The main address at the Graduate Certificate ceremonies, titled "Education as Liberation," will be delivered by Margaret H. Marshall, justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The following Extension School students and faculty will receive special recognition during Commencement:

Dean's Prize for Outstanding ALM Thesis

The Dean's Prize for the outstanding A.L.M. thesis recognizes the work that embodies the highest level of imaginative scholarship. A prize is awarded in each of the four disciplines of the Extension School's Master's Degree Program.

The Dean's Prize for the outstanding A.L.M. thesis in the behavioral sciences will be awarded this year to Franz Schneider for his work "Genetics and Schizophrenia." This extensive review of the current state of research on schizophrenia tackles the age old nature/nurture question and finds current genetic explanations lacking. Schneider received his A.B. degree in history from Harvard College in 1969 and his MPA in environment and natural resources from the Kennedy School of Government in 1995.

The Dean's Prize for the outstanding A.L.M. thesis in the natural sciences will be awarded to Genevieve Arnold for her work on "The Use of cDNA Microarray Technology as a Tool of Gene Discovery in the Developing Pancreas." This novel study successfully applied cDNA microarray technology to obtain mRNA expression profiles that enabled the identification of preferentially expressed candidate regulatory genes thought to be critical in pancreas development. Professor Joel Habener, her thesis director, wrote of her research: "Dr. Arnold has performed to an outstanding level of achievement" and that her thesis "provides new potential insight to the pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus."

The Dean's Prize for the outstanding thesis in the humanities goes to Katherine L. Rogers-Carpenter, a 1986 graduate of the University of Kentucky, and a computer graphic artist by profession. Her thesis, titled "Documenting an Imaginary Past: Fictional Photographs in Three Southern Novels," examines the presence and significance of real and metaphorical "snapshots" in works by Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, and Hamilton Basso, concluding that these emblems of the past come to embody the Southern myth of dispossession.

Richard Marius, senior lecturer on English, directed the work and praised it as a brilliant thesis on an original topic that has in the past been only briefly explored."

Christopher Harris is the recipient of the Dean's Prize for the outstanding thesis in the social sciences. Harris' thesis, titled "A Study in Influence: Edwin Atkins and the Evolution of American Cuban Policy, 1894-1902," analyzes the diplomatic activity of an American landowner in Cuba in regard to Spanish-American relations over the island. The thesis director, Professor John Womack Jr., wrote that Harris "has the makings for an excellent dissertation, and the bases for a significant book, not only about the [Spanish-American] War, but about the larger subject of how American foreign policy . . . was formed in the period before World War I."

Santo J. Aurelio Prize

Santo Joseph Aurelio, ALB '83, ALM '85, received his first two degrees at the Extension School after age 50, and went on to earn a doctorate and enter a new profession, college teaching, after a career of more than 35 years as an official court stenographer for the Massachusetts Superior Court.

The prize recognizes academic achievement and character for undergraduate degree recipients more than 50 years of age. This year's recipient, Robert J. Matthews, AA '99, was awarded a Ford Foundation Scholarship to pursue ballet after high school; however, he was almost immediately drafted and found himself in Fort Hood in Texas testing M-1 tanks. Matthews had several different careers after his return but found he was most rewarded by his work with friends who were AIDS patients. He decided in 1992 to become a home hospice clinician, working with blind, AIDS, and cancer patients. He began taking courses at the Extension School shortly thereafter. Graduating at age 53 with his associate in arts in Extension studies and a GPA of 3.95, Matthews intends to continue at Harvard Extension to complete his bachelor of liberal arts degree.

Derek Bok Public Service Prize

There are two first-place recipients and one second-place recipient of the distinguished Derek Bok Public Service Prize this year. These prizes, in honor of the commitment of former President Derek Bok to adult continuing education and to effective advocacy of community service activities, are awarded annually to degree and certificate recipients at the Extension School, who, while pursuing academic studies and professional careers, also give generously of their time and skill to improve the quality of life for others in the larger community.

Stella Kai-Wai Chan-Flynn and Wendy A. Schmidt, graduates of the Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management (CSS) program at the Extension School, have both been awarded Derek Bok Public Service Prizes. Chan-Flynn, a nurse midwife, has worked for years both in her native Hong Kong and in the Boston area on behalf of poor people who need health care for physical and emotional problems. Schmidt, an account executive in radio sales, is active in a number of volunteer activities that benefit underprivileged and ill children and adults.

Jayne Elizabeth Habe Lacey, ALB cum laude '99, was nominated for this award due to her lifelong record of community service. Over the last few decades, she has been deeply involved in a variety of programs that help children, especially those with special needs or in need of adult guidance, those who are hospitalized or sexually abused, and runaway teens. A Big Sister, a counselor, a foster parent, an activist, and almost always an unpaid volunteer Lacey has served children and children's support groups in these and many other capacities.

Annamae and Allan R. Crite Prize

Established by the Extension School and the Extension Alumni Association in honor of Annamae Crite, who for more than a half-century faithfully attended Extension courses, and her son, Allan R. Crite, AB in Extension Studies '68, who is widely recognized as the dean of African-American artists in the Greater Boston area, these prizes are awarded to Extension School degree recipients who demonstrate "singular dedication to learning and the arts."

