Skip to main content

MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Congratulations to the 2012 NISOD Award Recipients!


The Faculty Senate is proud to announce that the following individuals have been recognized for their outstanding contributions to the Monroe Community College Community with the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development Award. They have consistently and passionately gone beyond their job requirements to make our College a better place in which to learn and to work.

We are fortunately to have so many gifted and caring individuals at MCC. The brief descriptions below represent only a small part of the work done by these faculty members.

We would also like to recognize the other nominees, each of whom serves MCC with distinction. Finally, thank you to the nominators who worked so hard to put together outstanding packages to honor their colleagues.

Amanda Colosimo, Assistant Professor of Geosciences

Professor Colosimo started her career with Monroe Community College in the fall of 2005 as an instructor. She is highly regarded by her colleagues, most especially for the relationships she builds with students outside the classroom. The time she dedicates to this is truly impressive. As just one example, Amanda serves as co-advisor to the Geosciences Association student club which not only necessitates weekly meetings but many weekends and extended periods of up to 10 days with field trips.

She has taught an unusually varied and extensive list of courses as well as co-developed a new course, GEO 195: Field Studies in the Geosciences. She consistently updates and improves her courses with conceptual material as well multimedia such as animations, video, and Google Earth.

Her service to college, department and community has also been impressive. Most recently she began serving on the Budget Resource Committee as well as the SCAA search for Dean of Science, Health, and Business.

She serves on numerous departmental committees and her community service has ranged from teaching elementary school children about volcanoes to Science Exploration Days at St John Fisher to cleaning up Durand Eastman Park during International Coastal Cleanup Day.

Tokeya Graham, Instructor, English and Philosophy

Professor Graham has been a full-time faculty member at MCC since September 2007.  In that relatively short time she has compiled a distinguished record as a teacher, colleague, and community member. Students continue to benefit not only from her teaching skills, which demonstrate an enormous capacity to connect with and impact learners, but from her initiatives in modeling the very best of our nation’s commitment to freedom, education, productivity and happiness for all.

In addition to preparing new courses to teach every year, Professor Graham provided extensive support to her students as a mentor of “Women on the Move,” connecting especially with Damon City Campus students desirous of professional and personal guidance. She also co-facilitated a student book club, and a 6-week long seminar providing access to women who shared hard-won triumphs amidst personal struggles.

As a colleague, she fully participates in divisional and college-wide activities. Whether serving on curriculum committees, creating a TRS 105/ENG 101 learning community, speaking on panels, co-facilitating film discussions, collaborating with sociologists on possible film series, developing a DCC writing center workshop, or participating in Damon’s SEGA panel discussion, she always ensure that she matches our college’s devotion to providing the best for our students.

Jennifer Hill, Assistant Professor, Biology

Professor Hill has been a full-time biology faculty member since 2006, during which time she has not only taught a wide variety of courses, including Field Studies in Biology as well as the capstone seminar course Current Topics in Biology, but most of her sections are writing intensive and sustainability related.

She is constantly updating her courses and sharing that knowledge with colleagues. One recent example is “CPR”: Calibrated Peer Review for using writing assignments in large classes. Jennifer shared that in a brown bag session with her department.

She demonstrates high academic standards throughout. Research Based presentations are required in her BIO 156 classes, and then shared with the MCC community via a student sponsored poster session. She is also committed to student success, assisting in numerous independent study research projects and encouraging students to present as part of Scholar’s Day Sessions. In fact, one of her students won first place for her presentation “Distribution of hard coral on selected patch reefs on San Salvador Island.”

She also serves the entire college community, from the development of a comprehensive assessment instrument enabling more consistent evaluation of sections in Anatomy to her work as Secretary of the Faculty Council, and serving on MCC’s Sustainability Steering Committee.

Congratulations to all!

Carmen Powers
Faculty Senate
12/15/2011