Jo-Linda Greene ’71 has been honored with the Ithaca College Volunteer Service Award for her work giving back to the college in the years since her graduation.
She has served on several Ithaca College Alumni Association committees, including the alumni committee to raise funds for the Athletics and Events Center and the committee for the Class of 1971’s 50th reunion. Greene also served as the national chair of the Ithaca College National Fund. She completed her undergraduate degree in Physical Education at the college and went on to earn a master’s degree in Adaptive Physical Education from S.U.N.Y. Brockport. During her lifetime, she has worked in adaptive physical education and has helped organize events for Special Olympics New York at Ithaca College.
Contributing writer Sofia Lopez spoke with Greene about her work in adaptive physical education, her contributions to the college and her Volunteer Service Award.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sofia Lopez: How has your education at Ithaca College contributed to your career?
Jo-Linda Greene: One of the classes we took when we were in Phys Ed [as a major] was an adaptive physical education class, and the minute I started taking that and we started working with handicapped children, and we did the Special Olympics and all that kind of stuff, that was it for me. That’s what I wanted to do. So I’ve kind of done that pretty much through my life, just by … all the community centers I’ve worked at, all the classes that I’ve done, all the kids that I’ve met throughout my life. That’s what I just gravitated toward.
SL: What does this alumni award mean to you?
JLG: Everybody’s always told me that I have … a helper gene in my body, that I like to help other people to help them have better lives. I feel that when I get something wonderful and my life has been wonderful, mainly due to things that I’ve learned at Ithaca College that I would like to be able to pass that on to other people. So helping to raise money and letting people who cannot afford to come to the college attend and get the benefits and the wonderfulness that I got from Ithaca College is very important to me. And that’s why I like to help raise the money for the college. I loved it there and I would like more people to get the chance to get the education that I got. I think that’s why I’m thrilled to be receiving this award. [I] never expected to be the one that would get it.
SL: What are the most positive changes you’ve seen in Ithaca College since the time that you graduated?
JLG: One of the things is the fact that you no longer have to take every class in your major; now you can branch out. For instance, I was a physical education major. We had to take everything that pertained to physical education. We were allowed one or two classes outside of that, but not much. But if we wanted to start a business at a later date, we had no way of learning how to do any of that kind of stuff. We didn’t take business classes, we didn’t take any of that kind of stuff. So now, I believe, they are allowing you to branch out more in the classes that you take and I feel that that’s very, very important because you have more of a background and an ability to choose what you want to do with your life. Not everybody gets to go on, like I did in the beginning, and … get a job in your major right away and take off with that. A lot of times there you don’t know what you’re going to do. And it gives you the ability to branch out, to know what else is going on besides just [in] your major.
SL: Could you talk about your more recent involvement with the college?
JLG: One of the things that I helped raise money for was the [Athletics and Events Center] building. I was there for the opening of it and we actually have a plaque when you walk in the front door. … Both of my children are now adults [and] are going to come to see me get the award and I am looking forward to walking them through that building and showing them that, especially the swimming pool. The thing that I love about the pool is that the floor rises so there’s a large area for teaching handicapped children how to swim and young children so that their feet can touch the ground at all times. … They do bubbles underneath the diving board so that when you’re learning how to dive from up above, you don’t get hurt when you’re learning how to do the dive. So those were some things that really impressed me. … I come back every five years [and] have been [doing that] since the very beginning. And then, of course, a couple of times in between when they asked me to come up for something but especially [for] a reunion, which was exciting. [We] had a competition with the class of 1970 for how much money we could raise for our class gifts, and I think our class won. … That was especially meaningful because it was the first reunion after the pandemic that was able to be held on campus.
