Zurine Cadena Jimenez

Zurine Cadena Jimenez, of Mount Arlington, N.J. is an International Studies major with a minor in Human Rights and Genocide Studies.  She has a 3.96 GPA and is a member of Sigma Iota Rho.  Zurine plans to enroll in a Master’s program in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University.  Upon completion, she aspires to obtain a position at UNICEF to work with regional and country offices that are engaged in advancing the early childhood education sector in developing countries.

In the summer of 2018, Zurine completed an internship with the director’s office of the Office of Innovation at UNICEF.  Through this experience she was able to take part in quarterly progress meetings pertaining to scaling of regional as well as country infrastructure projects such as healthcare and water access through the use of various technologies.  She also represented the School of Humanities and Global Studies at COPLAC’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Conference.

Her life goal is to compose a peace education curriculum, emphasizing tolerance and equality that she hopes will be utilized in the process of intra/interstate conflict resolution.  She also hopes to extend her research on the Colombian civil conflict and 2016 peace accord as well as partake in campaigns working towards the elimination of FGM and child marriage.

Additionally, Zurine has an Associate degree in both Studio Art and International Studies.  She is currently a preschool teacher for Kindercare Learning Centers.  In her free time, she engages in working on art pieces and in writing poetry.  Her poems have been published in the literary magazines Driftwood and the Promethean. She has also been featured as Reward Publishing’s Poet of the Month.

Awarded Scholarships

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2020

Aronsohn, Ernst Memorial Scholarship

Ernst Aronsohn was born in 1917 in the town of Posen, in what is now Poland.  At the onset of World War ll he was in school in Italy, and because of his Jewish faith could not return home to his family, who later perished under the Nazis.  Instead, Mr. Aronsohn went to Denmark to work on a farm with other young Jews displaced by the War.  It was here he met his wife, Erna Meier.  When the Nazis invaded Denmark, the Aronsohns were ferried to Sweden by Danish fishermen.  At the end of the war, they went to Israel.  It was in Israel that Mr. Aronsohn was recruited by the United States to return to Germany to help find Nazi war criminals.

In 1958 the Aronsohns moved to the United States with other Holocaust survivors and settled in Queens, N.Y.  Mr. Aronsohn had a successful career in finance.  After his wife’s death in 1989 Mr. Aronsohn was visiting a friend in Florida.  The friend introduced him to Jane Yanowitz, and they remained constant companions for 25 years.  At Mr. Aronsohn’s death in 2015, the Yanowitz family created this scholarship to honor his memory.

Riesterer, Beate Returning Minority Women Scholarship

This scholarship will be awarded in Spring 2024. Please check often for application opening dates. 

When she retired in 1994, School of Social Science and Human Services professor Beate Riesterer asked that she not be given a gift, but that the money collected be used to start a scholarship fund. Those gifts, plus the proceeds from an on-campus tag sale organized by the students at the Women’s Center, garnered the funds to create this award. “The scholarship fund was a gift to me in honor of my contributions to the College, which I now pass on to deserving women,” Dr. Riesterer wrote in 1999.

Brown, Babette and Raymond Scholarship

The Babette and Raymond Brown Endowed Scholarship was created by Ramapo College employee Babs Varano in memory of her parents. The purpose of the Brown Scholarship is to recognize and foster Ramapo College students who “demonstrate an international perspective.” Students majoring in International Business or International Studies are eligible.

Fanale, Mary K. and Salvatore J. Memorial Scholarship

This scholarship will be awarded in Spring 2024. Please check often for application opening dates. 

After raising eight children, “I was excited when my husband suggested that I attend college and obtain that long-desired accomplishment of a college degree,” wrote Mary Fanale. So, at age 56, she enrolled at Ramapo, taking courses in the School of American and International Studies. For three years Mrs. Fanale reveled in her studies and was an active college student, serving as secretary of the Center for Returning Students. “I believe the feelings for older students … is so good that we fit in perfectly,” she said. Sadly she died in 1981 before finishing her degree. In memory of her contributions to the Ramapo community and to support other mature students who seek excellence in their studies, Mrs. Fanale’s husband and children established an endowed scholarship fund in her name. At Salvatore Fanale’s death in 2006 the Fanale children directed additional funds to significantly build the endowment. The Mary K. Fanale Memorial Scholarships recognize high-achieving female students who are New Jersey residents and are non-traditional college age.

Richmond, Clara and Morton Scholarship Endowment

Morton Richmond, an impoverished 23-year old, immigrated from Russia in 1926. He married Clara Richmond, who was born in Clinton, CT, and the two were married for 62 years. Morton became a prominent real estate investor who owned properties in Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens, NY. In addition to managing her husband’s office, Clara was a homemaker who raised her four sons in New Rochelle, NY. She was also a talented mezzo-soprano who performed in numerous community productions and conducted the Women’s Westchester Chorale.

Mr. Richmond passed away in 2002 at the age of 100, and Clara died at age 98 in 2017.

Their son Stan is a longtime member of the Ramapo College Foundation Board of Governors, and serves on the board of the Friends of Ramapo.

He created this scholarship to honor the memory of his parents, and to support students who are interested in understanding the origins, theory and practice of international human rights and the treatment of genocide as a crime under international law.