The Harvard Alumni Affiliation has introduced that Scott A. Abell ’72, Katherine N. Lapp, and M. Lee Pelton, Ph.D. ’84, will obtain the 2024 Harvard Medal.
First awarded in 1981, the Harvard Medal acknowledges extraordinary service to the College in areas that embody educating, fundraising, management, innovation, administration, and volunteerism. Alumni, former school and workers, and members of organizations affiliated with the College are eligible for consideration. The medals shall be offered to recipients on Harvard Alumni Day on Might 31.
Scott A. Abell
One of many College’s most dynamic and valued alumni leaders, Scott Abell has devoted greater than three many years in service to Harvard. He has introduced his love and deep information of the establishment to a wide range of govt roles, together with president of the Harvard Board of Overseers, president of the Harvard Alumni Affiliation (HAA), and dean for growth for the School of Arts and Sciences (FAS).
Rising up in a household of modest means, Abell overcame childhood polio to develop into a multisport athlete in highschool. He was inspired by a Cleveland-area alumnus to use to Harvard School, enrolling in 1968. After graduating, Abell based and served as chair and CEO of Abell & Associates, main its work in monetary providers and healthcare consulting.
Recognizing the impression that Harvard and its alumni group have had on his personal life, Abell has been devoted to strengthening alumni connection. Throughout his 2000–2001 time period as HAA president, he employed his trademark diplomacy to develop relationships inside the College and with alumni worldwide, main a complete technique that helped reshape the HAA.
In 2004, Abell got here out of retirement to steer FAS fundraising actions as affiliate vice chairman and dean for growth. As a member of the Board of Overseers from 2012 to 2018, Abell chaired its committee on institutional coverage and served on its govt committee, nominating committee, and the governing boards’ Joint Committee on Alumni Affairs and Growth. In his closing 12 months, he led the Overseers as president.
Prior volunteer roles embody president of the Harvard Membership of Northeast Ohio, the place he additionally chaired its Colleges and Scholarships Committee; HAA regional director; and vice chair of the Harvard School Fund govt committee. He obtained the HAA Award in 2003 in recognition of his work on behalf of the alumni group.
Katherine N. Lapp
By means of skillful management and perseverance, Katherine “Katie” Lapp expertly guided Harvard’s administrative and operational features for 13 years. As govt vice chairman, she constructed a resilient group that was capable of climate instances of uncertainty, together with the Nice Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, making certain that the College might proceed its core mission of educating and studying.
As a member of the president’s senior administration group, Lapp was chargeable for areas in finance, administration, human assets, and capital planning. She oversaw Harvard’s growth efforts in Allston, together with the creation of the Science and Engineering Advanced, a proposed residential venture at Barry’s Nook, and the Enterprise Analysis Campus. Lapp helped steer Harvard’s campus sustainability objectives — notably assembly preliminary targets of a 30 p.c discount in greenhouse fuel emissions by 2016 — and co-chaired the Presidential Committee on Sustainability.
In 2019, because the pandemic started to unfold, she performed an integral function within the College’s response, managing its surveillance and tracing procedures; the know-how infrastructure that enabled distant studying; and the return of scholars, workers, and school to campus.
Lapp joined Harvard in 2009 from the College of California on the peak of the recession, bringing stability and imaginative and prescient to planning and budgeting throughout the College as she labored to strengthen monetary administration practices and modernize administrative operations and danger administration protocols. She stepped down from her function in 2022.
Previous to Harvard, Lapp served as govt director and CEO for New York Metropolis’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in addition to director of felony justice and commissioner of the Division of Legal Justice Providers in New York State.
Lapp continues to take a seat on the boards of the Museum of Effective Arts, Mount Auburn Hospital, the Carnegie Establishment for Science, and the Cambridge Public Library Basis.
M. Lee Pelton
A distinguished tutorial and civic chief, Lee Pelton has devoted his profession to advancing social justice and increasing academic alternatives — a calling that has pushed him as a school president for 23 years and now as president and CEO of the Boston Basis.
A steadfast Harvard volunteer, Pelton served on the Graduate College Alumni Affiliation Council from 1996 to 2005 and on the Board of Overseers from 2000 to 2006, together with one 12 months as vice chair of the chief committee. He additionally served on visiting committees for Harvard School, Harvard Library, and Athletics, in addition to the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Duty.
The grandson of sharecroppers, Pelton was the primary in his household to go to school, attending Wichita State College earlier than pursuing a doctorate in English and American literature at Harvard, the place he was senior tutor at Winthrop Home and a lecturer on English. After leaving Harvard, he held decanal roles at Colgate College and Dartmouth School.
In 1998, he was appointed president of Willamette College. There he elevated the college’s rating as a top-tier liberal arts school, established a school entry program for traditionally underrepresented youth, and earned the college inclusion in President Barack Obama’s Larger Schooling Group Service Honor Roll.
In 2011, he turned president of Emerson School, the place he elevated school, enhanced pupil physique range, developed nationwide and world applications, and emerged as a robust voice on social points. Within the wake of the Sandy Hook mass taking pictures, he rallied over 250 school and college presidents to name for gun laws. After the homicide of George Floyd in June 2020, Pelton’s impassioned written tackle to the Emerson group went viral as he candidly relayed his personal experiences with racial profiling.
Since 2021, Pelton has led the Boston Basis, dedicated to fairness and to closing the gaps on the area’s biggest disparities for traditionally marginalized communities.
