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Cited for service
61 CSM employees amass 805 years of commitment
Friday, March 12, 2010
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The College of Southern Maryland celebrated the contributions of 61 employees during the college's annual Service Recognition on Feb. 19. Among the employees who have provided 805 years of collective service to the college are, first row from left, Charles Clark, Edith Patterson, Tom Smoot, Tom Gorecki, Tom Seremet and Margaret Thomas; second row from left, Wendy Cleary, Colleen Joffe, Beverly Coger, Chip Keech, Robin Young, Toni Kruszka and Andrea Ronaldi; third row from left, Joni Ellis, Vickie Grow, Tom Grinder, Alfreda Banks, Alan Kutz, Linda Cooke-Smith and Neal Wilsey; and top row from left, Jennifer Everhart, Jacqueline Johnson, Tara McManaway, Susan Wilson, Patty Zych, Tony Bates, Joe Burgin, Shytise Hancock and Susan Herbert.
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The College of Southern Maryland celebrated the contributions of 61 employees during the college's annual Service Recognition on Feb. 19.
Among the employees who have provided 805 years of collective service to the college is Tom Poe, with 40 years of service; and Paul Billeter, Charles Clark, Edith Patterson and Thomas Smoot, each with 35 years of service.
Poe, a professor of biological and physical sciences at the Prince Frederick Campus, came to the college in August 1969, then known as Charles County Community College. That was the same year of the first Apollo moon landing, the Woodstock music festival and the debut of "Sesame Street." Amazingly, when Poe embarked on his teaching career, the science world had only recently cracked the DNA code, and in some states it was still illegal to teach evolution said Vice President and Dean of the Prince Frederick Campus Richard Fleming to Poe's colleagues gathered for the recognition event.
Charles County was still rural then, Poe recalled, and he wanted to join the visionary faculty to put together technical programs for the students. Poe says that CSM allows students to gain the knowledge necessary to land great jobs in Southern Maryland—without having to leave their homes. "Their roots are here, and here is where they want to stay," he said, noting that the faculty who have moved here are also benefitting from the culture and heritage and sense of community that is here. "Even though the word ‘community' is no longer in the school's (official) name, ‘community' is at the heart of what this college is all about."
Poe began as an instructor in the Pollution Abatement Technology program, moved to a position in the biology department, developed and taught courses in the Estuarine Resources Technology program and then returned to teaching biology. Poe taught at the La Plata and Leonardtown campuses before moving full time to the Prince Frederick Campus in 1994. After 40 years, Poe says he is still excited about his students and his work.
Billeter, a professor in the biological and physical sciences division for 35 years, estimates that he has taught more than 10,000 students. He has traveled twice that number of miles teaching CSM field courses in Belize and the Galapagos Islands and coastal biology/oceanography summer courses for Hofstra University Marine Laboratory in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the British Virgin Islands, Nassau, San Salvador, Bimini and Bonaire.
Billeter developed his passion for biology while in high school. "My sophomore biology teacher, Miss Dendy, was inspirational; she was a combination of Rachel Carson and Aunt Bea." Billeter said.
For CSM, Billeter conducted the first college-wide test of online learning in conjunction with the Public Broadcasting Service on how to use the Internet—taught over the then brand-new Internet. "It had innumerable bugs and glitches, but it got us started online," Billeter said. He received the Maryland Distance Educator of the Year Award in 1998. Now, he teaches oceanography online and uses computer-assisted learning in zoology. "I employ useful aspects of technology," he said, "but, it's a myth that the fundamental dynamic of teaching and learning have changed much. Technology is powerful, but it has a downside in that it can also be a 24/7 distraction."
Billeter's experience in developing distance learning programs and as a biology educator has taken him around the world. He was invited by USAID and the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology to help the universities of Ethiopia establish their inter-university distance learning consortium. Following the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Billeter worked with biology professors and high school teachers at the National University of Rwanda to rebuild the science education system. Billeter presented a paper about Darwin and religion at Oxford University in 2009 and continues doing research on fish parasites in the Chesapeake Bay. He discovered a new species of parasite in 2000 and is presently working with a colleague in the Czech Republic to sequence its DNA.
Closer to home, Billeter has taught oceanography via tele-courses to inmates at Jessup Correctional Institution in Maryland.
Along with Poe, Billeter taught biology for CSM's Estuarine Resources Technology program, the first environmental science program offered from the biology department. "Many of our grads from that program are top-level environmental technicians and supervisors all around the area," Billeter said.
Clark had already been working for five years when he came to CSM as a building and grounds technician in September 1974 at the age of 17. He considers the college, its faculty, staff and students as his family. "Charles enjoys meeting students and watching them progress over the years," said Vice President of Financial and Administrative Services Tony Jernigan.
"If I had it to do all over again," Clark said of his work, "I'd do the same thing. I have always enjoyed working with the community and seeing new faces." Clark gets to see many happy faces when he sets up for graduations and for Charles County high school celebrations of Project Graduation. With the increase in student enrollment over the years, Clark's graduation preparations have grown. So, too, has Clark's pride in student accomplishment, he said.
