Six UCF faculty and staff members were granted emeritus status Wednesday during the annual Founders’ Day ceremony.
The status is awarded to faculty and administrators who have worked at the university for at least five years. The title honors the contributions and distinction they achieved at the university, and grants them a lifetime link to UCF.
Timothy Blair, Professor Emeritus, retired from the School of Teaching, Learning and Leadership after more than 20 years of service. Blair’s professional education career spanned more than 46 years and included several leadership roles in UCF’s College of Education and Human Performance. Blair was highly regarded by his students and colleagues for his dedication to helping others learn and setting the bar in the area of reading education. He established the free UCF-Orlando Reading Camp to improve the reading levels of children in Orlando’s poorest neighborhood and also to give his students a chance to apply what they learned in a real-world setting. Orlando’s City Council declared March 25, 2013, as “Dr. Timothy Blair Day” in honor of his commitment and contributions.
Glenn Boreman, Professor Emeritus, has been a faculty member at UCF since 1984 and joined CREOL in 1990. He left UCF in 2011 to become chair of the Department of Physics & Optical Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and has since retired. Boreman made extensive contributions in research and education in the fields of optics and photonics. His innovations in infrared systems, infrared detector and focal-plane analysis, and other areas have been published in more than 100 journal articles, and his work has been recognized numerous times by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
Madison (Ke) Francis, Professor Emeritus, will retire this spring after a 15-year career at UCF in the College of Arts and Humanities. Prior to joining UCF, Francis spent an impressive 26 years in industry. He has been recognized nationally and internationally for his distinctive scholarly and creative activity, which includes close to 100 professional exhibitions, numerous awards and major permanent collections. He helped unite the digital media an art programs and faculty and served as founding faculty member and director for the Flying Horse Editions, UCF’s fine arts press. His colleagues laud his generosity, open-mindedness and willingness to support others.
Aaron Liberman, Professor Emeritus, joined the UCF faculty in 1996 and helped UCF’s health services administration graduate program become one of the largest accredited programs in the nation. He had a distinguished career in healthcare management prior to embarking on his academic career. A visionary leader who twice chaired the College of Health and Public Affairs’ Department of Healthcare Informatics, Liberman was instrumental in establishing the healthcare informatics master’s program, the first of its kind in Florida. He was also a productive scholar, publishing four books, seven book chapters and 94 peer-reviewed journal articles.
Michael Moshell, Professor Emeritus, had a 30-year career at UCF and played a key role in developing UCF’s digital media program. Moshell will retire in July from the School of Visual Arts and Design within the College of Arts and Humanities. He made pivotal contributions to the development of virtual reality at UCF and beyond, earning the university nearly $5 million in grants and contracts from agencies such as the U.S. Army and National Science Foundation. He wrote the initial grant proposal to the state to establish UCF’s highly ranked Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. He’s also used his creativity to make science, technology and media arts more accessible to young learners.
Robert Pennington, Professor Emeritus, joined UCF in 1983 as an associate professor of economics in the College of Business Administration. He was the second director to be hired for UCF’s Center for Economic Education, helping to bring in more than $1.5 million in grant funding. In addition, Pennington was one of the faculty founders of the LEAD Scholars Program, and in 1999 he received the University Faculty Leadership Award for his role in creating, teaching and guiding student-leaders. He served in the Faculty Senate for 15 years and was elected Senate vice chair for 2010-2012. He is the author or coauthor of 19 books, textbooks or digital books, including Holt High School Economics, one of the best-selling economics textbooks for high school students..