Reading Skills Instructor Wins Top Teaching Award at CCC

A professor whose career has been devoted to helping underserved students learn literacy skills has won the top instructional award available to Camden County College faculty. Lesley Fredericks of Roslyn, Pa., received the 2015 Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award.

According to academic affairs Vice President Margaret Hamilton, instructors are nominated based largely on their concern and sensitivity to the needs of their students and on their ability to demonstrate positive learning outcomes. Recipients of this award display a human quality in the classroom and exert a lasting influence on their students.

“Professor Fredericks has been described as a kind and attentive listener with an extraordinary capacity to motivate students to accomplish their goals,” Hamilton said. “Her office is filled with photos of students who made it not only through her classes, but through the challenges of seeking a career and a better life. Colleagues have described Professor Fredericks as being able to balance sensitivity with high standards while maintaining a clear sense of purpose in the classroom.”

Fredericks holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Cornell University and a master’s degree in adult education from Rutgers University. She has been a full-time faculty member at CCC since 2001 and currently is the reading program chair within the Academic Skills English Department. She previously served as the academic coordinator for the college’s Community Gateway Project, which offered pre-college education in community locations throughout Camden.

In 2009, Fredericks received an EOF Champion Award from the New Jersey Educational Opportunity Fund. This award lauded her for consistently going “above and beyond normal work hours” to help EOF students.

A faculty committee selected Fredericks for the award, which is funded by the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation. Prior winners include Eileen Radetich (2014); Martine Howard and William Lavell (2013); Pablo Echeverria (2012); Lawrence Chatman and William Taylor (2011); Jennifer Hoheisel (2010); Elisabeth Bass (2009); Dianne Falvo and Carla Monticelli (2008); Faustino Gonzalez (2007); William Wilhelm (2006); Robert Lorenzi (2005); Dorothy Brown and Hoda Zaki (2004); Catherine Boos (2003); Kelly Jackson (2002); Claire Berger (2001); Adrienne Coons (2000); Paul Harris (1999); and Ellen Freedman (1998).