Two Buffalo State faculty members have received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching: Gary S. Solar and Amitra A. Wall.

Gary S. Solar, associate professor and chair of Earth Sciences and Science Education, joined the Buffalo State faculty in 2000. Solar practices his teaching philosophy, which is to be a “scholar in the classroom,” by being effective as both a scientist and a teacher. He incorporates extensive field work in his courses, and he has inspired many students to conduct their own scientific research. He has supervised 43 undergraduate research projects, and mentored 29 students who have presented their work at the university’s annual Student Research and Creativity Celebration. His students have also presented papers at 25 conferences across the United States.

Solar’s contribution to his discipline, geology, is extensive. He has used his own research to provide valuable learning experiences to his students, whose comments attest not only to the quality of his teaching but also to his availability to students outside the classroom. He is deeply committed to student learning and to field experiences. Routinely, he leads students on geology expeditions throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. He has also led trips to places as far away as Hawaii. Many of his students have gone on to graduate school; many others imitate his teaching methods as high-school science teachers.

Amitra A. Wall, associate professor in the Sociology Department, joined Buffalo State in 2000, and has demonstrated her love of teaching ever since, inspiring her students through the use of a wide array of pedagogical tools. She has presented some of those tools at conferences, including methods of teaching statistics, the usefulness of experiential study tours, and best practices for teaching internships. She has served as a faculty member in four different learning communities, which help first-year students integrate common themes across disciplines, and as a faculty member in the Student Support Services Program, which helps first-year students master college-level study and research skills. She has also been granted graduate faculty status.

Wall deeply believes learning is not just done in the classroom; she challenges students to use the “sociological imagination” to be active agents in the community She has taught and organized the Sociology Department’s internship program since 2004, requiring students to keep a journal and write a research paper that links methods, theory, and their experiences. She has incorporated service learning into some of the courses she teaches. Wall understands the importance of producing scholars; she has served as a mentor to many students who have presented their research at the annual Student Research and Creativity Celebration and at state and local conferences. She has also mentored students who have been accepted into the Ronald McNair Scholars Program and the Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship Program. She is known for being generous with her time, making herself available to students for assistance, exercising patience, advising, and mentoring.

The SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes faculty members for consistently superior professional achievement and the ongoing pursuit of excellence, as demonstrated by “positive evidence that the candidate performs superbly in the classroom.”