Link scholars: Student recipients exhibit principles of unionism

For nearly 15 years, UUP has awarded scholarships to students who exhibit a dedication to scholarship, leadership, community service and personal integrity — principles upheld by Eugene Link, the namesake of the union’s annual award program. This year is no exception.

The 2002 Eugene P. Link College Scholarship Trust Fund award recipients are Rita Nederman, a senior majoring in aviation administration at SUNY Farming-dale, and Daniel Schultz, a junior majoring in history at SUNY Geneseo. The students will be honored at this month’s Fall Delegate Assembly in Rochester.

Rita Nederman

Nederman typifies the “nontraditional” student. A mother of two, she brings an older — yet fresh — perspective to the college classroom and to her younger classmates. She also brings patience, wisdom and leadership. And a personal dream.

At a very early age, Nederman developed a curiosity about flying. She remembers sitting on the family’s stoop in Queens, watching airplanes pass overhead, counting windows and identifying carriers. A ride in a Piper Cub solidified her love for flying.

She attended SUNY Stony Brook in the early ’70s, but soon married and began raising a family. Like many women, she put her personal dreams on hold.

And gave of herself to others.

Nederman is an outreach volunteer with the Adelphi Statewide Breast Cancer Hotline and Support Program and volunteered with Winthrop University Hospital’s bereavement support group on Long Island.

“Her volunteer activities underscore ... a deep commitment to improving the world around her,” said UUPer Miriam Deitsch of Farmingdale. “She is blessed, not only with ... a sharp mind to critically think through problems from a psychological, sociological and ethical moral perspective, but ... (a) deeply internalized understanding and sensitivity to the human condition.”

Once her children were old enough, Neder-man headed back to college to pursue her dream. There, she served on the President’s Task Force on Retention. She is also a member of the American Association of Airport Executives and has begun flight lessons.

“It is my hope that my ... courage to move forward ... will set an example worthy of notice,” said Nederman, who has a grade-point average of 3.81. “I have made a commitment to my ongoing mission as a loving partner and mom, a student seeking academic development, a woman of integrity who dares to dream, and a caring human being willing to serve the needs of her community.”

Daniel Schultz

It started out simple for Schultz. First he worked on projects to send school supplies to children in Latin America. Then he began serving soup in a Salvation Army kitchen. But he knew he had to do more.

“While these acts of youthful philanthropy instilled in me the Christian values of charity ... they did not teach me how to combat the root causes of this type of social alienation,” Schultz said. “I realized volunteering ... does nothing to alter the systems and institutions that cause poverty.”

So Schultz become actively involved in organizations “engaged in social and labor issues,” such as Democrat Socialists of America, the Geneseo Greens, Students Against Sweatshops, the Anti-War Coalition, and Habitat for Humanity.

With these organizations, Schultz organized pro-SUNY budget rallies and Albany lobbying trips; helped to build houses in rural New York; conducted political debates; participated in a daylong teach-in on environmental issues; and raised funds for struggling women in Afghanistan.

Schultz said his most “meaningful work (for) mistreated workers” was as an intern with Service Employees Industrial Union Local 150, where he helped to organize home health-care workers in the Midwest.

“As I went from house to house in neighborhoods where it was rare to see a white person ... I understood more and more the need for a strong labor movement,” he said. “It is only through a strong labor movement ... that people will be able to combat the devastation left in the wake of corporate greed and irresponsibility.”

“I have great admiration for the commitments he has made to social justice issues,” said UUPer David Tamarin of Geneseo. “He is, literally, hungry for knowledge and understanding for its own sake but, moreover, as a tool for making the world better.”

Said Schultz, who has a 3.86 grade-point average: “I see my education as providing me with the necessary weaponry with which to wage war on social ills.”

— Karen L. Mattison