C.W. Post Political Science Professor Michael Soupios
Awarded Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Medal

Brookville, NY -- Michael A. Soupios, professor of political science and one of the most popular and accomplished faculty members in the history of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, has won the Long Island University Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service – only the third time the award has been given to a C.W. Post faculty member.

Dr. Soupios holds a record-breaking nine university degrees -- four doctorates; four master’s degrees and one bachelor’s degree. He has taught more than 20,000 students during his career at the university.

By the time he was 27, Dr. Soupios earned three master’s degrees from C.W. Post and a doctorate in education from Columbia University. Doctorates of Philosophy would follow -- in philosophical studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo and political science from Fordham University.  In 1997, he completed a Master of Arts in theology, and in 2004 he earned a Doctorate in Ministry, both from the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception.

But while his prodigious scholarship is widely admired throughout the C.W. Post Campus community, Dr. Soupios is known foremost for his teaching. He won the University’s David Newton Award for Teaching Excellence in 1993. A popular lecturer at the Hutton House Lecture Series, his students donated $150,000 for the renovation of a room in Lorber Hall, which now bears his name. Adult student John Diaz endowed a new Hutton House series, the Margaret Diaz Memorial Lectures on Classical Civilization and Culture, on one condition – that Dr. Soupios lecture there once a year for the rest of his life, with his personal designee continuing thereafter. He has been nominated for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, a prestigious honor reserved for the best teachers in the English-speaking world.

Katherine Hill-Miller, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, calls him “quite simply the best teacher on campus.”

The Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service is a medal that is given sparingly to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to campuses of Long Island University. C.W. Post Chancellor Theresa Mall Mullarkey will bestow the medal on Dr. Soupios at C.W. Post’s 49th Commencement exercises on Sunday, May 13, 2007.

From 1985 through 1988, Dr. Soupios was the University’s dean for liberal arts and sciences, a position which existed before the current organizational structure. He was previously the dean for academic planning and evaluation and the youngest person to have been a dean in University history. Dr. Soupios also held the positions of assistant vice president for academic affairs, liaison to the state Department of Education and assistant to the vice president for academic affairs, all at the C.W. Post Campus.

Dr. Soupios also is one of the most accomplished athletes on campus. A former 250-pound defensive lineman for St. Lawrence University, Dr. Soupios is a lean runner who has jogged up Mt. Washington and Pike’s Peak and has been known to run for as long as 36 straight hours.

He lives with his wife, Linda, in East Northport. They have three grown children, Alexander, Nicholas and Athena.

Posted: May 11, 2007