[Important Information for Employees] Longtime Arts and Sciences Dean, Biology Professor Emerita Kathleen Lavoie Dies

[Gerianne Downs]

Dear Members of the Campus Community,

The following is the story I will be sharing online and with the community:

Dr. Kathleen Lavoie, professor emerita of biology and former dean of arts
and sciences, passed away Monday, May 23, 2022, after attending her
granddaughter’s dance recital in Peru, N.Y. She was 72.

Dr. Lavoie was brought on board at SUNY Plattsburgh as its arts and
sciences dean in August 1997 after a nationwide search that brought in 120
applicants from across the country and that lasted nearly seven months. Dr.
Lavoie had been serving as acting dean of arts and sciences at the
University of Michigan-Flynt at the time of her appointment. Her
application was one of four under final consideration and made her one of
three women deans on campus at the time out of four.

She received her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of
New Hampshire in 1972, her master’s in microbiology from Indiana University
in 1976, and her doctorate in biological sciences from the University of
Illinois at Chicago in 1982.

Dr. Lavoie was world renown as an expert on bats. In 2004, she was featured
on the National Geographic Channel’s program, “Living Dangerously: Amazing
Caves,” where her research in a favorite  cave known as Cueva de Villa Luz
near Tapijulapa, Mexico, was highlighted.

The bat researcher was known to bring students on research trips over the
summer, including Cueva de Villa Luz and Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, a site
she had visited more than 40 times since her arrival on campus in 1997.
Other research visits included caves in South America, Italy, Australia,
Hawaii, the Galapagos, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Carlsbad Caverns and the
Azores.

She once said the reason she taught, even when she didn’t need to as a
dean, was because it was her “entertainment.”

“It’s the most fun I do,” she said.

Which would explain why, when stepping down after 16 years as dean, Dr.
Lavoie returned to that first love, teaching in the biology department and
conducting research. Although coordinating the Center for Interdisciplinary
Studies from January 2014 to December 2017, she continued to teach.

In 2017, she was among those honored by the State University of New York
with a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence for Scholarship and Creative
Activities.

On Sept. 1, 2019, she officially retired as a full-time member of the SUNY
Plattsburgh faculty, but she couldn’t stay idle, returning to the faculty
the following spring semester as an adjunct professor in biology. Dr.
Lavoie continued teaching during the spring semesters through May of this
year.

"Kathy was a wonderful member of the campus community,” said Dr. Thomas
Moran, who, as provost and vice president for academic affairs in 1997
appointed Dr. Lavoie to the dean position. “She was a long serving dean who
was known for her steady good judgment, fair mindedness, seemingly
effortless capacity for hard work, and her supportive, engaged presence in
the life of the campus — she seemed to never miss an important event.

“She also loved teaching, and throughout the years continued to teach large
classes to popular acclaim from students. And she was nationally known for
her research, which required that she literally enter and crawl through
caves to undertake,” he said. “I loved working with her and will miss her
enormously.”

Arrangements are incomplete at this time and will be shared with campus and
community as soon as they are finalized.



*GERIANNE WRIGHT DOWNS*

Associate Director of Communications

Office of the President

151 Hawkins Hall

101 Broad Street

Plattsburgh, N.Y. 12901

(o) 518-564-3094

(f) 518-564-2094

*plattsburgh.edu <http://plattsburgh.edu/>*

[image: Cardinal Pledge]
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