SUNY Cortland employees honored by SUNY

05/17/2022 

Seven SUNY Cortland school and workers members acquired the celebrated State College of New York Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence throughout the 2022 Undergraduate Graduation ceremonies.

The honorees and their awards are:

• Anne Burns Thomas, professor within the Foundations and Social Advocacy Division and program coordinator for Cortland’s City Recruitment of Educators (C.U.R.E.), Excellence in Instructing
• AnnaMaria Cirrincione, director of Multicultural Life and Range, Excellence in Skilled Service
• Heather Drew, administrative assistant in Info Assets, Excellence in Categorised Service
• Eileen Gravani, affiliate dean of the Faculty of Skilled Research, Excellence in Skilled Service
• Li Jin, professor within the Geology Division and coordinator of the Environmental Science Program, Excellence in Scholarship and Inventive Actions
• Chris Widdall, assistant dean for evaluation and accreditation within the Faculty of Schooling and affiliate professor within the Childhood/Early Childhood Schooling Division, Excellence in Skilled Service
• Kim Wieczorek, affiliate professor within the Childhood/Early Childhood Schooling Division, Excellence in College Service

The Chancellor’s Awards present system-wide recognition for persistently superior skilled achievement and encourage the pursuit of excellence in any respect 64 SUNY campuses. Every campus president submits nominations, that are reviewed by the SUNY Committee on Awards.

This yr’s SUNY Cortland honorees are profiled beneath:

Anne Burns Thomas

Each side of Burns Thomas’ educating is knowledgeable by her analysis analyzing inequities within the U.S. academic system and the structural results of racism on Okay-12 college students and academics.

Burns Thomas, the 54th Cortland school member to be acknowledged by SUNY for educating excellence, joined the Foundations and Social Advocacy Division in 2006.

She is described by colleagues as a masterful, considerate instructor whose programs introduce college students to crucial up to date points within the area of training. Her educating strategies, course design and assessments are created to equip college students with the data and expertise they should enter into conversations about academic coverage and advocacy work.

Burns Thomas recurrently revises and refines her programs based mostly on present disciplinary analysis and suggestions from her college students, who’ve persistently praised the respectful, supportive atmosphere she creates. Her lessons are marked by rigorous expectations and clear studying objectives.

She directs the Cortland City Recruitment of Educators (C.U.R.E.) program, which is crucial to rising the variety of numerous instructor candidates the college prepares for careers in Okay-12 training.

“On this function, Burns Thomas has served as a campus chief, selling efforts to increase the variety of our college students, particularly in instructor training, and sharing anti-racist educating approaches with school throughout campus,” in accordance with one nominator.

Burns Thomas acquired a Ph.D. in educating, studying and curriculum from the College of Pennsylvania.

AnnaMaria Cirrincione

Cirrincione, the thirty fourth SUNY honoree in skilled service at Cortland, has helped the campus make nice strides in prioritizing its objectives for range, fairness and inclusion since arriving on campus in 2015.

Her advocacy for college kids is seen and well-recognized throughout campus and she or he just lately was appointed as a fellow for the SUNY Hispanic Management Institute.

“Cirrincione is a crucial chief on our campus whose data, assist and drive advantages our college students and our establishment,” one nominator famous.

Cirrincione, who has an M.S. in greater training administration from Syracuse College, earned her present function only a yr after she joined as assistant director of multicultural life and variety. In 2020, she additionally stepped in as interim chief range and inclusion officer.

Cirrincione has led the event of ongoing initiatives and applications, together with the Understanding and Advocating for Racial Justice Workshop, the Peer2Peer Mentor Program and the Kente Celebration.

She performs a number one function on campus-wide committees, together with the Anti-Racism Taskforce, the Incapacity Assets Advisory Committee, the President’s Council on Inclusive Excellence, the Bias Response Group and the Latinx and Latin American Research Committee. She has served on institution-wide committees together with Center States accreditation.

Heather Drew

A 13-year SUNY Cortland worker who has served Info Assets since 2017, Drew is a extremely educated and intensely reliable member of the campus group who stands out for her problem-solving ability and well timed, optimistic service.

“Within the midst of uncertainty in her division, with the sudden retirement of her supervisor and the reorganization of our campus Info Assets workplace, Ms. Drew was a gentle and calm affect,” one nominator famous.

Drew persistently exceeds efficiency expectations, distinguishing herself together with her data of budgeting and contracts. Her supervisor describes her as having a “can-do” angle. Drew additionally demonstrates her willingness to assist each time wanted, most notably with COVID-19 pandemic operations, volunteering with the State Workers’ Federated Attraction (SEFA) Marketing campaign, and main skilled improvement in Info Assets.

Drew, the 14th Cortland recipient of the SUNY categorised workers recognition, is credited with a dedication and functionality that permits Info Assets to run as a mannequin workplace on the campus.

