COLCHESTER, Vt. - After nearly eight years as the Saint Michael's College Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR), Ray Patterson, Ph.D. left his post at the end of the fall semester, being succeeded by Paul Constantino '92, Ph.D., Biology Department program director and professor. College President Dr. Richard Plumb appointed Constantino to the position.
 
FARs provide oversight in both academics and athletics to ensure integrity and institutional control of a college's athletics program, and serve as advocates for the student-athlete to assist in ensuring their well-being and a quality experience in an environment of tolerance, respect and inclusion. FARs are committed to the NCAA Division II Life in the Balance positioning statement and to the six Division II attributes: learning, sportsmanship, service, resourcefulness, passion and balance. They play an active role in communicating the vision and values of Division II intercollegiate athletics at the campus, conference and national levels, and with the community at-large.
 
Constantino joined the biology faculty in 2014 and has worked with Athletics as a men's soccer faculty affiliate. His areas of expertise are evolutionary biology, human evolution and human anatomy, particularly the study of the evolution of skulls and teeth. In 2021, the often-published Constantino and women's volleyball alumna Katy Konow '21 wrote a scientific paper on the topic that ran in the Journal of Human Evolution. Constantino's scientific pursuits have taken him around the United States and to such countries as China, Kenya and South Africa, and he co-led the past three Ireland academic summer study trips and the winter 2022 Costa Rica academic trip. Constantino has mentored students throughout their time at Saint Michael's, from a first-year seminar on birds of the world to evolutionary anatomy senior seminar.
 
Patterson serves the College as Religious Studies Department chair and associate professor of religious studies. Amid his 31st school year as an employee and 28th year as a professor at Saint Michael's, Patterson is the long-time faculty affiliate for the women's basketball, field hockey and women's lacrosse programs, providing academic support and guidance to those teams' student-athletes. Thanks to his involvement with all students at the College, he has been honored often over the years. In 2017 alone, Patterson received the inaugural Northeast 10 Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) Faculty Mentor Award, the Dr. Dave Landers Faculty Member of the Year Award from the Saint Michael's SAAC, and the College's Reverend Gerald E. Dupont Award.