The first Crite Prize goes to Cornelius Lansing Fair, A.L.M. recipient in classical civilizations. A graduate of Harvard College (AB '58) and the Harvard Business School (MBA '62), Fair is a developer of lower- and moderate-income housing with a specialty in housing for the elderly. His thesis, titled "Terminology for Experiential Site Description: The Case of Classical Delphi," proposes a new descriptive vocabulary for the architectural and site-planning devices found at ancient ceremonial sites that were designed to heighten the emotional experience of both ancient and modern visitors as they progressed through a series of visual and spatial transitions. His thesis director, Irene J. Winter, William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts, said of Fair's work: "I believe he is really on to something important in his insistence that archaeologists can do a great deal more than is traditionally attempted toward the recovery of ancient experience. . . . [T]he schema he has outlined can be applied fruitfully to sites in areas and cultures other than Classical Greece, and I shall encourage him to publish his results so that they might be widely disseminated."

The second Crite Prize goes to Susan Marie Morrison, candidate for the ALM degree in English and American Literature and Language. A graduate of Plymouth State College in fine arts ('84), she is employed as a paralegal. In one of the most ambitious theses of the year, titled "Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Word-Painting in the Short Story Collections of Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce," Morrison examines the ways in which these writers adapted various techniques associated with the painting styles of Mary Cassatt, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and Edgar Degas to the medium of language, thus enabling the writers to develop a compact and highly expressive mode of description ideally suited to the limits of the short story. Her thesis director, Judith Ryan, Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Professor of German and Comparative Literature, stated: "Her emphasis is on color, brush-strokes, use of light, angle of vision . . . , rather than on more superficial similarities between objects. This procedure leads to some unexpected and thought-provoking juxtapositions. In almost all respects, this is a remarkable piece of work."  

Reginald H. Phelps Prize

The Reginald H. Phelps Prize Fund was established by Edgar Grossman, AB in Extension Studies '66, founder and first president of the Extension Alumni Association and the first Extension representative to the Associated Harvard Alumni, for prizes for Extension baccalaureate degree recipients. The prizes are in honor of Reginald H. Phelps, AB '30, AM '33, PhD '47, director of University Extension at Harvard from 1949 to 1975, and are awarded annually on the basis of "academic achievement and character" to outstanding graduating students receiving bachelor's degrees in Extension studies.

Andrea Bartosiewicz, ALB cum laude '99, is graduating at the top of her class with an overall 3.93 grade point average. She has attended Harvard Extension as a full-time student since the spring of 1997, working part-time and traveling to campus each week from her home on Cape Cod. Her first course at the Extension School, in 1996, was in American literature, and since then she has taken 11 more courses in that field at Harvard Extension, Harvard Summer School, and Harvard College. She plans to pursue a career in secondary school education, teaching literature.

Natalie Christina Edgeworth, ALB cum laude '99, is graduating with the second-highest grade point average of her class: 3.9. Born in Canada, Edgeworth took courses at Fanshawe College in Ontario before getting married and moving to the United States in 1990. She took her first Extension course in 1997 and attended school on a more than full-time basis, taking five courses each semester. This last year she traveled each week to Cambridge from New York City, where she now lives with her husband, a Harvard Business School graduate. She plans to apply to N.Y.U.'s graduate program in the psychology of parenthood.

Corrine Lynn Hyzny, ALB cum laude '99 took her first college course in her home state of California 17 years ago. Her education became interrupted by a successful career in advertising and public relations. Over the last two years, Hyzny started her own marketing business, became a mother for the second time, and attended the Extension School full-time. This week, she graduates with the third-highest grade point average in her class: 3.87.

Thomas Small Prize

Thomas Small was born in Lithuania, came to the United States in 1900 and earned a bachelor in business administration degree from Boston University in 1918. He retired from business in 1965 and that year enrolled in Harvard Extension. In 1983, at age 89, he received his A.L.M. degree, thereby becoming the oldest earned graduate degree recipient in the history of Harvard University. The Thomas Small Prize was established by his family and friends to honor this achievement by awarding prizes in his name. This prize is awarded annually on the basis of "academic achievement and character" to outstanding A.L.M. in Extension Studies degree recipients.

Tied for the Thomas Small Prize are Norine Duncan and Michele Mondini, each with a grade point average of 3.97. Duncan, candidate for the A.L.M. in fine arts, holds the A.B. degree from Brown University ('71) and the M.L.S. from the University of Rhode Island ('77). She is a librarian in the Art Slide Library at Brown. Her A.L.M. thesis, hailed by David Gordon Mitten, James Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, as "one of the two or three best A.L.M. theses that I have yet read a work of true and rare distinction," is titled "Funerary Stelai of Attica: The Case for Sumptuary Legislation at the End of the Archaic Period" and examines the vexing question of why grave monuments with figural reliefs disappeared from Athens from ca. 480 to 430 B.C.

