Homecoming celebration recognizes alumni, clubs of the year

Homecoming celebration recognizes alumni, clubs of the yearOctober 07, 2004

Syracuse University will honor outstanding alumni, outstanding young alumni and teacher and alumni club award recipients during Homecoming Weekend 2004, to be held Oct. 8-10.

Following an Oct. 8 awards reception at the Goldstein Alumni and Faculty Center, Chancellor Nancy Cantor will present awards to five alumni, one SU faculty member and four alumni clubs during pre-game festivities for the Oct. 9 football game between SU and Florida State University in the Carrier Dome.

Robert Fish ’79; Joan Tesnow Litke ’54, G’66; Keith Smith ’83; and Beverly Barr Vaughan ’54 will receive Outstanding Alumni Awards. Claire Burke ’91 will be given the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Professor Ruth Small will receive the Outstanding Teacher Award. Alumni club honors will include: Joani Frankel ’68 as the Alumni Club President of the Year; Alumni Club of Houston as the Alumni Club of the Year; and the Alumni Clubs of Central New York, Southern California and Northern New Jersey as organizers of the Alumni Club Programs of the Year.

Fish has been employed as senior vice president of investments and financial consultant at Smith Barney since 1994. Prior to that, he served in a similar capacity with Ryan Beck & Co. Fish was instrumental in the resurrection of SU’s Northern New Jersey Alumni Association. He currently serves as vice president and represents New Jersey alumni as a delegate to the Metropolitan New York Regional Alumni Council. He has represented SU at college fairs and interviewed several candidates in his local area. He was chair of Freshman Sendoff in 2004.

As an undergraduate, Fish was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, serving as president during the 1977-78 academic year. He spearheaded a reunion at Lubin House in January 2004 that was attended by 115 Zeta Beta Tau alumni.

In addition to his involvement with the University, Fish served on the Springfield, New Jersey, Board of Education for 12 years and was president from 1998-99. He and his wife, Yeda Zaitz Fish ’79, have established the Jordan Lee Fish Foundation, Inc., in memory of their son, who died of leukemia in 2003. A daughter, Marnie Fish, is a sophomore in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Fish received his bachelor’s degree from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management in 1979. He earned an MBA from Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Management in 1981.

Litke, a consultant with a leading information technology company in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, stretched her wings creatively in helping the classes of 1953 and 1954 resurrect stage shows from their senior years to celebrate their 50-year reunions. For its reunion, the class of 1953 staged “White Bucks and Tales Revisited.” Litke helped cast 30 alumni, write the script and produce the show’s program, a reproduction of the original 1953 playbill. In addition, she produced a portfolio and inserts for the show’s CD and DVD.

For the ’54 reunion, Litke once again helped to assemble the entire cast of 30 performers, provided costumes and props and co-produced the show, “Up in Lights Again.” In addition, she coordinated and produced a class memory book featuring information on 250 classmates that was distributed to reunion attendees. After the reunion, the costumes used for both productions were donated to the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Previously, Litke performed in and assisted in the production of many of the “Kum-Bak” shows staged during reunion weekends in the 1950s and 1960s.

Litke received her bachelor’s degree in 1954 and her MBA in 1966, both from SU.

Smith, of Arlington, Va., graduated from the School of Management with a dual major in Management Information Systems and Finance in 1983. He is currently working on the worldwide deployment of a new financial accounting system for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Smith has been active in and held several positions in the SU Alumni Club of Washington, D.C., during the past 20 years. In that time, he has built and maintained an e-mail service and Web site for the area’s alumni. Smith has coordinated and assisted with many alumni gatherings at SU sports events in the region, as well as student sendoffs and holiday parties. His wife Mary Ann Smith’s online business, Pro-Am Sports, has provided hole sponsorship and scholarship donations for the annual SU Greenberg House golf tournament.