Eileen Gravani

Gravani, affiliate dean {of professional} research, advocates tirelessly to assist college students navigate the complexities of their diploma necessities. She is the thirty fifth SUNY Cortland school member honored for skilled service,

“Her excellence is manifest in her every day work as affiliate dean: fixing issues, advising college students and collaborating with key companions throughout campus, together with Incapacity Assets, Title IX, and the Scholar Behavioral Evaluation Group,” one nominator noticed.

She additionally:

• led the event of a specific research main throughout the Faculty of Skilled Research that has improved scholar retention
• coordinated a significant curricular revision to make sure graduate college students within the Communication Sciences and Issues Division have been eligible for New York state educating certification
• developed new research overseas alternatives for college kids within the college.
  

  
  

Early within the COVID-19 pandemic, Gravani utilized her calm, optimistic and proactive strategy to creating momentary versatile grading insurance policies, acquiring emergency scholar funding, addressing educational and medical wants for college kids in quarantine or isolation, and understanding distant studying points for college kids.

Gravani earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Cornell College. At Cortland, she served what’s now referred to as the Communication Issues and Sciences Division from 1980 till 2008, when the affiliate professor and former division chair was appointed to her present function.

Li Jin

An internationally-known researcher within the long-term, international impacts of local weather change and water contamination, Jin is the nineteenth SUNY Cortland school member to obtain the Chancellor’s Award for scholarship and artistic actions.

Jin, who earned B.S. and M.S. levels in geochemistry from Nanjing College in China and a Ph.D. in geology/hydrology from Syracuse College, joined the SUNY Cortland Geology Division school in 2011 and attained the rank of professor in 2019.

A prolific scholar within the fields of aqueous geochemistry, hydrochemistry and hydrogeology, since coming to Cortland she has written 37 peer-reviewed papers revealed in high-impact worldwide journals. Jin additionally boasts a powerful file of displays at nationwide and worldwide conferences. A helpful mentor for undergraduate college students, she has directed 17 undergraduate analysis initiatives since 2012.

“Jin’s sustained file of water high quality modelling scholarship is interdisciplinary and collaborative, and she or he has long-standing partnerships with students and analysis groups world wide to check water methods and their human influence,” wrote one nominator. What makes her analysis stand out is its solution-driven strategy and consideration of the social, financial, agriculture and environmental impacts of water methods.

Jin has secured funding for her analysis, together with two current grants from Water Useful resource Associations/College of Oxford to check steel transport in river methods in southeast Asia and Africa.

Chris Widdall ’00, M ’03

Widdall’s colleagues throughout campus regard her as a reliable, upbeat and extremely collaborative skilled who makes use of her experience to unravel issues each inside her division and in different areas.

The thirty sixth SUNY Cortland school member to be awarded by SUNY for skilled service, she joined the SUNY Cortland school in 2008. In 2016, she was appointed to a full-time skilled place because the Watermark and edTPA coordinator for SUNY Cortland’s Trainer Schooling Unit. In 2021, she was appointed as assistant dean of evaluation and accreditation within the Faculty of Schooling.

Widdall, who has a Ph.D. in training with specialization in tutorial design for on-line studying from Capella College, is credited with a deep data of on-line studying, programmatic evaluation and instructor certification that has been important for main the campus by a number of initiatives instantly tied to accreditation efforts. She labored to determine a web-based database that helps ongoing institutional and programmatic evaluation.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, she created a course that launched instructor training candidates to rules of on-line studying and helped the establishment purchase and use digital instruments to proceed supporting scholar academics within the area.

Widdall additionally serves on the college’s College Senate and fulfills many different campus and group volunteer commitments.

Kim Wieczorek

Wieczorek, who at present chairs the Childhood/Early Childhood Schooling Division, excels at cultivating and sustaining collaborations that profit all of the stakeholders concerned.

“This may be clearly seen in her work with college partnerships, fieldwork websites that convey collectively SUNY Cortland instructor training school, SUNY Cortland instructor candidates and the scholars, academics and directors in native faculties,” one nominator stated.

“In all of her service work, her pleasure and fervour for studying is contagious, and she or he is a well-respected, life-long mentor for her college students and colleagues alike,” stated one other.

Wieczorek leads a number of of the varsity’s partnerships and has ceaselessly secured grant funding for them.

Wieczorek is a key participant within the campus-wide instructor training accreditation efforts and a member of the board of the SUNY Cortland Youngster Care Middle.

Her long-standing state-wide and nationwide service contains having served as president of the New York State Affiliation for Trainer Educators (NYSATE).

The 18th SUNY Cortland school member to be honored by SUNY for school service, she joined the college in 2013 as an affiliate professor.

Wieczorek earned a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the College of Wisconsin-Madison.