Dr. Nancy Roistacher ’72 hasn’t had a summer break since, well, 1972. She graduated from Cornell University that May with a BS in biology and a concentration in genetics, and she started medical school at New York Medical College in June. Nancy went on to a career as a clinical cardiologist and echocardiographer, and became the medical director of the Adult Echocardiography Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering, as well as an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.
In the summer of 2024, Nancy celebrated her retirement with a dose of travel. But official and unofficial Cornell Reunions still need planning, Cornellians still need guidance, and Nancy—as classmates have described her—is the glue holding the Class of 1972 together.
“Cornell’s been a lifelong involvement for a lot of reasons. It’s just what we do and what we’re part of; it’s part of who I am,” Nancy said. “I don’t think of it as volunteering. To me, it’s all being part of a community.”
Nancy’s volunteer involvement for the Class of 1972 started in earnest when she became a member of the 30th Reunion Campaign Participation Committee in 2001. Since then, she’s taken on roles as Reunion chair and programming chair, among other positions. She is currently serving her third term as class president, a role she’s held since 2012.
She describes her time on campus as a time of transitions: hers was the last Cornell class with a curfew, and her college experience was formed against the background of the Vietnam War, with the Willard Straight takeover of 1969 in the foreground. She was one of the first students to live in Risley Residential College as a program house for the creative and performing arts.
Nancy recalled early traditions that would shape Risley into the eccentric melting pot of arts and culture that it’s known for: visits from famed musicians like Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, composer Aaron Copland, guitarist Julian Bream, and of course, the medieval fairs.
“I really found an emotional home on campus,” Nancy said of Risley. “It was the center of my life there.” Nancy was instrumental in organizing unofficial Risley reunions in 2018 and 2023.
Through Risley, Nancy also met her future husband Wayne P. Merkelson ’73, JD ’75 (and fellow 2024 FHTR recipient! ). Together they work as a tag team, bringing different strengths and interests to their Cornell leadership. While their Cornell activities are usually separate from each other, the pair are both involved in efforts for the Cornell Botanic Gardens, where they’ve dedicated a grove of maple trees—the Roistacher/Merkelson Grove—in the F. R. Newman Arboretum.
Nancy thrives when she can create opportunities for alumni to come together, and particularly when she can foster inter-class connections. She is now a lifetime member of the Cornell University Council (CUC) and is a sustaining member of the President’s Council of Cornell Women (PCCW). In 2022, she received the CALS Outstanding Alumni Award.
“Ask me to do something, and I will do it!” Nancy said. “Why wouldn’t you want to give back to something that gives to you? I think I get as much out of what I do as I give back.”
She says that some of the most rewarding aspects of her work with Cornell organizations are opportunities to meet so many people and help bring together those initially thought to have disparate interests and ideologies. “You provide opportunities, people come. We have made a remarkable effort over several Reunions and multiple activities to allow people to get together, to talk, to understand their differences, and to understand their common strengths,” she said. “And Cornell is the tie that has brought us all together.”
