Faculty Retirements

Two popular, long-time UB History professors have retired and moved on to the next stage of their lives. Jim Bono and Gail Radford are now officially Emeritus Faculty after decades of service to the University.

Jim joined the History Department in 1985 and for three and a half decades was the leading figure in the medical humanities at UB. With a joint appointment in History and the Medical School, Jim had a unique position at the intersection of the sciences and humanities. He taught generations of would-be doctors about the ethics and history of medicine while also training countless History graduate and undergraduate students. He authored The Word of God and the Languages of Man: Interpreting Nature in Early Modern Science and Medicine. Vol. 1, Ficino to Descartes (1995) and numerous journal articles. He also made an enormous impact at UB as an administrator, serving seven-and-a-half years as History Department Chair and taking leading roles on numerous University committees.

Gail came to UB in 1993 and quickly established herself as an extraordinary scholar-teacher.  Her first book, Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era (1996), became an instant classic and is still frequently cited, while her second book, The Rise of the Public Authority: Statebuilding and Economic Development in Twentieth-Century America (2013), won a major prize. But here at UB she was even better known as one of the Department’s most popular and effective teachers.  Her efforts were rewarded with not one but two awards: in 2013 she received the Milton Plesur Teaching Award from the UB Undergraduate Student Association and in 2018 she gained SUNY-wide acclaim with the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The History Department’s faculty, staff, and students all miss the presence of Jim and Gail, but we wish them a happy and healthy retirement!