Ronald and Belmont Pitkin receive posthumous Goddard Award for Excellence

Goddard President Robert Kenny, Aaron Pitkin, Sarah Roos, Caleb Pitkin, and Seth Pitkin
Goddard President Robert Kenny presented Ronald and Belmont Pitkin with the posthumous Goddard Award for Excellence. Photographed: President Kenny, Aaron Pitkin, Sarah Roos, Caleb Pitkin, and Seth Pitkin

PLAINFIELD, Vt. — Goddard College President Robert Kenny presented Ronald and Belmont Pitkin with the posthumous Goddard Award for Excellence during a public memorial service to celebrate Ronald Pitkin’s life on Saturday, Aug. 12, in the Haybarn Theatre on Goddard’s Plainfield Campus.
The Goddard College Award for Excellence recognizes individuals who have given exceptional service to and who embody the highest ideals and aspirations of Goddard College.
Ronald and Belmont Pitkin, the twin sons of Goddard’s founding president Royce “Tim” Pitkin, both graduated from Goddard Residential Undergraduate Program in 1952. The brothers returned after graduation and served the College in numerous capacities for many years.
Ronald Pitkin, who died Feb. 18, 2017, had previously operated the Goddard bookstore, supervised the construction of the Elliot Pratt Center and the dormitories at Goddard’s Greatwood and Northwood campuses, was a faculty advisor, dean of administration, chief financial officer, and served as on the Goddard College Board of Trustees.
Belmont Pitkin, who died in 2004, taught resource management at the College. He also organized and was chief of the Goddard College Fire Department.
“We are grateful to Ronald and Belmont Pitkin for their many years of service to Goddard and for their dedication to their own communities in Vermont and beyond,” Goddard President Robert Kenny said.
President Kenny also announced the establishment of the Pitkin Family Scholarship, which will be offered to new and returning students with financial need who are actively involved in and/or developing new and experimental approaches to education and life-long learning.
The Pitkin family, through the establishment and development of Goddard College, had a profound impact on higher education in Vermont and on a national level. This scholarship will support and inspire future generations of Goddard students to build on the educational legacy of those that came before them and imagine new ways to teach and learn. You may contribute to the Pitkin Family Scholarship Fund by clicking this link.
“The family is thrilled that Goddard is recognizing the many contributions Ronald and Belmont made to the College,” Caleb Pitkin (BA ’80), Belmont’s son, said. Caleb Pitkin previously served on Goddard’s Board of Trustees.

About Goddard College

Goddard College is a liberal arts institution offering low-residency bachelor’s and master’s degrees from its campus in Plainfield, Vermont, and its educational sites in Port Townsend and Seattle, Washington. Constituted according to the ideals of democracy and principles of progressive education developed by John Dewey, Goddard asks students to decide their areas of study, determine which resources they will use, and devise how they will measure and demonstrate what they learn. The College was founded in 1863 and subsequently moved to its Plainfield campus in 1938. The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., through the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, accredits the institution.

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