Robert P. Kenny, Saint Michael's College professor of business administration and accounting, earned the top Saint Michael's service award, the Norbert A. Kuntz Service Award, for 2008, as selected by his faculty colleagues and presented at the Academic Convocation January 23 in the McCarthy Arts Center on the college campus. This year's convocation was dedicated to the memory of the late Emeritus Professor of English, Dr. John Reiss.
The citation read at the convocation honoring Professor Kenny's outstanding record of service, stated that his service "has run the gamut from chairing his department three separate terms, to a broad spectrum of campus committees, to professional and community organizations."
At Saint Michael's Professor Kenny has served in more than 20 different assignments, including all three statutory committees - with multiple terms on Faculty Council and Faculty Welfare, both of which he has chaired.
He was recoginized as the only person ever to have served the college in two different vice presidential positions - as VP for Academic Affairs and as VP for Administration and Finance.
He was praised particularly for "throwing himself whole-heartedly into every eassignment." And, with his institutional memory and contrarian style, he was cited for serving as a check on power and on conventional wisdom.
Professor Kenny's record includes serving on the New England Association of Schools and Colleges evaluation teams assessing other institutions, service on the board of the Caswell Credit Union, the Burlington Ecumenical Action Ministry and the Operations, Allocations and Long Range Planning committees of United Way.
Professor Kenny resides in Williston with his wife and family.
Saint Michael's College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.