 So, I'm Lee Sorriola. I'm the Vice President for Advancement at Raja Williams University, and I want to welcome everyone here this morning. This is really one of my favorite events of the entire year, and it's great to be doing it out here. We ordinarily are inside in the great room, and so this year I thought for sure we'd be out here in the pouring rain just because we were deciding to bring it outside, but it's a beautiful day, so thank you for spending your Saturday morning here with us. I do want to remind people to silence their cell phones, and I don't even know if I did that to mine, so whoever's sitting next to my phone if it goes off, just turn it off. Thank you very much. I want to welcome Interim President Workman, our very special guest, Maya Farish. Welcome, Maya. All of the deans, the faculty and staff who are here, and especially the children, the very small children of our honorees who are accompanying me here on the stage today. I'm honored to be presenting to you this morning to mark this special occasion. So, for the alumni in the room who don't know this and some of the newly graduated, I always like to start this event off by reminding everyone that there was a 10-year period of time when we did not have this ceremony, we did not have Alumni Weekend, and we were not recognizing alumni for their achievements and contributions, so a few years ago we changed that, and today marks the eighth year that we've done this since the hiatus, which was over 10 years long. So, establishing tradition is very hard, and when you stop something you've done for a long time, it's like cutting down a redwood tree, it takes a long time to come back, so we're quite determined not to allow this to ever lapse again, so I want the alums in the room to hear that so that you remember how important this is. I always look at administrators as people that are passing through, and alumni are really our common denominator that help to define the institution, so please continue to remember why it's important to celebrate the remarkable alums, alumni, and alumni of the Roger Williams community. The alums who are being recognized today are the absolute best representation of the value of a Roger Williams education. They've led lives of reputation and significance across a very broad range of disciplines, and they truly embody our core values and our core purpose of strengthening society through engaged problem solving in the communities that we serve. This is their choice, this is something that's very important to them and defines really who they are in the world. These alums are our ambassadors, and they've brought great honor to Roger Williams University, and today's our day to salute them. It's not a coincidence that the revival of the alumni awards came to campus at the same time that President Farrish took the helm of Roger Williams in 2011, and sadly he's not with us today, and this will be our first, this marks our first award ceremony without him, but we will never forget him, and he would be very proud to see that these awards are continuing in his absence. It's so wonderful that Maya's able to be here because this is a very meaningful moment for the university. I miss my friend standing next to me as he's done for so many years. He really helped to be a voice for higher education and what higher education ought to be doing in our country and in the world, and he cared very deeply about creating an army of believers in his vision for the future of RWU, so we thank him for that. I want to introduce my colleague, Andy Workman. Andy has taken the helm on an interim basis at the university over this past year. He's done a wonderful job of leading Roger Williams, of continuing Don's vision, and of creating a healing presence on the campus over the past year, so thank you, Andy, and I'll ask you to come up. Thanks, Lisa, and it's great to see everyone here. It's always great for alums to come back to the campus. There's a special relationship, I think, between students who have graduated and their campus. It's not the same kind of relationship one has with virtually any other institution in our lives. Universities are special. Universities have long, long lives, and those lives are really played out in the lives of their alumni when it's great to come back and touch base every now and then. Lisa said a number of things about Don Farrish. I think it's important for us to think a little bit about that in the context of institutions like Roger Williams. Administrators are temporary, and unfortunately, Don passed away last July 5th and didn't get to spend the last, but it would have been his last year here. But what Don did was what the best presidents do. It was to take what is best in the institution, distill it, and do it better. And he really was transformative for Roger Williams. It's great that Maya is here. She had a big part in that. Don was not a president who just stayed in his office in his house and talked to donors. He was someone who was intimately involved in the institution in every way. And students for the last seven years when he was here knew him intimately. He was a ubiquitous president. He had sporting events, academic events, and awards. Don and Maya had students over to their house many, many, many times during each of the years they were here. So they really, really knew who Roger Williams students were. And they did, and Don did his best to provide the best possible education that students could have. And I think when we talk about distilling what was best about this institution, it was really that engaged in experiential learning. Something that was really here at the origins of what became Roger Williams University in 1919. This is, we're starting