A Lasting Legacy: Lenore Nemirow Scholarship

A longtime Adelphi employee now has a scholarship in her name.

For more than 30 years, Lenore Nemirow worked in Adelphi’s Learning Resource Program (LRP) as its full-time administrative assistant. She was “the face of the program,” said Susan Spencer Farinacci, M.S.W. ’84, executive director of the LRP. “She was the first person you would encounter when you came in. She was dearly loved by the staff as well as the students.”

When she passed away in 2012, her children, Joan Benn ’85, Elisa Nemirow ’83 and Mark Nemirow, wanted to honor her memory. Creating the Lenore Nemirow Scholarship for a student in the LRP seemed the perfect way.

The program supports students who have language-based learning disabilities and/or ADHD; it offers them the chance to work with learning specialists and clinical social workers. “We help them academically as well as providing counseling support,” Farinacci said. “When Lenore was here, she had a major role in providing those accommodations to students.”

The program, which has been part of Adelphi since 1979, gives students who might not otherwise have the opportunity a chance to succeed in college. “That fit in with Lenore’s philosophy, because she was such a giver,” Farinacci said. “It really went along with the way Lenore lived, and the way she felt, and the way she thought.”

The recipient of the endowed scholarship must be a full-time Adelphi undergraduate student enrolled in the LRP, with a GPA of at least 2.5 and significant financial need. Preference is given to applicants who are involved in volunteer activities, which also reflects Lenore’s philosophy.

Her son, Mark, remembers his mother’s fervent belief in the mission of the LRP. “It was really a perfect place for her to be,” he said. “She was an incredibly caring person. Even people she didn’t really know that well, once you got into her circle, she would do almost anything to help you.”

He and his family hope the scholarship will keep her name alive at the university that meant so much to her. “We had the idea of using this money to help students afford the program, since it does cost a little extra,” Mark said. “When she was alive, she helped so many students, and now she can continue to after her passing, hopefully for many years to come.”