University Times

Winners of 2009 Chancellor’s Distinguished Public Service Awards, which honor faculty who have made outstanding contributions to the community, have been announced.

The winners are:

• John M. Burkoff, professor of law.

• Toi Derricotte, professor of English.

• Paul Douglas Newman, professor of history at the Johnstown campus.

Each faculty public service honoree will receive a $2,000 cash prize. In addition, honoree will receive a $3,000 grant to support his or her teaching. The winners will be recognized Feb. 27 at Pitt’s 33rd annual honors convocation, along with winners of the chancellor’s annual faculty teaching and research awards, which had not been announced as the University Times went to press.

Winners’ names also will be inscribed on plaques displayed in the William Pitt Union.

A selection committee, chaired by Andrew Blair, vice provost for Faculty Affairs, recommended the winners after reviewing supporting materials.

In his letter announcing Burkoff’s selection, Mark A. Nordenberg wrote, “The selection committee was particularly impressed by the leading role you have played in providing continuing education to Pennsylvania’s judges. The committee noted that you have served as a faculty member at the annual Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges Judicial Education Conference since 1984, and cited your appointment to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Commission on Judicial Independence in 2006.”

The selection committee also cited Burkoff’s recent contributions to a specially appointed panel that investigated the wrongful awarding of an MBA degree at West Virginia University, and his service as founding chair of the City of Pittsburgh’s Citizens Police Review Board and as a member of the Allegheny County district attorney’s use of force working group, Nordenberg noted.

“As one who has seen first-hand your unique and very substantial contributions, I am pleased to formally acknowledge your exemplary service to the greater good,” stated the chancellor, who also is a Distinguished Service Professor of Law. “The many beneficiaries of your efforts appreciate the hard work and dedication that have characterized your service to the community.”

Burkoff came to Pitt in 1976. He has published 19 books and more than 60 articles on criminal justice and legal ethics. He was awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1987.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be recognized for some of the things I do in the community,” Burkoff told the University Times.

“Public service is always something I felt would and should be a part of my life — basically, to be a do-gooder,” he said. “Being a law professor is a wonderful job and, with the skills we have, frankly, I believe we have an obligation to help others, and I don’t see that obligation as any burden. It makes me feel good. It makes me happy that I can help in the community.”

Derricotte, who has published four volumes of poetry and garnered numerous awards for her writing, was honored in particular for her leadership and initiative as co-founder and director of Cave Canem, which since 1996 has fostered the development and nurturing of African-American poets.

Nordenberg said the committee also was impressed with Derricotte’s success in securing capacity-building grants, which are aimed at supporting non-profit organizations, from the Ford Foundation, the Lannan Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

“I have long admired your work, and it gives me great pleasure to formally acknowledge your exemplary service,” Nordenberg wrote. “Your work has brought honor to yourself, your profession and the University of Pittsburgh, and you are a most-deserving recipient of this award.”

Derricotte told the University Times, “I was moved to win this award. It feels different from other awards, because getting recognized ‘at home’ is the best. I feel honored, privileged and excited. This reaffirms my work, my friendships and my connections with colleagues over the 15 years I’ve been at the University, so I’m very happy.”

Derricotte said her dedication to public service was a natural outgrowth of her upbringing in Detroit. “This was a community where people came from the South with nothing. There were African-American women’s leagues all around me, who were helping in the community. You just took that for granted growing up. It’s especially meaningful to me to give back to your own people, which is why I started Cave Canem, to help African-American poets.”

Newman, who began his career at Pitt-Johnstown in 1995, is editor of Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies and has published a book titled, “Fries’s Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution.”

Nordenberg wrote, “In addition to your own teaching, research and writing at our Johnstown campus, you found the time to assist the students of Northern Cambria High School. The selection committee was particularly impressed by your work on community heritage projects … which you coordinated and managed, [providing] the students with a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in active scholarly research [including] grant writing, interviewing techniques, field research, publication and video production.”

Nordenberg pointed to two projects in particular: assisting students with the research and writing of “As the Dust Settles, Revealing Those Seldom Seen,” a book that examines the bituminous coal mining heritage of western Pennsylvania; and producing a video-documentary, “Remembering America’s Longest War: Western Pennsylvania Vietnam War Vets and the Approach of the Golden Anniversary.”

The production of the documentary was supported by a grant from the History Channel, Nordenberg noted. “Your work with the community and the Northern Cambria High School received further recognition from the History Channel when you received the 2008 Save our History Teacher of the Year Award,” he wrote.

Newman told the University Times that his award is a testament to those colleagues at Pitt-Johnstown who are committed to public service. “I was very pleased to win this award, humbled and a bit surprised, but most of all proud of my colleagues. They really have inspired me and set the bar high,” he said.

Newman said an undergraduate mentor at York College showed him the way to incorporate public service into an academic life. “He taught me that history is really society’s memory and that historians have opportunities to share that in lots of forums like public talks, teaching teachers, teaching high school students, in addition to teaching at the college level and writing books. So, I had a very good example, and at 19 or 20 I knew what I wanted to do with my life, to turn research and teaching into public service.”

—Peter Hart