Class Notes: Awards & Honors

Arts, Sciences & Engineering

Distinguished Alumnus Award
Wade Norwood ’95
The CEO of nonprofit Common Ground Health in Rochester, Norwood has held leadership positions in the community for more than three decades, including roles in public service, education, and health care. From 1990 to 2005, Norwood served as a Rochester City Council member and chair of the council’s Committee on Housing and Community Development. Since 2009, he has served as an at-large member of the New York State Board of Regents.

Eastman School of Music

Distinguished Alumni Award
Kelly Hall-Tompkins ’93E
Hall-Tompkins is a renowned violinist and social entrepreneur who has been acclaimed for her virtuosity as well as for her work to bring music to often-overlooked populations. Winner of a Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize and featured in the Smithsonian Museum for African American History, she is the founder of Music Kitchen–Food for the Soul, a nonprofit organization that arranges for top artists to perform in homeless shelters across the country.

School of Medicine and Dentistry

At a virtual gathering last fall, Dean Mark Taubman presented alumni, faculty, and friends with some of the unit’s highest honors.

Dean’s Medal
Raymond Mayewki ’76M (Res), ’78M (Flw)
A professor emeritus at the School of Medicine, Mayewki served as chief medical officer of Strong Memorial Hospital for more than 20 years, part of a 50-year tenure at Rochester. A recipient of a professorship endowed by one of his patients, Mayewki established a philanthropy program that encourages other senior clinicians to support the Medical Center. The program has become a model for centers across the country.

John N. Wilder Award
Peter ’83 (MS) and Kathleen Landers ’82
Longtime philanthropists for the Medical Center, the Landerses have been active supporters, volunteers, and champions of the University. Their company, Landers Communities, is a Rochester-area real estate company that develops, owns, and manages residential and commercial property.

Humanitarian Award
Holly Atkinson ’78M (MD), ’79M (Res)
A clinical professor and medical student advisor at the CUNY School of Medicine in New York City, Atkinson is a writer and journalist who founded and directed the Mount Sinai Human Rights Clinic at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Distinguished Alumnus Award
Lowell Goldsmith ’02M (MPH)
A dean emeritus of the School of Medicine and Dentistry, Goldsmith is a noted dermatologist whose research and service has earned recognition from leading clinical and professional organizations in the field. He is currently a professor emeritus of dermatology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Alumni Achievement Award (Posthumous)
Timothy Benson ’00M (MD)
A successful psychiatrist, author, and speaker, Benson specialized in treating elite athletes and high achievers in business and academia. A clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, he was the author of Surviving Success, a book about the challenges of being a professional athlete. He died in 2019.

James S. Armstrong Alumni Service Award
John Hansen
A professor emeritus of neuroscience at the Medical Center, Hansen has held leadership roles for more than 35 years, including the Robert Wood Johnson Dean’s Senior Teaching Scholar and the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy. He also served as the Medical Center’s associate dean for admissions for 21 years.

School of Nursing

At a virtual edition of the Dean’s Diamond Circle celebration held earlier this year, Dean Kathy Rideout ’95W (EdD) recognized alumni and friends with the school’s top honors.

Dean’s Medal
Patricia Chiverton ’80N (MS), ’91W (EdD)
A former dean of the School of Nursing, Chiverton is the founder of the Center for Nursing Entrepreneurship. Joining the school’s faculty in 1984, Chiverton held several leadership roles, including vice president for Strong Health Nursing.

Joanne Clements ’77N, ’88N, ’92N (Pmc)
A retired member of the School of Nursing’s faculty, Clements held clinical, educational, administrative, and leadership roles for more than 30 years. A nurse practitioner in the Center for Perioperative Medicine at the Medical Center, she also was program director for the nursing school’s baccalaureate programs.

Harriet Kitzman ’80W (MS), ’84N (PhD)
A researcher whose lifetime of work in pediatrics reshaped how health care is provided to young mothers and their children, Kitzman earned international recognition over the course of her six-decade career. A nurse-home visitation program that she helped create now serves more than 38,000 families per year across 41 states. The award was presented to Kitzman in 2019. She died in the spring of 2020.

John N. Wilder Award
Patrick Lee Foundation
Focused on education and mental health care, the private foundation established the Patrick P. Lee Foundation Family Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Scholarship to help address a shortage of such practitioners in western New York. The foundation offers five scholarships a year to help increase enrollment in the school’s family psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program.

Humanitarian Award
Jose Perpignan ’16N
A float nurse on the cardiothoracic ICU and critical care float pool at New York–Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital, Perpignan is a founding member and current historian of the Greater New York City Black Nurses Association. Members of the group provide access to resources and health care to underserved communities as well as serve as youth mentors.

Megan Reynolds ’19N
A registered nurse at the Medical Center, Reynolds is a former mentor in the Center for Academic and Professional Services at the School of Nursing. She assisted students in improving their learning strategies and study habits and acted as a liaison with the school’s administration. She also founded an outreach program with two schools to expand health care services.

Legacy Award
Andolina Family
As a tribute to the late Elaine Andolina and her family, the School of Nursing established the Elaine Andolina Memorial Scholarship Fund to support nursing students. Andolina, who died in 2019, served as an admissions counselor, recruitment coordinator, and director of admissions. An assistant professor, Andolina also helped direct the Accelerated Programs for Non-Nurses.

Karch Family
Over the course of a 50-year career on the nursing faculty, Amy Karch taught one of the school’s largest and most substantive courses. After she died in 2019, the school established the Amy Karch Memorial Scholarship Fund to support nursing students as a tribute to Karch and the members of her family.

Distinguished Alumnus Award
Bernadette Mazurek Melnynk ’92N (PhD), ’02N (Pmc)
The vice president for health promotion, university chief wellness officer, and professor and dean of the School of Nursing at Ohio State University, Melnyk is internationally recognized for her clinical knowledge as well as her innovative approaches to health care challenges. Also a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Ohio State’s College of Medicine, Melnick is one of the few women and nurses elected to the Institute of Medicine.

LaRon Nelson ’02N, ’04N (MS), ’09N (PhD)
A leading expert in implementation science and HIV prevention with African diaspora communities, Nelson is the inaugural associate dean for global health and equity and an Independence Foundation associate professor at Yale University. Before Yale, he was the first Dean’s Endowed Fellow in Health Disparities and an associate director in the Center for AIDS Research at the School of Nursing.