Press Releases Fall 2006

CONTACT: Mary Planding
Director, Marketing & Communications
(831) 479-5744
mary.planding [at] cabrillo.edu

August 28, 2006

Cabrillo Bestows Seven Service Awards

APTOS, CA—On Friday, August 25th during Cabrillo College’s annual All College Day, President Brian King honored seven individuals for their “…outstanding service, dedication and fulfillment of Cabrillo’s mission which is to enhance the intellectual, cultural, and economic vitality of our community by assisting students in their quest for life-long learning and success in an ever changing world.”

Four Meritorious Service awards were given to the following individuals: Mary Blanchard for her outstanding efforts in leading the Cabrillo College Foundation’s President’s Circle; Lupe Cortes, Head Teacher of The Children’s Center for her extraordinary dedication and service; Tod Nugent, a member of the custodial and grounds-keeping staff for his 40 years of exemplary service; and to Mary Ellen Sullivan, Counselor and Articulation Officer for her exceptional work in creating and managing a web site with all the most current information and resources necessary for counselors to assist students in transferring to four-year colleges.

The Billee Paul Award, given to any current or former staff member who has worked at Cabrillo for a minimum of two years, and named for Billee Paul who served as Student Services coordinator for 25 years, went to Margaret Pierce, the Human Arts and Social Services Division Coordinator for her exemplary service in supporting the HASS division and its students.

Alan Lonnberg, Anthropology Instructor, received the John Hurd Award for Teaching Excellence, awarded to part-time faculty for exceptional teaching, extraordinary leadership and significant contributions to the college mission.

Terry Fetterman, psychology instructor, received the Floyd L. Younger Award for Teaching Excellence, awarded to a current or former faculty member who taught at Cabrillo for at least three years to recognize exceptional teaching, extraordinary leadership, significant contributions to the college mission, and inspiration imparted to students and colleagues.

The text of King’s remarks follows, along with photographs of each recipient.

MERITORIOUS SERVICE AWARDS

I’d like to thank Meritorious Service Awards committee chair Catherine LaChance and committee members, Pat Borden, Kate Hartzell, Paul Harvell, Sylvia Winder, former Cabrillo President Cliff Nichols and students Shay Fraser and Christina Lopez for their work in selecting this year’s recipients.

It is with great pleasure and appreciation that I present this year’s service awards.

The Meritorious Service Awards honor individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership, made exceptional contributions to Cabrillo, and who have implemented significant positive change for the benefit of students or staff. This year’s Meritorious Service Award recipients exemplify these qualities and more.

Would Mary Blanchard please come join me on stage? I'm going to share a secret with all of you. We wanted Mary to come today and had to fabricate a story. Mary thinks that she is giving me an award. Mary, you are being honored today.

Mary Blanchard, chair of the Cabrillo Foundation’s President’s Circle, is a tremendous asset to our community. She has proved to be a steadfast supporter of Cabrillo which is evident through the extensive time and effort she has dedicated.

Mary has been a very active member of the Cabrillo Foundation.  As chair of the President's Circle committee for the past two years she took them to new heights—a 30% increase in donations over previous years. The President’s Circle program raises unrestricted funds for the College’s areas of greatest need. This year Mary led the way in raising a record-breaking $201,000 for the President’s Circle—the most the College has ever seen.

Please join me in congratulating Mary as our first Meritorious Service Award Winner.

The next person receiving a meritorious service award has been with Cabrillo since 1996. While working in the strawberry fields as a day laborer for many years, she wanted to improve her and her family’s opportunities in this country.

She successfully completed her studies and received her A.S. in Early Childhood Education. She also finished both the basic training for the California Program for Infant Toddler Caregivers (PITC) and all the work necessary to become a PITC trainer for the State of California. She is currently working to finish transfer requirements so she can complete her B.A.

She is a model daycare provider. One instructor says, “I can think of no finer example of leadership, caring and commitment. She has always been reliable, invariably upbeat, infinitely patient, and thoroughly responsible. She wears the Head Teacher mantle with aplomb, and is loved and respected by parents, children and her co-workers. She is a keen observer of the children around her, and is very analytical about the children’s needs and wants. I have learned much from her.”

Please join me in congratulating Lupe Cortes, Head Teacher, Children’s Center, our next Meritorious Service Award Winner, for her outstanding service.

The next award goes to a gentleman who spends most of his time serving the campus quietly and unassumingly in the background. Starting out as a groundskeeper, he planted and cared for many of the trees, shrubs, and ground covers that we enjoy in their maturity today.

While he has always shown great initiative and enthusiasm when working independently, he is also ready and eager to lend a hand with group projects. You might not know this, but the short roadway that connects Lot R to Lot S exists solely because of his vision and persuasive abilities. In fact, it is informally named after him.

When he became a member of the custodial crew, he supported the Seahawk athletic teams during the day and at night he prepared the campus for instruction. His kind and gracious manner, his cheerful acceptance of additional responsibilities and his willingness to do the best job he can do is an inspiring example of a dedicated college employee.

Please join me in congratulating our third meritorious service award winner, Tod Hunter, a Custodian with Maintenance and Operations, who has been with Cabrillo since 1966.

