Honors, Awards and Recognition for St. Lawrence Scientists - Alumni

Trustee Recognized For Research Science Achievements
St. Lawrence University Trustee Derrick H. Pitts '78, chief astronomer and director of the Fels Planetarium in Philadelphia, PA, has been named one of the "50 Most Important Blacks in Research Science" for 2004, as selected by Science Spectrum magazine and Career Communications Group, Inc.

Pitts was chosen based on his lifelong work and accomplishments in making science part of global society. Pitts and his fellow honorees were cited as role models for young people whose accomplishments are examples of the significant daily contributions made by the small cadre of African Americans in the field. In a survey by the National Science Foundation of 708,200 scientists, only 43,000 were black and Hispanic.
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Alumna's Psychology Research Published in Journal of Counseling Psychology
Results of a study on how urban youth feel about work have been published in a noted psychology journal, and includes research by Julia Whitcavitch-Devoy ‘90.

Devoy is among the authors of the article "Conceptions of Work: The View From Urban Youth," published in the July 2004 edition of Journal of Counseling Psychology. The authors are all associated with Boston College ; Whitcavitch-Devoy is an instructor of developmental psychology at Boston College 's Lynch School of Education.

The article abstract states, "This study sought to examine how poor and working-class urban adolescents conceive of work as well as the work-related messages they receive from their families. Data were collected to understand how 9th-grade urban students perceive work using an exploratory and qualitative research methodology. Although the data suggested that urban youths' conceptions of work were complex and varied, the conceptual array of urban youths' perceptions of work suggested that work does not generally represent a means of self-concept expression or the expression of one's interest in the world of work. Specifically, urban youth tended to define work in terms of external outcomes (e.g., money), which was also a common theme among the messages they received about work from their families."

A government/religious studies major at St. Lawrence, Whitcavitch-Devoy earned a master of education degree and a master of theological studies degree at Harvard University. She is a member of the Executive Council of the Alumni Association at St. Lawrence, and was a member of Kappa Delta Sigma sorority as a student. Among her many University activities, was participation in St. Lawrence's programs in Vienna , Austria , and Washington , D.C.

What can you do with a major in the mathematical sciences? St. Lawrence University's department of mathematics, statistics and computer science is one of 30 nation-wide that has been selected to participate in a program to develop a series of profiles of recent graduates, with the goal of helping undergraduates learn about career possibilities. Funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and part of the Sloan Career Cornerstone Series, the project is coordinated by the American Mathematical Society (AMS). The AMS plans to develop a diverse network of mathematical sciences departments that agree to systematically provide job profiles of a small sample of their recent (within six years) bachelor-level alumni. Each participating department will place alumni profiles on a departmental computer server, and the AMS will place links to the profiles from the AMS Careers and Employment Web page, adding to the information developed previously under the Sloan-funded Careers project. In addition, the AMS will build and maintain on its Web pages indexes to the combined collection of profiles to serve as an aid to those interested in finding profiles that fit certain characteristics.