Empire State University Student Wins 2025 Norman R. McConney Jr. Award

(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — March 25, 2025) Empire State University student Stephanie Weinman, an undergraduate in the community and human services program, has received this year’s Norman R. McConney Jr. Award for Student Excellence. The Rochester resident is one of 50 students in SUNY’s Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) to take home the honor, which celebrates EOP students for academic achievement and perseverance. Named for the late Norman R. McConney Jr., a former assistant dean at SUNY who helped establish the EOP in 1967, the annual award was conferred in a ceremony on March 11. 

“It was so wonderful,” Weinman says, reflecting on the celebration, where speakers focused on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “To be in room full of like-minded people supporting DEI—it was just what I needed. The whole experience was really gratifying and filled me up with a lot of hope.” 

For Weinman, the journey to receiving the prestigious award began in the fall of 2022, when—in her late forties—she began her studies at SUNY Empire. Before enrolling at the university, Weinman pursued a wide range of careers, working as everything from a professional ballerina and dance teacher to a pharmacy tech in a hospital. (“I always like to say that I took a 30-year gap year,” she says with a laugh.) Ultimately, it was her two grown sons—one a trail crew worker and the other a policeman—who convinced the empty nester to pursue a college degree.  

“Watching them do the things they truly love really inspired me to start looking into what my passion is at this point in life,” she says. “I realized that through my own personal experiences, I wanted to go back to school.” 

Like so many other nontraditional students at the university, coursework isn’t the only thing on Weinman’s plate. Throughout her time at SUNY Empire, the 50-year-old has balanced her classes with serving as a full-time caretaker for her mother with Alzheimer’s. Last year, Weinman also served as an EOP Ambassador, working with other students from around the state to raise awareness for the program among highschoolers and encourage legislators to continue supporting it with funding.  

Now in her last semester, Weinman is training her sights on May commencement—and her post-graduation plan to serve as a women’s health advocate. While her long-term goal is to work for Planned Parenthood as a crisis intervention counselor, she’s hoping to build her resume by first putting in hours at a crisis hotline and nonprofits like Girls Rock: an international organization that serves women, girls, and the LGBTQ+ community through music programs. 

“I’m trying to gain experience while connecting with my community and networking [so I can] keep moving forward in the kind of boots-to-the-ground work that I want to be doing,” Weinman says. “Empire—the community there and in EOP—has really helped set me up to feel comfortable enough to be able to do that. [It’s helped me] go out there and know that I have not only the education, but the personal skills and the confidence to be able to keep learning and growing and evolving so I can eventually get to my goal.”