Montclair State Teacher Is An ‘Everyday Hero,” Union Says

Let’s hear it for one of the grinders, Essex County.

The day-in, day-out actions of Arnold Korotkin - a longtime adjunct professor of sociology at Montclair State University - were recently recognized by the American Federation of Teachers as part of the union’s 2016 “Everyday Heroes” awards.

Finalists for the annual award ceremony were chosen from each AFT division representing teachers, PSRPs, higher education staff and faculty, public employees, healthcare professionals, early childhood educators and retirees, the union stated in a news release.

See the full list of awardees here.

Korotkin – the only New Jersey awardee for 2016 - is the kind of person who “steps up when something needs doing,” union officials wrote.

According to the AFT, some of his previous contributions to the community have included:

• Blogging about lead in the water at public schools in Newark and Jersey City
• Working as the co-director of COPE (Committee on Political Education) for his local union (Montclair State University Federation of Adjunct Faculty)
• Creating a listserv linking 9/11 survivors and their families to useful information
• Working at the New York City Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Alcoholism Services
• Organizing information for a national aviation safety group advocating for safety and for the families of people who have died in airplane accidents
• Writing a blog called "The Gadfly," which aims to keep his Little Falls neighbors informed about critical community issues

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Photo by Bruce Gilbert, courtesy of MSU