Seven Outstanding Alums to Be Spotlighted at UC Day Celebration

Seven outstanding alumni from the University of Cincinnati are to be honored on June 10, when the UC Alumni Association hosts its UC Day Celebration at the Kingsgate Marriott Conference Center. Included among this year's honorees is emerita faculty member Nancy Hamant, along with two UC mainstays who are being honored posthumously – Jim Kelly Sr. and Linda Bates Parker.

Hamant, A&S '57, CECH '61, '67, will be the recipient of the William Howard Taft Medal for Notable Achievement, the highest honor presented by the UC Alumni Association. A member of the faculty of UC's College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services for 43 years, Hamant went beyond her teaching assignments to serve her university in dozens of roles over the years, including a 21-year stint as UC's Faculty Representative to Athletics.

Additional awards include:

• Alumni Distinguished Service Award to Robert Dobbs, Bus '76 & '88, the board president of the UC Alumni Association from 2004-08, who also has assisted the UC College of Business in multiple roles. He was also a member as a student of UC's first varsity soccer team, and has served his alma mater through service on search committees for a dean of the College of Business, a UC athletics director, a UC Foundation president and a UC Alumni Association executive director.
• Alumni Distinguished Service Award to Jim Kelly Sr., CECH '51 & '65, a UC institution for anyone involved in Bearcat athletics in the last 50 years. After starring in football for UC, he spent 34 years professionally in the athletics department, filling numerous roles as a coach, teacher, adviser and administrator. He played major roles in the construction of the Shoemaker Center and the renovation of Nippert Stadium, and is so closely identified with UC athletics that the university's Athletics Hall of Fame is named in his honor. The university community mourned his loss in January of 2009.
  
• Jeffrey Hurwitz Young Alumni Outstanding Achievement Award to Ryan Rybolt, Eng '97, the founder of Innovative Financial Technologies (Infintech). Rybolt's firm earned the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber's Emerging Business of the Year award in 2008. He also is co-founder and director of the Give Back Cincinnati organization and is a member of the Chamber's Regional Leadership Forum and the chair of the UC Alumni Association's Membership Committee.
• Mosaic Award to Rebecca Lee, RWC '01, Nur '03, '05, '08, an associate professor in the UC College of Nursing and an emerging national advocate for the delivery of healthcare to underserved populations. Her commitment includes development of a academic course in her college on vulnerable and marginalized populations and service on the board of the Cincinnati Health Network. Mosaic Awards are presented to those whose leadership enhances shared community through cultivating collaboration, fostering inclusiveness, championing the cause of the underrepresented, and promoting equity and opportunity for all.
• Mosaic Award to Linda Bates Parker, A&S '70, who served her alma mater as director of the UC Career Development Center for 22 years. Parker earned Distinguished Faculty Fellow recognition and was a pioneer in helping develop some of UC's first distance-learning courses and in helping lay the groundwork for the university-wide Diversity Task Force. The university community mourned her loss in December of 2009.
• Mosaic Award to J. Erin Riehle, Nur '81, '92, the director of disability services at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) and the founder and co-director of Project SEARCH, a unique healthcare and education collaboration. In her roles, Riehle develops and implements innovative programs in workforce and career development for people with disabilities and barriers to employment. A 30-year veteran of CCHMC, she served as clinical director of the Emergency Department, an experience that helped give her the inspiration that led to her founding of Project SEARCH in 1996.
  

For more details on the honorees and the UC Day Celebration, go to:

Alumni Association's UC Day Celebration Web page