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The Touching the Future Award recipients take the stage with their
former students. Picured are: Maureen Beck, Lucia Berliner ’12, Chris
Middleton and Isaias Garcia ’12.
Chair-elect of the Board of Trustees Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09 honored two educators with the 2012 Touching the Future Awards. The award is given during Commencement to celebrate and honor the many early childhood educators - those with whom our students interacted in elementary, middle and high school – who have influenced HWS graduates and inspired them to pursue an HWS education.
Chris Middleton, a social worker and guidance counselor at Frederick Douglass Academy in Brooklyn, N.Y., was nominated by Isaias Garcia ’12. Maureen Beck, a former art teacher at The Randolph School in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., was nominated by Lucia Berliner ’12.
Garcia credited Middleton with being a mentor who went above and beyond, helping him get through middle and high school in order to achieve his aspiration of obtaining a college diploma. Additionally, after his mother died, Middleton helped Garcia with the college application process. “He told me to make my mother proud by graduating from college no matter what it took,” Garcia said.
Berliner said Beck helped her advance her creative abilities as well as seek opportunities to make a difference. “For me, art is a way to bond communities, to explore interests, to unify passion, to teach respect for one another’s ideas and to share emotions ranging from sorrow to hope—Ms. Beck lovingly gave this to me, and in turn I give it to others.”