The Harvard Alumni Association Awards were established in 1990 to recognize outstanding service to Harvard University through alumni activities. This year’s recipients were to be honored on October 12 during the HAA board of directors’ annual fall meeting in Cambridge. Highlights of their many contributions are given below.
Jonathan L. S. Byrnes
Michael F. Holland
Barbara G. Meyer
Harry "Chip" O'Hare Jr.
Roland B. Smith Jr.
Beverly B. Sullivan
Jonathan L. S. Byrnes, D.B.A. ’80, of Lexington, Massachusetts, has played a key role in strategic planning for the HAA, having managed the initial plan in 2001 that charted the organization’s current path and conducted subsequent reviews. Over the years, he has served on the executive committee in various capacities, including as president (2007-2008). He has also served as vice president of the Harvard Club of Boston, and was a member of the board of directors of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association.
Michael F. Holland ’66, of New Canaan, Connecticut, has never refused a volunteer role at Harvard and is considered one of its greatest ambassadors. The former cochair of the Harvard College Fund Council, he also chairs the Class of 1966 reunion-gifts committee and has cochaired numerous reunion-gift committees. In addition, he has been a vice chair of the FAS Financial Aid Council, an advisory board member of the Harvard China Fund, and a member of the visiting committee on faculty recruitment and retention. Twice he has served as vice president of the Harvard Club of New York City; he is also a trustee of the club’s foundation, and a member of the Harvard New York major gifts committee.
Barbara G. Meyer ’62, of Morristown, New Jersey, has dedicated countless hours and energy in support of Harvard and Radcliffe. She is an active member of the HAA schools and scholarships committee, which she chaired from 1998 to 2001, and has been an alumni interviewer since 1977. She is a former president of the Harvard Club of New Jersey, and is currently a member of its executive committee and chair of the schools committee. From 2005 to 2008, she was an HAA regional director for metropolitan New York-New Jersey. In addition, Meyer has been a member of the Radcliffe Board of Management and chaired the reunion and gift committees of her thirty-fifth reunion. She currently serves as a member of the Harvard College Fund committee for the class of 1962.
Harry “Chip” O’Hare Jr. ’71, M.B.A. ’75, of Belmont, Massachusetts, has been a loyal and active alumnus. A class secretary for 15 years, he was also an HAA-appointed director representing the College Class Secretaries and Treasurers Association, and championed class treasurers as full members of the association during his presidency in 1999. A longtime member of the HAA’s classes and reunions and Happy Observance of Commencement committees, he was also active in the Harvard Club of Boston, on its board of directors—and chaired its nominating committee for eight years. In addition, O’Hare has been a member of his class committee since graduation, was chair of his fifth and thirty-fifth reunions, and is a loyal member of the HBS class reunion committee.
Roland B. Smith Jr., Ed.D. ’88, of Pearland, Texas, served on the Harvard Graduate School of Education Alumni Council in several capacities, including chair (1993-1994). He was an HAA appointed director from 1995 to 2001, and then became an HAA regional director. During his involvement in the HAA, he successfully chaired the graduate schools committee. In 2008, he received the HGSE Alumni of Color Achievement Award.
Beverly B. Sullivan, of Arlington, Massachusetts, has dedicated nearly four decades of service to Harvard, and is the recipient of the Harvard Hero and Marion L. Anderson awards. She began in 1969 as a secretary in the University Development Office before becoming the administrative assistant to two vice presidents for alumni affairs and development, Chase Peterson and Fred Glimp, with whom she worked for 16 years. Later she served as executive assistant to Harvard presidents Neil Rudenstine and Lawrence Summers. In 2004, she joined the HAA as director of board services, where she worked closely with six HAA presidents and countless alumni volunteers. At the request of President Drew Faust, Sullivan spoke on behalf of all 13,000 University employees during Faust’s installation ceremony in 2007.
