SUNY Graduate Ready to Make Her Mark

NEW PALTZ — Poised to begin the next phase of her life, Carrie Holmes-Seares, who graduated with honors this spring from the State University of New York at New Paltz, faces the future with confidence. With an apartment in Manhattan and interviews for jobs as a paralegal lined-up, she is pleased with the response by potential employers to her New Paltz degree and how well-prepared she feels for her next steps.

“I feel I received an excellent education, with wonderful mentoring, intellectual stimulation and academic preparation,” said Holmes-Seares. “And I’m finding that my SUNY degree is earning me as good a response as people from other schools with greater name recognition.”

Holmes-Seares, a New Paltz resident, who graduated with a 3.79 grade point average with a major in political science and a concentration in law, is no stranger to recognition. During her senior year, she was awarded the United University Professors Eugene P. Link Scholarship for two summer internships with UNITE, where she organized union campaigns, citizenship and voting drives, and political training sessions for union members. She was also the first student from SUNY New Paltz to received a Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence (1999). As an active member of the New York State Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), she led a number of get-out-the-vote campaigns and served on the campus Board of Directors of the organization.

“Carrie Holmes-Seares is one of the people who leave their mark in the places they have been,” said Karin Andriolo, director of the Honors Program at SUNY New Paltz. “She has always participated 150 percent and I am truly pleased about the recognition she has received.”