on our centenary. It's kind of a faux centenary because we weren't really incorporated as Roger Williams University. But 100 years ago, students came at night and did experiential learning, learned how to be better at their jobs. That's continued for the last hundred years in Providence for the last 50 years. This campus is now 50 years old. Here in Bristol we've carried on that tradition. And Don has put the institution in a place that is more widely respected, certainly attracts students in a different way than it has in the past. And he was able, though he wasn't able to physically do it, was able to really hand the baton over to a new generation. I've been pleased, as Lisa said, to be president for the last year. That's what we had to do was really do a lot of grieving for Don, but we also had to continue the institution. We had to move forward with his vision and what was most important about the institution. And we've done a good job of that. We're in a stronger position financially than we've been in the past. We've had, or having one of the largest incoming classes ever for the next fall. We've developed programs that I think will help to characterize the university for the future. One of the most important things that we've done is something that was really started and fostered by Don, which is a building of a new experiential learning building for the engineering, the School of Engineering, Computing and Construction Management. You can see it's a big blue monster now because it's covered in blue right in the center of campus. But I think it's very fitting that the, and most of you may not know this, that the atrium of that building will be named for Don Farage. So even though he has passed, even though he was not able to be with us for the last year, his presence will be here forever as long as that building stands. And students can go in that building, see his name, and understand the contribution that he's made to the institution. Now, I don't want to talk too long because this is breakfast and you don't want administrators talking at you. But I did want to say a couple of things. As some of you know, I will be coming alum of Roger Williams this year. I'm moving on to a different position at Widener University come the end of June. But it's been a great seven years here. It's been, we've made, Mary Beth and I have made wonderful friends. We've gotten to know the students. And we've gotten to know what's really special about Roger Williams. And one of the most special things is the alumni. The alumni have a great relationship with this institution. When I talk to alumni, they really feel the value it's been for changing their lives. And you being here, I think, is great in renewing that connection. And as Lisa said, this is an awards event. And we have Tim LaBelle. And where's Tim? Oh, hi Tim. Sorry. My field of vision doesn't seem that way. George Bolden and she was sitting at my table and I didn't know her. Rebecca McWilliams, who are all going to be honored today. And honoring our alums who have done special things that have made incredible contributions, we honor all of our alums. I just want to say one more thing in closing. Roger Williams is, as I said, 100 years old in its kind of institutional form. It's 50 years old on this campus. It's been on this campus for 50 years. But there's a transition that's happening now that happens in institutions about this age. And it's a transition in the leadership of the institution from a board of committed individuals who helped, had the initial vision and helped to start it, to leadership by alumni. And so Tim Baxter is the new chair of the board. He's a graduate of 1983. He has been told quite recently the president of Samsung USA. And he's about to start some other very, very interesting adventures. But that leadership of him on the board, of other board members like Todd Reckler and Tim Yeaton, all about the same generation are going to take Roger Williams into the future. And one of the ways they're going to do that is with their new president. And that's Giannis Mialis. He'll start in August. I spent a lot of time with him. He's an excellent choice of president. He's, watch out because he's a great fundraiser. And he's, I think, really going to help the institution move to the next level. And he's going to do it with your help with the help of the alumni. So thank you very much. It's been a great seven years. It's been great to get to know you. And as I've told a number of you, we're keeping our house in Bristol. We will not be strangers here. So I hope to see you in the future. Thanks. And my most important task is to introduce Chip Craig, who is our next speaker, the head of the Alumni Association who will help fill you in on some of the other things that are going on. So Chip. Thank you, Andy. I appreciate that. And good luck to you in the future. Welcome everyone. So I have the honor of introducing the Young Alumni Achievement Award winner, Timothy LaBelle from the class of 2015. Let me first by starting to tell you about the award itself. The Young Alumni Achievement Award recognizes a recent graduate for significant short-term accomplishments who in their first 10 years since graduation have made outstanding contributions to their chosen profession and rendered distinguished service to the public welfare, thus honoring Roger Williams University and the Alumni Association. So this year's award goes to Timothy. Tim? Okay. I'm going to call you Tim. All right. Class of 2015 alumnus making a tremendous impact in the Massachusetts education community. Tim recently joined the Holt International Business School in Cambridge as the academic program coordinator building out new operational processes