Partings
Penn State Intercom......August 23, 2001

John J. Coyle, leader
in logistics, retires

John J. Coyle, the first person to teach a course at Penn State under the label "business logistics" in 1964, has retired from the University after 40 years of service.

Coyle, who retired with emeritus status, will continue to serve as director of corporate relations for the Center for Supply Chain Research in The Smeal College of Business Administration.

He has played an active role in developing the logistics and transportation program at the University since joining the faculty in 1961. It is the nation's top-ranked program in its field, according to recent surveys.

Coyle's many career highlights include 11 college and university awards for outstanding teaching and receiving the Council of Logistics Management's top honor, the Distinguished Service Award, in 1991.

The John J. Coyle Faculty Endowment was recently established in his honor. Hundreds of his colleagues, former students, and individual and corporate friends have committed more than $400,000 to the fund, which will endow a professorship to support the work of an outstanding member of the business logistics faculty.

In 1988, several faculty members and their spouses created the John J. Coyle Scholarship and, over the years, friends and alumni have contributed more than $134,000 to the fund. To contribute to the endowment or the scholarship, contact Phillip Bolda of the Smeal College Development Office at (814) 863-4955 or pxb36@psu.edu.

Coyle also has been active in various University affairs. He has chaired many University-wide committees and served as chairman of the University Faculty Senate. Coyle also served for 30 years as the faculty representative to the NCAA and the Big Ten for Penn State. He served as special assistant for strategic planning to the University president from 1983 to 1986 and from 1989 to 1991. During 1982 to 1987, he served as assistant dean and director of the Undergraduate Program, and as associate dean in Smeal College from 1987 to 1989.

Coyle has written more than 100 publications in the areas of transportation and logistics and is the co-author of two best-selling textbooks. He was editor of the Journal of Business Logistics from 1990 to 1996. He currently serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of Business Logistics, the Supply Chain Review and the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics.

He has consulted and provided in-house educational programs for more than 200 companies. He has been involved as a lecturer on the Executive Management Program, the National Industrial Distributors Program, and the Materials Management -- Physical Distribution Program. Coyle has been involved in a major program of instructional innovation involving television-taped modules for which he has received several teaching awards. Several Fortune 500 companies and other universities also are using the latest edition of the tapes.

Management science
professor retires

After more than 35 years of service to the University, Ronald Koot retired on July 3.

He had been a member of The Smeal College of Business Administration faculty since 1966.

A professor of management science, Koot served as associate dean for undergraduate programs from 1987-2000. Before that, he was assistant dean for graduate programs, faculty director of international programs and director of the USAID Penn State-University of the West Indies Project.

He had taught statistics in undergraduate and graduate level courses and economics in the MBA program. Koot was a recipient of the MBA Excellence in Teaching Award as well as the Smeal College Esther "Sis" Spicher Faculty Award for service to students.

Koot's research interests are in the areas of econometric modeling of firms, financial institutions and the macroeconomy. He also has an interest in logistical problems and economic development.

His research has been published in several journals. Koot also has served as associate editor of the Journal of Financial Research. On the basis of his published research, he was selected for Who's Who in Economics.

Julien Biebuyck retires
from College of Medicine

Dr. Julien F. Biebuyck, Eric A. Walker chair emeritus, retired from the University on June 30.

Biebuyck, who led academic affairs at the College of Medicine since 1990, stepped down as senior associate dean on Dec. 31. In January, Biebuyck began working closely with Darrell G. Kirch, senior vice president for health affairs at the University, dean, College of Medicine and chief executive officer of The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, as a special assistant to the senior vice president. Biebuyck worked toward facilitating the expanded research, clinical and education collaboration, jointly planned by President Graham B. Spanier and Kirch, for the College of Medicine and University Park campuses.

His University-wide role also involved establishing links with other academic medical centers with similar goals through closer relationships with the Association of American Medical Colleges.

During the past 10 years, Biebuyck was involved in several University and college initiatives including planning for the development of the Life Sciences Consortium.

Biebuyck spearheaded the development of the Institute for Clinical Research and its Office of Clinical Trials, a joint project by the University and The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. The overarching vision for this institute is to give access to patients in the Lehigh Valley, University Park, Centre County and Central Pennsylvania to the newest diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for many diseases.

Biebuyck was educated at the University of Cape Town (medical degree) in South Africa and Oxford University (doctoral degree in philosophy) in England. He was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He was named the Eric A. Walker chair of anesthesia in 1977, a position he held for 20 years. During his leadership of the discipline of anesthesia, he initiated the first palliative care service at The Hershey Medical Center and created and established the Cognitive Science and Simulation Development Laboratories. He was the first to establish laboratories in neuroscience combining research in the mechanisms of sleep, unconsciousness and coma. An endowed professorship, the Julien F. Biebuyck professor of anesthesiology, has been established in his name.

Currently a Robert G. Petersdorf scholar-in-residence at the Association of American Medical Colleges, Biebuyck is researching and writing what he hopes will be a seminal text defining best practices in the selection, recruitment, appointment and development of department chairs in academic medicine.

Eva Tucker retires from
Erie after 37 years

Eva Tucker, assistant professor in geoscience at Penn State Erie, has retired after 37 years of service.

He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in geology from the University of Cincinnati and taught at Lincoln Heights and Cincinnati public schools before coming to Erie in 1964.

While at Erie, Tucker supervised numerous undergraduate student research projects and wrote articles published in scholarly journals. Through his accomplishments he has received the University Faculty Interchange Program Award and the NASA Summer Faculty Fellowship Award among many others. He has been honored for his work with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources, Erie Redevelopment Authority and as president of the board for the School District of the City of Erie.

During his retirement Tucker plans to continue his 20-year involvement with the Erie school board and volunteer at local elementary schools to assist with their science programs. Traveling, reading and relaxation also are on his agenda for the years to come.

Associate professor of
music, recitalist retires

June Miller, associate professor of music, retired after 35 years at the University.

In addition to her teaching duties, she has been active as a recitalist, organ accompanist, service player, continuo player and clinician.

A member of the American Guild of Organists, she has presented numerous workshops and lecture-recitals for the organization, in addition to judging organ-playing competitions and teaching young organists at pipe organ encounters and the University's summer music camp.

She won an award for outstanding teaching and advising from the College of Arts and Architecture Alumni Society in 1988. In the 1990s, she served as educational coordinator for guild's western Pennsylvania region.

Currently the associate organist at Grace Lutheran Church in State College, she plans to travel and remain active professionally.

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