Seven Distinctive Wooster Grads Honored During Virtual Alumni Weekend

WOOSTER, Ohio – The College of Wooster honored seven inspiring alumni during its Virtual Alumni Weekend on June 6.
On the receiving end of Wooster’s highest alumni award, the Distinguished Alumni Award, this year are Larry A. Jones, Sr. ’75 and Brenda N. Major ’72.
Jones is in line to be elected for a third term as a judge of the Eighth District Court of Appeals for the state of Ohio. He first assumed the office in 2008 after serving 21 years on the Cleveland Municipal Court, which included being designated by his colleagues to serve as the presiding and administrative judge for 14 years. In 1997, Jones helped establish the Greater Cleveland Drug Court, a collaborative program of city and county agencies designed to hold drug offenders accountable and provide treatment resources to break the cycle of drug abuse and drug-related crime and reduce recidivism, and he presided over it for 11 years. Early in his career, Jones was an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor and won a seat on Cleveland City Council, serving six years as Ward 10 councilman.
Major, an internationally-known expert with more than 40 years of work on the effects of stigma and discrimination on identity and their implications for health and well-being, serves as a distinguished professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The self-described experimental social psychologist has been a UC Santa Barbara faculty member since 1995 and published more than 200 articles and book chapters and edited two books, The Psychology of Legitimacy and the Oxford Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health. She has received many awards and grants, including a Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Self and Identity and a Scientific Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology.
James R. Wilson ’63, a longtime member of the College’s Board of Trustees, was recognized with the Sara L. Patton Stewardship Award, given to one who has established an outstanding and sustained record of giving to Wooster while encouraging others to give as well. An economics major, Wilson went on to earn a master’s degree at Harvard University, and during his career, he held several senior-level positions in finance, international operations, and management at several multi-national corporations. In 1993, he was appointed chairman and CEO of Cordant Technologies, a global manufacturer of jet aircraft engine components, and stayed in that role until the merger of Cordant and Alcoa, Inc. Wilson and his wife, Linda, have been generous donors of the College across numerous campaigns, capital projects, and annual fund years. In addition to being a loyal member of The Wooster Fund’s Leadership Circle, major gifts have included an endowed professorship and endowed fund in business economics, the renovation of Kauke Hall, the construction of the Scot Center, and support of the R. Stanton Hales Presidents’ Discretionary Endowment Fund. He also established an endowment to support the ongoing upkeep of the Scot Center’s well-loved, and equally well-used Wilson Governance Room, and created the Wilson APEX Fellowship Endowment to provide experiential learning opportunities for Wooster students.
Thomas A. Boardman ’70 and Susan K. Boardman ’71 were honored as the John D. McKee Alumni Volunteer Award recipients in recognition of their outstanding service to the College. About 50 years since becoming college sweethearts, they’ve made an undeniable impact on Wooster as volunteers, attending college fairs, interviewing prospective students, writing notes to admitted students, hosting multiple reunions on campus, participating in Scots in Service, and serving on the Alumni Board. They established two endowed scholarships for students who reflect Tom’s Wooster experience, as he went on to obtain a juris doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis and a 36-year career as an attorney for 3M Company, in which he became a vice president and leader of its office of general counsel. He has spent the past 1O years as a partner with the national law firm, Barnes & Thornburg, in their Minneapolis office.
Another husband-wife duo, Alexander R. Jue ’10 and Kaitlyn L. Jue ’10, were presented with the Outstanding Young Alumni Award, having graduated within the last 15 years and provided stellar service to the College. Current residents of Washington, D.C., where Alex works for the local government in education policy and Kaitlyn is a preschool teacher in an inclusion setting for children with hearing loss, their passion for Wooster has carried over into a variety of ways. They donate to the Wooster Fund annually and are advocates and volunteers for the admissions office, serving as hosts and participants for National Interview Day, among other activities.
For more information on Wooster’s Alumni Weekend, visit woosteralumni.org

Posted in News on June 6, 2020.