Bonin receives inaugural Academic Leadership Award from CBOV

Keith Bonin

The College Board of Visitors on April 20 presented Keith D. Bonin with the board’s inaugural Academic Leadership Award at a board dinner on campus.  Bonin, who joined the faculty in 1992, is professor of physics and chair of the physics department.

In the April 24 electronic edition of the Dean’s Office Digest, the Dean of the College Office announced the award:

“The College Board of Visitors award recognizes Keith for embracing a philosophy of academic leadership and community-building. It celebrates Keith’s proven track record of engaging his academic department and academic colleagues in achieving a vision that includes but extends well beyond the Physics Department by pursuing opportunities for collaboration and innovation. His efforts have significantly advanced the goals of Wake Forest College as embodied in our liberal arts tradition.

The award recognizes academic leadership as a valued practice and confirms that departmental and other academic leaders can be effective agents of change on behalf of the institution, students, and colleagues. This award recognizes Keith as a leader who embodies the best qualities of academic leadership, not only of managerial skills, but of institutional vision and an abiding commitment to academic excellence, diversity and inclusion, classroom innovation, and commitment to students and the Wake Forest community.”

At the April 20 event, John Cooper, chair of the College Board of Visitors, presented the following remarks:

“Tonight, the College Board of Visitors honors Dr. Keith Bonin, professor and chair of the Department of Physics, for your outstanding leadership of a vital and thriving department, your advocacy for students, your work to develop a climate where faculty do their best work, and for your visionary leadership and its impact on the college and its future.

Your fingerprints are all over Wake Downtown including the long-term vision to create an engineering department. Dr. Bonin chaired the engineering department search this year, on top of his significant physics department work, leading a process that ensured the recruiting and hiring of the founding members of the engineering department—four faculty members, including a national star for chair.

In accepting the award, Bonin told the audience:

“I am personally humbled to be the recipient of the inaugural College Board of Visitors Academic Leadership Award. So much of what we accomplish is mainly due to the help we receive from others.  And this is especially true in my case where I have benefited from the tight-knit communities that exist at Wake Forest: in the department, in the College, in the Graduate and Professional Schools, and in the university as a whole.”