Christy Harasimowicz Receives Academic Achievement Award

2015 Apr 9

Christy Harasimowicz of Jefferson, NY, was one of 50 outstanding SUNY Oneonta seniors selected to receive a 2015 Academic Achievement Award this spring. Each academic department or program selected one to three outstanding seniors to receive awards.

Harasimowicz received the Department of Women's and Gender Studies award.

To be considered for the award, a student must be a senior with a minimum grade-point average of 3.5 in his or her major and must demonstrate exceptional academic improvement over four semesters, as well as excellence in research; leadership and involvement in department, campus and community activities; and/or participation in an academic and/or professional situation outside the college.

Harasimowicz is an English major and Women's and Gender Studies minor. She has achieved an extraordinary record of scholarly achievement, from winning the Gale Cengage SUNY Essay Contest to receiving many of the college's top academic awards, including the Susan Sutton Smith Student Award for Academic Excellence and the Richard Siegfried Student Award for Academic Excellence. From doing graduate-level independent study research to presenting at the New Critics Undergraduate Conference and the Women's and Gender Studies Student Symposium, Harasimowicz has produced cutting-edge scholarship at the intersections of gender, race, sexuality and literature. At the same time, she has mentored peers in her capacity as a teaching assistant, Diversity Peer Educator and Educational Opportunity Program tutor. She has notably embraced opportunities for connecting academics and activism with her work in the recent student movement to establish and implement a campus racial profiling policy and with her advocacy against sexual violence--all this, while holding down a full-time job for much of her undergraduate career.