while supporting students and faculty. After graduating from Roger Williams, Tim continued to, continued on to Merrimack College where he earned his master's degree in higher education and social policy. While Tim was, while Tim was at Merrimack, he served as the School of Education graduate fellow while also serving as the college first graduate student body president. After completion of his degree, he started in the new teacher support specialist position at Merrimack to develop a donor funded initiative geared towards new teacher support and retention. Tim worked tirelessly to develop, launch and grow the initiative named the Merrimack Institute for the Teacher Support or they refer to it as MINTS. So I'm going to say MINTS a lot from this point forward. So just giving you a heads up. Into a resource hub for new teachers entering the field that officers, monthly professional workshops, mentoring support resources within the online MINTS community and deeper daylong symposiums that all serve to effectively support new teachers, retain them through the process, the transition process and begin to build up a collaborative. In November, MINTS has served over 200 unique educators, attracted the national teacher of the year as a keynote speaker. This is a long run on sentence. So hang on, there's a little bit more to this one. And has begun to closely partner with local school districts to infuse the MINTS professional development into local school systems. The program attracted the attention of the Massachusetts Secretary of Education, Jim Pizer, who commented during the visit to Merrimack College that he was intrigued and delighted to see how the MINTS program had taken shape for Massachusetts educators with Tim at the helm. It should be no surprise to you that Tim was an active member of the campus community here at Roger Williams. He was involved with Student Senate, serving as student body president his senior year, mentored incoming students and also studied abroad in Guatemala. The fellow alumna, Lindsay Prue, who served with Tim as a student leader during their time at RWU, knew from their first year at Roger Williams that Tim would make a tremendous impact on the community. Lindsay has said of Tim, he has always had a cheerful disposition, a true willingness to create positive change in all he does. Tim is proving to be a change maker in higher education and current and future students are lucky to have the opportunity to learn from someone as honest, hardworking and committed to creating a better tomorrow as he is. Echoing his experience at Roger Williams, Tim continues to dedicate time to the service, support and advocacy of students, educators and colleagues. Tim's early success in his career is just the beginning and let me be the first to reassure you his future is bright and the education system in this country will be improved for the good due to his hard work. Tim is joined today by his girlfriend Tori Landry and parents Thomas and Diane LaBelle as well as some of his RWU family and friends. The alumni association is proud to present the 2019 Young Alumni Achievement Award to Timothy LaBelle Class of 2015. Congratulations Tim. Promise I'll be brief as possible but thank you all so, so much for coming. This is still a little surreal to be receiving the award so I wanted to thank the Roger Williams Alumni Association and Chip for that amazing biography. I forgot some details about myself until then so it has been a wild ride over the past couple years. I have been so, so, so fortunate and felt so lucky to experience everything that I've been able to. I credit Roger Williams with a lot of the opportunities that I've been able to have over the past couple years. I always like to tell the story that when I was here I was a heartbeat away from being Senora LaBelle and teaching high school Spanish. I woke up one day and kind of realized that I give teachers all the credit but I would love to be more in the back end helping support them and really help make some positive changes in the world of education so it's been, it was my honor to work at Merrimack the past couple years and really helping launch the Institute for New Teachers support that is still thriving since I have left and begun a new chapter in my career at the whole international business school which really feels almost like a startup college so it's exciting to really get in on the ground floor help build out a lot of processes for them and at the same time being able to support faculty, students and getting to really do what I love. As of recently I learned that three months in and I am transitioning already to help the school launch a new international online executive MBA program so your guess is as good as mine is how to do that but I'm very, very grateful for the opportunity to be able to do that. I just wanted to say a quick thank you to my mom for all of the support she has provided over the years to my girlfriend Tori who I would not be saying without you so love you very much, thank you so much and to some of my guests Carol I can't imagine what my time at Roger Williams would have been like without you you have provided an unbelievable amount of guidance and support and just a really great role model for me years later I can still text you about advice and when students are driving us up the wall even though I was that student to you years ago so it's I'm so, so glad that we've been able to stay as close as we have to Mrs. Farish I thank you so, so much for being here you and the late great Dr. Farish provided an unbelievable sense of community for me while I was here I really loved getting to know both of you and just the role models that you really were able to provide to me is