Mark Van Etten ’76 was awarded the 2026 Leadership and Service Award during Homecoming and Reunion Weekend.
The Leadership and Service Award is presented annually by the Alumni Association and the college during Homecoming Convocation. Recipients have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their careers or professions, their work has contributed to the betterment of their community and its citizens, or their commitment to the college has remained strong for many years.
For the past three decades, Van Etten has served as class agent for the Class of 1976. He made it a mission to restore the Van Etten-Lacey House, which now houses Cornell’s Center for the Literary Arts.
Since graduating from Cornell in 1976, Van Etten has built a distinguished career in medicine, earning his degree from the University of Iowa College of Medicine before practicing family medicine alongside his wife, Bev, in Spooner, Wisconsin, for more than four decades. Van Etten also founded a memory clinic for the underserved areas of northern Wisconsin to help diagnose and support people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
He has displayed the kind of leadership that is built through years of showing up, reaching out, remembering people, and making sure others feel that they still have a place in Cornell’s alumni community.