Board of Trustees Approves Resolution of Appreciation to Recognize Emmett and Antoinette (Marchese) Clancy

New Nursing Scholarship Fund and Excellence Award Established

Batavia, NY (08/14/2019) — Love stories play out in amazing ways-from poetry and song, to the choice of a vocation or career as a lifelong caregiver. Occasionally, a love can be so strong that it pays forward and manifests itself in the future becoming ever stronger over time. That is the story behind the Antoinette Marchese Clancy Nursing Scholarship, a newly established fund recently created by the Clancy Family to recognize Antoinette Marchese Clancy, a 1974 graduate of Genesee Community College's Nursing Program.

On Monday, August 12, 2019, the Genesee Community College Board of Trustees approved a Resolution of Appreciation to recognize a substantial gift made by Emmett and Antoinette Clancy, residents of Southern California. Together, they created a new scholarship that will annually support several, second-year nursing students enrolled at GCC. And, as life and love would have it, this new scholarship fund, the largest gift ever made to a GCC academic program, comes at the perfect time as GCC is getting ready to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Nursing Program this coming year.

Antoinette Marchese was born in 1952 and grew up in Batavia on Farwell Drive. She graduated from Notre Dame High School in 1970, where she met Emmett, who recalls falling in love with her at age 13. After working as a nurse's aide at St. Jerome's Hospital, she started her nursing degree at D'Youville College, but transferred and graduated from GCC in 1974 earning the Nursing Excellence Award, an honor that still makes her heart sing. That same year, she married her high school sweetheart, which still makes his heart sing!

They first settled in Albany where Emmett attended Albany Law School, and his lovely bride was hired by Albany Medical Center "sight unseen." She quickly became the charge nurse of the Maternity Unit, a position she maintained until 1977 when they started their family. They relocated to California in 1982 where they raised their family.

As they celebrate 45 years of marriage and enjoy a family of five children and 11 grandchildren, Mr. Clancy sought an opportunity to recognize the hard work, dedication and selflessness of his partner of 53 years. He reached out to Genesee Community College, remembering how much the College and the Nursing Excellence Award meant to his wife, and also knowing that she would want to help the next generation of nursing students. The resulting scholarship and the new Antoinette Marchese Clancy Excellence Award is a unique form of poetry and music, reflecting how the gift of giving is almost always shrouded in love that makes life worth living.

"On behalf of the College community and scores of nursing students who will not even step on this campus for years to come, I thank the Clancy family and express my deepest gratitude for their generous support," James M. Sunser, president of GCC said. "Their gift will have a lasting impact on nurses of tomorrow-and by extension, hundreds of students in decades to come. This truly is an exemplary example of paying it forward."

A formal recognition reception with the Clancys in attendance will be held in the Spring of 2020 as a highlight of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of GCC's Nursing Program and the annual Nursing graduation ceremony.

For further information, contact Tammy Arneth, director of development with GCC's Foundation at tlarneth@genesee.edu or call 585-345-6809.

# # #

Editor's Note: For a photograph of Antoinette (Marchese) Clancy go to:

http://marketing.genesee.edu/images/AntoinetteClancy.jpg

Media Attachments