 The Ciencia Florett Virtuti Award recognizes alumni who have graduated within the last 10 years and who have made outstanding contributions to their profession, community, or service to Immaculata University while upholding the mission and values of Immaculata University. My name is Paul McCandrew. I was a member of the Class of 2010 history major with secondary education. I also graduated with my master's in educational leadership in 2015. I am a social studies teacher at Roman Catholic High School in Center City, Philadelphia where I teach world history and U.S. history. I also during the summer work as archery fencing specialist at ESF summer camps. One of the things I was really heavily involved in here at Immaculata was campus ministry and I really worked a lot with Sister Kathy Nally. Sister Kathy really helped not just guide my educational experience but also guided my spiritual experience here at Immaculata as well. I was able to not only attend retreats that were guided by Sister Kathy but I also had a few opportunities where I led retreats with Sister Kathy and even to this day me and a couple of other alumni with along with Sister Kathy run an alumni faith share retreat experience for those who had attended these retreats back in college. Really one of the, I would say almost one of the pillars of my life I guess is my Catholic faith. And while it had been formed before I came to Immaculata, Immaculata really helped solidify it with the retreats that I was involved in here at Immaculata but also the friends that I found too. This was really the first place that I found where I could find friends that feel like, hey, can you go to Mass with me? And they would say, absolutely. And I would have a group of friends that I would go to Mass with every Sunday. I would participate in the Mass as I was a lecturer. I was an altar server. I helped put together the schedule for the altar servers. I've even carried that into my life afterwards. I'm an elector at my parish at St. Patrick's. I'm an extraordinary minister at the high school that I teach at. I also helped participate with the retreats at Roman Catholic as well. They have a senior retreat called Kyros and I assist with their retreats at least once or twice every year. And in addition to that, I also participate in local Bible studies and really have found these friends that helped build up my faith and not necessarily tear down. One of the things that really helped inspire me on the alumni board as well was how passionate alumni are, myself included. Really seeing, okay, how can we make Immaculata a better place? And one of the things that I've noticed that filters down. If the people at the top and your alumni have such a strong sense of connection to Immaculata, it's going to filter down. And I've seen students, when I walk by students, if I'm on campus on kind of an off day or anything, just seeing Immaculata students really being happy to be here. And that's something to me. It's like, okay, we're good. Like Immaculata is going to continue to thrive. So I'm very honored to receive the CNC of Flora for Two Table. I was incredibly humbled. It's one of those things where I'm still at a loss for words for the fact that I received this award. I did all of the work that I did for Immaculata purely because of my passion and love for Immaculata. And to receive this award and to be the inaugural winner of this award is really, it's really a deep bond. And it's something that I'm really going to carry with me really through everything. I'm just, I really just don't really have enough words for it. The Amethyst Award is presented to an alumnus in recognition of their outstanding contribution or achievement to their church, community or professional activity. The recipient supports and exemplifies the goals and ideals and demonstrates the values of an Immaculata University education. I'm Norma Brown, graduating class of 1985. My major is math, computer science. I live in Stratford, Connecticut. My family, my husband, I have a husband and two children. And I'm a licensed optician. I'm actually the first African-American licensed optician in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I've been doing that for approximately 18 years now. I've also become an entrepreneur and opened up my own mobile optical business. In my church, I'm a missionary. I'm also the director of first impressions, which means I actually am one of the people that stand right at the door and greet everybody that comes in the door with a smile and a hug. So I'm in charge of that ministry and I'm also a newly elected trustee. I'm a missionary, so I go out into the field. I've been, I've actually fitted needy children with eyeglasses out in Mexico. I went to Nairobi, Kenya to serve, you know, as a missionary. So I've done various different things out in the field. Approximately six, seven years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So not only am I a survivor in Connecticut, we call it a warrior. So I'm actually a warrior for breast cancer. I'm a survivor. I'm a warrior. And I do various different talks with various different organizations over there, the near and far aid, pink aid, catwalk for a cure. I go out and I speak about people can live. You know, you can survive this, you know, early diagnosis saves lives. I think all these different things that I've been through in life have only made me stronger. Through my faith and people that I have surrounding me to encourage me, that has always just made me stronger. More determined to do different things, go different places. Life is good. I believe that it's always important to give back. As things have been given to me, it's important to reach back and give that out to somebody else. A lot of my roots came from Immaculata. When I came to Immaculata, I had only been in the country two years. You know, I did one year in high school then I came immediately off to college. So this had shaped my personality, shaped who I was. I was 16 years old when I came to college and I spent four years here. Like I said, I learned so much. There's a couple of staff members that I actually sometimes repeat their exact words through my daily life. And that's words that I've heard from Sister Anne Maurice and Sister Daniel Joseph. Very instrumental in my life. Personally I feel that Catholic education is better education. I'm not too sure if you can say that. But that's my personal feelings, that's how I feel. I