{"id":132097,"date":"2024-10-10T19:36:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T23:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&p=132097"},"modified":"2025-09-29T18:12:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T22:12:34","slug":"alumni-awards-ceremony-honors-louis-sullivan-christopher-andry-and-jennifer-luebke","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/news-events\/articles\/2024\/alumni-awards-ceremony-honors-louis-sullivan-christopher-andry-and-jennifer-luebke\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Awards Ceremony Honors Louis Sullivan, Christopher Andry and Jennifer Luebke"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Distinguished Alumni Award winners Christopher Andry, PhD\u201994 and Jennifer Luebke, PhD\u201990, flank Dean\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Louis Sullivan, MD\u201958.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlumni Awards Ceremony Honors Louis Sullivan, Christopher Andry and Jennifer Luebke\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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October 10, 2024<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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Louis Sullivan, MD\u201958, Christopher Andry<\/a>, PhD\u201994, MPhil, and Jennifer Luebke<\/a>, PhD\u201990, were honored at the annual Alumni Awards Luncheon held Sept. 28 in Hiebert Lounge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan, former secretary of health and human services during President George H.W. Bush\u2019s administration, received the inaugural Dean\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve received a number of awards during my career, but this is about the most significant,\u201d Sullivan told an audience of more than 90 alumni and faculty. \u201cI\u2019m honored by this. I\u2019m thankful to BU for making my career possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Sullivan told the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andry, professor, and chair of pathology & laboratory medicine, and Luebke, Waterhouse Professor and chair of anatomy & neurobiology, received Graduate Medical Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m humbled to be standing in front of you, it\u2019s a great honor to be recognized,\u201d said Andry, who has worked at BU and primary teaching affiliate Boston Medical Center (BMC) for more than 40 years. \u201cI just reflect on how fortunate I\u2019ve been\u2026to be able work and learn and study and enjoy this community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis award is acknowledgement of what\u2019s possible when you have a support system that is truly excellent, and when you have a support system where it\u2019s from the top all the way through to your students and your trainees,\u201d said Luebke, who has worked at BU for 28 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have people who are dedicated to high standards of ethical behavior, excellence in research, excellence in education and that\u2019s all found here,\u201d Luebke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s medical school in 1954, as the only Black student in his class and said he was warmly welcomed there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Louis
Louis Sullivan, MD\u201958, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services received the inaugural Dean\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was my first experience living in a non-segregated society,\u201d Sullivan recalled in his remarks at the luncheon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan was appointed secretary of Health and Human Services in 1989. He served as co-chair of the President\u2019s Commission on HIV and AIDS (2001-2006), and chairman of the President\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan recalled that in the aftermath of Rev. Martin Luther King\u2019s 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\u2019s class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m pleased that the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has continued to work on that legacy and has contributed even more,\u201d said Sullivan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Christopher
Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Christopher Andry, PhD\u201994, MPhil addresses annual Alumni Awards Luncheon.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Andry said. \u201cBU 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jennifer
Jennifer Luebke, PhD\u201990 received a Distinguished Alumni Award<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Luebke noted that she\u2019d spent her entire professional life on the Medical Campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m surrounded by individuals who have nurtured me and helped me\u2026and I feel that at Boston University we have that kind of culture where people help each other to do the best that they can,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While thanking the teachers, mentors and co-workers she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m 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,\u201d she said, adding that she will continue to mentor students and junior faculty and \u201censure that other people benefit from this great institution and will be as happy and productive here as I have been.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the conclusion of the meeting, outgoing Alumni Board President Demetrios Vavvas, MD\u201999, introduced his successor Daniel Oates, MD\u201900.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Alumni
Alumni Board President Demetrios Vavvas, MD\u201999, presents gavel to incoming president Daniel Oates, MD\u201900<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d said Oates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award, Distinguished Alumni Award, Emerging Leader Award and the Humanitarian Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louis Sullivan, MD\u201958, Christopher Andry, PhD\u201994, MPhil, and Jennifer Luebke, PhD\u201990, 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\u2019s administration, received the inaugural Dean\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award. \u201cI\u2019ve received a number of awards during my career, but this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19603,"featured_media":125135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":"Alumni News"},"tags":[395,356,383],"bu-publication":[367],"medicine-article-category":[],"medicine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[376],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[368],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/132097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132097"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/132097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138660,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/132097\/revisions\/138660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132097"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=132097"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-article-category?post=132097"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-topic?post=132097"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=132097"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=132097"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=132097"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=132097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}