Alumni Awards Ceremony Honors Louis Sullivan, Christopher Andry and Jennifer Luebke

Three distinguished alumni award winners seated in front of a BU Chobanian Avedisian School of Medicine backdrop
Distinguished Alumni Award winners Christopher Andry, PhD’94 and Jennifer Luebke, PhD’90, flank Dean’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Louis Sullivan, MD’58.

Louis Sullivan, MD’58, Christopher Andry, PhD’94, MPhil, and Jennifer Luebke, PhD’90, were honored at the annual Alumni Awards Luncheon held Sept. 28 in Hiebert Lounge.

Sullivan, former secretary of health and human services during President George H.W. Bush’s administration, received the inaugural Dean’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

“I’ve received a number of awards during my career, but this is about the most significant,” Sullivan told an audience of more than 90 alumni and faculty. “I’m honored by this. I’m thankful to BU for making my career possible.”

“The work that you do, and that other graduates of this school do, really touches the lives of people, not only here in America, but around the world,” Sullivan told the audience.

Andry, professor, and chair of pathology & laboratory medicine, and Luebke, Waterhouse Professor and chair of anatomy & neurobiology, received Graduate Medical Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards.

“I’m humbled to be standing in front of you, it’s a great honor to be recognized,” said Andry, who has worked at BU and primary teaching affiliate Boston Medical Center (BMC) for more than 40 years. “I just reflect on how fortunate I’ve been…to be able work and learn and study and enjoy this community.”

“This award is acknowledgement of what’s possible when you have a support system that is truly excellent, and when you have a support system where it’s from the top all the way through to your students and your trainees,” said Luebke, who has worked at BU for 28 years.

“We have people who are dedicated to high standards of ethical behavior, excellence in research, excellence in education and that’s all found here,” Luebke said.

Born in Atlanta and raised in rural Georgia, Sullivan came from a highly segregated South. A Morehouse College graduate, he was accepted to Boston University’s medical school in 1954, as the only Black student in his class and said he was warmly welcomed there.

Louis Sullivan seated in a wheelchair addressing the large group upon receiving his award
Louis Sullivan, MD’58, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services received the inaugural Dean’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

“It was my first experience living in a non-segregated society,” Sullivan recalled in his remarks at the luncheon.

In 1966, he became the co-director of hematology at Boston University Medical Center and founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital, now known as Boston Medical Center. He was a professor of medicine at the school, leaving to direct the new Morehouse College medical program in 1973, and subsequently serving as founding president and dean of the new Morehouse School of Medicine.

Sullivan was appointed secretary of Health and Human Services in 1989. He served as co-chair of the President’s Commission on HIV and AIDS (2001-2006), and chairman of the President’s Commission on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (2002-2009), and is currently chairman of the Sullivan Alliance to Transform the Health Professions, a Washington, DC-based organization with the mission of increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of health professionals in the U.S.

Sullivan recalled that in the aftermath of Rev. Martin Luther King’s death in 1968, he wanted to address chronic low recruitment of Blacks to medical schools and joined with then-medical school dean Franklin Ebaugh, Jr., MD, to raise $40,000 to create a fund to bring Black students to the medical school. A recruitment weekend, sponsored by the medical school, with most New England medical schools participating, resulted in what Sullivan said was a significant increase in Black students in all but one of those institutions in the following year’s class.

“I’m pleased that the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has continued to work on that legacy and has contributed even more,” said Sullivan.

Chris Andry at podium addressing group at awards luncheon
Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Christopher Andry, PhD’94, MPhil addresses annual Alumni Awards Luncheon.

Andry talked about a lifetime of work at BU and BMC and its predecessors Boston City Hospital and University Hospital. He is proud that he, his wife and son are BU alumni.

“We always embraced the mission of Boston University ensuring that there is always opportunity for people of all walks of life to be able to come and receive an education,” Andry said. “BU has been a leader in the city in thinking about how to create opportunity for people and, of course, in our work at Boston Medical Center with a particular focus on the health equity space.”

Jennifer Luebke at podium addressing group at awards luncheon
Jennifer Luebke, PhD’90 received a Distinguished Alumni Award

Luebke noted that she’d spent her entire professional life on the Medical Campus.

“I’m surrounded by individuals who have nurtured me and helped me…and I feel that at Boston University we have that kind of culture where people help each other to do the best that they can,” she said.

While thanking the teachers, mentors and co-workers she’s had in her long career at BU, Luebke also looked to the future, saying she is inspired by the students and young researchers she works with now.

“I’m so grateful to work with you, and I am 100 percent confident in the future of biomedical research and biomedical education when I see the extraordinarily gifted and talented people that are going to be coming after,” she said, adding that she will continue to mentor students and junior faculty and “ensure that other people benefit from this great institution and will be as happy and productive here as I have been.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, outgoing Alumni Board President Demetrios Vavvas, MD’99, introduced his successor Daniel Oates, MD’00.

Standing at podium Demetrios Vavvas hands gavel to Daniel Oates at alumni awards luncheon
Alumni Board President Demetrios Vavvas, MD’99, presents gavel to incoming president Daniel Oates, MD’00.

“I look forward to a very exciting year ahead, collaborating with our alumni board, rolling out the expanded alumni awards which will more broadly recognize the outstanding and innovative work of many of our alumni,” said Oates.

Looking to capture the diversity of alumni backgrounds, areas of study and the scope of their careers, the Alumni Board recently expanded alumni awards from two to five and they now include: the Advocacy, Equity, Social Justice in Medicine Award, the Dean’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Distinguished Alumni Award, Emerging Leader Award and the Humanitarian Award.