such inspiration I continue to keep both of you as I move forward in my heart and mind so thank you all so much again for coming this morning and thank you again for allowing me to receive the award thank you and now it's my distinct pleasure to introduce the next speaker who is Amy Lambert vice president for equity and inclusion thank you Chip good morning I am delighted to be here as Chip said I'm Amé Lambert I'm vice president for equity and inclusion I am the chief diversity officer I've had lobster and champagne so I'll try to do this justice I am truly honored to present the award I am presenting the alumni service award and this award recognizes a graduate for outstanding service to Roger Williams University through their voluntary contributions that go above and beyond the normal coil of duty George and old and senior is a US Navy veteran and 74 alumnus of Roger Williams college he began his career as a senior research engineer at Kaiser aluminum and chemical and later joined eastern utilities associates as a standards engineer before retiring in 2000 he continued work part-time as a consultant for national grid following his retirement and saved for retirement for 13 years I will let you read more about the rest of Mr. Boulding's esteemed career for yourself in the program so that I can focus on the amazing service he's been involved with throughout his life in the community Mr. Boulding has devoted time to providing opportunities to underserved children over the last 50 years in 1970 he established the first Boy Scout troop in South Providence at the urgent of his late son George Jr as he began calling around to find a troop for George he discovered there were none in the area his phone calls landed him with a gentleman by the name of Jack Suarez at the local headquarters who incidentally happened to be the only person of color in the Narragansett council leadership after meeting with Jack George and good friend Ed Collier became scout masters for the South Providence troop it was clear to George that given the income disparity of the vast majority of the residents in the area they needed monetary assistance in order for the troop to fully compete on the larger stage so George presented a proposal to industrial national bank and after some persuading which if you know him is no surprise they agreed to help troop 42 with necessary uniform and equipment purchases in the course of 12 years the troop enjoyed a trip to the National Jamboree in Pennsylvania and produced two Eagle Scouts for life and a number of star and grades their first Eagle Scout in 1975 was allegedly the first black Eagle Scout in Rhode Island during George's time at Kaiser he was involved in the National Alliance of Business a nationwide volunteer organization that came into being in the late 1960's which featured a host of large corporations who were banded together under the auspices of President Lyndon Johnson in a concerted effort to end widespread poverty which as you know disproportionately impacts people of color by promoting the foundational pieces essential to advancement namely education and job skills the youth motivation task force was a primary initiative designed to address the education component of the plan and Mr. Bowden became aware of and interested in this effort and encouraged his leaders at Kaiser to support his involvement George became the Rhode Island development and implementation leader for the task force working in cooperation with local schools in the Providence Public School District the program they developed enabled successful professionals to share their stories with school children with an emphasis on the academic pathways to the profession professionals of color were encouraged to participate as discussion leaders in order to role model success for children of color over the years a large number of people with various skills and professions engineers, lawyers judges, police officers, doctors electricians, air traffic controllers and their organizations participated in this effort Mr. Bowden has been of great service to Roger Williams University for over a decade he has been instrumental in diversity equity and inclusion efforts on campus an example close to his heart is the patrolman Gregory W. Bowden Memorial Scholarship established at Roger Williams University in 2007 in loving memory of his son patrolman Gregory W. Bowden Class of 1998 and master's class of 2005 the scholarships objective is to award academic scholarships to qualified underrepresented students desiring to attend Roger Williams University School of Justice Studies in preparation for a career in law enforcement criminal justice and related fields every year Mr. Bowden organizes a golf tournament that raises tens of thousands of dollars which he invests in the scholarship endowment and to date seven students have benefited from his generosity Mr. Bowden has also engaged with the outreach efforts of the RWU School of Law participating in the Urban Debate League and the Diversity Symposium dinner and he's involved with our efforts to create an outreach program similar to the National Alliance Business Program he was involved with and led all those years ago always the connector Mr. Bowden has developed strong relationships with fellow RWU alumni and one in particular since he's well wishes Franklin Bailey Class of 1976 had this to say George, congratulations on being recognized at RWU for your contributions to helping students who look like us and are underrepresented to succeed you've raised a significant amount of scholarship dollars which will help a number of students now and in the future here with us today is recent graduate Melissa Mota who is a recipient of the Bowden Scholarship