Council of Masters honors students’ scholarship and character

The Council of Masters honored Yale College students — including nine graduating seniors — with prizes this spring in recognition of their scholarship, contributions to college life, and their character.

The Council of Masters honored Yale College students — including nine graduating seniors — with prizes this spring in recognition of their scholarship, contributions to college life, and their character.

The prizes, winning students, and the award citations written by masters who nominated them follow:

 

Junior Awards:

John C Schroeder Award

This award, which honors former Calhoun College master John C. Schroeder, is given to students who have contributed to residential college life and who, in the opinion of the committee, will “play a part in the good labor of the world.”

Ben Bartolomae ’16 of Trumbull College exemplifies the John C Schroeder Award criteria of having found his place in the world and playing a role in its good labor. At Yale he excels as a science/engineering student while juggling six jobs, supporting his family at home in many ways, and supporting and guiding his fellow Yalies through his roles as a STARS tutor, a counselor in the Freshman Scholars program, and a leader in the La Casa Cultural Center. He has served as an assistant manager for New Energies, LLC, a campus tour guide, and last but definitely not least, Ben is a fabulous Latin dancer.

Angela Chen ’16 of Jonathan Edwards College. With a characteristic grace and ease, Angela moves between the roles of superb student, active Yale citizen, and glue of the JE student body. She balances a rigorous MCBD course load with her presidency of the American Red Cross at Yale, for which she has organized blood drives and service events, and her directorship of the Yale Undergraduate Society for the Biological Sciences. She has been deeply involved in the JE College Council since her freshman year, and as its president has brought a new level of sophistication to its dialogue and operations. Our students look to Angela’s kind nature and strong leadership to help them define the very ethos and spirit of our community.

Danielle Dobosz ’16 of Morse College is honored with the John C. Schroeder Award for her compelling and committed leadership at Morse College, in the New Haven community, and in her hometown in Massachusetts. She stands out for her energy, enthusiasm, and altruism. A superb student, majoring in history, she is also one of Morse’s most active intramural athletes, has co-chaired the college’s Intramural Sports program, and has served as vice president and now co-president of the Morse College Council. The first person in her family to attend college, she represents the highest virtues of both scholarship and citizenship.

 

F. Wilder Bellamy Jr. Memorial Prize

Established in 1939 by friends of F. Wilder Bellamy Jr., B.A. 1937, the prize is awarded to a junior, man or woman, who best exemplifies the qualities for which F. Wilder Bellamy, Jr. is remembered, including personal integrity, loyalty to friends, and high-spiritedness in athletics, academics, and social life.

Hans Francois Kassier ’16 of Jonathan Edwards College is, quite simply, the JE student who has embodied the strongest and clearest sense of integrity in every aspect of his life. From his roles in the college as a housing representative and our head master’s aide to his campus-wide service on Yale’s Executive Committee, Francois has assumed positions of great responsibility and executed his duties with diplomacy, compassion, and commitment. From the moment he arrived on Old Campus from his native South Africa, JE students have found counsel and consolation in Francois’ friendship, devotion to the welfare of others, and strong moral leadership. Francois has boundless potential to some day teach and empower others in challenging circumstances.

Corey Malone-Smolla ’16 of Timothy Dwight makes us happy, and she makes TD tick. As president of the Mott Woolley Council, she has upheld TD traditions while giving them her special twist. In addition to being the incarnation of TD energy, spirit, and fun, Corey has been devoted to her work as a TD communication and consent educator. Her special combination of humor, exuberance and serious commitment to the TD and Yale communities makes her a wonderful Bellamy Prize winner. This summer she will be heading to Washington to work for the Campus Kitchens project, coordinating soup kitchen events on other college campuses. Her sunny disposition and good cheer will make her as welcome a presence in those communities as she is in ours.

Lily Vanderbloemen ’16 of Calhoun Collegeis an astonishingly vibrant young leader, and one of the reasons that Calhoun residential college life is as inviting as it is. She has been an engine of openness, charismatic encouragement, and good fellowship, most recently in her outstanding stint as co-chair of intramurals, and is a newly minted freshman counselor. Lily finds academic purpose and joy in the American studies major, while she dedicates substantial time to fostering community spirit, particularly for younger students. Lily Vanderbloemen embodies the qualities of F. Wilder Bellamy Jr. memorialized in the prize.

