ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — St. Bonaventure University recognized three faculty members with 2026 Awards of Excellence: Dr. Andrew Belfield, assistant professor of Theology and Franciscan Studies; Dr. Kaplan Harris, professor and chair of the Department of English; and adjunct instructor Sally Kwiatkowski. The honors highlighted contributions across teaching, scholarship and service, and were presented at the university’s awards gathering on campus. This short piece captures who was honored, their roles, and why recognition like this matters for a small, mission-driven campus.
The Awards of Excellence are about more than plaques and applause; they mark moments when the everyday work of teaching and service gets noticed by a community that values it. At St. Bonaventure, where faith-based mission and liberal arts traditions overlap, celebrating faculty achievement reinforces standards for classroom rigor, scholarly inquiry and campus leadership. Those categories — teaching, scholarship and service — signal the three corners of academic life, and honoring success in each shows the university is paying attention to all of them.
Dr. Andrew Belfield earned the Junior Faculty Award for his work in Theology and Franciscan Studies, a recognition that usually follows strong early performance in both classroom instruction and scholarly development. As an assistant professor, his role blends introducing undergraduates to complex theological ideas while building a research agenda that connects Franciscan history and contemporary questions. Winning a junior faculty prize often helps secure momentum for future projects and signals to colleagues and students that a rising scholar has earned their confidence.
Dr. Kaplan Harris received the University Service Award in recognition of leadership and steady work behind the scenes as professor and chair of the Department of English, where administrative duties meet curriculum oversight. Department chairs carry responsibilities that seldom show up in course catalogs: coordinating faculty workloads, shepherding program reviews, mentoring junior colleagues and keeping a departmental culture focused on students. A service award acknowledges that these managerial tasks are essential to a healthy university, especially when they are done with thoughtfulness and a collaborative spirit.
Sally Kwiatkowski took home the Adjunct Faculty Award, a form of recognition increasingly important on campuses that rely on part-time instructors to offer core courses and mentor students. Adjunct instructors like Kwiatkowski often juggle heavy teaching loads, limited office hours and the challenge of integrating into departmental life while balancing outside commitments. Honoring an adjunct underscores the reality that excellent teaching can come from every contract type, and it sends a clear signal that student-facing work is valued whether it is full-time or part-time.
The awards were presented during the university’s awards gathering, a campus moment that gathers colleagues, students and administrators to acknowledge achievement across departments. These events do more than hand out honors; they create a public record of standards and priorities and offer younger faculty examples of what success looks like in practice. For students who attend, the ceremony can be a reminder that the faculty who shape their courses are also active scholars and service leaders invested in the campus mission.
Recognition like this also helps build momentum for program development and donor interest, because visible faculty achievements make a university’s strengths easier to point to when discussing academic priorities. When a school highlights a junior scholar, a department chair, and an adjunct instructor all in one program, it communicates balance: investing in emerging research, steady leadership and the teaching force that meets students day to day. That balance matters for retention, recruitment and the everyday quality of education on campus.
On a practical level, awards can open doors to sabbaticals, grant support, or additional institutional resources that let faculty deepen their work and expand student opportunities. For faculty members themselves, recognition provides a morale boost and often sparks new collaborations both inside and beyond the university. At St. Bonaventure, celebrating Belfield, Harris and Kwiatkowski is a way of naming contributions that shape classrooms, departments and campus life in tangible ways.