Mondini, candidate for the A.L.M. in linguistics, is a 1994 graduate of The American University in Washington, D.C., and is employed in the Widener Library Office of Human Resources at Harvard. Her thesis, titled "Does Spanglish Have an Identifiably Distinct Psycholinguistic Basis?," investigates "Spanglish" as a language-mixing phenomenon occurring among the Hispanic population in the U.S. that results from Spanish and English coming into contact with each other. Her thesis director, Wilga Rivers, professor of Romance Languages and Literatures emerita, stated that the study "was well conducted and lucidly presented and should be useful for further linguistic and psycholinguistic studies of this widely used phenomenon." Mondini has been admitted to the Ph.D. program in psychology at Northeastern University.

Judith Wood Memorial Prize

Peter Alan Smith is this year's recipient of the Judith Wood Memorial Prize. A master of liberal arts candidate who is blind, Smith uses adaptive equipment for the classroom and at John Hancock Insurance Co. where he is employed. Smith demonstrates outstanding scholarship, leadership, and enterprise. The Judith Wood Memorial Prize honors students who, while completing degrees or certificates at the Extension School, must also contend with disabilities of a serious nature. It is awarded from the income from a fund established by the family and friends of the late Judith Wood who, though born with cystic fibrosis, beset with diabetes, and blindness, took Extension School courses as long as she was able, and inspired many other students with her courage and fortitude.

Katie Y.F. Yang Prize

Gabriel Raggio, a graduate of the Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management (CSS) program at the Extension School, will be awarded the 1999 Katie Y.F. Yang Prize. Named for a 1990 graduate of the CSS program, this prize is awarded annually to the international graduate of the program with the most outstanding academic record. Raggio, a native of Argentina who earned his bachelor's in civil engineering and doctorate in technical sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, earned straight A's in all his CSS studies.

The Carmen S. Bonanno Award

Established in 1990 by the family and friends of Carmen S. Bonanno, who studied a foreign language at the Extension School many years ago, this award recognizes excellence in foreign language instruction. This year's recipient of the Carmen S. Bonanno Prize for Excellence in Foreign Language Teaching is Raymond D. Lum, Asian bibliographer, Harvard College Library, who has been teaching elementary Chinese in the Extension School for more than 20 years. "He is truly a teacher to be emulated, one of the gems that makes the Extension School so valuable," wrote one of several students who nominated him.

James E. Conway Excellence in Teaching Writing Award

Jennifer Klein Morrison and Lisa Ratmansky are the recipients of the James E. Conway Excellence in Teaching Writing Award, which was established in 1991. Morrison and Ratmansky developed "Introduction to Academic Writing and Critical Thinking," a course required for admission to the undergraduate degree program at Extension; they have been teaching the course since 1997. Morrison is co-chair of the English Department at Regis College; Ratmansky is a preceptor in Expository Writing at Harvard College. Students consistently praise both instructors for making this required course both enjoyable and intellectually challenging. Morrison's students call her lectures "insightful," "rigorous," "thought-provoking," and "engaging;" one of Ratmansky's students commented, "The class was thrilling hard, but thrilling." 

Jo Anne Fussa Distinguished Teaching Award

This year's recipient of the Jo Anne Fussa Distinguished Teaching Award, which recognizes exceptional teaching in the Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management (CSS) program, is Arthur N. Turner, professor of business administration emeritus. "Professor Turner was insightful at all levels and an inspirational teacher," wrote one of his students this year in CSS-105, "Organizational Behavior," a course Turner has been teaching to appreciative CSS students since 1992. Turner was also awarded the CSS program's Exemplary Service Award in 1996 for his loyal service to the program.

Petra T. Shattuck Excellence in Teaching Award

Established by the Extension School in memory of Petra T. Shattuck, a distinguished and dedicated teacher in the program, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage in the spring of 1988, these prizes are awarded annually to honor outstanding teaching in the Extension program. This year, the three recipients are Jay Harris, Theoharis C. Theoharis, and Henry H. Leitner.

Jay Harris, the Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies, has taught at the Extension School for 10 years. His courses "Introduction to the Classics of Western Thought I and II," "Introduction to Judaism," and "Jewish Life in Eastern Europe" have earned him consistently high scores on student evaluations: 4.9s on a scale of 1 to 5. One student commented that Professor Harris' courses were so exceptional they should be mandatory for all Extension students.

Theoharis C. Theoharis is the editor of the Boston Book Review and has been teaching in the Extension School since 1996 and in the Summer School since 1986. In nominating him for the Shattuck prize, a student in his literature course, "Saving the Soul: Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche," wrote, "He showed so many facets of each work that it seemed like he was teaching four classes: comparative literature, theology, psychology, and history."

An 18-year veteran teacher in the Extension School, Henry H. Leitner, senior lecturer on computer science at Harvard, taught Computer Science E-50a, "Introduction to Computer Science Using C++, I" this fall term to 258 students, the largest course in the Extension School. In the spring term he taught Computer Science E-50b, "Introduction to Computer Science Using C++, II" to 121, an enrollment that ranked him among the top 10 courses. For the academic year he not only taught 379 students in his two classes, he also taught them well, as the student evaluations showed.