Kimberly Zilempe Receives Susan Sutton Smith Award for Academic Excellence
ONEONTA, NY (04/10/2015)(readMedia)– Kimberly Zilempe of Poughquag, NY, has received the 2014-2015 Susan Sutton Smith Award for academic excellence. To be eligible for the award, a student must be a freshman, sophomore or junior with a grade-point average of 3.9 or higher.
Zilempe, whose major is Early Chld/Childhood Ed (B-6), received a certificate, a gift card to the campus bookstore, and an invitation to attend the annual Susan Sutton Smith Lecture and reception. Dr. Joseph Pignato, associate professor of music at SUNY Oneonta, will deliver this year’s lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 14, in the Craven Lounge of the college’s Morris Conference Center. Pignato is the 21st recipient of the Susan Sutton Smith Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence, created to recognize faculty achievement outside the classroom and named in memory of the late SUNY Oneonta professor of English.
The lecture and the Susan Sutton Smith Awards for academic excellence are made possible by the generous gifts of SUNY Oneonta alumni to the 2014-2015 Fund for Oneonta. The Susan Sutton Smith Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence is made possible by an endowment created through the generosity of Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Mary Smith in memory of their daughter, Susan, and in honor of her commitment to academic excellence.
A liberal arts institution with a strong focus on undergraduate research, SUNY Oneonta consistently gains recognition for delivering excellence and value. The college has been named to Kiplinger’s list of “100 Best Values in Public Colleges” for nine consecutive years, was ranked No. 2 on the 2014 Kiplinger’s list of “10 Best Public Colleges With Lowest Debt at Graduation” and sits at No. 9 on the 2015 U.S. News and World Report list of the best public institutions in the region. The college enrolls 6,000 students in its 70 undergraduate majors and 14 graduate programs.
