Press Releases 2007

CONTACT: Mary Planding, Director, Marketing & Communications
(831) 479-6158
mary.planding [at] cabrillo.edu

Sept. 6, 2007

Cabrillo Bestows Seven Service Awards to Employees

APTOS, CA—On Friday, August 31st. 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: Karen Cogswell for her outstanding efforts with the Cabrillo College Foundation; art instructor Angela Gleason for her creative and effective teaching; Lyn Hood, Student Employment Program coordinator for her exemplary service; and Susan Tappero, director of the Math, Engineering and Science Achievement Program for her outstanding leadership and dedication to students.

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 Nikki Oneto, the senior Disabled Students Programs and Services specialist for her 30 years of exemplary service in supporting disabled students.

Teresa Pane Mohamed, Italian 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.

Paul Harvell, economics 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. Photographs of each recipient are below.

MERITORIOUS SERVICE AWARDS

I’d like to thank Meritorious Service Awards committee chair Catherine LaChance and committee members, Pat Borden, Kate Hartzell, Paul Harvell, Sandi Moore, Zarmina Dastagir, community member Robley Levy and student Sean Alexander for their work in selecting this year’s recipients.

It is with great pleasure and appreciation that I present Cabrillo’s 2007 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 Karen Cogswell please come join me on stage?  I'm going to share a secret with all of you. We wanted Karen to come today and had to fabricate a story. Karen thinks that she is giving Rachael Spencer an award. Karen, you are being honored today. 

Karen Cogswell is presently the secretary of the Cabrillo College Foundation Board and has been a board member since 2001. She has also served as a Women’s Educational Success committee member since 1998. Karen also serves on the Foundation Executive Committee, Investment Consultant Committee and was co-chair of the Measure D Bond Advisory Committee. To say she’s been an active member of the Cabrillo family is indeed, an understatement.

Over the years, Karen has generously donated her time and money to support a wide range of needs at Cabrillo—everything from WES to the President’s Circle, the Children’s Center and the President John D. Hurd Endowment campaign.

As the current secretary of the foundation, Karen plays an integral role in its success. Her leadership has placed the Cabrillo College Foundation as a leader among all California community colleges, ranking 3rd for fundraising in the state. In 2006, the foundation raised $3.9 MILLION in donations from 3,400 donors.

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

Our next award winner is always the first person to volunteer for jobs outside her regular teaching duties with boundless energy and enthusiasm. She has been a driving force in the development and implementation of the CabrilloArts summer workshops, besides being one of its instructors of record.

She continually bridges her engineering expertise with superb artistry. She delights in taking on the tougher 3-D art courses. With her fresh approach and a great sense of humor, she constantly develops innovative new ways to teach those classes. Famous for taking students on a field trip to crawl through the county dump in search of treasures, she encourages and inspires her students to create incredible works of art from those finds.

All you have to do is sit in her classroom and watch how her face lights up each time a student gets that “aha”. And in that moment you will vicariously experience her joy—the joy that is teaching.

Please join me in honoring adjunct art instructor, Angela Gleason, as our next Meritorious Service Award winner.

The next person receiving a meritorious service award has been with Cabrillo since 1978. For twenty-nine years, this individual has dedicated their life to helping match students with the “right” on-campus and off-campus jobs. Every year, she manages the incredibly complex process that results in more than 600 campus jobs being filled every year, by students.

She instituted innovative systems such as eCampusRecruiter.com to improve efficiency, holds public workshops on resume writing and interviewing skills and even found time to remodel the Student Employment Center to make it more inviting, user-friendly and ever more accessible for students.

Most importantly, she is always there to listen to the students and give them that extra nudge, guidance and coaching they need to be successful at their jobs.

Behind the scenes, she has been actively involved in the College Planning Council and CCEU. And when she’s not helping students, she rides with her long-time friend and companion, Whiskey, her horse.

An invaluable resource, an outstanding program coordinator and a colleague I am fortunate to see every day, please join me in congratulating the Student Employment Coordinator, Lyn Hood, our next Meritorious Service Award winner.

Our final meritorious service award goes to an individual who provides exemplary leadership to students as well as faculty and administrators at the college AND around the state. Working with students from diverse backgrounds who have dreams of transferring to 4-year institutions with majors in math, engineering or science, she spends countless hours overseeing that every little detail—from writing grants to coaching students to coordinating lots of people to facilitating meetings—is done exceptionally well.

Her sensitivity to multi-cultural issues with students and staff led her to take Spanish classes to improve her speaking and understanding of the language since at least half of her students have English as their second language. All this, and she teaches math too!

She brings a positive, creative energy to the college that touches everyone in so many beneficial ways. Please join me in congratulating the Director of the MESA Program, Susan Tappero, as this year’s final Meritorious Service Award winner.

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.

