Five 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 the university.
Wilfred Wienke, Professor Emeritus, came to UCF in 1998 to chair the Department of Child, Family & Community Sciences, which he did until 2005. During his career, he developed programs for educators serving students from infancy through adulthood and programs for students at the doctoral level in special education. He currently is a professor in UCF’s College of Education.
Julia Pet-Armacost, Associate Dean Emerita, serves as Associate Dean for Planning and Knowledge Management in the College of Medicine. She and her team are responsible for managing the Health Sciences Library and the College of Medicine website; providing educational technologies services to support the college; and supporting analysis, planning, accreditation and assessment activities. She came to UCF in 1993 to teach and conduct research in operations research, risk assessment and management, decision analysis and project management, which she did until 2000. She also is an associate professor in the Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Department.
Penelope Canan, Professor Emerita, joined the Department of Sociology in 2006. In 2010, Dr. Canan was one of six women in the College of Sciences and 15 in the university to receive a “Women Making History” award given to honor women recognized nationally and internationally for their research, creative activities and leadership. Dr. Canan was instrumental in the formation of Focus the Nation, a national network of more than 1,000 college and university campuses dedicated to solutions to global warming and climate change.
Mourad E. Ismail, Professor Emeritus, has been a mathematics professor in the College of Sciences at UCF since 2003. He also serves on the editorial boards of several mathematics publications and is a professor at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. He held the position of chair professor at City University of Hong Kong from 2010 to 2012, and has been a visiting professor at numerous universities around the world. His research interests are approximation theory, asymptotics, combinatorics, integral transforms and operational calculus, mathematical physics, orthogonal polynomials and special functions.
Consuelo E. Stebbins, Assistant Vice President Emerita in the Division of Academic Affairs, came to UCF in 1987 and for 21 years held various administrative positions. She was associate dean of the College of the College of Arts and Humanities, assistant vice president of internationalization for the university, created the Center for Multilingual Multicultural Studies, and developed a graduate program for teachers of English as a second language.