Elsie Chapman
Evelyn Gard sent in the following write-up.
The Gateway Community College (GCC) Foundation celebrated its 21st annual Hall of Fame induction, October 4 with over 200 donors and supporters who were on hand to celebrate and cheer on this year’s inductees.
Jeffrey A. Klaus (Jeff) was inducted as this year’s Corporate Honoree, along with Community Honorees, Elsie Blackshear Chapman and Ruby H. Melton. Distinguished Alumni honors were conferred on 218 Gateway Community College alumni that are currently employed at Yale New Haven Healthcare’s (YNHH) Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and Radiation Oncology.
The honorees and the donors and sponsors who came together for this year’s Hall of Fame were welcomed by GCC President, Paul Broadie II, who congratulated the honorees while emphasizing the impact of a “student centered institution with a laser focus on success and completion.” As the evening unfolded, Emcee, Justin Schecker, NBC newsroom reporter, introduced each inductee with a moving video preview.
The Hall of Fame event is the GCC Foundation’s major fundraiser for scholarships, and with over 70% of the college’s population relying on financial aid to complete their programs of study, the hundreds of scholarships awarded by the Foundation over the years have made tremendous impact.
Well known for his education advocacy, Jeff Klaus has been active in the community in support of improving urban public school education. He was appointed by Governor Rell to serve on the Educational Cost Sharing Commission, and serves as a founding board member of Amistad Academy. As a former Board of Directors member for the Foundation who currently serves on Gateway’s President’s Executive Council, Klaus is a long-time friend and committed supporter of the college. In recognition of his outstanding support of education and the college, Klaus was presented with the college’s annual President’s Award at their 24th Commencement Ceremony in 2017. “Education has long been a priority for me,” explained Klaus.
The GCC Foundation is also a co-founder of the Gateway Executive Mentoring (GEM) program, which provides one-on-one mentorship opportunities for GCC students. The 2018 Community inductees, Elsie Chapman and Ruby Melton, were recognized for “their tremendous impact and selfless effort to help students in the GEM program.”
Following a 30-year career at IBM, Elsie Blackshear Chapman has established herself as a celebrated pillar of the New Haven community. Chapman serves as the president of the New Haven Free Public Library Foundation, vice chair of the Board of Directors of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, and as a board member of the New Haven Preservation Trust. She is on the Cultural Affairs Commission for the City of New Haven’s Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism, and is a member of the New Haven Chapter of The Links, Incorporated — an international corporation of nearly 15,000 professional women of color.
With a background in maritime and international law at New York firm Nourse & Bowles, Ruby H. Melton held a key position at the Switzerland-based commodities-merchant company Lord Dreyfus Group. By the time she left the company in 2008, she was overseeing all legal and compliance functions for the company’s worldwide energy activities. Melton now serves on the Advisory Council of Women’s Health Research at Yale, the National Council for the American Theatre, the Boards of the Long Wharf Theatre, Shubert Theatre-New Haven, Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, Shepherd’s, Inc., and Gateway Community College Foundation. She also served on the Board of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas for nine years.
The 218 graduates of the Gateway Community College received official notice of their recognition at a reception, September 20 and were represented at the Hall of Fame Induction by Alumna Juliette Buccilli and Cheryl Granucci, Director of Diagnostic Radiology at YNHH. A Gateway graduate, Granucci was honored as a distinguished alumna in 2012.
“We are a teaching site for Gateway, and the college is our main source of technical staff for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging,” Granucci explained. “We always turn to Gateway if we have an opening in these departments, and we’re especially interested in hiring candidates who have trained at our site. We have worked with these students, and we find them well qualified and well trained.” Granucci also cited the alignment between the college’s academic curricula and what the students experience at the clinical site, including YNHH, where they train.
Mark Ojakian, President of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities spoke about the inspiring students whose open conversations about their concerns led to many of the initiatives currently underway, including the $20 per semester bus and rail passes, and the recent renegotiated contract to provide savings and alternative access to college textbooks — an initiative that saved CSCU students over $4 million in the past year.
The 2018 Gateway Community College Hall of Fame was sponsored by Alexion, William Curran, Wells Fargo and Comcast. Proceeds for the event go to support student scholarships at Gateway Community College.
