Gromko earns BGSU’s Lifetime Achievement Award

BOWLING GREEN, O.—When he retires this summer, Dr. Mark Gromko, interim provost and associate vice president for academic affairs at Bowling Green State University, will leave a legacy of teaching, scholarship and academic leadership at BGSU that both he and the University can be proud of.

In honor of his many contributions, Faculty Senate presented him April 9 with the Lifetime Achievement Award. With it came a commemorative plaque and $1,000.

“Dr. Gromko has distinguished himself in a variety of roles at Bowling Green State University for 30 years,” Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, chair of the ethnic studies department, wrote in nominating the interim provost for the award. “In all of these positions he has demonstrated leadership, competence and a spirit of collegiality.”

A biologist specializing in genetics, Gromko began as an assistant professor at BGSU in 1978 and rose to professor in 1991. During that period, he published about 30 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and presented more than 20 papers at professional conferences, on the Drosophilia melanogaster, or fruit fly. He was also a successful grant writer, directed master’s theses and doctoral dissertations and taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

He began his career as an administrator in 1994, when he became associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1997, he joined the provost’s office as vice provost for academic affairs, overseeing program review, Undergraduate Council, faculty personnel and student assessment. Messer-Kruse wrote, “No one on campus had more firm knowledge of the arcane details of the various curricula and academic requirements of the University.”

Former provost John Folkins wrote of Gromko, “Mark is a highly efficient person. He gets things done and done well. Mark is fully open and collaborative. . . . He cares deeply about student learning and strives to make the educational experience as good as it can be for our students. He has been a champion of student learning outcomes, improvement of our general education programs, enhancing the Honors Program and facilitating faculty efforts to improve through the Center for Teaching and Learning.”

Gromko served as senior vice provost for academic programs in 2007-08 before again being named interim provost and associate vice president for academic affairs.

“As interim provost, he leads Academic Affairs in what must surely be one of our institution’s most challenging periods,” wrote Simon Morgan-Russell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “In all these significant administrative positions, Dr. Gromko has demonstrated his deep commitment to the quality of undergraduate and graduate education at BGSU.”

Gromko is a resident of Bowling Green.

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(Posted April 03, 2009 )