 

Joseph Lentilhon Selden Memorial Award

The Joseph Lentilhon Selden Memorial Junior Award is to given each year to a member of the junior class of Yale College whose verve, idealism, and constructive interest in music and the humanities exemplify those qualities for which Selden is remembered. In recent years this award has gone to a student especially notable for his or her contribution in the field of music.

Gideon Broshy ’17 of Calhoun College is a gifted composer and dynamic performer in any number of musical idioms. A double major in music and humanistic sociology, he also exemplifies, with modesty and verve, the constructive intersection of academic interests that Joseph Lentilhon Selden embodied. Whether as a composer; a co-founder and co-director of “Black is the Color …,” an extraordinary new music ensemble, or as a creative interpreter of challenging piano pieces in the 19th- and 20th-century classical repertory, Gideon is always striving — and inviting others — to explore and grow. New compositions; virtuosic free and structured improvisation; inspiring individual and collective performance: Gideon’s contributions greatly enrich musical life at Yale.

Ken Yanagisawa ’16 of Morse College. Ken’s love of music and extraordinary talents in performance and conducting transmit an infectious joy to listeners and players everywhere. An oboist for the Yale Sympathy Orchestra, he plays or conducts in eight other ensembles besides. Music is central to his studies, encompassing 16 courses in music by his junior year, including performance, composition, conducting, musical acoustics, and instrument design. Adding the practice of photography to these musical arts since arriving at Yale, Ken has become a sought-after visual chronicler of campus life. He enriches Yale’s shared experience daily with his celebration of beauty and vitality in the arts.

Tong (Scarlett) Zuo ’16 of Pierson College is a pianist, singer, composer, and choral conductor. A member of the Chamber Singers of the Yale Glee Club, the Opera Theatre of Yale College, the Yale Collegium Musicum, and Yale Children’s Theater, she has performed piano internationally with the China Philharmonic and Canton Symphony Orchestras. Her awards include a fellowship at the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism of San Francisco Conservatory of Music; the Fenno Heath Award from the Yale Glee Club, awarded for her original composition “The World Meets Here”; and first place in the William Waite Concerto Competition for the Yale Symphony Orchestra.

 

Senior Awards:

David Everett Chantler of B.A. 1910 Award

Established by Mrs. Frederick J. Robinson in memory of her brother, David Everett Chantler (B.A. 19100 of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This award is to be presented in the spring to that graduating member of the Senior Class who has best exemplified qualities of courage, strength of character, and high moral purpose.

Andrew Chun ’15 of Pierson College was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude with distinction in anthropology. During his first two years at Yale, he overcame significant challenges to emerge as an extraordinary leader. As a peer liaison for the Asian American Cultural Center, he advocated for open and inclusive conversations about issues of mental health and the challenges that low-income and first-generation students face. As a freshman counselor, he was widely respected as a skilled listener, team builder, academic mentor, and on-site resource for students experiencing difficulties with relationships, alcohol, and medical and mental health.

Javier Duren ’15 of Timothy Dwight College has been a big star for Yale on the championship men’s basketball team, while at the same time possessed of a rare humility, lack of entitlement, joyful spirit, and genuine engagement with activities and commitments that do not put him in the limelight at all. Javier has been deeply committed to his faith life and to the Black Church at Yale, and during his freshman year co-founded Team Sober, an organization designed to challenge a culture of alcohol and other substance abuse that sometimes infects Yale’s campus. Javier notices others who might be isolated or marginalized and brings them into the light; he simply makes us all feel better and brighter when he’s around.

Arash Fereydooni ’15 of Ezra Stiles College has been a top scientist, an inventor, and a campus leader. Graduating cum laude with a combined B.S./M.S. degree and distinctions in MCDB, Arash was awarded seven research fellowships, wrote for the Yale Scientific Magazine, and worked as a science tutor and tour guide. He was also active in student government, patented three inventions, founded the International Aid Organization, served as the co-president of Yale Persian Society, and worked with refugees in Connecticut. In recognition of his achievements and character, Arash was awarded the prestigious P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans to fund his future medical school studies.”

