College Employees Receive the Prestigious SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: April 10, 2008

CONTACT: Lisa Saunders

(845) 574-4244

Three SUNY Rockland Community College Employees Receive the Prestigious SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence

Suffern, NY--Three SUNY Rockland Community College employees received the SUNY Chancellor's Awards for Excellence from John B. Clark, Interim Chancellor of the State University of New York system. They will be recognized at Commencement on June 1.

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service:

Saeed Safaie, Professor, Science, of Suffern, teaches Math, Physics and Engineering. Safaie has published several engineering articles and received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2001. Safaie has been the Captain of the RCC faculty Heart Walk team and County-wide Food Drive since 1999. He holds a BS in Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and two master's, one in Economics and one in Physics from Rutgers University and SUNY, New Paltz, respectively.

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service:

Janice T. Goldstein '83, Coordinator, Video and Television Productions, of Mahwah, NJ, has produced award-winning promotional, educational, instructional, community outreach and documentation multi-media projects for the College and the Rockland County community. Her most recent accomplishments include the recently launched RCC-TV and the RCC -TV Video Festival - a student multi-media production competition which will be judged by a jury of media professionals. Goldstein earned her associate’s degree from SUNY Rockland and a BA in Mass Media Communications from SUNY Plattsburgh.

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities:

Dr. Elaine M. Toia, Associate Professor, English, of Monroe, teaches literature and composition courses. She is RCC's representative to the Beacon Student Scholarship Conference Steering Committee and was Co-Director of the 2007 Beacon Conference held at RCC.  Her articles on the fiction of American novelist Edith Wharton have been published in "The International Journal of the Humanities" Toia received her B.A. in English from Rutgers University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Lehigh University. 

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Rockland Community College, a unit of the State University of New York, is located 25 miles northwest of NYC. The majority of its students transfer to four-year colleges, and many find immediate employment upon earning their associate’s degree or certificate. The College also offers others, from preschoolers to senior citizens, the opportunity to simply learn something new. Quality education...at a price you can afford.