Michael Kelly Bruce
Associate Professor
Department of Dance
From the very beginning of Michael Kelly Bruce’s time at The Ohio State University, he has put service among his top priorities.
He served on multiple department and college committees in his first year and served as freshman coordinator and on the Faculty Concerns and Curriculum Committees before he finished his second year. He has since been on no fewer than 18 university committees along with nearly continuous service on college senate and curriculum committees. He was assistant chair of the Department of Dance for many years and served as interim chair for two years. He has been an associate dean in the former College of Arts.
“The sum total of his accomplishments, advocacy and munificence has helped countless students, programs and initiatives to advance and thrive,” a nominator wrote. “His profile as an artist, teacher and leader portrays a man who implicitly cares about the students and works to get the job done and does not self-aggrandize nor do it with cloying ambition.”
Bruce also has been active in the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science and on the board of the American Dance College Dance Festival Association. Through all of that, he has continually developed both his teaching portfolio and his creative work as a choreographer.
“The number of committees he has served and led is extraordinary, but what is remarkable about Mike’s service is not the quantity but the quality of good policies and practices that have impacted students and faculty,” another nominator wrote. “He always wants to find the best outcome for any given problem or situation and is driven by getting the job done.”
Bruce is a graduate of Stephens College and has been at Ohio State since 1990.
Lawrence A. Krissek
Professor
School of Earth Sciences
Lawrence Krissek is one of those people who not only serves willingly, ably and enthusiastically, but who also is willing to stand in the background and let others take credit even when he himself might have earned a significant share of it. “He is part of the glue that holds this university together and makes it run as smoothly as it does,” according to one nominator.
Within his school, Krissek has served on faculty search committees and committees for curriculum, both graduate and undergraduate studies, teaching quality — even equipment and facilities — and chairs them as often as not.
He is a clastic sedimentologist, with primary interests in the evolution of climates and ocean environments, has been a faculty senator and has served on the Stone Laboratory and Ohio Sea Grant advisory committees since 2010. And during the semester conversion, he almost single-handedly led the school’s faculty through the exercise — a job made even more difficult with the addition of four new tracks within the undergraduate program.
“Dr. Krissek is a significant source of information on curriculum,” a nominator wrote. “His extensive service, especially as it relates to curriculum issues, has made him invaluable as a contributor in this area in the college and the university. Because of that vast experience, he’s now involved in getting the university ready for the upcoming reaccreditation process.”
“His sense of dedication and responsible service to his department, college and university is unique among us,” another nominator wrote. “The pride and dedication he takes in his teaching (he’s a past winner of the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching) are more than exemplary.”
Krissek earned his PhD from Oregon State University and has been at Ohio State since 1982.
Catherine Montalto
Associate Professor
Department of Human Sciences
Cathy Montalto is a highly productive, service-oriented faculty member who is deeply involved with the university on multiple levels — lending her service to such widely diverse areas as the Graduate School, Office of Student Life, Buckeye Book Community, Council on Academic Affairs, Ohio Staters Inc., Presidential Fellows, Student Fulbrights and many others.
“In a university as large and comprehensive as Ohio State, it is critical that staff and faculty members collectively embrace the concepts of One University and putting students first in order to provide the type of extraordinary experience our students deserve,” wrote a nominator from Student Life. “Cathy has been one of our division’s most amazing partners, collaborators and supporters, and she has improved the lives of thousands of students.”
Among a myriad of services to the Graduate School, she helped lead its transition to semesters on the school’s Curriculum Committee, and her work there led her to be named to the Council on Academic Affairs subcommittee that reviewed conversion templates that were used campus-wide. She has been on the Student Wellness task force since 2008 — translating her research to practice by mentoring the coaches in the Scarlet and Gray Financial peer-to-peer counseling program, and served on the planning committee for the statewide and national student financial wellness summits held at Ohio State the last two years.
She chairs Student Life’s internal program review panel for Parent and Family Relations and is a longstanding member and faculty treasurer of Ohio Staters Inc., the renowned service organization that works for the overall good of the
university.
“Unfailing service to Ohio State’s students, inside and outside the classroom, is a hallmark of Cathy Montalto’s career, “ a nominator wrote. “I have come to know her as one of the most inclusive, hard-working, supportive and dedicated members of the Ohio State community.”
Montalto earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ohio State and her PhD from Cornell University. She has been teaching at Ohio State since 1992.