Melissa shared these thoughts you can say that correctly Mr. Bowden, throughout our journey together you have exemplified selflessness in ways unimaginable always placing the needs of others above your own and I cannot even begin to count the ways in which you have helped me in my personal and professional development you an inspiration and a true treasure I cannot find the perfect words to thank you but I hope that one day I can make a difference in the lives of others in the same ways that you have thank you for your guidance in closing, I couldn't agree more with these individuals and I have my own quote in the program Mr. Bowden has made an everlasting impact here at Roger Williams University George is joined today by his wife Nancy and good friends Frank and Ellen Longo and it is with great honor that the Alumni Association is proud to present the 2019 Alumni Service Award to Mr. George George Bowden Sr Class of 1922 Do any of you know the guy that he just introduced? Wow Thank you very much for this honor and you will soon find out why I have this piece of paper unlike that young man I have something called Advancing Age that works against me first of all I'm very, very thankful for being recognized for what I did over the years but first let me just start with I'm not too good with this just a little bit over 82 years ago I was born to a family of shia croppers in South Carolina now many of you would not know what a shia cropper was or is and it still is but look it up it wasn't a nice life in some circles it was called legal slavery by some but I was blessed to have two parents who although they lacked a formal education they insisted on their children getting some whether they good education so they were all over us all the time about studying doing homework learning that sort of thing all the time at 12 and a half years old I lost my mother almost exactly a year later I lost my father and just kind of an aside I had not been too far away from that shia cropper's farm in those 13 and a half years but overnight virtually I went from very very rural South Carolina to Brooklyn, New York and I hear people talking nowadays about culture shock that's really the definition of culture shock so my life changed very fast very very much unexpected and so I was met with a lot of challenges that was on this odyssey so to speak for several years but I retained my parents insistence on education somehow I retained that and over the years I was able to achieve some of education but I very quickly learned that just getting my education was not going to be quite enough I understood the system the system of social inequity injustice existed to the nth degree during those years and the way of really attaining something personally was to be sure that others who were in your situation also achieved in the 1950s 60s and 70s that period of time was defined by large scale systematic unrelenting challenges to that system by every means possible you all may have heard about and the Edmund Pettus Prage and all of that sort of thing that happened but I chose not to do sit-ins in protest per se I chose to do something that I felt that I could do that is encourage and assist other young people of color to strive to achieve a sense of equality a foothold in this American society so that's kind of what I did I spoke about my involvement with scouting for example scouting was kind of a thing that was kind of thrust on me in twofold first my son wanted to be a scout and there was a scout troop nearby and secondly one of the things growing up in South Carolina in that period I could not be a boy scout so that was kind of a near and dear thing to my heart so I spent a good bit of time trying to improve my personal success through education jobs etc but at the same time I knew the value of reaching back and trying to bring some other people along who were a lot like me and had similar or even worse experiences growing up my big thing was I had two great parents I didn't totally appreciate them five, six, seven years old etc but as I grew older and a little bit more aware I really think they were absolutely the greatest people that ever lived and they lacked a formal education I think that a lot has been accomplished with respect to social inequities etc in this country in the last 50 years unfortunately there's still a lot left to be done and at 82 years one month and one day I can't quit yet so I intend to continue to do whatever I can to encourage young people from the inner cities or however you want to call them disadvantaged succeed in life and become self-sufficient and move the society a little bit further along than where it is today unfortunately in the last several years it's almost like revisiting the 1950s for a lot of young people and that we have to do something about thank you very much I really appreciate some of your thoughts and your kindness and the love that I received here over the last several years from the Raj Williams people thank you very much congratulations sir it is my pleasure to welcome the amazing the tireless, the awesome Lisa Rio so I again want to congratulate the awardees George that was wonderful and well said and again I hope that people understand that everyone in this room becomes the collective memory of this place and that your past isn't what it used to be because you're part of a family you're part of a community of collective values of Raj Williams and so thank you for that Tim thank you for your words and we're just incredibly proud of this family and of this community and it's now my great pleasure to introduce the distinguished alumna of the year award which is Rebecca McLean you've seen her offspring on the stage that they're like the little