Six UCF faculty and staff members were granted emeritus status today 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.
College of Arts and Humanities
Donald Seay, Professor Emeritus, retired from the School of Performing Arts after more than 20 years of service. Seay served as the chair and artistic director for the UCF Conservatory Theater from 1992 until 2004, when he then returned to teaching. His primary teaching responsibilities were in performance and theatre management. During his time at UCF, he supervised the creation of four Bachelor of Fine Arts and four Master of Fine Arts degrees and contributed to the expansion of the performing arts production program. Seay is known nationally and internationally for his accomplishments and contributions to the performing arts and theatre industry, and in 2008 he received a Distinguished Career Award from the Florida Theatre Conference.
College of Sciences
Jack McGuire, Professor Emeritus, retired from the College of Sciences after serving as associate dean for more than 10 years. McGuire began his career at UCF in 1972 when he joined the Psychology Department, and served as chair from 1995 to 2003. He helped found the clinical psychology master’s program, which was one of UCF’s first graduate programs. He was also active in contributing to the growth of the mental health community, where he individually trained and mentored many of the current leaders in the field in Central Florida.
College of Education and Human Performance
Jeffrey S. Kaplan, Professor Emeritus, has been a faculty member at UCF since 1989, when he joined the College of Education. He became an elementary education coordinator at the UCF Daytona Beach campus in 1993 and later returned to the Orlando campus to become an associate professor in the School of Teaching, Learning and Leadership. Kaplan’s professional education career spans more than 38 years, and includes many leadership roles and recognitions, such as the College of Education Undergraduate Outstanding Teaching Award. He has written numerous books, chapters, book reviews and scholarly articles.
College of Health and Public Affairs
Dr. Myron D. Fottler, Professor Emeritus, joined the College of Health and Public Affairs in 1999 and has taught courses in human resources management and dissertation research. Later he went on to become the executive director of Health Services Administration programs. He made pivotal contributions to the College of Health and Public Affairs and helped to achieve initial and subsequent master’s program accreditation for the Master of Science in Health Services Administration. His accomplishments include awards from the American College of Healthcare Executives, American Association of Medical Administrators and others. He has authored more than 90 paper presentations at professional meetings, 100 journal articles, 60 book reviews, 30 book chapters and nine books. In 2010, Fottler and his wife, Carol, created a scholarship fund to help students in the health services administration master’s degree program and in the health administration specialization of the doctoral program in public affairs.
Chad Nye, Professor Emeritus, retired after 16 years in leadership roles at UCF. He served as chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders from 1996 to 1998, when he then went on to be the executive director of UCF’s Center for Autism and Related disabilities when it was founded in 1998. In 2010, he was named a fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and recognized for making outstanding contributions to the profession.
College of Nursing
Diane Wink, Professor Emeritus, joined UCF in 1987 as a visiting professor in the College of Nursing. She is a professor and coordinator of the Nurse Educator MSN program, where she continues to work on ways to enhance the nurse educator experience. Wink was named the Hugh F. and Jeannette G. McKean Endowed Chair in Nursing in 2012. She played a pivotal role in creating the college’s community-based nursing education curriculum, and helped develop the initial Nurse Educator Postgraduate Certificate and coordinated the Family and Adult Nurse Practitioner tracks.