Business professor wins top annual honor at CSUSB

San Bernardino Sun

By Robert Rogers

Lloyd Peake has worked and studied for decades, but nothing prepared the college professor to react to his university's president and a pack of esteemed colleagues barging into his classroom.

Peake, standing stoic at the head of his management class as Cal State San Bernardino as President Albert Karnig lavished him with praise, revealed a hint of unease when Karnig fell silent, coaxing the professor's response.

"I hate to admit this as an old beat-up trial lawyer," Peake said, "But I am speechless."

Peake was named the University's 2006-7 Outstanding Professor, the highest annual honor bestowed by the school on a professor, during an impromptu midday ceremony Monday. As about 40 students went from jotting notes to staring in surprise, Karnig and other faculty members and a few past winners filed unannounced into Peake's Jack Brown Hall classroom to bring the good news.

Moments later, Peake regained the professorial composure befitting a man whom faculty, educators and students regard as one of the top minds and most tireless public servants on campus.

A former attorney and business maven who has taught at Cal State since 1988, Peake told students and faculty that the university offers a vital slice of what is all too rare in the world beyond it.

Of utmost importance, Peake said, is the "notion of collegiality. I never saw that before I came here," he said in brief remarks. "Take (collegiality) with you into the world, and it will serve you well," he told his students.

Before becoming a full-time management professor in the university's College of Business and Public Administration in 2003, Peake practiced civil law for several firms in the 1970s and '80s, specializing in labor and affirmative action issues.

Karnig and other administrators noted that student evaluations consistently rate Peake as among the most challenging professors in the department.

As an academic, Peake has focused his publishing energies on topics including civil rights, labor relations and affirmative action.

Peake is active in campus politics and has served as chair of the Faculty Senate since 2004.

After the announcement, Karnig and his pack of decorated academics left the classroom, and Peake resumed his lecture.

"(Peake) is an exceptionally challenging, tough and demanding professor," Karnig said. "But most exceptional is his ability to promote learning and positively influence the lives of his students."