canaries in the coal mine before she even gets up here to say how great she is so the distinguished alumna of the year award recognizes a graduate for significant long term success in personal and professional achievements outstanding contributions to their profession and someone who's rendered distinguished service to the public welfare thus honoring Raj Williams University and the Alumni Association and this year's award goes to Rebecca McWilliam's Esquire Class of 2004 she's a graduate of the architecture program and Dean White just walked in a little while ago there he is in the food line and and she has led the charge in distinguished service in serving the public throughout New England a glimpse into her extraordinary career looks a little bit like this she's the owner of Independent Design and McWilliam's Law a lecturer at Boston Architectural College a newly elected New Hampshire State Representative a mother and a farmer and you might wonder about the farmer part but we will talk about that Rebecca began her career as institutional and commercial architect in the greater Boston area before launching her own technology consulting practice focused on BIM implementation and risk management while also attending Suffolk Law School in the evening upon receiving her BARD mission she worked in a Boston law firm practicing insurance defense for design professionals and today she's a practicing attorney and architect making an even greater impact in her community serving on the New Hampshire State Legislature where her in her first year alone she's introduced five bills and none of this should be a surprise if we look back at her time at Roger Williams and during that time she was on a team of students promoting early wind development in Rhode Island and creating a presentation on the health impacts of wind power Professor Kachiri Pavlidis who's also here today remembers her drive well and says she has an emotional resonance that made her presentation very effective her presentation was then to Governor Kachiri and he decided to make this a state initiative for Rhode Island and for Roger Williams and she helped to leverage $158,000 in funding by the Rhode Island Renewable Energy Fund to conduct surveys in Bristol, Portsmouth and Block Island and I'm so glad that one of your mentors can be here today Professor Pavlidis so during her time at Roger Williams Rebecca met her husband James who is also here James was in his final year as an architecture student and Rebecca was a freshman he tells the story of seeing a girl who was standing out in the hallway and she was like dressed to the nines and he couldn't figure out why because he's like well there's no presentations today so why is she all dressed up and so he walked over and started talking to her and they became friends and have remained so for seven years before they started to date I hope you're still friends after now you're married but the irony of all of this he asked her like hey you know why were you so dressed up and she said that she had run out of clean clothes so and he did say that she should run out of clean clothes more often I'm sure the farm helps that a lot and they are now happily married and you've seen the results of that marriage which are Rebecca and George who now I don't see but they could be popping up on the stage again any minute so we're very happy that they're here with us I say is this the first time I've met them I've only heard about them so they're super cute James says of his wife there is no job too big or too complicated for Rebecca she is one of the few people willing to work hard to get what she wants after setting a goal she does not stray from it speaking of hard work I'd like to take us back to her agricultural endeavors and she and James own a farm in Concord New Hampshire it's a 130 acre farm called Lewis Farm and they sell produce and compost to all of central New Hampshire and some of you may know that I have an interest in food and agriculture and I really admire the perseverance and commitment they've made for what I like to call land to mouth sustainability and and a way in which it improves the both the food economy and the environment and the quality of our lives agriculture is a very tough business and mother nature is very much in charge and so you have to really be persistent in order to thrive in unpredictable circumstances so I want to encourage you to keep up the great work because every seed that you plant will flourish and it's very similar to the example that you've led here where you have cleared a path Rebecca for others to follow James refers to all that Rebecca does on the farm as her evening gig I would argue that she appears to be doing incredible work on a 25 8 basis so congratulations for that a common theme through Rebecca's life is evident in the remarks from others about her passion for service Roger Williams namesake said that the greatest crime is not developing your potential when you do what you do best you're helping not only yourself but the world and the Roger Williams community is thrilled to have Rebecca in our orbit representing the university with her incredible contributions to Rhode Island to her own community and beyond she's truly making a change and using her time and talent to empower others and leave a positive mark in our community for the common good of all of us in closing I'd like to share what Dean White said about Rebecca one of his top students and I quote the remarkable drive and vision for herself that Rebecca always showed when she was an architecture student at Roger Williams has propelled her to great things in architecture law and now government and service to the great state of New Hampshire she envisions how