Awards & More

Issue Date: 
September 26, 2011

The University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration (CBA) was named one of the most military-friendly schools in the nation by G.I. Jobs, a national magazine for military personnel transitioning into civilian life. This is the third year the Katz School and CBA have earned this honor.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl honored Pitt’s Audrey J. Murrell with a Citizens Service Award and proclaimed Aug. 12 “Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s Citizens Service Recipient, Dr. Audrey Murrell Day.”

Murrell is a professor of business administration, psychology, and public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and the director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership in Pitt’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration.

The award recognizes “community leaders who have contributed exceptional levels of service toward the advancement of Pittsburgh communities,” Ravenstahl wrote in an Aug. 12 letter to Murrell.

Kareem Abu-Elmagd, professor of surgery in Pitt’s School of Medicine and director of the Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplantation Center at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, was named president of the Intestinal Transplant Association. Abu-Elmagd’s two-year appointment as president was announced Sept. 17 during the International Small Bowel Transplant Symposium in Washington, D.C.

Mary Rodgers Schubert, director of continuing education, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, was named president of the Nightingale Awards of Pennsylvania (NAP), a nonprofit foundation that aims to improve recruitment and retention of nurses in the state. NAP also named three School of Nursing faculty as Nightingale Award finalists: Michael Beach, assistant professor; Alice Blazeck, assistant professor and vice chair for administration; and Annette DeVito Dabbs, a professor and vice chair for research, all in the Department of Acute/Tertiary Care. Finally, Elizabeth Crago, a postdoctoral student in the School of Nursing’s Department of Acute/Tertiary Care, was awarded a Nightingale scholarship.

Benedum Hall, home to Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, was named the 2011 Project of the Year during a March of Dimes Transportation, Building, and Construction Awards luncheon on June 14. Opened in 1971, the 12-floor tower and accompanying auditorium have been under renovation since 2008, when Pitt launched its $60 million update of the engineering complex. The first phase was completed in 2010 and includes the new home of Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation. The Mascaro addition is on track for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification and features the University’s first living green roof—a plant and soil expanse that reduces water runoff and heat absorption—among other green features.