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| Kathryn Wentzel | David Hammill |
Patricia Tooker | Ann Giarratano | Alberta Brescia | Lyle Guttu |
Wagner College bestows honors
in kicking off Community Days
By Phil Helsel
Wagner College kicked off its Staten Island Community Days yesterday by honoring future civic leaders and community activists, as well as looking to the past.
The Rev. Lyle Guttu, college chaplain for more than 35 years, who was struck and killed by a car while crossing Bement Avenue in December, was posthumously honored at Wagner’s “civic engagement day,” which inaugurates its annual weekend event of blood drives, neighborhood clean-ups and health fairs.
“Chaplain Guttu has been a friend, a colleague and a mentor to so many of us here,” said Julia Barchitta, dean of learning communities and experiential learning, at a ceremony in Spiro Hall yesterday. “Times change and neigbborhoods change, but Lyle Guttu did not change — he was a renaissance man, and always open to everyone.”
Also honored were two students who have answered the call of volunteerism and activism: senior Kathryn Wentzel, 22, of Reading, Pa., and junior David Hammill, 21, of Albany. The awards were presented following an introduction by Josephine Olsen, deputy director of the Peace Corps. “This is the greatest gift we can give to a young person, that road to service,” Ms. Olsen said. “When it starts at a young age, it continues throughout life.”
Ms. Wentzel spent last summer in Pasadena, Calif., doing research for a human rights lawyer suing several oil companies for their alleged complicity in destroying Nigeria’s environment. In January, she went to Gataka, Kenya, to help establish and support a children’s center in the AIDS-ravaged country. Currently, she is an intern at Amnesty International in Manhattan.
Hammill worked closer to home and has dedicated his time to the environment, managing a greenhouse at the college and teaching incoming students about ways they can reduce waste. He also recently wrote a $1,000 grant proposal, which, if approved, would go toward building a garden in the Park Hill Apartments complex in Clifton.
“When you’re moving so fast, then things like this come up and it makes you realize: I did make an impact,” said Hammill, a physics major with a minor in education. “I just feel empowered, to be a part of students who know we can do better.”
Also receiving awards yesterday were Patricia Tooker, a professor in the school’s nursing department; Ann Giarratano of the college’s center for academic and career development, and the American Cancer Society. [Alberta Brescia, regional vice president of the American Cancer Society, accepted the award on behalf of her organization.]
