One of the highlights of the degree awarding ceremony each June is the announcement by Dean Michael Shinagel of recipients of the three major academic prizes, the Phelps, Crite, and Small Prizes, as well as the prize for public service, the Bok Prize.

This year a new prize was added to the list. The Dean's Prize for Outstanding Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) Thesis recognizes the thesis that embodies the highest level of imaginative scholarship, and the first recipient was Gail McCracken Price, ALM '96, concentrator in dramatic arts.

Dr. Price holds a BS degree in Nursing from Florida State University, and an MS degree in Nursing and a PhD in Psychology from Boston University. A clinical psychologist in private practice, she is also an accomplished playwright. Her play Twain was produced off-Broadway at the Nada Theater last fall.

Price's ALM thesis, The Origins of the Sublime in the Tragedy of King Lear, was directed by William Alfred, Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus. Professor Alfred's high praise for her thesis is chronicled on page 14 of this Bulletin.

Price also was honored by being selected to give the Harvard Extension School Student Commencement Address.

Phelps prizewinners included Susan Bell, ALB '96 cum laude (left); Chester Swanson III, ALB '96 cum laude (center); and Patrick Michael Thompson, LAB '96 cum laude.

The Reginald H. Phelps Prize Fund was established by Edgar Grossman, ABE '66, founder and first president of the Extension Alumni Association (HEAA) and the first Extension representative to the Associated Harvard Alumni. The prizes honor Dr. Reginald H. Phelps, AB '30, AM '33, PhD '47, Director of University Extension at Harvard from 1949 to 1975, and they are awarded annually on the basis of academic achievement and character to outstanding graduating students receiving bachelor's degrees in Extension Studies.

The first prize recipient was Susan Bell, ALB '96 cum laude. After a successful career in advertising and television, Bell came to Harvard Extension to pursue a lifelong interest in Middle Eastern history. Thanks to the support and encouragement of her professors, she is currently writing her first book--a biography of the controversial British general Orde Wingate--and looking forward to a new career as a writer and historian. Bell graduated at the top of her class with a 3.94 grade point average in Middle Eastern studies.

Patrick Michael Thompson, ALB '96 cum laude, received the second Phelps Prize. A former MIT student, Thompson worked as a special projects supervisor in the technical department of a Boston TV station. In 1990 he started taking classes at Harvard Extension and became a full-time student in 1995. Thompson graduated with a 3.84 cumulative grade point average in computer science.

After working as a professional musician for many years, Chester Swanson III, ALB '96 cum laude, decided to return to academia. While studying at Harvard, Swanson was appointed Brook Farm Archaeological Laboratory Supervisor in 1994 and completed a two-year independent study project under Dr. Robert W. Preucel, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard. The finished paper, Harvesting the Utopian Crop: An Archaeological Report on the Use and Destruction of the Brook Farm Hive Building, will be published as part of a report submitted to the National Park Service, the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and the Metropolitan District Commission. Swanson, the third Phelps prizewinner, graduated with a 3.82 cumulative grade point average in anthropology and archaeology.

At this year's Commencement ceremonies Enrique Jesus Calixto, ALM '96 (left) received the first Annamae and Allan R. Crite Prize; Lara JK Wilson, ALM '95, (center) received a Thomas Small Prize; and Gail McCracken Price, ALM '96, recieved the first Dean's Prize for Outsranding ALM Thesis.

Established by the Harvard Extension School and the Harvard Extension Alumni Association in honor of Annamae Crite, who for more than a half-century faithfully attended Extension courses, and her son, Allan R. Crite, ABE '68, who is widely recognized as the dean of African-American artists in the Greater Boston area, the Annamae and Allan R. Crite Prizes are awarded to Extension School degree recipients who demonstrate singular dedication to learning and the arts.

This year the first Crite Prize went to ALM class marshal Enrique Jesus Calixto, who holds a BA degree in religion from Florida International University and an MTS in religion from the Harvard Divinity School. His thesis, The Effect of English Attitudes Toward Male Homosexuality on 18th- and 19th-Century Translations of Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus, was directed by David Gordon Mitten, James C. Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, who said of his essay: "Mr. Calixto's thesis is a brilliant essay, massively documented and rigorously argued . . . [and] is a major contribution to the social history of the period. Beautifully written as well, this essay is one of the most outstanding . . . theses that I have yet read. I very much hope that Mr. Calixto will publish this distinguished work."

