Pitt to Hold 27th Annual Honors Convocation Feb. 28 Peter J. Safar, Distinguished Professor of Resuscitation Medicine, To deliver featured address

February 24, 2003

PITTSBURGH—University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg will preside over Pitt's 27th annual Honors Convocation at 3 p.m. Friday in the Carnegie Music Hall, 440 Forbes Ave., Oakland.

Peter J. Safar, Distinguished Professor of Resuscitation Medicine at Pitt and a pioneer of the academic discipline of critical care medicine, will be the featured speaker, with a speech titled "Thoughts about Académe and Humanism." Prior to his address, Safar will have the honorary Doctor of Science degree conferred upon him by the chancellor.

Safar, who earned his M.D. at the University of Vienna in 1948, formed the first medical-surgical, physician-staffed intensive care unit in the United States in 1958 at Baltimore City Hospital in Baltimore, Md., where he also conducted the first basic science research on two of the three basic life support steps of what would become known as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR. He came to Pitt in 1961 to initiate and chair the Department of Anesthesiology, which a year later became the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine.

In 1962, Safar established the world's first multidisciplinary critical care medicine physician fellowship training program. In the early 1960s, he devised a nine-step process for reviving people who suffer cardiac arrest called cardiopulmonary-cerebral resuscitation. In 1979, he formed Pitt's International Resuscitation Research Center, which now bears his last name. Safar and his colleagues continue research in "suspended animation" for delayed resuscitation.

The convocation also will include the recognition of faculty members receiving the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award, the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award, and the Chancellor's Distinguished Public Service Award; and staff members receiving the Chancellor's Distinguished Service Award.

Receiving the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award are Rodney H. Eatman, a professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown; Joseph J. Grabowski, a professor in Pitt's Department of Chemistry; William C. deGroat, a professor in Pitt's Department of Pharmacology; John W. Kreit, associate professor of medicine in Pitt's School of Medicine; and Deborah Studen-Pavlovich, a professor in Pitt's School of Dental Medicine.

Receiving the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award are Isabel L. Beck, a professor in the University's Department of Learning and Instruction; Jeffrey H. Schwartz, a professor in Pitt's Department of Anthropology and Pitt's Department of History of Philosophy of Science; Craig S. Wilcox, a professor in Pitt's Department of Chemistry; Kay M. Brummond, a professor in Pitt's Department of Chemistry; and Jeffrey Lawrence, associate professor in Pitt's Department of Biological Sciences.

Receiving the Chancellor's Distinguished Public Service Award are Robert Bowser, associate professor of pathology in Pitt's School of Medicine; Ronald A. Brand, professor in the University's School of Law; Carrie R. Leana, a professor of business administration in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business; and Edward W. Sites, a professor in the School of Social Work.

Receiving the Chancellor's Distinguished Service Award are Christine A. Chergi, manager of the William Pitt Union; Betsy A. Goenner, executive assistant to the president at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown; Joseph P. Healey III, a truck driver on the moving staff in Pitt's Department of Parking and Transportation; Dean M. Julian, a senior academic counselor in the College of General Studies; and Cheryl Ruffin, a client services representative and recruiter in the Department of Human Resources.

In addition, the University will recognize three individuals with the 2003 Distinguished Alumni Fellow Award. Recipients are Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who received her M.D. from Pitt in 1969; Robert D. Dowling, associate professor of surgery in the University of Louisville School of Medicine, who received his M.D. from Pitt in 1985; and Samuel J. Hazo, director of the International Poetry Forum of Pittsburgh, who received his Ph.D. from Pitt in 1957.

The University holds the Honors Convocation annually to recognize undergraduate, graduate, and professional academic achievement; student leadership; and faculty and staff accomplishments.

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