(ALBANY, N.Y. – June 21, 2016) Sarah Rose, an office assistant 2, student services, is a recipient of the 2016 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Classified Service. Rose, who works at SUNY Empire State College’s Latham/Albany location, has been with the college for eight years. The award was given at the Northeast region graduation ceremony on June 11.

She was recognized for her outstanding work ethic and her ability to adapt to a changing work environment. She has been applauded for stepping in to help her colleagues when they were out on reassignment or medical leave, and has willingly filled in for positions that were temporarily vacated, in addition to managing her own duties.

Her colleagues noted that she handles students with professionalism during stressful times, fielding calls and emails as part of the student dismissal, reinstatement, grievance or appeals process. In keeping with her student-centered ethos, she ensures that the monthly new student orientations are well staffed and running smoothly.

“SUNY employs an exemplary body of faculty and staff across the state and the annual presentation of these awards underscores our deep appreciation for those who serve SUNY campuses, students and communities with the highest levels of distinction,” said Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “Congratulations to all of this year’s honorees.”

Recognizing the SUNY Chancellor’s Award winners during the ceremony, President Merodie A. Hancock said, “By Chancellor’s Awards winners, that means they won awards competing with all of their SUNY colleagues, not just within Empire State College. I commend Sarah Rose for her service to the college and to its students.”

“I felt very honored and proud when they told me that I was given the Chancellors Award,” Rose said. “It helps when you have awesome, supportive and encouraging colleagues.”

About the Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence

The Awards are presented annually in seven categories: Faculty Service, Librarianship, Professional Service, Scholarship and Creative Activities, Teaching, Classified Service and Adjunct Teaching. The Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence are system-level honors conferred to acknowledge and provide systemwide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and to encourage the ongoing pursuit of excellence. Individuals selected for this honor are role models within the SUNY community. In acknowledgment of their selection, recipients are given recognition for the particular award received in the college catalog. A certificate and a Chancellor's Award for Excellence Medallion also are bestowed to commemorate selection.

About Empire State College

Empire State College, the nontraditional, open college of the SUNY system, educates more than 20,000 students worldwide at eight international sites, more than 35 locations across the state of New York, online, as well as face to face and through a blend of both, at the associate, bachelor’s and master’s levels.

The average age of an undergraduate student at the college is 35, and graduate students’ average age is 40.

Most Empire State College students are working adults. Many are raising families and meeting civic commitments in the communities where they live, while studying part time.

In addition to awarding credit for prior college-level learning, the college pairs each undergraduate student with a faculty mentor who supports that student throughout his or her college career.

Working with their mentors, students design an individual degree program and engage in guided independent study and course work onsite, online or through a combination of both, which provides the flexibility for students to choose where, when and how to learn.

Students have the opportunity to enroll five times during the year.

The college’s more than 75,000 alumni are active in their communities as entrepreneurs, politicians, business professionals, artists, nonprofit agency employees, teachers, veterans and active military, union members and more.

The college was first established in 1971 by the SUNY Board of Trustees with the encouragement of the late Ernest L. Boyer, chancellor of the SUNY system from 1970 to 1977.

Boyer also served as United States commissioner of education during the administration of President Jimmy Carter and then as president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

More information about the college is available at www.esc.edu.

 

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Media contact: David Henahan, director of communications

518-587-2100, ext. 2918

David.Henahan@esc.edu

518-321-7038 (after hours and on weekends)