Aracely Hernandez, of Elba, has received the SUNY Oneonta 2016-2017 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.
Hernandez, who is majoring in Spanish, received a certificate, a gift card to the campus bookstore, and an invitation to attend the annual Susan Sutton Smith Lecture and reception. Florian Reyda, Ph.D., professor of biology, delivered this year's Susan Smith Lecture titled, "Parasites, Evolution and Us," on April 11, in the Otsego Grille of the Morris Conference Center on campus.
Created to recognize faculty achievement outside the classroom, the Susan Sutton Smith Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence is named in memory of the late SUNY Oneonta professor of English. Reyda is the 23rd recipient of this prize. This event and the student awards are made possible by the generous gifts of SUNY Oneonta Alumni to the 2016-2017 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. The lecture is free and open to the public.
A liberal arts institution with a strong focus on undergraduate research and service learning, 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 10 years running and sits at No. 12 on the 2017 U.S. News & World Report list of the best public institutions in the region. SUNY Oneonta enrolls 6,000 students in its 70 undergraduate majors and 14 graduate programs.
