Pabisch Receives Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art

Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Peter Pabisch, Ger­man Stud­ies, in the Col­lege of Arts & Sci­ences, recently received the Aus­trian Cross of Honor for Sci­ence and Art, first class. Pre­sent­ing the medal was Karin Proidl, Con­sul Gen­eral of Austria.

Michael Dougher, senior vice provost, Aca­d­e­mic Affairs, noted Pabisch’s dis­tin­guished research, schol­ar­ship and teach­ing dur­ing his long career at UNM.

Pabisch, an Aus­trian native, started teach­ing at UNM in 1972. He’s authored numer­ous schol­arly books as well as co-editing or edit­ing many oth­ers. His writ­ing isn’t lim­ited to aca­d­e­mic top­ics, but spans to the cre­ative as well. He’s both poet and sketch artist.

“He’s pub­lished more in the years since becom­ing an emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor than many do dur­ing their pro­fes­sional tenure,” Dougher said. Pabisch con­tin­ues to pro­duce jour­nal­is­tic essays as well as schol­arly chap­ters, arti­cles and notes.

The Aus­trian Cross of Honor for Sci­ence and Art “acknowl­edges and rewards lead­ing per­son­al­i­ties who have been of spe­cial ser­vice to our coun­try,” Proidl said.

She high­lighted Pabisch’s “40 plus years of aca­d­e­mic and cul­tural work,” not­ing that he has been a “pre­cious gem” to the close rela­tions between Aus­tria and the United States.

“In his teach­ings and writ­ings, Pro­fes­sor Peter Pabisch con­sis­tently high­lighted the many fea­tures of Austria’s cul­tural char­ac­ter­is­tics and cul­tural wealth, the col­or­ful, highly diverse and most charm­ing Aus­trian aspects of the Ger­man lan­guage as well as the rich­ness of Austria’s lit­er­ary cir­cle and the cre­ativ­ity of our writ­ers,” Proidl said.

She noted his co-founding of the Ger­man Sum­mer School, ded­i­cated to Ger­man speak­ing coun­tries and train­ing lan­guage teach­ers and stu­dents. “Pro­fes­sor Pabisch con­sis­tently aimed at includ­ing Aus­trian top­ics, writ­ers and lec­tur­ers in the pro­gram,” she said. The Ger­man Sum­mer School con­tin­ues to flour­ish under col­leagues in Ger­man Studies.

Proidl also took note that Pabisch was founder of the Atlantic Bridge on the Camino Real, devel­oped to pro­mote aca­d­e­mic part­ner­ships and exchange programs.

“In a nut­shell,” she said, “Pro­fes­sor Pabisch widely opened win­dows towards Aus­tria and he opened hearts and doors for Austria.”

See slideshow.