Syracuse University's School of Education will honor Carole Fabend Watrel '55 as Distinguished Alumna during Reunion Weekend, June 3-5. She will receive her award during the School of Education Reunion Breakfast, to be held June 4 at 8:30 a.m. in the Huntington Hall Commons.
A North Dakota resident since 1977, Watrel has been a longtime advocate of community volunteer service and was a social worker at St. Luke's Home in Dickinson, N.D., for more than 13 years.
Watrel has a long history of involvement with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in North Dakota. From 1987-92, she chaired AARP North Dakota's Health Advocacy Services, and served as state director from 1992-96. Watrel was recently appointed to AARP North Dakota's Government Affairs Committee, where she represents the greater Bismarck area. She also served on the North Dakota Governor's Committee on Aging from 1992-2001 and was instrumental in encouraging the state to recognize and honor its centenarians.
After transferring to SU from Skidmore College in 1952, Watrel found SU a "balanced" school with lots going on all the time for men and women. "I lived in Shaw Dorm my first year with the most amazing bunch of gals that I had ever met, from all over the world," she recalls. "Our corridor was the best, and many of us have been in touch all these years, and of course are returning for this reunion." Watrel met her husband, Al Watrel, while taking botany in Lyman Hall. He was the lab instructor, and already had achieved a degree of fame as an Orange football star; he was inducted into the SU Hall of Fame in 1987. Al Watrel retired as president of North Dakota's Dickinson State University in 1997. The Watrels have four children.
"Carole exemplifies the good our graduates bring to their communities, whether as teachers or in other important ways," says Louise C. Wilkinson, dean of the School of Education. "What's significant about Carole is that she found a place for her expertise and made a commitment to make a difference."
