Brittany Sanford, Yue Wang receive Sonnenfeld scholarships

Marion Sonnenfeld Award Scholarships, which recognize outstanding female students who exemplify leadership, hard work and a good sense of community, were presented to undergraduates Brittany Sanford and Yue Wang by the Council for Women’s Concerns (CWC) at its 2017-2018 awards held recently in the Williams Center Horizon Room.

Ms. Sanford is a senior majoring in Music Education with a concentration in Instrumental Music and has a cumulative GPA of 3.93. Her primary instrument is percussion. Sanford has maintained a long-term involvement with Girl Scouts, and has worked as a camp counselor for their Camp Seven Hills and was promoted to Unit Head where she supervised other counselors.

While at Fredonia, Sanford has taken on many leadership roles, becoming a peer mentor in the Honors Program, serving as a School of Music Student Leadership representative and taking on the role of president of Percussion Guild. Sanford has also engaged in a multitude of volunteer activities, such as assisting with the Pathways to Music Program, working with infants and toddlers. She is completing her student teaching and hopes in the future to travel to Ghana, West Africa.

Her career goal is to become a music educator, as she believes that there are multiple benefits to living a musical life, and that she can teach students how to become good people through music.

Yue Wang

Ms. Wang is a senior majoring in English Adolescence Education and has an overall GPA of 3.96. She is an international student from China who speaks Mandarin Chinese, English and Japanese. Wang is an active member of the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society, and was a Raymond Lai Cultural Ambassador for International Study Services. She worked to promote the internationalization of Fredonia’s campus as a student representative of the Global and International Engagement Council, and as a Global Student Ambassador.
Wang also organized and hosted three world literature events for the campus community. She is a member of the Japanese Club and Treasurer of the Chinese Club and has also served as a tutor both for Fredonia students and students at Dunkirk Middle School.
Her future goals are to study East Asian literature and earn a doctorate in Comparative Literature. Wang is currently studying abroad in Niigata, Japan, where she is taking language and culture classes, and is also currently employed by Foreign Language Self-Access Learning Center at Niigata University as an English language tutor.

Dr. Sonnenfeld taught German as a member of the Fredonia faculty for 25 years. She was honored as a SUNY Distinguished Professor and became the first female Dean of Arts and Humanities at Fredonia. Sonnenfeld carried the virtues of her parents of loving life, being a faithful and loyal friend, having an outstanding work ethic and taking pride in her work.

The Council for Women’s Concerns seeks to help ensure a productive educational and work environment for faculty and staff at Fredonia, particularly in areas related to women's concerns. It focuses on general issues of campus climate and programs as they affect faculty and staff, and on policies and procedures which affect women on campus. Functioning as an advisory group, CWC acts as a liaison between Fredonia employees and campus administration on matters of university policy and procedure related to women’s concerns.

CWC will begin accepting scholarship applications from students for the 2018-2019 academic year in the Spring 2018 semester. Female students with at least sophomore standing and with at least one full academic year remaining before graduation may apply.