Students honored for achievement and service at Class Day




A gallery of photos of the student award winners is available on this Web site.

Members of Princeton's class of 2006 gathered on Cannon Green Monday, June 5, to celebrate the conclusion of their undergraduate careers in a Class Day ceremony honoring their service and accomplishments.

Claire Woo received the Harold Willis Dodds Achievement Award, recognizing the senior who best embodies the qualities of Princeton's 15th president, Harold Dodds, "particularly in the qualities of clear thinking, moral courage, a patient and judicious regard for the opinion of others and a thorough devotion to the welfare of the University and the life of the mind." Woo, who is from Hong Kong, is a former president of the Pride Alliance and organized the University's first "Pride Month." She has been active as a peer educator on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues and has won many awards for her leadership in gender identity and expression issues on campus. She also has been an officer in Students for Progressive Education and Action.

The Allen Macy Dulles '51 Award was given to David Mann-Podrasky of Yardley, Pa. The award goes to the senior whose activities best represent or exemplify the University's informal motto: "Princeton in the nation's service and in the service of all nations." Mann-Podrasky has led more than 120 campus tours as a member of the Orange Key guide service. He also has worked to improve accessibility for mobility-impaired individuals on campus. He has been a math tutor and Boy Scout assistant pack master and has been active in his church.

Juan Gonzalez of Montebello, Calif., received the Frederick Douglass Service Award, which is given to the senior who has exhibited "courage, leadership, intellectual achievement and a willingness to contribute unselfishly toward a deeper understanding of the experiences of racial minorities and who, in so doing, reflects the tradition of service embodied in education at Princeton." Gonzalez has been a volunteer with the migrant worker population in Princeton and an organizer of Latino Heritage Month activities on campus. He also has served as president of the Chicano Caucus and the dance troupe Ballet Folklorico de Princeton.

The Class of 1901 Medal, which goes to the senior who, in the judgment of his or her classmates, has done the most for Princeton, was awarded to Leslie-Bernard Joseph of Bay Shore, N.Y. Joseph has served as president of the Undergraduate Student Government and the Black Student Union, and also has been involved with the Black Men's Awareness Group and the Princeton Justice Project.

Christopher Lloyd of Silver Spring, Md., received the W. Sanderson Detwiler 1903 Prize, awarded to the senior who, in the judgment of his or her classmates, has done the most for the class. The 2006 class president for the past three years, Lloyd also has been active in the University Honor Committee, the executive committee of the Alumni Council and the Princeton Justice Project.

The Priscilla Glickman '92 Memorial Prize, which honors "independence and imagination in the area of community service," was shared by Laura Collins and Sara Colon. Collins, who is from Wilton, Conn., has been involved in Community House for four years, starting as a volunteer her freshmen year and later assuming the role of project coordinator for the Step Up tutoring program at John Witherspoon Middle School. Colon, who is from Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, has been an active member of the Student Volunteers Council from the moment she arrived on campus as a Community Action participant. As a student administrator for the council, she has handled everything from vehicle scheduling to recruiting, interviewing and matching for the Summer Service Programs domestic internships. She also was a member of the council's executive board. In addition, she has regularly volunteered herself with three or four projects in Princeton and Trenton.

Athletic awards

Michael Broache of Owings Mills, Md., won the Class of 1916 Cup, which goes to the senior varsity letter winner with the highest academic standing. A Woodrow Wilson School major, Broache is from the men's lightweight crew, marking the second straight year that the cup winner has been a lightweight rower. He served as stroke for the heavyweight four-man boat at this year's International Rowing Association national championships.

The William Roper Trophy, which honors "a Princeton senior of high scholastic rank and outstanding qualities of sportsmanship and general proficiency in athletics," was given to Yasser El Halaby of Cairo, Egypt. El Halaby put together the greatest individual career in the history of collegiate men's squash. He became the sport's first male player to win four individual titles, joining current Princeton women's coach Gail Ramsay as the only four-time winners, and he never lost a game in any of the four national championship matches. He is a former Ivy League Rookie of the Year, a three-time Ivy League Player of the Year and a four-time All-America selection.

Soccer player Emily Behncke of Williamsburg, Va., runner Cack Ferrell of Minneapolis, fencer Jacqueline Leahy of Aurora, Colo., rower Caroline Lind of Greensboro, N.C., softball player Erin Snyder of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., and lacrosse player Lauren Vance of Lexington, Va., shared the Otto von Kienbusch Award. The award goes to "a senior woman of high scholastic rank who has demonstrated a general proficiency in athletics and the qualities of a true sportswoman." Behncke, a three-time first-team All-Ivy League selection and the 2005 Ivy League Player of the Year, was also a third-team All-America and first-team Regional All-America. Ferrell, one of the greatest distance runners in Princeton history, is a six-time All-America and a two-time Athlete of the Meet at Ivy League Heptagonals. She holds school records in several distance events and has earned All-America honors three times in cross country. Leahy, who had a 57-1 record in Ivy bouts, earned her fourth All-America honor in 2006, claiming a bronze medal in the epee at the NCAA Championships. Lind, the stroke for the U.S. national team this past September in Gifu, Japan, was also a two-time All-America selection who stroked the Princeton open crew to the 2006 national championship. Snyder was a two-time Ivy League Pitcher of the Year who led the softball team to three Ivy League titles. Vance was the 2006 Ivy League Co-Player of the Year and a first-team All-America pick in women's lacrosse, as well as a unanimous first-team All-Ivy League pick in 2006.

Devan Darby
of Virginia Beach, Va., Lauren Ehrlichman of Wellesley, Mass., Eric Leroux of London, Ont., and Wes Powell of Davis, Calif., shared the Arthur Lane '34 Award, which is given by the Princeton Varsity Club to honor selfless contribution to sport and society by undergraduates. Darby is a member of the NCAA champion first varsity eight women's open crew. She also has served as a volunteer working in hospitals in association with Health International, which included work in Mumbai, India, where she distributed supplies to local doctors. Ehrlichman is a member of the Ivy League champion field hockey team and of the U.S. team at the Junior World Cup. She has spent time as a tutor, youth coach and volunteer working with at-risk children, and has also worked at a free health care clinic whose patients are almost exclusively low income and uninsured. Leroux, a first-team All-Ivy League goalie in hockey, spent one summer in Kenya as an HIV counselor and another in Ecuador working in a malaria clinic. He also founded the Princeton World Health Initiative, which recovers unused medical supplies from area hospitals and pharmaceutical companies and distributes them to hospitals in developing nations. He was honored this spring with the 11th Hockey Humanitarian Award. Powell of the men's lightweight crew has served as president of the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship and as assistant dean of students at the Emily Fisher Charter School in Trenton, where he worked with special education students.

Honorary class members

The class of 2006 also named six people as honorary members: former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who spoke at Class Day; humorist David Sedaris, who spoke at Baccalaureate; John Fleming, the Louis W. Fairchild '24 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and John Gager, the William H. Danforth Professor of Religion, both of whom joined the faculty in the 1960s and are retiring this year; Charles Krank, a 1974 alumnus and assistant director of grounds and building maintenance, who has worked with student sponsored programs; and Bob Rodgers, an alumnus who has worked to foster relationships between his own class of 1956 and the class of 2006.