Reading through the nomination letters for this individual was a very moving experience. I’m simply going to read their words because they are so much better than anything I could possibly come up with:

 “She is the perfect example of a team player, working hard to accomplish goals, doggedly meeting deadlines, keeping a cheerful demeanor in the face of sometimes difficult situations. All this without any effort on her part to draw attention to herself or to be acknowledged by others. Her inner drive to be helpful to one and all is remarkable.”

“She has consistently demonstrated the highest level of service to students, staff, faculty and community agencies for more than 23 years. She consistently goes beyond the requirements of her job. She does so with a calm, caring and generous nature. I value her support, knowledge and willingness to go the extra mile.”

“She has served Cabrillo without desiring recognition, which shows her efforts are genuine, sincere and based on pure respect for humankind. Can you honestly say someone is more deserving?”

“Professional, competent, gentle, kind, smart advocate, role model—words that only begin to describe her.”

“She treats everyone with the same amount of respect and doesn’t think less of you even if you asked the same question for the fourth time that day. She is irreplaceable.”

 “She is the nerve center of the whole operation. She serves students who have many different needs with a unique blend of humor and respect. I admire her more than anyone I’ve ever worked with. Year in, year out, for 30 years she has been there for students (including me when I was a student back in the 80s). She is a better person than I can ever hope to be. So…give her the award already, wouldja?!”

Why don’t we do just that? Please join me in honoring the Billie Paul Award Winner for 2007, DSPS Senior Program Specialist, Nikko Oneto.

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

The one thing that strikes you to your core when you meet this individual is her blazing, beautiful smile. That smile leaves you with no defenses whatsoever against her charming and disarming pedagogical sleights of hand such as having everyone sing a popular song in the language you’re about to learn. As a result, your learning soars because you have no fear of making mistakes, mispronouncing new words or feeling foolish or unprepared. Beguiled by this woman’s warmth, transparent affection, love and enthusiasm for her subject, you launch forward into learning “la terra della lingua italiana”.

This instructor’s energy, passion, sense of humor and skillful organization of her lessons makes her classes a joy to attend. She makes a connection with every single student and incorporates their interests into her classes with ease. In fact, one student says, “her enthusiasm for her subject is so contagious that when you leave class you can’t wait to tackle the homework assignment.”

A fellow instructor comments that as she would wait for a class that would be in the same room as our award winner’s, she noticed “the students in this class were casually chatting with the instructor in their new language, a highly unusual occurrence for first semester foreign language students”. Consequently she eagerly signed up for our award winner’s class the next semester expecting similar results and was not disappointed.

This amazing instructor celebrates her student’s everyday successes. Instead of saying, “incorrect” when a student responds to a question that is only partly right, she says “almost perfect!” and then gives enough hints about the correct information that the student is able to produce the correct response. Consequently everyone feels safe, supported and encouraged. A fellow instructor says “now that’s effective teaching.”

The first adjunct faculty member in the World Languages Department to organize and lead a study abroad group, a born teacher whose reputation brings students to Cabrillo again and again, a teacher who has the utmost respect and admiration from her colleagues and the unabashed adoration of a student fan club, please join me in congratulating our 2007 John Hurd Award winner, Italian instructor, Teresa Pane Mohamed.

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.

 This instructor maintains extremely high standards for his students, but teaches in such a way that his students reach the goals set for them. Many of his classes, even towards the end of the semester, have over 50 students actively enrolled in his classes. In fact, his maximum enrollment limit is 49, which speaks to his dedication. No one gets left behind!!

A proverbial boy scout, he is respectful of everyone, kind to staff and pitches in without being asked to do so. He can unjam any copier or computer printer after everyone else has failed and even helps students if the division office staff are swamped. Affectionately dubbed “Candy Man” for the chocolate he puts in the crystal bowl he bought for the faculty workroom, his humor and puns are never-ending and provide needed comic relief.

A student who returned to college after 10 years says “I took his economics course not knowing who he was or what to expect. He was not only a fantastic teacher, he was willing to help me with my educational plans by referring me to a counselor, to financial aid and even nominated me for a scholarship that has helped me continue my education.” He manages to take a subject that is potentially so dry and transforms it into a humorous and exceptionally educational experience each and every day.

Few people seek to improve the lives of students around him quite like this instructor, although he’d never admit it. He tirelessly volunteers his time to the community around him, with uncountable hours of committee work, class work, meetings and more. Very few people have the ability to do so much, yet he does it with a laugh, a smile and surprising attentiveness.

Beneath his light-hearted exterior lies a heart of gold.

Please join me in congratulating this year’s recipient of the Floyd L. Younger award, the first to help us all celebrate “Talk like a Pirate Day”, Arrrrrggggghhhhh matey, Faculty Senate Treasurer, CCFT President and our very own economist of light, Economics Instructor, Paul Harvell.

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