233 Students Receive Susan Sutton Smith Award for Academic Excellence

A total of 233 SUNY Oneonta students were recognized for academic excellence during the 2025-2026 Susan Sutton Smith event on Tuesday, April 7. The Susan Sutton Smith awards are given each spring to first-year students, sophomores and juniors who have earned a grade-point average of 3.9 or higher on a 4.0 scale.

The on-campus event featured the annual Susan Sutton Smith Lecture, delivered this year by Professor William Walker. Dr. Walker received the faculty Susan Sutton Smith Award, and his lecture was titled "New York Storytellers and America's Folk Renaissance 1920-1940."

Dr. Walker is a professor of history at the Cooperstown Graduate Program. He is the author of A Living Exhibition: The Smithsonian and the Transformation of the Universal Museum and a founder and editor of The Inclusive Historian's Handbook (inclusivehistorian.com), which is co-sponsored by the American Association for State and Local History and the National Council on Public History. An active public historian, Professor Walker oversees CGP Community Stories, an ongoing oral history project that uses recorded narratives to initiate public dialogue programs on critical social and environmental issues. His areas of expertise are public history, 20th-century U.S. cultural and intellectual history, and the history of race and ethnicity, especially as related to museums. He is committed to equity and inclusion in the field, and his courses emphasize building anti-racist and anti-oppression knowledge and skills.

Seven additional faculty and staff members received awards at the event:

Adjunct Associate Professor of Art Madeline Silber received the university's annual Simphiwe Hlatshwayo Award for Outstanding Part-Time Instructor. Associate Professor of World Languages and Literatures Maria Montoya received the Innovative Pedagogy Award. Professor of Art Rhea Nowak received the Esther Hubbard Whitaker Award. World Languages and Literatures Lecturer Alejandra Escudero received the Outstanding Lecturer Award. Pedagogy Support Specialist, Faculty Center for Teaching, Learning and Scholarship Racheal Fest received the Academic Affairs Staff Award. The Award for External Grant Achievement and Faculty Research was given to Assistant Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Scott Maguffin, Associate Professor of Biology Kiyoko Yokota, and Dr. Walker.

This lecture and the awards for academic excellence are made possible by the generous gifts of SUNY Oneonta alumni to the Fund for Oneonta. The Susan Sutton Smith Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence is made possible by an endowment created through the generosity of Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Mary Smith in memory of their daughter, Susan, in honor of her commitment to academic excellence.