A product of the “Great Journeys Strategic Plan” of 2007, the Board of Trustees Professorship program created a new level of incentive and recognition for outstanding faculty.
An honor reserved for the very best, the BOT Professorship program honors those who have achieved a consistent record of excellence in teaching, scholarship or artistry, service and outreach, and academic leadership, and have earned a national or international reputation and are deemed likely to make a continued and substantial contribution to higher education.
In short, these are NIU’s superstars.
In October 2008, the first class of BOT professors were inducted in a ceremony presided over by then-BOT Chair John Butler: Dan Gebo of Anthropology and Biological Sciences; Narayan Hosmane of Chemistry; and Christine Worobec of History.
“Those who want to strengthen NIU’s distinctive learning environment need to understand what exemplary commitment looks like,” Butler said. “This is an effort to illustrate that commitment in a system of reward and recognition.”
“Students who have experienced the intellectual rigor of a research-driven curriculum and the wise guidance of an academic mentor understand that great learning environments are the result of exceptional translators, such as those we are honoring today.”
Dan Gebo was a key member of research teams that discovered the world’s smallest primate fossil in 2000 and the oldest primate skeleton in 2013. During his 30-year career at NIU, Gebo won virtually every major award NIU offers for great teaching and research. And in 2014, he was named Illinois’ Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
Narayan Hosmane is a world-reknowned cancer researcher who has done pioneering research into the use of boron drug in combination with neutron capture therapy to combat cancer while reducing treatment side effects. Hosmane integrates undergraduates into his research group alongside graduate and post-doctoral students.
In addition to his many NIU awards, Hosmane is the recipient of several international awards, including the Pride of India Gold Award and the Humboldt Research Award for senior scientists from his German colleagues.
Christine Worobec ranked among the world’s leading historians of tsarist Russia. She conducted pioneering work on women, folklore, peasants, family, social life, religion and even witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine during the 18th and 19th centuries. She used her own research experiences to engage and captivate the many students and junior faculty whom she mentored.
In the twelve years since its inception, 23 different NIU faculty members have been named BOT Professors. Five were repeat winners, and one (Gebo) received the honor three times.
See the list of all Board of Trustees Professors
2008 Dan Gebo
2008 Narayan Hosmane
2008 Christine Worobev
Click on photos to enlarge.