she can serve more and more people and does whatever it takes to do so and I obviously am in violent agreement with that statement I want to wish Rebecca who is joined today by her husband and her children the continued success in her career and life journey and I'm very honored to present the 2019 distinguished alumna of the year award to Rebecca congratulations thank you so much Lisa I feel like I'm surrounded by friends when I come back to Bristol Rhode Island so for those of you who I haven't met yet I look forward to meeting you after this ceremony for those of you who've influenced my career and my life and coming back is like getting a big hug from you thank you for the support that you've provided to me so that I can stand up here I'm here because of you I'm here because of the support that I received I'm standing on the shoulders of giants and the people who contributed in so many small and large ways to get me where I am right now I would not have been able to achieve the things I have in the 15 years since I graduated Roger Williams without all of you so sincerely thank you all and thank you to Roger Williams this is such an honor to be here today I just want to take you back to a couple of anecdotes when I was a student you heard the story about running out of clean clothes I try not to run out of clean clothes because now I have two different dressers I have the farm dresser and I have the business state house work dresser and the two can't mix one of them is all ripped and dirty and the other one doesn't want to get that way so I have a lot more clothes now than I did when I was a student when I was a student here I was first as a freshman I lived in Cedar Hall and I was an architecture student which meant I really spent a lot of time in studio if I slept I slept under my desk sometimes I came back to Cedar Hall to maybe do some laundry and my core at Cedar Hall was Carol Siketty who's here today and let me say she's one of the people who helped me get up here today because she instilled a lot of confidence in me that I did not have myself as a freshman at Cedar Hall so thank you Carol for the support you gave behind the scenes you may not even know how much that helped I met my husband James in 2001 at a summer studio and I want to say that Roger Williams School of Architecture summer studios were one of the best things in my life for the four years that I took summer studios and that's really unique there aren't a lot of schools that offer a program over the summer that you can take a studio course and spend some time studying beyond your normal studies oh I've got a kid coming come on kid so thank you to Steve White for putting up with some of my antics in the summer studios it was a little wild and we had a good time and there was a lot of bonding between the students and certainly I met my future husband in 2001 at a summer studio so there's some benefit to that program and I hope that that continues today in 2004 I took a transformative class that Lisa mentioned earlier in the introduction, social aspects of architecture led by Professor Lifteri Pavlidis that was an amazing course and I think some students who aren't even architects would appreciate being able to go in and study a potential project which was what we did with WIND or an existing building which is what a lot of the students are doing now to determine how humans interact with the environment the good the bad what could be done differently for the next project and learn from it, it's sort of an iterative process of design where even after a building is built it's not really done and so I credit my mentor, Lifteri Pavlidis with helping me come out of my shell to speak in public on some of the things that I struggled with for a long time as a young adult specifically I'll try not to give the drama that I gave during the presentation but the gist of it is we were doing educational presentations on WIND technology why wind turbines are a good idea and for some people they would say I don't want a wind turbine in my backyard those are ugly they look like skyscrapers I want to live in a residential neighborhood and so we would try to talk about how well they're kind of skyscrapers they're cleaning the air creating any carbon and so I would talk about how well you know here's a map of the coast of New England and there are these red spots along some areas that have some very high air pollution days usually around New York City Long Island and then right along the coast of Connecticut and so I spoiler alert I grew up along the coast of Connecticut and so I would point right on Long Island Sound with the big red spot and say right there that's where I grew up that has all of these air quality alert days and I have asthma and so for me that was personal worrying about air quality and what that does to human health and what we can do as architects, design professionals Roger Williams grads to make a difference in people's health and in the future of our country and so doing a lot of early wind research and being involved in getting the first wind turbine installed modern wind turbine installed in Portsmouth at Portsmouth Abbey was really the first step in a journey for me to start getting involved with renewable energy I served as the solar coach for the Solarize Quincy program for about a year in 2015 it was a big deal we got solar installed on over a hundred different roof tops and that really was sort of the precursor to people making solar normal in that city in Massachusetts and certainly as as a state representative now here in New Hampshire I serve on the Science, Technology and Energy Committee and so one of the most important things that I feel that I can do is to normalize renewables