(Cazenovia, NY – May 2015) Cazenovia College will host its 190th Commencement ceremony at10:30 a.m. Saturday May 16. Alumni, faculty, staff, trustees, parents, friends and neighbors of the College community will join together on this special day to celebrate the accomplishments of the Class of 2015.
Alumnus Shane O’Dell ’02, vice president, wealth management advisor and senior portfolio advisor for The McGovern Group at Merrill Lynch, and member of the 2013 Wildcats Hall of Fame, will serve as this year’s Commencement speaker. O’Dell, a certified financial planner and certified retirement planning counselor, is also president of the Dianne L. O’Dell Scholarship Foundation, chairman for the Advisory Board of Governors at Regatta Bay Golf and Country Club, and president of Fort Walton Beach Young Professionals. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Directors for several organizations including Emerald Coast Emerging Leader, Fort Walton Beach YMCA, Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce and Walton County Chamber of Commerce.
This year’s candidate for the doctor of humane letters, honoris causa, will be presented to Margery A. Pinet. For more than thirty years, Pinet has served the College as an adjunct writing instructor, director of the Academic Learning Center, academic dean, executive vice president, highly respected member of the faculty, trustee, and most recently as vice chair of the College’s Board of Trustees. She was also appointed chair of the campus committee for the College’s first-ever comprehensive capital campaign.
Pinet established the Washburn Distinguished Lectures, a series of talks about current issues confronting society. She also created the Washburn Junior Fellowship, a year-long opportunity for students to expand their academic and research opportunities. Both were created in honor of her parents. Pinet received the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award in 1988, was honored with the Presidential Medallion in 2000, and in 2006, the Board of Trustees unanimously granted her the highly esteemed status of professor emerita. She retired from her full-time position in August 2006, but has continued to teach at the College. In October 2010, Pinet was inducted into the Cazenovia College Athletics Hall of Fame.
The Cazenovia College Board of Trustees, will bestow the College’s Distinguished Service Award to members of the Christakos family of Cazenovia, New York. This prestigious accolade recognizes individuals whose contributions to the College and greater community have helped to improve the quality of life for others.
Harriet Christakos, wife of the late Nicholas J. “Nick” Christakos, former trustee of Cazenovia College and longtime civic and business leader in the Central New York region, will accept the award along with her children and their spouses, Conkie and James Sessler, Donald (Sparky) and Patricia Rickett Christakos ’77, and John and Deborah Christakos. Nick was a lifelong resident of Cazenovia, and the College was one of several organizations to benefit from his interest and support. He was instrumental in helping the institution to perservere in the 1970s, overcoming fiscal challenges, and he later became a member of the board of trustees for almost a decade (chairing the board from 1975 to 1976). His involvement continued until 2004, when he helped to bring about a cooperative arrangement between the College, the Memorial Association, and the local chapter of the American Legion so that the College’s NCAA Division III baseball and softball teams could play on Veterans Field. In addition to Nick’s service to the College, his family has actively participated in leadership roles in the local community and supported organizations, including the Cazenovia Public Library, Cazenovia Lake Foundation, Cazenovia Preservation Foundation, Caz Cares, American Legion, Cazenovia Youth Hockey and many others. With the help of the Christakos family’s extraordinary generosity, the College proudly named its athletic field, Christakos Field, in the fall of 2012.
Additional details for 2015 Commencement photography, videography, live webcast and lodging are available at www.cazenovia.edu/commencement.