Alissa Keny-Guyer ’77 has been named the recipient of the Alumni Award, The Hotchkiss School’s highest honor. She has spent decades working in the nonprofit, philanthropic, and political realms to improve lives at home and overseas. She will be honored during a ceremony in Lakeville this month.

Keny-Guyer was exposed to injustices through her mother’s work on civil rights in the U.S. and her father’s humanitarian work overseas. She knew early on that she wanted to make a difference in the lives of people who didn’t have the opportunities she had by birth and education.

She says that pivotal experiences during her time at Hotchkiss were serving as chair of the Current Events Club and working with her roommate, Carolyn Eaton '77, at Boys Harbor camp on Long Island, where children from the city enjoyed summers in a different environment. “Some of my closest friendships came out of Hotchkiss,” Keny-Guyer said. She noted that she was honored to participate as a member of Hotchkiss Alumni for Reconciliation and Healing (HAFRAH), alongside Eaton, Margaret Simpson ’77, Martha Bryan ’77, and others, providing recommendations to the School on its reckoning with historical sexual misconduct. 

While at Stanford, Keny-Guyer worked for 18 months at an agricultural research center on the island of Java. She lived with an Indonesian family, learned the language, and experienced what it’s like “to be the only foreigner in her town.” After completing a Bachelor of Arts in human biology, she returned to Indonesia for nearly two years to focus on community development with Oxfam, a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice. “I was based in West Timor with a war for independence on the eastern side of the island. I was reminded of the advantages I had, compared to people struggling for water, sanitation, health care, and a secure future,” she said.

Feeling she lacked the skills to be of greater assistance, Keny-Guyer earned a Master’s in Public Health at the University of Hawaii, which had a strong emphasis on international public health. After working for several years with community groups and the Hawaii legislature on issues of poverty, human services, and the environment, she decided to focus on these issues domestically.

In 1990, Keny-Guyer and her husband, Neal, moved to California where she became executive director of Volunteers in Asia. They then moved to Portland, OR, where she founded the Saturday Academy outreach program for kids underrepresented in math, science, and engineering fields. She later became the director of the Hanna Andersson Children’s Foundation and consulted for the Nike Foundation.

She received Hotchkiss’s Community Service Award in 1998 to recognize her work making a difference both nationally and internationally.  

Having served on several city, county, and state commissions, Keny-Guyer entered politics when the youngest of her three children entered high school. She served as an Oregon State Representative from 2011-21, representing parts of southeast and northeast Portland. She chaired the Human Services and Housing Committee when Oregon passed some of the nation’s most groundbreaking housing legislation and served on the Health Care, Early Childhood and Family Support, Consumer Affairs, Energy and Environment, and Revenue committees.

In 2021, Keny-Guyer served as senior advisor to the director of the Oregon Department of Human Services until she moved with her husband to Santa Fe, NM. Since then, Keny-Guyer has served on the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund Advisory Board, the Santa Fe Community Development Commission, the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Executive Committee, and the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. 

Throughout her career, Keny-Guyer has felt that her greatest impact has come from teamwork—learning from people with vastly different experiences and working together for change. While she wishes this Alumni Award could be given to all the teams with whom she has worked, she feels enormously honored to receive it. “This a great opportunity to share lessons learned along the way with students who have the opportunity to make an enormous impact in their lives,” she said.

“Balance is one of those lessons,” she noted. “While I am deeply committed to social justice and environmental protection, I make sure to leave lots of time for family, friends, travel, hiking, and my dog!”

Since 1931, the Hotchkiss Alumni Association has honored notable alumni with the Alumni Award. Selected by the nominating committee of the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association, recipients have brought honor and distinction to themselves and Hotchkiss through their achievements. Nominate an individual for the Alumni Award.