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Pennsylvania Association of Graduate Schools
Honors Two Neumann Students

For the second consecutive year, Neumann College has won the Community Service/Overcoming Barriers award from the Pennsylvania Association of Graduate Schools (PAGS).  According to Louise Bank, associate director of admissions at Neumann and current president of  PAGS,  “While last year this had been a single combined award,  this year the two areas of Community Service and Overcoming Barriers were split in two separate awards ... and Neumann won in both categories.”  Two members of the current graduating pastoral counseling class received the awards in mid-April.

Georgette Hall-Peterson received the award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Community Service.  This award recognizes a graduate student for using one’s gifts to help others.  According to Sister Suzanne Mayer, I.H.M., associate professor of pastoral studies, Hall-Peterson is working now to enter into the diaconate in her Methodist Church in Chester and has been a vital part of that faith community, especially to its young people, throughout her years at Neumann.  She is also the recipient of the St. Francis Award, the academic prize given by the pastoral studies program to the student who best exemplifies excellence in both academic studies and clinical work. 

The award for Overcoming Barriers went to Janet Jacobson. In her personal statement sent to the PAGS committee (drawn from the 49 Pennsylvania colleges and universities who are current members), Jacobson admitted that “school has always been a challenge for me.”  Currently, working at Christiana Hospital in the chaplaincy/CPE programs, Jacobson hopes to “become a wonderful pastoral psychotherapist who can offer my clients hope, caring and an empathic ear.  I want to give others what has been given to me.”

4/27/07