Search the Bulletin

Time for Every Purpose

shane_award.jpg

From left: Shane Award recipient Marilee Roberg ’73; Delvin Dinkins ’93, who presented the Shane Award; and Carter Award recipients Phyllis Hasbrouck ’78 and Alice Handsaker Kidder ’63.

Marilee Roberg ’73, a self-employed attorney and arbitrator, received this year’s Joseph Shane Award in recognition of her service to the College community. An admissions interviewer since her undergraduate days, Roberg is a longtime member of Alumni Council, head of the Chicago Connections group, and founder of the Chicago book club.

“Swarthmore said ‘yes’ to me when I was 17, and I’ve been saying ‘yes’ to Swarthmore, ever since,” she says of her 35 years of service. She is delighted to have friends from “virtually every decade of living alumni—possible only because of Swarthmore’s alumni activities and the way alumni of all ages are brought together for service, education, conversation, and fun,” she says.

Two alumnae were honored with the Arabella Carter Award, in recognition of their service to effect positive change in their communities.

Phyllis Hasbrouck ’78
has been organizing since she was a student, when, as a member of the United Farm Workers Committee, she petitioned successfully for the removal of non-union lettuce from the dining hall. Since then, first as a resident of the Chicago area and later of Dunn, Wis., she has regularly spent 50 hours a week promoting environmental responsibility, most recently as chairperson of the Fitchburg Fields organization near her home, which aims to establish a sustainable community on 250 acres of land that would otherwise have been used for conventional development.

“I organize because it makes me happy,” Hasbrouck says. “It saves lives, and it increases the odds of our planet’s survival.”

Alice Handsaker Kidder ’63 first volunteered as a 5-year-old, helping her grandfather, the founder of Heifers Inc., distribute literature to neighbors. Since then, she has worked tirelessly for social justice—urging companies to increase their minority hiring quotas; founding a school in the slums of Calcutta, India; lobbying for divestment from South Africa; and helping South African students in the United States obtain funding for education.

Once, as a participant in a peaceful protest against nuclear weapons, she was arrested and sentenced to community service. “It wasn’t a problem,” her nominator for the award says, “because she was doing so much anyway.”

Kidder has been a constant voice for the needy, elderly, displaced, and abused and is currently chair of the Board of Solutions, an organization dedicated to helping the homeless get back on their feet.

To view more photos of Alumni Weekend, visit alumniweekend.edu or read an eyewitness account by Sydney Beveridge ’03 at www.swarthmore.edu/x19422.xml.

Comments are closed.