The second Crite Prize went to Scottland Arthur Hubbard, ALB '96 cum laude. Hubbard spent five years ski racing in France and Colorado and another five years living on Cape Cod and working in sales before coming to the Harvard Extension School to earn his undergraduate degree. He has been accepted to a master's/doctorate program at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and graduated with a 3.91 cumulative grade point average in humanities.

Thomas Small was born in Lithuania, came to the United States in 1900, and earned a Bachelor in Business Administration degree from Boston University in 1918. He retired from business in 1965 and that year enrolled in Harvard Extension. In 1983, at age 89, he received his Master of Liberal Arts degree, thereby becoming the oldest earned degree recipient in the history of Harvard University. The Thomas Small Prize was established by his family and friends to honor outstanding academic achievement and character among ALM recipients.

Tied for the Thomas Small Prize this year were John Melcher Heavey and Lara JK Wilson, both concentrators in English and American literature and language, and both had the highest grade point average in the class, 3.97.

An English teacher at Tabor Academy, Heavey received his BA degree in English from Johns Hopkins University in 1975. His ALM thesis is entitled Absent Fathers, Sexualized Mothers, and Betraying Friends: An Exploration of the Hamlet Echoes in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Jonah Siegel, Assistant Professor of English and American Literature, who directed the thesis, said of Heavey's work: "John Heavey has written a smart, useful, and original master's thesis on a topic of real importance. He started with a sense of the importance of establishing the intertextual connections between the play and the novel; he ended by writing a sophisticated piece that offered a rich reading of the themes of Portrait by looking at them through the prism of Hamlet."

Lara JK Wilson, a published fiction writer, has an AAS degree from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology and a BA degree from SUNY-Plattsburgh. Her various interests are united in her ALM thesis, Fashionable Appearances: Self, Socialization, and Sartorial Symbolism in Henry James's The Golden Bowl. Her thesis director, Barbara Johnson, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, wrote: "Lara Wilson has . . . integrated her vast reading seamlessly and illuminatingly into her analysis of Henry James's The Golden Bowl. This is a very polished, intelligent piece of work."

Margaret Moores Benson, ALB '96, (right) received this year's distinguished Derek Bok Public Service Prize, and Scottland Arthur Hubbard, ALB '96 cum luade, received the second Crite Prize at diploma ceremonies in June.

Margaret Moores Benson, ALB '96, received this year's distinguished Derek Bok Public Service Prize. This prize honors the commitment of former President Derek Bok to adult continuing education and to effective advocacy of community service activities, and it is awarded annually to degree recipients, who, while pursuing academic studies and professional careers, also give generously of their time and skill to improve the quality of life for others. The prize was established by generous gifts from members of the Harvard Extension Alumni Association.

Benson's interest in naval history and education led her to volunteer at the USS Constitution Museum where she has been a Trustee since 1987 and Chairman of the Board of Overseers since 1993. Her principal efforts on behalf of the Museum's mission--"to explore the spirit and ideals of the emerging nation"--are educational programs, which focus primarily on school children and include school group visits as well as Museum summer apprenticeship opportunities for inner city high school students where participants become involved with the living history of our great national treasure, "Old Ironsides."

Probably the most unusual prize awarded annually at the degree awarding ceremony is the Santo J. Aurelio Prize, named for Santo Joseph Aurelio, ALB '83, ALM '85. Aurelio received his first two degrees at the Harvard Extension School after age 50 and went on to earn a doctorate and enter a new profession, college teaching, after a career of more than 35 years as an official court reporter for the Massachusetts Superior Court. The prize recognizes academic achievement and character for undergraduate degree recipients over 50 years of age.

This year's recipient was Kathleen Meehan Greenan, ALB '96. Greenan was born in Ireland in 1922 and began her educational career at Quincy Junior College in 1972, where she completed 12 credits. In the fall of 1978, she enrolled in her first course, Intermediate Irish, at the Harvard Extension School. She has been taking courses faithfully ever since--earning her bachelor's degree 18 years later. Greenan concentrated her studies in creative writing, taking numerous courses in beginning and advanced fiction and poetry.