From Rockland Community College: Four Rockland Community College employees have been recognized for outstanding professional achievement by earning the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence; the awards were conferred at the college's Commencement ceremonies on May 23. Matthew Matcovich and Talia Lipton received the award for Excellence in Teaching; Dr. Shamika Mitchell was honored with the award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities; and Dr. Lilia Juele merited the award for Excellence in Professional Service. The Chancellor's Award is the highest honor bestowed by New York's state university system.
Matcovich, an assistant professor of Mathematics, has been a full-time faculty member since 2013. A 2008 RCC graduate who earned the Outstanding Student Service Award, Matcovich has taught more than a dozen courses, ranging from developmental classes to advanced seminars within the Honors College. He is a highly sought-after volunteer in the Tutoring Center who is an indispensable asset for the college's academic support services. A former star baseball player for the Hawks, Matcovich works successfully with the team's current players as an assistant coach. His mentorship encompasses academic advisement, help with transfer applications and general life coaching.
Lipton, instructor of Speech, joined the RCC faculty in 2011 following a 17-year career as a speech language pathologist. As a Speech instructor, she has devoted much time and effort to bring real-world experiences into the classroom. In addition to teaching a variety of Speech courses, Lipton provided the leadership that enabled RCC's Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative to receive a SUNY Innovative Instructional Technology Grant (IITG) for the establishment of an OER repository. She has been an active member of the Faculty Senate and Speech Department Assessment Review Committee and was asked to be chair of the SUNY OER Advisory Committee.
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Dr. Mitchell joined the RCC faculty in 2005 and currently serves as assistant professor of English. Her emphasis on curriculum development is reflected in her commitment to diversifying the course offerings within her department. She has revised two courses ― African-American Literature 1 and Asian- American Literature ― and created a new course, African American Literature 2. She is also developing a new course on comics and comics studies, which will collaborate with the History and Art departments. Outside of the classroom, Dr. Mitchell has served as a co-adviser of RCC's Black Student Union and is adviser to the Muslim Student Association. She has hosted various comic creators and publishers on campus, moderated two panels at the 2018 New York Comic Con, and has been a panelist and moderator at numerous other comics conventions. Dr. Juele, director of eLearning and Academic Technology, has devoted 12 years of dedicated service to RCC. Her professional record is replete with noteworthy accomplishments. She wrote the application to gain approval of RCC’s Open SUNY Institutional Readiness Plan in 2016; received approval for offering and listing RCC online/hybrid courses in the Open SUNY website; received a $20,000 grant from Open SUNY toward helping RCC’s marketing efforts of online degrees; and paved the way to obtain approval by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) in 2017 to offer 14 online degrees following the state's requirement using the distance learning format.
Read more about the award winners online: