Five Dartmouth alumni will be recognized for their lifetime contributions to the College and other achievements. Three will receive the Dartmouth Alumni Award, which recognizes service to the College, career achievement and other community service, and two will receive the Dartmouth Young Alumni Distinguished Service Award. The awards will be presented during the Alumni Awards Gala, which will be held in the fall.
Lynne Gaudet, director of alumni leadership, said the awards are significant because they were recognized by the Alumni Awards Committee of the Alumni Council, not by the College itself. The committee is also comprised of former recipients of the award, so committee members have an understanding of the criteria, she said.
In order to be selected for the Alumni Award, the recipient must have graduated more than 25 years ago, Gaudet said. They must also demonstrate extraordinary achievement in their profession or career and volunteerism for Dartmouth as well as within their community or global philanthropy, she said.
“They place a lot of importance on the volunteerism for Dartmouth and they really looked for depth and breadth and quality of the volunteerism,” Gaudet said of the committee.
The Young Alumni Award is also selected by a committee of the alumni council, which is also made up of former recipients of the award. To be eligible for this award, the recipient must have graduated within the past 15 years. The major focus of this award is volunteerism for Dartmouth, Gaudet said.
The deliberations are confidential, and Gaudet said that often the recipients are surprised when the committee contacts them regarding the award.
In the past few years, she said the alumni councils have begun making films about each of the award recipients for the public to view. Rather than just citations about each of the winners, the clips include each of them talking about what Dartmouth means to them, their memories of the College, why they give back and why they are so passionate about the College, as well as footage of three alumni speaking on their behalf, Gaudet said.
Before these videos were made, recipients could select where they wanted to receive their award, she said. Two years ago the Alumni Council began hosting one evening ceremony in Hanover instead, Gaudet said. Gaudet added that she believes the ceremony is a great way for the Alumni Council to recognize extraordinary alumni. Fall of 2014 marked the 60th anniversary of the award.
Gaudet described her classmate and award recipient Pat Berry ’81 as a selfless person and brilliant writer. She added that Berry had done a lot of work to support their class’ upcoming reunion and has also been nominated to be the incoming president of their class. After her time at the College, Berry spent eight years at Time, Inc. and was a founding editor of Sports Illustrated for Kids.
Ellis Rowe ’74 will also be receiving the Alumni Award. Rowe participated in an ad hoc committee on diversity and inclusion and was on the Tucker Foundation board of visitors, Gaudet said. Rowe is thoughtful, charismatic and very caring, she added.
After Dartmouth, Rowe worked with Exxon/Mobil Oil and Mars incorporated, and though he is now retired, he remains involved in business development and consulting.
Ellie Loughlin ’89, another Alumni Award recipient, works in admissions at the Buckingham Browne and Nichols School and is involved in volunteering for Dartmouth, Harvard Graduate School of Education, local school boards and the National Pancreas Foundation.
Gaudet said that Loughlin, while young to receive the award, is “incredibly well qualified,” energetic and enthusiastic. Loughlin served as her class reunion chair as well as on the Alumni Council.
Gaudet extended her praise to the two young award winners. S. Caroline Kerr ’05, a former College admissions officer, is now CEO of the Joyce Ivy Foundation, which provides higher education opportunities for high-acheiving, low-income women from the Midwest. Kerr was involved the Triangle House and the president’s gala, and she also serves as chair of the young alumni committee, Gaudet said.
Michael Vidmar ’03, the other young alumni reward recipient, is currently president of his class, just completed his graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was chair of the athletic committee when on the Alumni Council, Gaudet said. He was the president of his local alumni club while having a career and going to graduate school, she added, and played on the soccer team during his time at Dartmouth.
“We’re absolutely thrilled about all five of these recipients,” Gaudet said.
Loughlin said she was shocked to receive the award and did not think she had even been out of Dartmouth long enough to have been considered. She said that the responses from fellow alums, coworkers and current students are also amazing.
Loughlin said being at Dartmouth changed her life, because she gained confidence in herself and met her closest friends as well as her husband.
“I think that experience was so valuable to me and has continued to be so valuable, because you are constantly meeting Dartmouth people, and your whole experience is improved by being a Dartmouth graduate,” Loughlin said. “Your whole life is improved.”
Having children at Dartmouth and attending the ceremony in the fall will be especially meaningful for her, she said.
Loughlin said that she was honored to be included in a group with her fellow recipients, and she looks forward to receiving the award with them because she knows how much time, effort and energy they give to the College.
Loughlin added that she intends to continue to give back to the College.
“It’s a part of who I am and what I do with my life, and I hope to continue that forever,” she said.
Alumni Council president Lou Spelios described this year’s award recipients as “the best of the best.”
Spelios emphasized that the selection process was holistic and that the awards are important because of the special way in which alumni contribute to the school.
“This is really the highest honor an alum can receive,” Spelios said.
Kerr said that she had the opportunity to work with the other award recipients in the past, and that she had great respect for them and their dedication to the College.
Kerr described the ability to give back to the College as a defining feature of Dartmouth’s alumni community and the community as a whole.
“It’s one thing to love a place or institution, it’s another to actively contribute to sustaining it and strengthening it,” she wrote in an email.
Rowe said he was surprised by the award and will cherish it.
“It really is a surprising and wonderful acknowledgement of many hours of work with the College and in many ways an unexpected reward for what I think are common sense things we should all be contributing to,” Ellis said.
Rowe went on to say that he believes the relationship between the College’s alumni, administrators and students is special.
“I hope that’s something that never dies,” he said. “I hope we don’t get too big or too administrative to allow alumni to have a voice in that way.”
