Touro College’s top woman

As a volunteer at the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in Brooklyn, it pained Naomi Broker to see patients so afraid to fall that they refused to walk, eventually losing the ability to do so altogether and confining themselves to wheelchairs.

“It was heartbreaking to see someone who was mentally all there but physically trapped in a body,” she said. 

Today Naomi holds on to that memory as she pursues a career in physical therapy. 

Naomi’s hard work and dedication paid off as she was named 2015 valedictorian of the women’s division of the Lander College of Arts & Sciences in Flatbush and will be a student speaker at the 41st commencement exercise. After that, Naomi will begin a doctoral program in PT at Hunter College.

The recipient of two major academic scholarships — the Lander College Honors Scholarship and the Touro College Deans Scholarship —Naomi graduates summa  cum laude with a 3.98 grade point average, 4.0 in the sciences.

“Naomi has compiled an outstanding record of academic achievement and has demonstrated a keen interest in the natural sciences,” said Dr. Robert Goldschmidt, dean of LAS and the vice president for planning and assessment of Touro College. “We are confident that Naomi will become a caring and compassionate health care professional serving the needs of our community.”

A biology major, Naomi credits the department for preparing her for a career as a health professional. When her brother was a first-year medical student, she glanced at his histology textbook and realized she had learned the same material in her anatomy and physiology class.

The Lander College of Arts and Sciences has more than 1,000 students in separate divisions for men and women at Avenue J and East 16th Street in Midwood.