and to make sure that we are actually incentivizing that as part of public policy I'm going to give George back here you go alright so um at the state house this year I introduced a brand new building code for the state of New Hampshire you should know that over 50% of carbon emissions in the United States are caused by buildings so our big emissions are not from cars like some people think they're actually from heating and cooling our buildings here in the United States and who can solve that problem who else can solve that problem elected officials and policy makers and so I'm really thrilled to be able to stand here and say you know what I'm both I can wear both hats and I can solve that problem because I really understand what's going on so with the new building code that is set to be signed by the governor in the next couple of weeks we're really going to be pushing in New Hampshire to force increased insulation as a mandatory minimum within the building code so that's the difference for all new buildings that are built in New Hampshire so I'm really proud of that because I think that that's a technical and kind of unsexy solution but gosh we have a big problem and we do have concerns here today with climate change I'm seeing it at the farm and a climate crisis increased temperatures and huge flood incidents across the country it's not just a coincidence this is really happening so I'm grateful that I can have a chance with policy and also changing what's normal I hope that we can do it fast enough and I hope that I can call on some of you to call on your networks and your friends to change behavior and it's going to take changed behavior like building more renewable buildings it's going to take changing your behavior about using less plastic and large corporations for those of you who have networks or if you are a CEO or I know we have members on our board it does matter the things that we do for the next 10 to 15 years on the climate change front so I feel that as a state representative I'm able to make a small impact and gosh I hope I can make a bigger impact in the next couple of years but it's because of all of you here today so I want to thank you again, Roger Williams for having my back and for everyone who supported me in big and small ways because this is the future and we have a lot more work to do to really make a difference when it comes to climate change so thank you very much for this recognition I really appreciate it Thank you very much, Rebecca and I'll tell you you had me at hello what about you it was good huh you should be very very proud don't worry we have that on tape for the future before I forget I also want to recognize Carol Batalo Carol has been long serving and Carol and her team actually vet all of the nominees for the alumni awards and she just does a great job believe me we have an embarrassment of riches and it's not easy to choose just three people every year so thank you Carol and with that I would like to invite Nebal to come up so Nebal is our president elect of the Alumni Association and we will welcome her so I'm here to present the class leadership award so some background on it the class leadership award recognizes the members of a class for extraordinary leadership organization and support of Roger Williams University it is presented annually to honor an outstanding reunion class that encourages exceptional participation and meaningful engagement with the life of the university this year's award goes to the class of 2014 celebrating their fifth year reunion this class continued the tradition of the five year reunion at alumni weekend bringing back members of their class to celebrate on campus earlier this year a committee of 15 members of the class of 2014 met to weigh in on their five year reunion plan in June 2019 their hard work and dedication drew in 61 members of their class not only where they committed to gathering for their reunion they were also committed to having a larger philanthropic impact on the university to date the class of 2014 has collectively donated $7,177 and 13 cents every cent counts with gifts still coming in until June 30th before I go on my plug and for all of our alumni in the room especially I think all of our honorees demonstrated how a Roger Williams experience can change the world they've all taken on the responsibility of taking their education and doing something amazing for others and we can only do that if all alumni invest in the Roger Williams education so that more of us can go out there and change the world so you have until June 30th so if you haven't made your gift yet please do that's my little plug okay continue thank you to the committee especially Lily who's here to accept and the rest of the class of 2014 for their hard work and dedication we are so appreciative we look forward to having this class continue to break records and set the gold standard for other reunion years the alumni association is pleased to present the 2019 class leadership award to the class of 2014 accepting on their behalf is committee member Lily congratulations I'm actually going to invite Andy back up so that we can present the university with a check thank you I'm going to welcome Lisa back up for closing remarks thanks I want to thank everyone for taking time to be here I hope that these the words of the awardees today stay with you throughout the rest of the weekend and carry you through to 2020 when I hope that you'll all return as Andy said we're going to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Bristol campus this year and you'll be able to meet President Mialas in the coming year and again I just want to say thank you and congratulations again to all the awardees thank you