Vaughan, a native of Rochester, is a retired high school administrator who now teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Nazareth College and at the Strong Museum. She is an active volunteer for many Rochester organizations; she is a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for youth and a volunteer tutor; and she gives her time and talent to organizations including the Susan B. Anthony House, the Penfield Historic Preservation Board and the American Association of University Women.

Vaughan, who received a bachelor’s degree in political science from The College of Arts and Sciences in 1954, has been a member of the Rochester Alumni Club for nearly 50 years. She was president of the Rochester Alumni Club from 1993-95. She has served on the Alumni Association Board of Directors, including two terms as vice president. Vaughan was a member of the committee that planned the 50th reunion of the Class of 1954 in June. Vaughan holds two masters degrees from the University of Rochester, in education and American history. She is the recipient of a Leadership in Education Award from Phi Delta Kappa and the Mary Strong Award from the Rochester SU Alumni Club.

Burke, a 1991 graduate of the Newhouse School and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, is a member of the SU-affiliated Friends of the High School for Leadership and Public Service in New York. In 2003, Burke undertook the coordination of school’s 10th anniversary, putting on a breakfast event for more than 600 people and a panel of distinguished speakers. Burke also helped organize a benefit that raised more than $15,000 for cultural programming at the high school.

Burke is a member of the Newhouse Alumni Club. She is currently senior vice president at Hunter Public Relations in New York. Since 1991, she has created and executed public relations programs for major national brands in industries as diverse as food and fragrance. She is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, the International Association of Culinary Professionals and the James Beard Foundation.

Small is the director of the School Media Program in SU’s School of Information Studies. She also serves as director of the Center for Digital Literacy, an interdisciplinary research and development center that partners faculty from School of Information Studies, School of Education and the Newhouse School. She is the creator and founding director of the school’s innovative Web-based distance learning program in library and information science, the School’s Summer Institute on Leadership and Change and the Preparing Librarians for Urban Schools (PLUS) program. She has secured more than $1.5 million in grant funding since joining the faculty in 1989.

Small has more than 100 publications to her credit, including six books. In 1996, she was elected “Professor of the Year” by the School of Information Studies’ graduate students. For three years, she served as chair of the Educational Advisory Board for “Pappyland,” the award-winning, nationally broadcast children’s educational television program. Small received her Ph.D. in instructional design, her MLS in Information Studies and bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from SU; and her master’s degree in education from Hunter College.

Frankel, president of the Alumni Club of Arizona, graduated in 1968. She was an active member of the AST sorority. Later, she served as junior and senior counsel to the Daily Orange. After graduation, she moved to New York as an executive for Lord & Taylor; she has worked as a realtor in Arizona since 1978.

Frankel invigorated the club’s community service projects and has helped it become well known in the area, especially by its service to the St. Vincent de Paul parish, which depends on the SU contingent to serve hundreds of meals to the needy every year. Frankel has also launched a seed fund for the scholarship gifts to Arizona students at SU by giving 10 percent of her earnings derived from referrals from the SU group. She has organized an online networking group for club members and envisions a worldwide networking database that will bring extra money directly to the University.

In her Arizona community, Frankel serves on the board of Temple Solel, donates her time and resources to Habitat for Humanity and volunteers for the Democratic Party. She also serves on the board of the Arizona region of the Jewish National Fund.

The Syracuse University Alumni Club of Houston, under the leadership of Jim Martin ’79, began 2004 with its largest membership to date. With dedication and hard work from members, the club emerged from a year of challenges with a great deal of success. Highlights included a speaker event with NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe; new student send-off; and a restructuring of other club events.

Members also gave $2,250 in “Tex Bucks”-grants for textbooks-to returning SU students. The club also launched a new Web site, introduced new officer succession plan and made great strides in the quality of its newsletter and membership campaign.

For the first time, there was a three-way tie for Alumni Club Program of the Year. The Alumni Clubs of Northern New Jersey, Southern California and Central New York were honored for special events in honor of graduating seniors.

For more information on Homecoming Weekend and alumni honors, contact the office of Alumni Relations at (315) 443-3258 or visit http://syracuse.edu/alumni.