However, it's the many other hats that Wallace has worn since his arrival on campus 40 years ago that have earned for him the inaugural David B. Thorud Leadership Award for faculty.

The irony is that one of the first times Wallace assisted outside his field of expertise was in 1987 on a panel searching for a new Business School dean. That committee was headed by the ubiquitous Thorud, the former dean of Forest Resources who has temporarily filled several other positions, including stints as acting provost and acting vice president for University Relations.

"David made it fun. He took on a lot of the work himself and he gave us direction," Wallace recalls nearly two decades later. He has had the opportunity to bring those same qualities to panels he has chaired, including review committees for Business School and Geophysics deans and a sometimes-contentious Ad-hoc Committee on Faculty Rewards and Responsibilities.

Wallace also has served on a search committee for a new Statistics chair, the Committee on Charting Directions for the College of Forest Resources and the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee. And those are just the duties outside his expertise.

He's also been chairman of Atmospheric Sciences, is completing his second stint as head of the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans, and served on panels that helped chart the course of the UW's environmental studies before becoming co-director of the Program on the Environment for its first three years.

"I've had a dual identity through the years, and that's meant a lot to me," Wallace says. He concedes he often was less than enthusiastic about what he considered secondary jobs, but he recognized their importance and knew they needed to be done. They also gave him a sense of involvement in broader University life.

"I'd find that they were interesting in their own way, and they became very satisfying. But they weren't satisfying enough for me to go into administration and give up teaching and research," he says with one of his hallmark grins.

His contributions clearly have not gone unnoticed.

"Mike exhibits a rare combination of scholarly stature, intellectual agility and personal humility. Repeatedly he has used these qualities, along with a wise sense of the collective good, to lead diverse groups to powerful and important conclusions," President Emeritus Lee Huntsman wrote in support of Wallace's nomination.

James Murray, an oceanography professor and director of the Program on Climate Change, credits Wallace with helping UW climate scientists forge a nationally prominent research and teaching program.

"He was one of the key players in guiding the fledgling program to overcome a number of institutional and resource barriers that limited the opportunity for faculty and students to pursue climate research and teaching across departments," Murray wrote. "As a result, we have been able to convert the potential into reality and have made the UW the premier university in the nation for study of global climate change."

Johnny Palka, an emeritus biology professor who was co-director of the Program on the Environment, said Wallace was a key in the program's success.

"Mike was a master at guiding the many, many conversations that ultimately created a core of faculty whose time was donated by their home departments, a curriculum, a degree program, and a dedicated support staff," Palka wrote.

As Wallace prepares to step away from his duties at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans, housed in a building across the street from University Village, he considers himself "the last of the old guard" in Atmospheric Sciences. He says the department, up the hill in the heart of upper campus, has added much new talent and is "finding a new equilibrium."

"I'd like to be a part of that process," he said. "I'd like to be over there with the other faculty every day and see the students every day."