College administrator, late judge to join Schenectady schools' hall of fame

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

A Schenectady high school graduate who left Hamilton Hill to run universities will be inducted this week into the school district’s hall of fame.

Sylvia Carey-Butler graduated from what was then Mont Pleasant High School in 1975. When the class of 2014 graduates Friday, and she is inducted, she will be hailed as an inspiration and a role model, school officials said.

Carey-Butler became a higher education administrator and addressed issues of diversity and inclusiveness within university communities.

She also established partnerships with corporations, foundations and universities to improve access to higher education.

She has held numerous administrative positions, including assistant vice chancellor for academic support of inclusive excellence at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. She also served as assistant provost and dean of honors at Dillard University in New Orleans and as associate dean of studies at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.

She said young people need to realize and appreciate the value of education before they can reap its benefits. Living in Schenectady motivated her, teaching her to value education and enabling her to become the person she is today, she said.

The school district will also posthumously induct Judge D. Vincent Cerrito, who graduated from Schenectady High School in 1928.

He was Schenectady County district attorney from 1948 to 1957 and 1961 to 1967. Then he was elected to the New York State Supreme Court. He retired from the court in 1985, but continued to run mediation and arbitration cases until 2004.

He died in 2009 at the age of 98. Attorneys remembered him as a fair man who was willing to spend however many hours it took to bring people together to settle their differences.