Bulletin News

05/02/2023 

Three SUNY Cortland faculty and staff members will receive the prestigious State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence.

The Chancellor’s Awards provide system-wide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and encourage the pursuit of excellence at all 64 SUNY campuses. Each campus president submits nominations, which are reviewed by the SUNY Committee on Awards.

The honorees are:

• Tyler Bradway, associate professor, English Department – Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities
• Rich Coyne ’07, associate vice president for Institutional Advancement – Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service
• Jenn McNamara ’01, associate professor, Art and Art History Department and director, Honors Program – Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service

This year’s award winners are profiled below.

Tyler Bradway

The author of Queer Experimental Literature: The Affective Politics of Bad Reading, Bradway is a national voice in literary studies, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory and critical kinship studies. Queer Experimental Literature has been recognized for its scholarly thoroughness and theoretical ambition. Bradway has co-edited Queen Kinship: Race, Sex, Belonging, Form, which investigates the intersection of race, sexuality, nation, gender, history and politics. As co-editor of After Queer Studies: Literature, Theory and Sexuality in the 21st Century, Bradway was lauded by peers for connecting the legacy of queer literary criticism and the relevance of literary studies to queer theory today.

An essay, “Queer Narrative Theory and the Relationality of Form,” published in the Publication of the Modern Language Association of America, was one of the journal’s most downloaded papers of 2021 and was listed among the top 5% of all research outputs by Cambridge Core.

Bradway is a 2006 graduate of West Chester University who earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Literatures in English from Rutgers University. After joining the Cortland faculty in 2014, Bradway was promoted to associate professor in 2020. Bradway has served as graduate coordinator of Cortland’s master’s program in English, co-founded the university’s Distinguished Voices in Literature speaker series and is cited by faculty at other institutions for a commitment to including the best scholars across ranks and scholars of color in publications.

Rich Coyne

Coyne has been a driving force behind the university’s fundraising efforts and recently played a significant role in a comprehensive campaign that raised more than $30 million, far exceeding its goal of $25 million. Supervising a staff of 12 people, Coyne manages leadership gifts, major gifts, annual giving, reunion giving, donor relations and database services. He has worked with generous alumni and campus partners in the Division of Academic Affairs and faculty who coordinate undergraduate research to create an annual science symposium that links donors, alumni experts in the sciences, faculty and current undergraduates.

Addressing critical campus needs, Coyne has created pathways for donors to support initiatives including Cortland’s Urban Recruitment of Educators (C.U.R.E.), a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Fund and a Student Emergency Fund that helped many in need throughout the pandemic. The Student Emergency Fund will continue to assist students with unexpected expenses for many years to come. 

A 2007 graduate of SUNY Cortland, Coyne earned a master’s in management from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2009. He started at the university as general manager of the Lynne Parks ’68 SUNY Cortland Alumni House and has since been promoted to major gift officer, senior gift officer and most recently as associate vice president of Institutional Advancement.

Jenn McNamara

McNamara has done many years of service on behalf of both students and fellow faculty members at SUNY Cortland. As chair of the General Education Committee from 2014 to 2020 and later as co-chair from 2021 to 2022, McNamara led an intensive and complicated process in a timely, professional and respectful manner. McNamara facilitated many campus-wide conversations between the Division of Academic Affairs, deans and department chairs. She has been a member of the Institutional Planning and Assessment Committee and the Middle States Steering Committee, bringing a critical voice from fine arts to the table. As a member of the Honors Program Advisory Council, McNamara advocated for practical solutions for honors students and graciously led workshops for first-year students at an annual retreat that encouraged and inspired them to think creatively.

In the Art and Art History Department, McNamara has served as Bachelor of Fine Arts program coordinator, providing structure on goals, policy and procedure to other faculty. Additionally, she has been a juror and curator for several exhibitions in Dowd Gallery and was elected to the board of directors for the International Fibers organization. As an academic advisor, McNamara has provided valuable guidance and forged connections directly with students, sharing the keys to her success with peers and encouraging other faculty to become better advisors as well.

A 2001 graduate of SUNY Cortland, McNamara earned an M.F.A. in fiber arts from Colorado State University in 2005. She has taught in Cortland’s Art and Art History Department since 2005.