2019 Miller-Hunn Award recipients

Honoring outstanding alumni interviewers for the College

This year, the newly renamed Miller-Hunn Awards—the original award, which recognized the work of Hiram S. Hunn, A.B. 1921, now also honors recently retired admissions officer Dwight D. Miller, Ed.M. ’71 (see “Admissions, through the Ages,” September-October, page 30)—went to eight alumni for their volunteer efforts to recruit and interview prospective undergraduates.

David Babin ’56, of Falmouth, Massachusetts, has served as an alumni interviewer since 1972. He has also served as president of the Harvard Club of Cape Cod (2005-2007), and is now the club’s “vice president for schools.”

Michael Cominsky ’80, of Old Forge, New York, began interviewing for the Harvard Club of Syracuse as a law student in 1982. After graduating, he returned to Utica, New York, where Arthur Freedman ’37 (his College interviewer), asked him to keep it up. He now chairs the schools and scholarships committee of the Harvard Club of Mohawk Valley. (His son Manuel ’14 is now an alumni interviewer for the Harvard Club of New York.)

Katie Williams Fahs ’83, of Atlanta, has led the Harvard Club of Georgia’s schools and scholarships committee for 11 years, coordinating more than 800 applicants and 200 interviewers per year, and is a former director of the national schools and scholarships committee.

Daniel “Bud” Kelly ’43, M.B.A. ’48, of Santa Fe, has long been familiar with the admissions process: his father, Daniel T. Kelly, was a member of the class of 1908. The elder Kelly subsequently served as the office’s New Mexico representative, a role later assumed by his son, who has served for more than 40 years.

Carlos Mendoza ’88, M.P.P. ’90, of Panama City, has been an interviewer, and chair, for the local schools and scholarships committee since 2001. He also founded the Harvard Club of Panama, serving as its first president, and then as director and treasurer, and directed the Clubs and Shared Interest Groups for Latin America between 2008 and 2012.

Marjorie Murstein ’71, of Boca Raton, has interviewed candidates for the Harvard Club of the Palm Beaches since 1982. During her service, she has met students from Palm Beach and Boca Raton to the crop fields of Belle Glade and Okeechobee. She currently serves as both vice president for the schools and scholarships committee and as area chair.

Frances O’Leary ’54, of Cambridge, has served the Wellesley area since her son, Mark ’81, was admitted to Harvard. Within her first years as an interviewer, she became chairman of the area, and only recently retired as committee co-chair.

Susan St. Louis ’81, of Mirage, California, has been an alumna interviewer since 1998 in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and has chaired the committee for 15 years.

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