Three professors honored with 2013 Honorary Alumni Awards

At the Alumni Board meeting on April 19, 2013, three Cornell faculty members were presented with Honorary Alumni Awards to honor their long and distinguished service to the college.

Gayle Luck, Professor of Education

Gayle, in your 25 years of teaching at Cornell College, you have mentored the next generation of educators, and helped ensure that  students around the country and the world have access to a first-rate education led by teachers who are well trained and dedicated to their craft. Your work has touched thousands of lives both on the Hilltop and beyond. It is with the deepest appreciation that the Cornell College Alumni Association honors you today.

Since 1988 you have been a member of the education faculty at Cornell, and your legacy is best measured by the impact you have had on your students and the impact they in turn have had on their own students. You have inspired so many students, including one who still has a photo of you in her classroom, and tells her students that the photo is of the teacher she wants to be in the future. Since 2006 you have led the college’s off-campus study efforts, and for three years you served as Associate Dean of the college. Through your leadership, hundreds of students, along with many Cornell faculty, have studied in places from Minnesota to Mongolia. Through the Office of International and Off-Campus Study you have made a difference in the lives and education of so many students, and you have helped them connect the values that Cornell teaches—service to others, civic engagement, and more—with real-world applications.

Gayle, in recognition of your teaching career at Cornell, the Alumni Association of Cornell College proclaims you an honorary alumna.

Don Chamberlain, Professor of Music

Don, today we’re inducting you into the family that you served so well since your arrival on the Hilltop in 1994—the family of Cornell College alumni. The Cornell College Alumni Association Board of Directors and I are all glad to welcome you into that family. Your work as a teacher, mentor, musician, and friend have made an enormous impact on the lives of hundreds of Cornell students, and for that we offer you our deepest thanks.

The students who studied under you regard you with both respect and affection. Your work with the college’s Jazz Ensemble put you in contact with passionate musicians drawn from every discipline on campus, and they, too, have found your creativity, curiosity, and rigor inspiring. Their lives were immeasurably enriched by your leadership and instruction, and because of you they have had the opportunity to perform in venues around campus and far beyond. Some of them even went with you to New Orleans, as you led a class on jazz there, performing at venues down the Mississippi as you traveled. Your dedication to your craft as both a musician and a composer have helped enrich the lives of so many members of the Cornell community.

Don, in recognition of your teaching career at Cornell, the Alumni Association of Cornell College proclaims you an honorary alumnus.

Craig Allin, Professor of Politics

Craig, in your 41 years of teaching at Cornell College, you have helped shape the minds of thousands of students and sent them into the world more aware of the politics and policy that underpin their daily lives. The Cornell College Alumni Association is proud to induct you into its ranks.

You survived, even thrived on, the major academic transformation in Cornell history: One Course At A Time. You voted for that change and remain one of its major proponents.

Among students, your Constitutional law courses are legendary for their rigor. As an expert and author on the politics of wilderness preservation, you teach a popular Wilderness Politics course at the Wilderness Field Station—an example of using the block plan to its full advantage.

You are a respected leader on campus. You have been elected by your faculty colleagues to chair numerous faculty committees which help oversee the operation of the college. You are the faculty director for the Center for Law and Society, and you are strongly associated with the college’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

Your involvement stretches beyond the Hilltop. For over 25 years you organized RamBRAI, a group of alumni and friends who cycle across the state on RAGBRAI each summer. Your work as a founder of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Ambulance Service has literally saved lives, and you remain on its board of directors.

Craig, in recognition of your outstanding career at Cornell, the Alumni Association of Cornell College proclaims you an honorary alumnus.