Judy Van Nostrand Arts Award
Molly Faerber
Molly is a double major in Creative Writing and French at Hamilton College. She aspires to teach creative writing at the college level and make a living as a fiction writer. According to Molly, people tend to be surprised by her career choice.
She says, and I quote, "They wonder how one who possesses what they would characterize as a dulled awareness can make the astute observations or wield the razor-sharp perceptiveness for which most good writers are known.
Though such reactions are offensive, it is not surprising they should be so often made in a world where it is far more common that a blind person is described and brought to light by a writer who is fully sighted than vice versa."
Not wanting to communicate through others, Molly plans to use her voice as a writer to break down stereotypes of people with disabilities - and to lend her voice to others who, she says, "have yet to find their own."
Insight, talent, compassion, Molly possesses these wonderful gifts, which will make her a great writer, along with drive and determination to succeed in whatever she puts her mind to. This includes learning Russian in addition to French, and researching - well in advance - the accommodations she'll need to live in a foreign city when she spends her junior year in Paris.
Her teacher expects that Molly's "resourcefulness, resilience and positive attitude will no doubt provide and inspiring example for other students in the same study program abroad." Today, Molly is already an inspiration to all of us here.