By SHANNON O. WELLS

Concluding her report at the last Senate Council meeting of the 2025-26 academic year (see related story), President Kris Kanthak called the decision to give the Senate Service Award — presented each year for “outstanding contributions to the University of Pittsburgh through service in the University Senate” — to Chris Bonneau, past president of the Senate, “easy and unanimous.”

Bonneau’s service to the Senate includes serving on Faculty Assembly from 2010-13 and 2016-18, as a member of Senate Council from 2011-13 and 2017-18, a member of the Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee from 2011-18, co-chair of Faculty Affairs 2017-18, and president of the University Senate from 2018 to 2021.

“Even though he’s an obvious choice, it feels strange for me to be giving an award to Bonneau. This isn’t because he doesn’t deserve it. He does, but he’s an old and dear friend,” Kanthak said, recalling her first campus interaction with Bonneau when he “attempted a ‘gotcha’ question at my job talk, which, by the way, I hit out of the park.

“That was three promotions, three (academic) papers, two kids and two wives ago,” she quipped. 

Kanthak credited Bonneau, whom she worked with on a series of papers about women’s political ambition, with encouraging her to run for shared governance office.

“You will not be able to say no, or else you will be a hypocrite,” she quoted him saying. “Then the next thing you know, you will be the president of the University Senate.”

Calling him a “fighter” and “fierce advocate for what’s right,” she said Bonneau oversaw great changes here at Pitt, including shepherding the University through the COVID pandemic. “He comforts the afflicted, and he afflicts the comfortable, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because he genuinely loves the sport of taking bullies down.”

Presenting him with the 2026 Senate Service Award plaque, Kanthak concluded that “everyone should be so lucky to have a friend as dear as Bonneau, and no one should be so unfortunate as to have an enemy as tenacious as Bonneau.”

Vice President John Stoner, noting that he and Bonneau have not always agreed “on a number of things,” said he’s never doubted Bonneau’s commitment to making Pitt a better place. “And I think all of us should be so lucky to be considered thusly. Many thanks, Chris. It has been a pleasure over the last number of years.”

Robin Kear, the immediate past president of the Senate, told Bonneau that “it was always a pleasure to work with you and learn from you and learn how your mind works. And sometimes I really appreciated you being the bad cop,” she said. “You take that role unwillingly. And sometimes somebody’s got to do it, and nobody does that as well as you.

“We miss that role for sure in our officer group here, but I just really wanted to say that I appreciated being president when you were immediate past president, and everything that you did and that we were able to do together,” she added. “It was a pleasure.”

Shannon Wells is a University Times reporter. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

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