summer living and interning at Disney’s world resort in florida, as part of an
internship program that began 26 years ago. e program allows participants to
network, take part in personal and career development classes, and build
transferable skills such as problem-solving, teamwork, guest services and effective
communication. is fall, 13 additional students will join the program, including
two of our theater students, who will work in costuming with a former Suffolk
student.
on September 20
th
, walter Hazlitt, whose term on our Board of Trustees had recently
ended, received one of the 2014 Donald M. Mawhinney Trustee Leadership Awards at
the New York Community College Trustees’ (NYCCT) Awards Banquet. e awards
ceremony was part of the NYCCT’s Conference entitled “Celebrating 60 Years of
Trustee education and Leadership.” in attendance to represent the College’s Board,
were Chairwoman Dafny irizarry, vice-Chair eresa Sanders, and Student Trustee
Gardy Amilcar.
Staff presented a poster titled “Best Practices for increasing Alumni and employer
feedback in Curriculum evaluation” at the 41
st
Annual National Conference on
Professional Nursing education and Development at the Mayo Clinic, MN.
five Suffolk students were chosen from among more than 30 students
representing institutions from across the east Coast, to be part of the NBA All-Star
2015 event’s technology “Dream Team.” e students: Justin owens (Shirley);
David Hachikian (east Northport); Jaime Silverman (Shoreham); Bryan
Seidenspinner (Sayville); and raymond ompson (Bayport), set up and maintained
all internet and wireless communications at the All-Star Basketball events. e
students learned about technology configuration and deployed technology at the
Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden. e NBA All-Star Game is a world class
sporting event that will rely on these students to implement the network that will
carry the event. e students are enrolled in the College’s Cisco classes, where they
prepare for the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam. e courses teach
students how to design, configure and manage an iT network either in a local
company or world-wide interconnection. e CCNA is recognized in the industry
as a technical professional working with traditional Cisco-based networks that
predominantly include local area network (LAN) and wide area network (wAN)
routers and switches.
My schedule allowed me to travel to San Antonio, Texas for the 2015 Spring
Conference hosted by the Higher education research and Development institute
(HerDi), followed by the American Association of Community Colleges’ 95
th
Annual Convention. As part of the Annual Convention, AACC schedules its various
commission meetings, so in my role as a Commissioner, i was able to attend the
Diversity, inclusion and equity Commission meeting. i was also able to attend my
first AACC Presidents Academy executive Committee (PAeC) meeting. During
the conference, i served as a panel moderator for one of the presentation sessions and
participated on an additional presidents’ discussion panel before returning home.
e College’s campus chapters of Phi eta Kappa, the honor society for two-year
colleges, came together collaboratively to host the New York region’s Phi eta Kappa
Honors in Action conference at our Ammerman Campus in october. i was invited
to address the assembly during this event, which was the first time Suffolk hosted a
regional Phi eta Kappa conference on this scale. we enjoyed bringing students and
their advisors from all over New York to Suffolk County.
2014-2015 Review of Accomplishments
❘
53
Congratulations to former Trustee Walter Hazlitt
for his selection as a recipient of the 2014
Donald M. Mawhinney Trustee Leadership Award.