feel that it's important to be in a place where you can be encouraged. I feel that it's important to be in a place where you can be loved and nurtured. I feel that it's important to be in a place where people care about your future. And Immaculata cares about your future. Each and every person, they care about your future. So that's why I think it's important. What I also do is I go out into the field in Connecticut and I represent Immaculata for the different college fairs. And I think it's truly a blessing to have people come up to the table and me to speak about the various different things that Immaculata does. And from 1985 until now Immaculata University has grown tremendously. And there is so many different majors that they offer, so many different things that they didn't have when I was here. But the world has changed and so has Immaculata changed and it's only changed for the better. I am humbled and honored to be receiving the Amethyst Award. But I'm just grateful that they saw something in me that allowed them to choose me to be honored in this manner. The alumni medal is presented in recognition of outstanding volunteer service and support to Immaculata University. The recipient exemplifies the goals and ideals of our university in their life and through devoted service advances the mission of the Alumni Association. I'm Mary Louise Kramer. I graduated in 1970. I was an English major. I grew up in Cheney, Pennsylvania. I have lived in Virginia for close to 49 years. When I got out of law school, I was offered a job with a litigation firm in Richmond. And I was the first woman to be in that firm. Well, I always felt privileged to be able to go to Immaculata. This was, you know, a dream come true to go here. You know, being from a large family, scholarship was the only option for me to go to college. And I was offered a scholarship here to Immaculata. Any college should reach out to take a chance on students. And that was one of the reasons why we wanted to set up a scholarship. We wanted to do it in the memory of my husband's mother, Helen Walsh Kramer, and her sister Catherine Walsh. These were women who were extremely bright, but who never had the opportunity to go to college. And in a different day and time, I think both of them would have gone on to college. I served three terms on the alumni board and that was just a great experience for me. I guess it was my first term on the board. I met Jean Johnson, who is another alum that I have a great respect for, who has...she's just a remarkable woman. And turns out she lived in D.C. Jean and I talked about what we might do to bring together some alums in the D.C. area. And she came up with the idea of hosting an event at the Krieger Museum in D.C. We probably had about 25 alums from all ages, from the 50s up until recent graduates. It was just a great gathering of getting everybody together in Washington and it just turned out to be a great event. The alumni medal winners that I have met who've done so much for this school as it has just lived and breathed throughout most of their adult lives. I'm giving service to Immaculata that I don't really feel like I'm in the same class as they are. It was a real heart-stopper when I got the letter. The Mother Camilla Maloney Award is presented annually to those who demonstrate leadership and vision to sustain the future of Immaculata through service including volunteerism, council and philanthropic support to carry on the mission and vision of Mother Camilla. My name is Frank Wartner and I'm on the Planned Giving Committee here in Immaculata. I lived in Melbourne, had lived in Melbourne for almost 50 years and my wife and I got married almost 50 years ago and we've raised three boys. I'm an attorney, I graduated from St. Joe's in 67 and Villanova in 70, Villanova Law School in 70. I do a lot of estate planning, estate administration work and that's my primary area of practice. Immaculata as other colleges have set up endowment programs and so on and this is something that is needed in order basically to keep the school going. There are many schools that have closed because they haven't had sufficient funds in their endowment program to keep it going. Dr. Elizabeth Fontz was Fontz and I have done a number of seminars together here in Immaculata and other places and discussed both estate planning and financial planning and one of the things that if you don't do your financial planning you're going to end up not being able to retire because you don't have enough funds to retire. Social security was never meant to be retired upon and consequently if you don't have sufficient funds through your 401k or other assets then you'll be continuing to work the rest of your life. I think because of some of the seminars that we've done some people have stepped up and made contributions not only current contributions but also contributions for the future after they're no longer here to Immaculata and I think it's been fruitful from Immaculata's standpoint. I feel good about it because again I've been blessed over the years with a number of things and as President Kennedy once said to whom much is given much is expected and he was basically taking a quote out of Luke chapter 12 verse 48 so I feel not necessarily compelled but I really want to be involved as far as Immaculata is concerned in helping them obtain the necessary gifts and so on and the context that Tony has worked up over the years just to read a certain he's worked up over the years to make sure that people who have come to Immaculata and have graduated are familiar with what is necessary to keep Immaculata going. As far as receiving the award in 2018, I think it's a tremendous thing to have looking at the history of the award and who it's named after and her background, Mother Camille's background and Immaculata today under the present leadership of President Barbara LaTier I think it's to me it's a great honor to have received this award. I have been blessed over the years to have been given an awful lot not only for my mother, my wife, my kids but in being able to work the work that I do and to be able to give back to the community Immaculata and to Melbourne I think it's important for all of us not just myself, my wife but for all of us to be involved in whatever organization you want to be involved in but we've all been given certain gifts as my wife tells me an awful lot and it's up to us to use those gifts that God has given us.