmundite Campus Ministry Fr. Michael Carter, left, and Saint Michael’s College President Richard Plumb smile during a speech given by Student Government Association Aidan Finnegan ’25 during Academic Convocation on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sophie Burt ’26)

With the help of his professors, Finnegan said, he regained his confidence while he also healed physically. An epileptic relapse last year proved to just be a bump in the road instead of his worst fear realized: the need to start from square one.  

“I managed to end my first year with a 2.9,” Finnegan said. “But with continued support and care I ended last semester with my very first 4.0.”  

He added, jokingly, “If you told high school senior me that he got a college 4.0 and made Dean’s list, I would have punched you in the gut for lying. But it’s true, and it is all thanks to the passion, care, and dedication that each one of you bring to this community.”  

Finnegan said he is living proof of how Saint Michael’s faculty members approach education with passion, empathy, and care.  

“I am where I am today because of you,” Finnegan said. “Every student at this school will lead a much stronger, enlightened and happy life because you did not just teach us but lead us with purpose.” 

Saint Michael’s College faculty and staff applaud during the Academic Convocation on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sophie Burt ’26)

Annual awards for service, scholarship, and teaching 

Three awards given each year during the Academic Convocation recognize professors who have been nominated by their peers and students for excellence in three areas: service, scholarship and artistic achievement, and teaching. Each award is accompanied by a citation read at the ceremony. Descriptions of the awards and the citations that were read for each faculty member honored can be found below.   

Norbert A. Kuntz Service Award  

This award is named for Norbert Kuntz, a longtime professor and chair of the History Department.  The recipient of this award will serve as the Faculty Marshal next year. 

Awarded to: Trish Siplon, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Director of Public Health Program 

Political Science and International Relations Professor Trish Siplon receives an award at Academic Convocation on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sophie Burt ’26)

“Professor Patricia (Trish) Siplon’s record of service at Saint Michael’s College encapsulates the desired characteristics of a servant leader: inclusivity, humility, empathy, stewardship, awareness, foresight, and community building. Trish is one of those College faculty who have fully ‘returned’ to campus in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to be present and accessible, with her office door always open to students and colleagues. Her campus service contributions are astonishingly varied: in the past five years, Trish has ably served as Director of Undergraduate and Post-Graduate Fellowships, Director or Co-Director of the Undergraduate and Graduate Public Health Programs, Co-Chair of the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee, Faculty Affiliate to the Women’s Ice Hockey Team, Faculty Advisor to SGAC, the Student Global AIDS Campaign, and provided service in range of other areas of campus work. 

Through her leadership, Trish has also significantly enhanced the quality of high-impact, co-curricular offerings available to our students and raised the national and international profile of the College. As Director of Undergraduate and Post-Graduate Fellowships and a member of the Institute for Global Engagement’s steering committee, Trish has revitalized the College’s international fellowship programming. Through her leadership of the Fulbright program, Trish advises students tirelessly through the entire application process and provides direction to the campus Fulbright committee. Her efforts this past year resulted in the U.S. Department of State recognizing Saint Michael’s College as a “Top Producing Institution” for Fulbright awards. Trish also annually mentors student applications for a range of other prestigious scholarships. Students’ recent success in earning several of these scholarships is a testament to her skill and commitment.

Trish has led the way in knitting a variety of College offices together to promote student and employee well-being. Serving as Coordinator of CAN!, the COVID Action Network, now the Community Health Action Network, she mobilized students, with support from staff and faculty colleagues, to address unprecedented challenges created by the pandemic.  As Faculty Affiliate to the Women’s Ice Hockey Team, Trish has tirelessly advocated for the women’s team.  As mentor of SGAC, Trish has supported fruitful collaboration between students and staff from Diversity, Equity, and Community and the Office of International Student and Scholar Services.

She is a model of servant leadership, and all members of the Saint Michael’s community are beneficiaries of Trish’s integrity, compassion, energy, and perseverance.”   

Professor Trish Siplon reacts to a standing ovation from her colleagues during Academic Convocation on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sophie Burt ’26)

The Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Award  

The recipient of this award will present the Convocation Address at the 2025 Academic Convocation. 

Awarded to: Mark Lubkowitz, Professor of Biology 

“Since arriving here in 2001, after a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley, Mark Lubkowitz has become an integral part of the fabric of Saint Michael’s College. His enthusiasm and commitment to our students quickly made him one of the most beloved members of this community and earned him such accolades as the Class Appreciation Award in 2011 and The Joanne Rathgeb Teaching Award in 2015. What may be less well-known is the effect Mark has had on Saint Michael’s College through his scholarship.  

Mark’s research on plant genetics literally has the potential to provide food for millions of people. His current project aims to determine the genetic mechanisms that control the angle of corn leaves. Leaves take the sun’s light energy and turn it into chemical energy for the plant, but the lower leaves on a plant in a cornfield are often shaded by leaves above or by neighboring plants. If one can control leaf angle, one could theoretically maximize their contact with the sun’s rays, which maximizes the plant’s energy production, making more food available without using any more space! In 2022, Mark, in collaboration with Education Professor Emeritus Valerie Bang-Jensen and four large research universities, received a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Already, Mark and his students have identified four genetic switches that contribute to controlling leaf angle. Mark’s collaborators use these discoveries to genetically modify corn plants to see how they perform in the field. It is a significant accomplishment for a small liberal arts college to be part of such a large federal grant.  

