Omar Blaik’s leadership in energy conservation has earned Penn a 2002 Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence in Energy Efficiency, which is given by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The Vice President for Facilities and Real Estate Services has overseen Penn’s efforts to use energy more wisely as well as the school’s adoption of green power sources like wind energy.

Paul W. Meyers, F. Otto Haas Director of the Morris Arboretum, has received the American Horiticultural Society’s Great American Gardeners 2002 Professional Award. Under Meyer’s tenure, the Arboretum has emerged as a leading horticultural and botanical institution.

A gold and a silver

Two medals from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education—one gold, the other silver—have been awarded to The Pennsylvania Gazette for articles written by Senior Editor Samuel Hughes. Deemed among the best articles of the year by CASE, “An Affair to Remember” documents the controversy surrounding the firing of a Wharton School professor in 1915 and “Speech!” looks at linguist Noam Chomsky. Find the articles at www.upenn.edu/gazette.

In honor of his dedication to the battle against cancer, the American Cancer Society has named Fran Dunphy, the head coach of men’s basketball at Penn, the 2002 Coaches vs. Cancer National Coach of the Year. Dunphy has promoted several events in the Philadelphia area on behalf of Coaches vs. Cancer.