Three named SUNY Online Teaching Ambassadors

UB faculty members Chris Cohan, David Murray and Todd Sage have been selected as SUNY Online Teaching Ambassadors for 2022.

The trio was nominated by UB’s Educational Design Collaborative. They were among numerous SUNY faculty members named Online Teaching Ambassadors as part of the SUNY Online Summit on March 1.

“These three faculty members were nominated as UB’s SUNY Online Teaching Ambassadors for 2022 in recognition of their enthusiastic and effective teaching as exemplary online educators,” says Cheryl Oyer, coordinator of online learning at the School of Nursing and co-chair of the Educational Design Collaborative. “They are positive and strong advocates for online teaching in the SUNY community and well deserving of this honor.”

Cohan is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. His research interests and teaching are in the area of neuroscience. He is a strong advocate for the integrated teaching of neuroscience and the use of online resources to make learning more effective. He is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and a seven-time recipient of the Jacobs School’s Louis A. and Ruth Siegel Awards for Excellence in Teaching.

Cohan also serves as director of UB’s two brain museums.

Murray, clinical professor in the Department of Management Science and Systems, School of Management, also serves as the department’s faculty director of undergraduate programs, as well as director of the Sleiman Information Assurance Lab.

He teaches technology and business courses to undergraduate and graduate students, and is the recipient of more than $1.2 million in STEM grants since 2005. A firm believer in the importance of academic service, he currently holds 15 positions as either a member, director or faculty member of UB committees and organizations.

Sage, clinical assistant professor in the School of Social Work, works to improve learning outcomes in higher education by using information and communication technology (ICT). He also conducts practice and research in Trauma-Informed Motivational Interviewing in health and human services.

Sage encourages collaborative learning between peers and faculty to prepare them for the field, and guides students as they develop analytic reasoning skills. He is also a licensed master level social worker (LMSW) and a credentialed alcoholism and substance abuse counselor master addiction counselor.

In other business at the SUNY summit, UB’s Experiential Learning Network (ELN) placed second among eight projects nominated for the Effective Practice Award, which recognizes campus efforts to improve accessibility and affordability of online education and to maximize the educational value provided.

The ELN Project Portal was founded by Mara Huber, associate dean for undergraduate research and experiential learning, to connect students with mentored opportunities. The program supports students’ academic and professional development with digital badges that can be included in applications for future employment and graduate schools.