Alumni Association Presents First Volunteer Service Awards

The Ithaca College Alumni Association Board of Directors has honored Mary Arlin ’61 and Charlie Baker ’41, M.S. ’53, with the first Volunteer Service Awards. The Volunteer Service Award recognizes both alumni and non-alumni who have made significant contributions to one or more of the following areas: admission, career services, student affairs, clubs, fund-raising, and athletics. The first awards were presented at a special ceremony held during Reunion weekend in June. In the future they will be given on a continuing basis throughout the year. Anyone from the College community can submit a nomination.

"Mary Arlin and Charlie Baker were very appropriate choices to receive this award," says director of alumni relations Graham Stewart ’81, M.S. ’01. "As a longtime faculty member, Mary has made many academic contributions to the College, but this honor recognizes her 40 years of educating alumni about the College’s rich past as well as building connections with those so important to its future. Charlie, meanwhile, has provided faithful leadership to his class and has been a key force in keeping the classes from the early ’40s together. His cross-state tours of Florida to drum up Reunion attendance have become legendary."

Currently a professor of music theory, Arlin has served on the College faculty for four decades. Baker, a secondary school coach and administrator in New Jersey for many years, is now retired and living in Durham, New York. He was inducted into the Ithaca College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1971.

Nominations for the Volunteer Service Award may be made online at www.ithaca.edu/alumni or by contacting the Office of Alumni Relations at 274-3194.