Each year, alumnae are selected from a large and diverse group of candidates to receive one of the following honors. The following alumnae were honored at the Alumnae Awards Ceremony on Friday, April 29, 2011 during Baldwin's Classes of Red Alumnae Reunion Weekend.
Matilda Lancaster Essig '76 is the 2011 recipient of The Baldwin School Alumnae Award. Tilda has combined her two, seemingly disparate, passions in life into one meaningful career. An accomplished artist, she has focused on environmental conservation, temperate and tropical forests, the Sonora Desert, and most recently grasses as the inspiration for her work. Her art clearly represents her interest in the environment, but also her desire to make others aware of and reconnected with the world that surrounds them. In addition to her artistic work, she has been an active restorationist, working to restore land in Arizona that has been over grazed. Using natural restoration methods, and drawing on her agricultural knowledge, she has attacked this role with the same devotion and intensity as her art. Truly an activist, she wrote in an article for Ecological Restoration, "I have always sought to foster a sense of reconnection between human culture and the natural world. I try to help people see how even in the face of dramatic ecological damage, our individual actions will make a difference."
Rachel T. Carson '91 is honored with the Distinguished Young Alumnae Award. After graduating from Emory University in 1995, Rachel Carson started Helicopter Tech, Inc. Seeing a market need for difficult-to-find helicopter parts, Rachel was able to turn her life-long love of aviation into a successful and competitive business. In 2008 Helicopter Tech, Inc. was selected as one of only four contractors to provide landing gear parts to the U.S. Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency. Rachel has been nominated for and received numerous awards, and was recently named one of Philadelphia Business Journal's Best 40 Under 40. As a female President and CEO, Rachel has made a name for herself in the business world, and also impressively in the competitive world of aviation. According to Philadelphia Small Business Journal, Rachel's innate market savvy was evident from Helicopter Tech's inception and carried the company through its initial growth phase on a wave of success.
While evaluating nominations for the Alumnae Awards, it became apparent to the awards committee how truly special the Class of 1971 is, and it was decided they deserved some recognition. It is the hope of the Baldwin Alumnae Association that the Class of 1971, recipients of the newly created Mandala Award, will be an inspiration for other classes, and a role model for the young women who are ready to step out and make their mark on the world. The Class of 1971 showed support and care for each other, and an awareness of what their time at The Baldwin School meant to them and how it shaped their future, both as individuals and as a whole. One letter expresses it quite eloquently - "We loved Baldwin in 1971. We appreciate it even more now. We have discovered that the deep truths we learned at Baldwin are real: to love well, to serve others, to work hard, faithfully, honorably, uncomplainingly, over the long haul, to be honest, to be truthful, to be courageous, to excel individually and together. And we've learned to laugh."
The Rosamond Cross Teaching Chair was established in 1990 in honor of the school’s fourth head as an enduring tribute to the quality of teaching at Baldwin. It is presented every two years to a full-time faculty member who has made an outstanding contribution in his or her work to the school community or to the broader field of education. This year's recipient was Elizabeth "Lisa" Ameisen '76. This is the highest honor that Baldwin can bestow on a faculty member, and according to Sally M. Powell, head of school, "this year's recipient is the perfect candidate to earn this highest praise. Lisa is not only a teacher at Baldwin, she is a parent at our school and an alumna celebrating her reunion with the Classes of Red.