FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2004
Contact: Susan Kashack, (707) 664-2122

SSU Art History Professor Awarded $20,000 for
Extraordinary Contributions to Teaching

Dr. Susan McKillop, a Sonoma State University professor of art history, has been named one of the 2004 recipients of the prestigious California State University Wang Family Excellence Award in the Visual & Performing Arts and Letters.

Each year, four faculty and one administrator from throughout the CSU system each receive $20,000 awards. This is the sixth year the awards have been given.

A 27-year veteran of Sonoma State, McKillop compiled an outstanding record in teaching and research. She received Sonoma State's Excellence in Teaching Award in 1999 and its Faculty Research Award in 1992.

McKillop has been a caring mentor to students and an active faculty member who served for 8 years on the CSU Statewide Academic Senate, where she was head of its task force on Master Plan Strategy. She served her campus as chair of the art department and as a long-standing member of the campus academic senate and its executive committee.

She contributed to the public as a member of the board of directors of Sacramento's Crocker Art Gallery Association and as a statewide voice for arts in the inner city and rural high schools. Characterized as "passionate in the pursuit of excellence," her broad knowledge of the cultural milieu brings an added dimension to her wide-ranging presentations in art history.

Her pioneering use of technology allows students to access an array of art images, while her focus on students brings them invaluable "hands-on" experience as peer teachers, cataloguers, and scholarly presenters. Her work in campus academic planning helped determine the character of SSU. In 1998-99 the Consortium of Public Liberal Arts Colleges named SSU its sole institutional member in California.

She received her bachelor's from the University of Missouri in English and Journalism, her master's from UC Berkeley in painting, her doctorate from Harvard University in Italian Renaissance Art History. Her groundbreaking work on the patronage of Cosimo de Medici, leading statesman of Renaissance Florence, is reshaping scholarship in her field.

The Wang award was established in fall 1998, when then-Trustee Stanley T. Wang provided $1 million to reward outstanding faculty and administrators. The award is designed to "celebrate those CSU faculty and administrators who through extraordinary commitment and dedication have distinguished themselves in their academic disciplines and areas of assignment."

The other 2004 Wang Award recipients are Martin G. Brodwin, Cal State Los Angeles, Education, and Professional and Applied Science Fields; Stanley M. Burstein, Cal State Los Angeles, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Public Services; Rikk G. Kvitek, CSU Monterey Bay, Natural Sciences, Mathematical and Computer Sciences, and Engineering; and Sally F. Roush, San Diego State University, University Administrator.

McKillop and the other winners will be honored at a recognition ceremony at the CSU Board of Trustees meeting on May 18.

Wang, who in fall 2000 gave an additional $1.2 million to establish student and faculty travel scholarships for China study, is the largest individual donor to the CSU system office.

NOTE TO EDITORS: A digital photo of Dr. McKillop is available upon request.