Emma Schmidt ’15 of Branford College, a classics major, demonstrated the highest character and moral purpose in her four years at Yale. Emma has been active in Glee Club and the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project, captain of IM teams in Branford, and has been the president of Saint Anthony’s. She also has managed a large catering business, which she co-founded, and most recently raised and donated $10,000 for the Yale Sustainable Food project. Emma demonstrates ethical leadership in all that she does, and projects energy and a love of Yale through her very active life in Branford and Yale more generally.

 

William H. Mckim Prize

Friends and classmates established this prize in memory of William H. McKim, Class of 1954. It honors a senior majoring in political science, economics, history, or a related field (e.g., Russian studies), who has shown marked improvement in his or her academic standing in upper-class years and who has made a significant contribution in one or more activities outside the classroom.

Diana Castro ’15 of Pierson College. Hailing from Los Angeles, Diana experienced difficulties in adjustment during her first three semesters of study at Yale, but through her determination and willingness to seek out support, she persevered. After a transformative semester abroad in San Paulo, Brazil, Diana took a year off to work and support her family. When she returned for her senior year, she experienced unprecedented academic success, while continuing her involvement at La Casa and her job as a digitization assistant in Manuscripts and Archives at Sterling Memorial Library. Her senior essay focused on racial identity in Brazilian Portuguese literature.

Michelle Hackman ’15 of Berkeley College, a political science major, has flourished in her academics at Yale, overcoming a series of difficulties, especially in regards to the use of assistive technologies she needed as a blind student. Moreover, she did so while excelling in her journalistic endeavors for the Yale Daily News and for several news agencies beyond Yale. As one example, for her report for National Public Radio affiliate WSHU, which involved walking with two New Haven police officers on their beat in the Hill neighborhood, she won second-place for a hard feature by a student in the annual Public Radio News Directors Inc. awards.

 

Roosevelt L. Thompson Prize

This prize is to be awarded to a member of the senior class for commitment to and capacity for public service. The recipient should be outstanding in the senior class for dedication to public service — service to “the team, the college, the community,” as Thompson expressed it himself. Like Thompson, he or she should exemplify great human warmth, commitment to fairness, compassion for all people, and the promise of moral leadership in the public sphere.

James Knight II ’15 of Morse College. Over four years at Yale, James Knight has embodied the highest ideals of community service as exemplified by Roosevelt L. Thompson. A student of medicine whose interests range from cancer treatment at the cellular level to essential dental treatments for those too poor or remote to have access to them, James has left the worlds he touched better for his presence. At home in Morse College, in the city of New Haven, in labs and clinics in New Haven and Honduras, he is known as a caring friend, a brilliant student of science, and a gifted mentor for young people.

Talya Lockman-Fine ’15 of Pierson College was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude with distinction in ethics, politics, and economics. At Yale, she worked tirelessly to further discussion of international law and development through her leadership in YIRA, the Model U.N., the World Fellows Program, and the Yale Refugee Project. She also was instrumental in founding the Special Academic Program in Human Rights. Talya spent summers working at Rencontre africain pour la défense des droits de l’homme (Senegal), Spark Microgrants (Rwanda), and the United Nations Development Organization (Liberia), which became the subject of a brilliant senior essay.

Dan Stein ’15 of Timothy Dwight College has brought to every endeavor at Yale an easy and open demeanor, generosity, candor, charisma, and exceptional personal maturity. An accomplished student, Dan has also been highly visible on campus as the Yale Daily News opinion editor, a Spizzwink and Whiffenpoof, and a special assistant to Linda Lorimer. In Timothy Dwight College, he has served in many ways, from head freshman counselor to the search committee for a new master. Dan’s accomplishments, however, do not nearly account for the person he is, in part because that person acts not from the desire to build a resume, but from a sense of curiosity, generosity, or authentic investment.

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