Faculty, staff awards night features enshrinement of Maroney, Nast

The Florida State University College of Business on Tuesday night established forever fame for two former faculty members who for more than three decades served students, empowered colleagues and helped put the college on its path to preeminence.

The college’s induction of Patrick Maroney and Donald Nast into the Charles A. Rovetta Faculty Hall of Fame coincided, as always, with its annual faculty and staff awards ceremony, which recognized 19 people for their work to help the college fulfill its mission of producing the next generation of business leaders.

“This marks our biggest night of the spring because we get to celebrate the outstanding work and achievements of each other and the game-changing service and accomplishments of those who came before us,” Michael Hartline, dean of the college, told attendees gathered in the FSU Alumni Center’s Grand Ballroom.

Hartline hailed Maroney and Nast as “two remarkable people” who left a mark “on their students, their colleagues, their disciplines and our college.”

Maroney, who earned an undergraduate degree in risk management and insurance from the college in 1971, joined the faculty as an assistant professor of business law in 1981 and retired in 2013 as the Kathryn Magee Kip Professor in Risk Management and Insurance. Nast joined the finance faculty as an assistant professor in 1973 and retired as SunTrust Associate Professor in 2005 – serving his last 26 years as chair of the Finance Department.

They joined 18 previous inductees in the Rovetta Faculty Hall of Fame, named in honor of the college’s second dean. 

“Like the inductees before them, they made us who we are,” Hartline said of Maroney and Nast.

Maroney thanks fellow pioneers

Hartline noted that Maroney played an instrumental role in the college’s rise – winning awards for teaching and advising; co-authoring more than 50 articles and books on insurance law and regulation; serving stints as a department chairman, MBA director and associate dean of graduate programs; and helping to secure the funding and naming of the Dr. William T. Hold/The National Alliance Program in Risk Management and Insurance, now a perennial Top 5 program.

Maroney also worked with the Florida Legislature to launch the Florida Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center and, perhaps most notably, persuaded the college to offer online graduate programs in 2001, long before they became mainstream. He built from scratch the online Master of Business Administration program and the Master of Science in Risk Management and Insurance, or MS-RMI, program.

Those programs today join the college’s Master of Science in Management Information Systems, or MS-MIS, program in the Top 15 among public schools, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Maroney thanked colleagues who worked with him on the launch of the online programs, calling them pioneers. 

“It was a big ask to ask people to develop courses and get things moving along,” Maroney told attendees. 

He expressed appreciation for staff members who assisted him through the years, including when he recently came out of retirement to teach the MS-RMI capstone course. 

He also saluted his fellow inductee. Maroney said he “had a lot of questions” when he became chair of the RMI department in 1992.

“I kind of wore out the carpet between my office and Don Nast’s office, and he was so helpful to me,” Maroney said. 

Nast: ‘Very fortunate and very honored’

Nast distinguished himself as a teacher, mentor, scholar and administrator who became known, as Hartline pointed out, for a calm and courteous demeanor and a genuine smile.

Hartline shared anecdotes in which former students and colleagues praised Nast for the confidence he instilled in them and for making them feel like they mattered. 

Students voted him recipient of the university’s 1994 Being There Award. And a few years before his retirement, former doctoral students initiated and financed a scholarship fund in his honor.

Nast said he enjoyed interacting with students, especially those with whom he connected and bonded. 

“That was one of the joys of teaching,” he said. 

Outside the classroom, Nast noted his 13 or so years on the investment advisory committee of the State Board of Administration of Florida, which manages the assets of the Florida Retirement System. 

He noted that his daughter, Jill, earned degrees in mathematics and statistics from FSU and that his son, Daniel, earned a degree in studio art from the university.

“And my wife then decided it was her turn,” Nast said, acknowledging his wife, Ruth, and his family in the audience, “so she got her degree in international affairs and graduated summa cum laude.”

Audience members erupted in applause.

Nast said he interviewed for his first job in the college with Rovetta, an influential and visionary dean who stepped down after 20 years in the role in 1973, just before Nast joined the faculty.

“I’m very fortunate and very honored to have this honor and to be connected with” previous inductees, Nast said. “Thank you for the honor.”

Here are recipients of the staff and faculty awards:

Core Values Awards – Staff

James Endress, Course Manager, Department of Finance
Giovanni Lopez, Information Technology Director, IT
Pete Reinwald, Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications

Core Values Awards – Faculty

Geoffrey Adams, Associate Lecturer, Department of Accounting
Don Autore, Chair and Dean L. Cash Professor of Finance, Department of Finance
Spencer Pierce, Jim Moran Associate Professor of Business Administration, Department of Accounting

Staff Awards

Extra Mile: Katie Xanders, Social Media Coordinator, Marketing & Communications
Emerging Leader: Bobby Lolley, Course Facilitator and Career Coach, Center for Professional Success
Esprit de Corps: Ashontis Pace, Academic Advisor, Undergraduate Programs Office
Ingenuity: Savana Edwards, Combined Pathways Advisor, Graduate Programs Office
MVP: Jennifer Janasiewicz, Assistant Director for Undergraduate Admissions and Graduation, Undergraduate Programs Office

Charles Hardwick Outstanding Teaching Awards

Undergraduate – Specialized Faculty: Andrew Schrowang, Assistant Lecturer, Department of Finance
Undergraduate – Tenure-Track Faculty: Tianming Zhang, Associate Professor, Department of Accounting
Graduate Teaching: Steven Perfect, Associate Professor, Department of Finance
Distinguished Teaching: Ken Armstrong, Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Analytics, Information Systems and Supply Chain

Research Awards

Outstanding Junior Scholar: Aleksandra “Ally” Zimmerman, Assistant Professor and Dean’s Emerging Scholar, Department of Accounting
Outstanding Senior Scholar: Patricia Born, Payne H. & Charlotte Hodges Midyette Eminent Scholar in Risk Management and Insurance, Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies