Gunn Medal Goes to Alannah Boyle ’18 for Her On-Campus Leadership, Service
The Joseph J. Gunn ’30 Alumni Medal is known as Manhattan College’s most prestigious undergraduate award.
Alannah Boyle ’18 received the Joseph J. Gunn ’30 Alumni Medal at the Spring Honors Convocation for her tireless leadership and service to the Manhattan College community.
The Gunn Medal is one of the College’s highest undergraduate student honors. Since 1983, the award has been given annually to a graduating senior who has made a significant contribution to the College during his or her undergraduate career.
A peace studies and philosophy major, Boyle has been a student leader since her first year on campus. She has served as a resident assistant and is the co-founder of the Lasallian Women and Gender Resource Committee, comprised of administrators, faculty, and students. This committee has reworked Title IX discussions with students at orientation, hosted a day long conference on sexual assault and the Lasallian tradition last spring, and expanded that into a Women’s Week this spring with 20 events. Through serving as the student director of this committee, she has worked on a plan for a Lasallian Women and Gender Resource Center, slated to open on campus in fall 2018.
“Alannah is a remarkably effective agent of change,” says Jordan Pascoe, Ph.D., assistant professor of philosophy. “She identifies a problem or injustice, draws on one of her many existing relationships to examine it more closely, and then draws people into becoming partners in effecting change.”
Boyle is a member of Lasallian Collegians, Just Peace, Catholic Relief Services Student Ambassadors, Lasallian Outreach Collaborative and has traveled on three trips to Arizona, Ecuador and Palestine as part of the Lasallian Outreach Volunteer Experience. She has served as a member of Student Government’s Social Life Commission and as class vice president during her junior and senior years.
Boyle is a co-chair of the Senior Class Gift Committee, a member of the government and politics club, the philosophy club and editor of Logos magazine. She has received research grants as a Lasallian research scholar and as a Center for Ethics research scholar.
In addition to her extracurricular activities, Boyle has excelled academically. She is a member of Epsilon Sigma Pi for earning a 3.5 grade point average for six consecutive semesters, is a member of the Pen and Sword Society, and is a member of Phi Sigma Tau, the national philosophy honors society and Theta Alpha Kappa, the national honor society for religious studies.
In August, Boyle will join NETWORK, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for social justice, inspired by Catholic sisters.
Boyle will graduate alongside more than 700 of her classmates on Friday, May 18 at the College’s 176th Undergraduate Commencement.