Alumni News Hartwick’s Alumni Awards Salute Influential Graduates, Faculty, and Staff

Five members of the Hartwick College community have been selected to receive a 2023-2024 Alumni Award. The honor salutes graduates and current faculty or staff for their service to the College and Hartwick community.

This year’s winners are:

• Rob Carpenter ’88 of Monkton, MD, who will be presented the Meritorious Service Award for demonstrating outstanding loyalty and effective service to the College.
• David Ryan Polgar ’01 of New York City will be named the winner of the Distinguished Alumnus Award, given to a graduate who has distinguished themselves through outstanding achievements in their professional career, civic, and/or charitable activities.
• Rejoice Scherry ’13 of Plymouth, VT, earned the Outstanding Young Alumna Award, given to a graduate of the last decade who has shown exceptional competence, performance, and achievement in professional or volunteer activities.
• Scott Weber ’11 of Rochester, NY, has earned the Outstanding Volunteer Award, which recognizes those who have demonstrated outstanding and sustained volunteer service for the College. This includes alumni, retired employees, parents, or friends of the College.
• Dr. Kristin Jones of Oneonta is the College’s Outstanding Employee, as someone who has gone above and beyond their job to support the Alumni Association of the College.

The group will be celebrated at an on-campus ceremony on Friday, September 22, during True Blue Weekend 2023.

“We are so proud of this year’s awardees, and look forward to celebrating with them on campus during True Blue Weekend 2023! said Director of Alumni, Parent & Family Relations Kimberly Hastings. “These awardees were all nominated by their peers, which is a testament to the impact they’ve had on the communities they serve. Thank you to all who submitted nominations, and to our Alumni Board of Directors for going through the difficult process of selecting this year’s winners.”

Carpenter is recognized for the amount of time and energy he gives to Hartwick in supporting FlightPath. While serving as president and CEO of Baltimore-Washington Financial Advisors in Columbia, MD, he has provided real-world experiences for Hartwick students through several initiatives in his region. Carpenter has underwritten the costs of hosting students, faculty and staff at his offices as part of the College’s “Hawk Career HOP” program, and also created a summer internship program that provides Hartwick students with tools to launch their careers; he has hired several Hartwick students as a result. Carpenter’s engagement with his alma mater has been called “awe-inspiring” and “an inspiration to fellow alumni.”

Polgar earned the Distinguished Alumnus Award for his trailblazing work in helping advance the technology sector as a more human, responsible, and positive field. His efforts bring light to the ethics and implications of the vast communication, algorithm, and AI advances in society. Polgar is the founder and executive director of the non-profit organization All Tech Is Human, which champions the idea of “Responsible Tech” by creating pathways and developing opportunities for individuals from various cultural, academic, and professional backgrounds to get involved in the field. He is an international speaker, member of TikTok’s Content Advisory Council, and regularly works with national consulates, leading tech firms, and non-profit agencies. Polgar’s success is a clear extension of the liberal arts education he was immersed in at Hartwick and helped him develop into a responsible steward of the humanity within and around technology.

Scherry earned the Outstanding Young Alumna Award for her work in historic preservation and information sciences. She graduated from Hartwick with a degree in history in 2013, and later obtained a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh. Scherry joined Delaware State University in Dover, DE, and was instrumental in developing its archival repository as a Special Collections Librarian and University Archivist. After six years, she was named Library Director at SUNY Corning Community College. She recently returned to her passion for historic preservation, becoming a Historic Sites Regional Administrator for the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation in Plymouth, VT. There she is responsible for all aspects of the site’s operation, managing a total of 200 acres, 27 buildings, and 15 seasonal employees. Scherry remains committed to academic pursuits, serving on several committees for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference and presenting at annual meetings. She continues to encourage student populations by partnering with the private Coolidge Foundation to adjudicate a national speech and debate competition for high school students and college merit scholarships. Scherry was also one of 25 people selected nationally to participate in a joint Smithsonian and FEMA training program that teaches cultural heritage stewards about disaster preparedness and response.

Weber, a secondary music teacher in the Rochester (NY) City School District for 10 years, earned the Outstanding Volunteer Award for his consistent efforts to create an employment pathway between Hartwick’s music education graduates and his school district. He has hosted Hartwick students in his classrooms; Zoomed into National Association for Music Education meetings to provide interview advice; made professional connections in and around Rochester for students interested in coming to that area for their career; and advocated for Hartwick as a place for students to earn their undergraduate degree in music or music education. Weber consistently invites Hartwick music faculty to his campus. Most recently, Hartwick was the only music program to have an in-person representative on a “Music College and Career Q&A” at Rochester East High School’s “Music in Our Schools Month Showcase.” Weber sets the standard for the ideal way Hartwick alumni to connect with and continue to give to the College in unique ways.

Professor of Economics and Honors Program Co-Director Jones was named the College’s Outstanding Employee for the creative and deliberate ways in which she has integrated alumni into her classroom experience. She has been successfully connecting students in her classes to Hartwick alumni for years, even before it became a tenet of FlightPath. Starting in 2018, Jones has partnered with Director of Planned Giving Pat Dopazo to connect students in her Honors Seminar with alumni. Last year, Jones volunteered to design and pilot one of the College’s first SOAR Capstone courses, during which each student interacted with about 15 different alumni. Because of her thoughtful and deliberate work, many of her students have benefited from true mentoring relationships. Jones has been with Hartwick since 2005, and has also served as the economics department chair and as a member of Faculty Council.

For more information on the awards, visit the webpage. For more information on True Blue 2023, visit the event website or contact Hastings at 607-431-4045 or alumni@hartwick.edu.