Patterson, director of Educational Talent Search, started at CSM in 1974 as an advisor/recruiter. A product of the 1960s, Patterson said of her generation, "We thought that we could change society and have a role in our own destiny." In college she majored in biology and chemistry, but found that females had a difficult time gaining access to jobs in science outside of teaching. She returned to college, earning a master's in guidance and counseling and a doctorate in higher education administration.
When she joined the staff at CSM, most of the administrative offices and classrooms were housed in one building. "The college was like a family; everyone knew each other and supported each other," she said. Patterson and her young family grew up on the campus: both of her sons attended summer camps, took classes and played for CSM's soccer team before transferring to four-year colleges. One son has taught history as an adjunct professor.
Patterson credits her success to growing up with a strong foundation. At home, in school, in church and in the community, she recalls receiving encouragement to strive for a college education. The ability to provide that same encouragement to a new generation of students is what has delighted Patterson in her work.
"Edith has touched the lives of thousands of citizens of Charles County and has helped students of all ages realize their full potential," said Vice President of Student and Instructional Support Services Bill Comey. "In reflecting on her life growing up in the segregated South, Edith said, ‘it taught me perseverance. It taught me that no one can define your ceiling. It taught me that no one can dampen your aspirations.' This is the message that Edith has shared with our students for the past 35 years."
Smoot has been a fixture on the La Plata Campus for more than 35 years, and his family has been a fixture in Southern Maryland for several generations. Beginning as a building and grounds technician in April 1974, Smoot says he was happy to be working a job where nails didn't freeze to his gloves in the winter as they had when he was doing roofing work. Smoot moved from technician, to foreman to team leader to supervisor. "Those years went by fast," he said of working night shift for 15 of his 35 years, simultaneously working days at a department store for 20 of those years, all while raising five children.
Smoot has worked the set-up for 45 summer and winter graduations. He plans to retire April 1 and says that it is no ‘April Fool's joke.' The next time he is involved in a graduation, he says, it will be as a spectator in his grandson's graduation next year.
Wayne Karlin, professor in the Languages and Literature Division, has been at CSM for 25 years. "When he interviewed for a job in 1984 he assumed he would be teaching at the La Plata Campus, but he was hired as the first full-time professor of English at the Great Mills facility," said Vice President and Dean of the Leonardtown Campus Dr. F.J. Talley. Karlin was unsure where St. Mary's County was, and when he found his way to Great Mills he found the location consisted of a one-story, white clapboard building.
The trepidation of moving from bustling Montgomery County to small town Southern Maryland was replaced with "a sense of connection and belonging deeper than we had ever experienced before," Karlin said. "I came to an institute of higher education that I saw—for over a generation—not only grow into its present campus, but more importantly provide enlightenment, skill and knowledge for our students. At CSM, I feel that students are given the same gateway opportunity that I had been given by a community college as a young veteran with little money and less confidence—the first generation of my family to go to college."
"Walking through the one hall of that clapboard building, I would see students repeating the first steps of that journey, meeting and overcoming immense challenges and obstacles in their lives in order to get an education: it is the one aspect of the college that has never changed over the years," Karlin said.
Karlin has watched as the campus has grown to three buildings with the fourth, the Wellness and Aquatics Center scheduled to open later this year in Leonardtown.
"Wayne is probably our most published author," Talley said of Karlin's 10 books. Karlin and Languages and Literature Professor Neal Dwyer started the Connections Literary Series in 1986, one of CSM's largest community outreach programs, according to Talley.
CSM employees honored for years of service
Five years
Jennifer Everhart, James Finger, Nancy Gibson, Shytise Hancock, Susan Drury Herbert, James C. Hill, Jennifer Humphreys, Jacqueline Johnson, Lisa Lynk Smith, Janice McCue, Tara McManaway, Andrea Muntz, Timothy Murphy, Tatiana Rodriguez, William Rollins, Barbara Scotland, Nicholas Valltos, George Wall, Amy Wilkinson, Susan Wilson, Robyn Wood and Patricia Zych.
10 years
Alfreda Banks, Anthony Bates, Joe Burgin, Wendy Cleary, Richard Coffin, Glennis Daniels-Bacchus, Joni Ellis, Judith Ferrara, Linda Giles, Thomas Grinder, Vickie Grow, Mary Beth Klinger, Alan Kutz, Linda Cooke Smith, Benita Sneade, Michael Suwak and Neal Wilsey.
15 years
Beverly Ann Johnson-Coger, Roland Keech, Jacqueline Koerbel, Judith Osborn and Robin Young.
20 years
Lelia Allen, Colleen Joffe, Toni Kruszka, Joan Middleton, Andrea Ronaldi and Don Smith.
25 years
Thomas Gorecki, Mary B. Johnson, Wayne S. Karlin, Joseph Seremet, Thomas Seremet and Margaret Thomas.
35 years
Paul Billeter, Charles R. Clark, Edith Patterson and Thomas Smoot.
40 years
Thomas Poe
