Arianna Thompson, daughter of Kathy Herne (Akwesasne) and Stepdad Mark Boots, she completed her freshman year at Hartwick College with honors. Thompson was awarded the Cyrus Mehri Global Pluralism Fellowship during Hartwick’s Honors Convocation 2022 ceremony on Wednesday, May 4th. The Honors Convocation is designed to celebrate a select group of students based on scholastic or personal achievement.

The Cyrus Mehri ’83 Global Pluralism Fellowship was established by Cyrus Mehri ’83 H’21. It is awarded to one student and his or her faculty mentor with the purpose of presenting programming to the College community that contributes to increasing diverse perspectives on campus. Those considered for the fellowship demonstrate a commitment to pluralism, diversity, and concern for the human condition and/or environs. Arianna Thompson ’25

Cyrus Mehri ’83 was a distinguished Hartwick College graduate, Cyrus Mehri ’83, went on to become a preeminent civil rights attorney after receiving his JD from Cornell Law School. Among his most influential cases are landmark class action settlements against Texaco, Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, and Smith Barney, in addition to anti-discrimination work with the NFL and Madison Avenue advertising agencies. In his 2009 Commencement speech at Hartwick, Mehri characterized his career to date as “one of representing the powerless against the powerful, overcoming long odds, and taking financial risks in pursuit of justice.” When accounting for the roots of this commitment, he credited his Iranian parents – his father an eye surgeon, his mother an artist – from whom he “picked up [his] best qualities,” including professionalism, hard work, optimism, courage, and “a deep appreciation for education and the precious, sometimes precarious, freedoms we often take for granted.”

In 2006, Mehri endowed an annual named fellowship, with an operating budget, to be awarded to one current Hartwick student through a competitive proposal process. The award, which is announced each year at Honors Convocation, also includes a stipend for the student’s faculty or staff mentor. The student’s proposal should specifically address issues of globalism and/or pluralism, and how the student would facilitate greater awareness of these issues on our campus through specific activities or speakers funded by the operating budget. Faculty and staff from all departments and administrative may nominate students who are committed to intercultural exchanges and experiences that enrich the educational environment, or students may self-nominate.

Dr. Timothy Eckland collaborated on the proposal, Awareness of Indigenous Culture, where she will host a ‘Native American Social Dance with guest speakers which as the potential to engage diverse cultures on a number of levels.’

Thompson will continue her studies at Hartwick as a sophomore in the fall.