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UB student receives Udall Scholarship
By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer
Peter Rizzo has become the first UB student to receive a prestigious Morris K. Udall Undergraduate Scholarship.
Peter Rizzo (far left) enjoys the Arizona scenery with some of his fellow Udall Scholarship winners during an orientation session held in August in Tucson.
Only 80 students in the United States received 2006 Udall Scholarships, which provide $5,000 scholarships to be used during the next academic year. The scholarships, awarded by the Morris K. Udall Foundation, are named after the former Arizona congressman who championed the environment and the rights of Native Americans and native Alaskans during his 30 years in Congress.
The scholarships are awarded to outstanding undergraduates who intend to pursue careers related to the environment or who intend to pursue careers in Native American health care or tribal public policy and are Native American or native Alaskans.
"I am very proud to be a student of UB and pleased to bring national recognition to the institution," says Rizzo, a senior English major and environmental design minor in the Advanced Honors Program whose accomplishments reflect a commitment to environmental protection through community engagement.
Rizzo is the youngest appointed official to both the Town of Tonawanda Commission for Conservation of the Environment and the board of directors of the New York State Association of Conservation Commissions. He also founded the Partnership for Progress—an initiative created to increase UB student involvement in local government—as his final thesis project in the Honors Program.
Community engagement and undergraduate research are "long traditions" in the UB Honors Program, says Clyde F. "Kip" Herreid, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences. and academic director of the UB Honors Program. "Peter captures elements of both major honors commitments—taking his dedication to community service and using it as the basis of his honors thesis research," Herreid notes.
"He, like so many other excellent UB students, has seen an opportunity for personal development that will, at the same time, help his community."
Among the accomplishments of the Partnership for Progress so far are the successful passage of a resolution that establishes an official student liaison position on the Amherst Town Board and continued efforts to create a similar position in the City of Buffalo.
"I know the impact that you can have upon local government because I've been involved many years at that level," Rizzo says, pointing out that UB enrolls a great number of "committed and proactive" students. "I hope to get students further involved in government initiatives...to help breathe life into Buffalo and create a partnership between the students and surrounding communities of Amherst and the City of Buffalo."
Many of the activities that earned Rizzo the Udall Scholarship involve his appointment in 2001—while a student at St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute in Tonawanda—to the town's Commission for Conservation of the Environment. The commission has, since the late 1970s, overseen the cleanup and removal of more than 400,000 tons of radioactive waste in the town resulting from the Manhattan Project. Rizzo says his seat on the commission provides him the opportunity to participate in regular oversight meetings that include officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and to be part of recent efforts to secure radioactive remediation at Rattlesnake Creek, a seasonal creek in Tonawanda that flows through Two Mile Creek into the Niagara River.
"We have been one of the most successful environmental commissions in New York State," Rizzo notes. In fact, he says, the Tonawanda commission received a 2005 Action Award and 2006 Education Award from the New York State Association of Conservation Commissions based on submissions he wrote about its leadership role in both the radioactive remediation project and the Energy Smart Holiday Decorating Contest—a project that sought to lower seasonal electricity costs in the town and the Village of Kenmore.
"When you have a group of people that are this committed to environmental activities and initiatives, other communities take notice," says Rizzo.
Since 2003, he has also been able to promote environmental initiatives to state and federal agencies as a member of the 15-person board of directors of the New York State Association of Conservation Commissions. Rizzo made presentations about municipal involvement in remedial action oversight and home energy efficiency at the 2005 and 2006 New York State Conferences on the Environment, respectively.
Rizzo plans to earn a combined J.D./master's degree in environmental law and urban and regional planning, then pursue a career in urban and regional planning at the state or federal level.
"I value our natural resources and what our world as a whole has to offer," he says. "I hope to continue to make a difference within the community and to continue work with people that care as much about their community as I do."