The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presents the Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership each year to distinguished faculty who enrich the intellectual vitality of campus and the broader community.
The awards were presented in three categories — faculty mentoring, distinguished executive officer and outstanding faculty leadership — to four faculty members during a ceremony hosted by the Office of the Provost in May.
Andrew Suarez, a professor and the acting head of the Department of Entomology and the Jeffrey S. Elowe Professor in Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, received the Executive Officer Distinguished Leadership Award. This award recognizes outstanding academic leadership and vision by an executive officer within a college or campus unit who has led diverse groups through strategic improvements within their unit or campus.
Suarez embodies transformative leadership in higher education with his track record of revitalizing departments, advancing diversity and equity initiatives and promoting a culture of community and mentoring. He views himself not as a unit’s “leader” but its “champion” — someone whose primary role is to advocate for and serve the unit’s faculty and students. In the past decade of Suarez’s time as director or department head in three different units, he has established a commitment to transparency while nurturing talent and incentivizing excellence. Suarez is an exceptional communicator of science and prioritizes making the work of his faculty and students highly visible. Through careful strategizing, he has ensured that most of his faculty receive coverage in online or print media at least once a year. As an administrator, scholar and mentor, his contributions can be observed across his departments, campus and the broader scientific community.
Other recipients of this year's awards include Jennifer Teper, the Bud Velde Preservation Librarian and head of Preservation Services for the University Library, who received the Excellence in Faculty Mentoring Award; Rohit Bhargava, a professor of bioengineering, the Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering and the Phillip and Ann Sharp Director of the Cancer Center at Illinois, who also received the Executive Officer Distinguished Leadership Award; and Vikram Adve, the Donald B. Gillies Professor of Computer Science in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, who received the Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award.
