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To recognize their "unique contribution to undergraduate life," the Harvard Alumni Association has selected Mary Murphy '99 and Matthew Smith '99 as the 1998-1999 David Aloian Memorial Scholars. The award, established to honor the late David Aloian '49, former executive director of the HAA and master of Quincy House, honors exceptional service to student life through House activities.
Mary Murphy, a history concentrator from New Haven and Kirkland House, "is the kind of student that makes one think of sending the admissions committee a congratulatory bouquet," wrote master and co-master Donald and Cathleen Pfister. Murphy is a member of Kirkland's House committee, boat club, and drama society, and has been a coordinator with HAND (the House and Neighborhood Development program). As former cochair of the HAA's undergraduate-relations committee, she has organized panel discussions on the arts, diversity, and women at Harvard.
Matthew Smith, of Plantation, Florida, spearheaded improvements to every common space in Leverett House--which included transforming the basement into a game and TV area. He currently cochairs his House committee and welcomes sophomores to Leverett through the House Big Sib program. He is credited with organizing countless ping-pong tournaments, study breaks, movie nights, and discussion groups. Leverett House master John Dowling wrote that, as an applied math concentrator, "Matt cannot contain his excitement for his subject, which he is able to communicate even to the most exclusively humanistic of Leverett's students."
The two honorees will be recognized at the opening dinner of the HAA Board of Directors meeting on November 5.