Alumni Profiles: Award Winners

The winners of the Alumni Distinguished Service Award and the Inspirational Young Alumni Award were announced at Alumni Weekend 2003 in May.

Alumni Distinguished Service Award
Eleanor Forbes Pierson ’41 was honored during Alumni Weekend with the 2003 Alumni Distinguished Service Award. This award is bestowed annually in recognition of selfless commitment and ongoing volunteer service to the College. The following is from her acceptance speech given at the Through the Gates ceremony:

My connection with Pomona actually goes back before I was born. My grandfather, John James Forbes, became the financial secretary for President James Arnold Blaisdell. The construction of Little Bridges was under way at that time. Dr. Blaisdell ... put him in charge of the interior furnishings, where he was responsible for the exquisite ceiling we still admire. It was in Little Bridges that Lenn and I were married by Dr. Blaisdell. Many years later, much to our delight, one of our daughters was married in the same building.

I became acquainted with Alumni Day as a child accompanying my two aunts...both of the Class of 1917. So it was only natural that my volunteering involved planning class reunions on Alumni Day. We have had 11 memorable gatherings of the Class of ’41, otherwise known as the Arakarans. This started when we sprang our banner at the halftime of the 1937 Caltech football game. What sounded like bombs bursting near Big Bridges was the alert for one of our classmates to come galloping onto the field on a white horse, carrying our banner. It was a dramatic and exciting moment—so exciting, I have no idea which was the victorious team.

The opportunity to participate, even if on the outer rim, in a college growing stronger every year, has made volunteering not only worthwhile, but a most rewarding experience. In one way, volunteering has been my answer to Blaisdell’s words on the College Gates. Living in Claremont made it easy for me to become involved, early on planning programs for the Pomona Valley Alumni Club. This led to serving on the Alumni Council with the presidency in 1972. Here, over the years, I served in a number of capacities, helped with many phonathons, served as Alumna representative on the Pomona College Admission’s Committee and worked on the Symposium honoring the World War II generation.

Becoming acquainted with alumni of different eras has been an added benefit for me. I encourage all alumni to become involved, even if you live a distance from the College, as you will find there are things you can do. Believe me, it will add a remarkable dimension to your life.


Inspirational Young Alumni Award
Cuc Vu ’92 of Washington, DC, was on campus during Alumni Weekend to receive the 2003 Inspirational Young Alumni Award. Vu, who immigrated to the United States as troops were evacuating Vietnam, directs the national immigration program for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). At the award ceremony, she spoke of her life, work and inspiration:

I started with a simple ideal: to follow my heart and connect my work to social and economic justice. As a student, my heart led me to study art history and public policy, which led me to grad school to study policy. My union work led me to SEIU, and the rest of that narrative is still unfolding.

My experience as an immigrant and a refugee from a war-torn country makes me feel a great sense of urgency about immigrant rights. Being raised in a single-parent household and knowing firsthand how low-wage workers struggle for dignity and a chance to achieve the American Dream also makes me sympathetic to workers joining together to change their workplace and communities.

Growing up in Washington, before I was legally old enough to hold a job, my brothers and sisters and I would get up at 5 a.m. during the summers and pick strawberries until 3 p.m. (We earned about $1.75 an hour.) I remember standing up one day to stretch my back—not an easy thing to do after being hunched over all day and breathing in the pesticides the growers sprayed—and I suddenly noticed that almost everyone in that strawberry field was Vietnamese. That moment changed me. I had no words for it then, but I knew in my heart that I didn’t like what I saw and experienced and would work to change it.

Not many people get paid to change people’s lives, so I feel an incredible sense of responsibility and urgency about our mission. Justice is indivisible. Justice for immigrants is the next civil rights issue, and we are at a moment to make history.