Princeton University is set to honor a Hopewell Valley Central High School teacher at its Commencement on June 4.
Robert O’Boyle and three other New Jersey secondary school teachers were selected from 62 nominations for the recognition.
O’Boyle has worked as an art teacher at HVCHS for 33 years. During his tenure, he has led 10 student trip to Italy to study the Renaissance.
His students have gone on to careers as medical illustrators, graphic designers, fashion designers, portrait artists, industrial designers, web designers, a children’s book author and a division head at Disney.
Along with teaching, O’Boyle is an artist whose works have appeared at the Vatican, museums, universities and corporate headquarters.
He also volunteers to use art in the rehabilitation of inmates and co-founded a group that brings the arts to at-risk students and young adults.
O’Boyle set up a program that helps raise money to buy wigs for cancer patients and donated a work that is displayed at the Rena Rowan Breast Center at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.
Other honorees are Medha Jayant Kirtane of Ridgewood High School, John McAllen of Point Pleasant Borough High School and Deane Stepansky of Nutley High School.
Each teacher is set to receive $5,000, as well as $3,000 for his or her school library.
Director of Princeton’s Program in Teacher Preparation, Christopher Campisano, said the honorees are the “very finest teachers in the profession today.”
“By challenging their students to go beyond the superficial, by encouraging them to be skeptical and by challenging them to test the limits of what they thought was possible, these four teachers enable their students to become confident, critical and creative thinkers,” Campisano said in a statement.
The staff of the Program in Teacher Preparation selected 11 finalists, each of whom was visited at their school by a member of the program staff. Award winners were selected by a committee that was chaired by Dean of the College Valerie Smith.
Princeton has honored secondary school teachers since 1959. The University received an anonymous gift from an alumnus to establish the program.
