PACE Announces Bellavance Award Recipient "  

SALISBURY, MD---The Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (PACE) at Salisbury State University recently announced a new student award and internship named in honor of the University’s sixth president, Dr. Thomas E. Bellavance.

The award, given to an upperclassman who has demonstrated a commitment to civic engagement and the public good, provides for an internship with a national legislator and a $2,500 stipend. The honor is made possible by a donation from the Bellavance family. 

Carson Friedman, the first honoree, is an SSU senior political science major. A Walkersville, MD native, she has interned for the Population Resource Center in Washington, D.C. and SSU’s Government Relations Committee. This spring she won the University’s Outstanding Community Service Award for tutoring migrant students.

“Civic engagement is becoming more rare in a newly designed, technologically advanced world. People bathe in their liberties, instead of working to maintain and improve them,” Carson wrote in her application. “The Bellavance internship would help me move from civic participation to civic enhancement.”

Bellavance, who earned his doctoral degree in American Studies and worked for Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, exhibited a life-long passion for politics, said Dr. Fran Kane, co-Director of PACE and SSU philosophy professor. As president of SSU, he was particularly interested in involving students in government, he added. 

“I can think of no better way of honoring Bellavance than offering a deserving student recognition for public service,” Kane said.

For information call 410-543-6030 or visit the University’s Web site at www.salisbury.edu. 

Pictured left-right: Carson Friedman and Elizabeth Bellavance, wife of the late Dr. Thomas Bellavance.