Two Wayne State University academic staff members were honored for their contributions to the university and the community at the recent Academic Convocation.

Recipients of the 1997 Academic Staff Awards were Christ Petrouleas of Grosse Pointe Park and Geraldine Hill of Highland Park.

Petrouleas, associate director of athletics, intramurals and recreation, received the Distinguished Service Award. In his more than 28 years at WSU he has helped countless individual students as well as the athletic department and has been involved in youth activities throughout metro Detroit, including the Orthodox Youth Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

He has been involved in more than 50 search and salary committees; coordinated phonathons for athletics and health and physical education; and assisted with student orientation counselor training for more than a decade.

Petrouleas also has served on the University Activities Committee, the Athletic Advisory Committee, the Board of Directors and Selection Committee of the WSU Athletic Hall of Fame and is chairman of the Academic Senate's Elections Committee.

His service is extended as the state coordinator for the National Collegiate Athletic Association-National Youth Sports Program and he has served as NYSP project administrator for the past four years.

Hill, a staff member since 1978, was given the Professional Achievement Award. She administers the Labor School's certificate program, recruits students and teaches. She also coordinates seminars dealing with workers' concerns in the workplace and labor unions in the Detroit area.

Hill served on the Michigan Task Force on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and was a consultant to the International UAW Women's Department in preparing the educational video Would You Let Someone Do This to Your Sister? And the Walter P. Reuther Archives short film Talking About...Women Workers. The Detroit Historical Museum and the Museum of African-American History have used her research.

A two-time member of the WSU American Association of University Professors' bargaining team, Hill serves on the board of the Detroit Association of Business Organization, Michigan Minority Women Network, the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation and the University and College Labor Education Association.

She also is active in the Coalition of Labor Union Women and the American Red Cross Personnel Committee's Detroit chapter.