“The union’s work is time consuming and unending. You resolve one issue and another is right behind. But, oh, how rewarding the work is.”
When Lorna Arrington spoke those words, she wasn’t talking about personal praise or the rewards received for a good deed done. She was talking about the satisfaction that comes with righting a wrong or battling to improve the terms and conditions of employment for her fellow Buffalo Center Chapter members.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Arrington—an associate professor of mathematics who has worked at the University at Buffalo’s Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) for the last 40 years—hasn’t earned the recognition she so richly deserves. In 2005, she was named NYSUT Higher Education Member of the Year, and it was in her acceptance speech she spoke those memorable words.
But Arrington is more action than talk, and it’s the tenacious commitment behind her quiet reserve that UUP speaks of when awarding her the union’s highest honor—the Nina Mitchell Award for Distinguished Service (see page 16), which she was slated to receive during the union’s 2011 Fall Delegate Assembly in Albany in September.
“She is a trusted colleague and an able mentor (who) has the ability to be a stabilizing force in turbulent times,” her nominators wrote. “Lorna works outside the spotlight and in solidarity to better our union.”
One shining example: When Arrington first chaired the union’s EOC Concerns Committee in the 1990s, she set out to solve the issues that for many years had plagued the academic and professional faculty at the EOCs. Her efforts paid off, and the committee under her leadership successfully secured tenure, promotions and salary equity for EOC employees.
Arrington epitomizes the dedicated UUP?activist—and her colleagues know it. She is characterized as devoted and hard working, and for setting a remarkably high standard in quality union service.
Arrington has served as a delegate to UUP, NYSUT and AFT policymaking conventions, and on several statewide committees. She is a former member of the UUP?Executive Board and a four-time member of the Negotiations Team.
She continues to serve on her chapter executive board and on the statewide EOC Committee, the Task Force on Pay Equity Based on Race, and the Joint Labor/Management Committee on Employment.
(Nina Mitchell (1926-1988), a substance abuse counselor at Downstate Medical Center and a devoted academic unionist, used her quiet intelligence and her gift of forging genuine relationships to further the goals of UUP. Reflecting the spirit of the award’s namesake, recipients of the Mitchell award are members with a wide range of distinguished union service. Presentation of the annual award ensures that the memory of this dedicated unionist will live on.)
— Karen L. Mattison