Our final meritorious service award goes to an individual who plays a crucial role on campus that few know about and even fewer understand.

The entire transfer process works because of Articulation with the four-year colleges. She facilitates the link to the other colleges and then makes sure that those working on the front lines with students have access to this information. Her work guarantees our students have the information they need to gain admission to four-year universities. Her work also ensures that the quality of our curriculum successfully prepares our transfer students for future upper-division work. Without her tenacity, attention to detail, analytical abilities, curriculum expertise, organization and communication skills, Cabrillo’s students would not be able to transfer successfully.

Her web site has received statewide recognition because it puts in one place a vast storehouse of critical information that counselors rely on in order to serve students. Anytime there is a policy change or resource developed, she is eager and willing to get the information posted to her page. The mere act of maintaining such a site is a chore, let alone compiling the resources and presenting it in a way that is workable. And by the way, she created this web site while she was on sabbatical! Talk about dedication!

Please join me in congratulating our fourth Meritorious Service Award Winner, Mary Ellen Sullivan, Articulation Officer and Counselor.

THE BILLIE PAUL AWARD

The Billee Paul Award for Dedication and Service recognizes a staff member’s outstanding service to Cabrillo, their contributions to the college’s mission, and their inspiration to students and colleagues. The award was named after Ms. Billee Paul who provided truly exemplary service as the Student Services Coordinator for 25 years and continues to volunteer at Cabrillo and in the community since her retirement.

Competent, meticulous, friendly, tactful, honest, caring and supportive are only a few of the adjectives used to describe her. As the first Division Coordinator for HASS, she used all her considerable talents to establish the Division and its offices. And given how huge HASS is, that was no mean feat.

“I am simply not in her league,” claims one faculty member. Yet another faculty member says that “She has continually made a direct impact on students’ success at Cabrillo. To understand this you have to know her; she has the disease to please. She will spend endless hours working with Program Chairs to make sure that classes are in time slots when students want them and in classrooms to fit the maximum number of students allowed. I have seen her work long and hard to make sure the class schedule is as perfect as it can possibly be for students”.

Invariably the first to arrive, and the last to leave the HASS office, she can always be found with a smile on her face, the soul of patience and cool as a cucumber in any crisis no matter how big or small. To quote yet another fan, “Like Billee Paul, she makes the world a better place.”

Please join me in congratulating this year’s Bille Paul Award for Dedication and Service winner, Margaret Pierce, HASS Division Coordinator.

THE JOHN HURD AWARD FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE

Established in March 2006, this award honors part-time faculty to recognize exceptional teaching, extraordinary leadership, significant contributions to the college mission, and inspiration imparted to students and colleagues.

He is known as a superb classroom teacher, a model of collegiality, and “totally cool” to quote several of his students.

Those of you fortunate enough to work with him can testify to his patience in helping students, his engaging teaching techniques, and his deep desire to equip his students, as he says “to be better engineers, better biologists, better social workers, better computer scientists and better citizens of the world”.

It’s not unusual to find students from one of his prior classes attending a current one, planning a future one and still others recommending his classes to their friends. Students see him as passionate, caring, fascinating, and that he is always there for them. He looks forward to every class as an opportunity to interact with students, “who may gradually, maybe even reluctantly, come to see anthropology as a way to understand their world and their place in it.”

He takes seriously his participation in shared governance. He generously donated his time to building the anthropology department, including coauthoring a successful grant to update course materials. His intellectual rigor, seemingly boundless energy, thoughtfulness, and utter lack of self-importance, make him well-liked and respected across the college by everyone.

Please join me in congratulating the first winner of the John Hurd Award for Teaching Excellence, Anthropology instructor, Allan Lonnberg..

THE FLOYD L. YOUNGER AWARD

The Floyd L. Younger Award for Teaching Excellence perpetuates the vision and ideals of Cabrillo’s first Instructional Administrator, Dr. Floyd L. Younger. The Cabrillo College Governing Board established the award in 1995 in honor of Floyd L. Younger to recognize excellence in teaching, extraordinary leadership, and inspiration imparted to students and colleagues.

No words that I could come up with can better illustrate why this gentleman is our next Floyd Younger Award recipient, I quote:

“Best Teacher in the Universe. True, he is tough but you can learn amazing information and he is very entertaining. I always wanted class not to end, excellent lecturer, all around great person. Take any class from him you can, it will be worth it guaranteed.”

“He brightens the mood the moment he walks through the door.”

“He keeps the class alive with laughter and enthusiasm.”

“The influence this one man has left on my life as well as thousands of other students will never be forgotten.”

“He has greatly enhanced my learning experience and overall attitude towards school and studying.”

“We’ve co-instructed an interdisciplinary course dozens of times. And I laugh every time I hear his stories. As he lectures I see the lights turn on in students’ minds when insight and understanding occur. He is approachable, compassionate, encouraging, and understanding.”

Former Faculty Senate President, 30-time winner of Alpha Gamma Sigma’s “Teacher Appreciation Award”, the only faculty member to be granted tenure after a mere two years because of his outstanding record as a teacher and his commitment to Cabrillo…Please join me in congratulating this year’s recipient of the Floyd L. Younger award, Psychology Instructor, Terry Fetterman.