As the Lead Research Coordinator for the Vermont Biomedical Research Network, Mark has helped to transform the way the Biology Department teaches laboratories. Getting students involved in research projects prepares them to succeed in either the workforce or graduate school. Mark’s commitment to involving undergraduate students in his research is outstanding. He has directly supervised the research of 39 SMC students and mentored 26 other SMC students who he sent to conduct research at collaborating institutions such as Purdue, Florida, Nebraska, and the University of Missouri. At the annual international Maize Genetics Meeting, Mark is one of the only attendees to bring undergraduates with him. In recognition of his dedication to his students, Mark received the prestigious 2024 Maize Genetic Leadership Award.  

Mark also expends considerable time and energy, usually with his collaborator Valerie Bang-Jensen, on finding ways to best communicate scientific information to the broader public through books aimed at teaching scientific concepts to children, workshops for primary school educators, and journal articles on how to best help undergraduates understand complex scientific ideas.” 

Joanne Rathgeb Teaching Award  

This award is named for Professor Joanne Rathgeb, a skilled and beloved actor, director, teacher, and Breast Cancer activist.  The recipient of this award will provide welcoming comments to incoming students at the New Student Convocation in 2024. 

Awarded to: Adrie Kusserow, Department Chair and Professor of Sociology and Anthropology 

Saint Michael’s College Sociology and Anthropology Professor Adrie Kusserow shakes the hand of College President Richard Plumb after receiving an award during Academic Convocation on Sept. 20, 2024. Mathematics and Statistics Professor Michael Larsen (center) and Aidan Finnegan ’25 (left) look on. (Photo by Sophie Burt ’26)

“Professor Adrie Kusserow is an empathetic and talented teacher and a renowned cultural anthropologist who cares deeply about her students. Adrie nurtures the relationship-rich character of the education students receive here at Saint Michael’s College, relying on what she describes as the ‘Velcro of human interpersonal communication’ to navigate the nuances of the classroom. Her years of relationship-building work with the New American and recently resettled refugee community in the greater Burlington area continue to enhance her teaching, the classroom, and the campus environment. Throughout her career, Adrie has built high-impact, deep learning experiences into her classes, integrating community-engaged learning and service work, and she is a strong proponent of global engagement and a skilled practitioner of study abroad.   

For over two decades, Adrie has built productive working partnerships with local community and refugee agencies. Employing community-engaged learning principles, she is always exploring the needs of these organizations and asking how these needs might be supported by her classes and students. Through this approach she has integrated her classes with the King Street Youth Center, Vermont Folklife Center, Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, Vermont Afghan Alliance, Association of Africans Living in Vermont, Vermont Sudanese Foundation, New England Survivors of Torture and Trauma, Mercy Connections, Vermont Adult Learning, and Vermont Bhutanese Association. A sampling of the deep learning opportunities Adrie’s students have experienced includes: gathering oral histories of Bhutanese dance teachers, helping refugees study and pass citizenship tests, visiting the homes of local Afghan refugees to share a meal and help with English conversation and computer skills, working with asylum lawyers transcribing oral histories, assisting New American students with grant applications, and working side by side with refugees in gardens in the Intervale.   

Adrie has also developed community-engaged learning programs in East Africa and South Asia through study trips to Sudan, Uganda, Bhutan, and India that integrated community-engaged learning with the study abroad experience. As a result, Saint Michael’s students have engaged in work ranging from construction of a health sciences boarding school in South Sudan to assisting with a local anti-sex trafficking awareness campaign in India.  In 2002, Adrie received the CASE Carnegie Professor of the Year award for her community-engaged learning work with the Lost Boys and was a finalist in 2006 for the Excellence in Teaching Award by the Vermont Campus Compact. A respected, creative, teacher-scholar, Adrie enriches the lives of our students, campus community, and members of the local and international refugee community, with her passionate and skilled commitment to community-engaged learning and global citizenship.” 

Sociology and Anthropology Professor Adrie Kusserow, right, hugs Biology Professor Declan McCabe after being awarded the same award that McCabe received the year prior during Academic Convocation on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sophie Burt ’26)

Other faculty recognized during the ceremony  

Faculty members promoted to full professor:   

• William Ellis, Department of Fine Arts: Music 

• Paul Constantino, Department of Biology 

Faculty members awarded tenure: 

• Eva Pascal, Department of Religious Studies 

Faculty members who retired and/or transitioned to Emeritus status:

• William “Sandy” Karstens, Department of Physics 

• Carolyn Lukens-Olson, Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures 

• Mahmoud Arani, Department of Applied Linguistics 

• Ari Kirshenbaum, Department of Psychology 

• Robert Letovsky, Department of Business Administration and Accounting