Chancellor's Award Winners are Named

This year, Rockland Community College was privileged to have four students, Laura Duran, Student Activities Board Chair, Mario Frascone III, the Director of RCC-TV, Kimberlyn Frost, and Vanessah Raymond, the Secretary of the Student Government Association, win the prestigious SUNY Chancellor's Award for Student Excellence, the highest award given by SUNY.

"I love it. I always do a lot of work and generally I just get a pat on the back and have to keep going," Frascone stated when asked about the award. "This is everything I have worked for in the last two years so it is really exciting to be recognized for it," he added.

According to the SUNY website, the award, which was established 12 years ago, is given to graduating students who integrate "academic excellence with accomplishments in the areas of leadership, athletics, community service, creative and performing arts or career achievement," and have also "demonstrated significant contributions to the greater campus community," according to the SUNY website.

The award is highly selective; in 2009, only 238 students were chosen out of upwards of 400,000 SUNY students to receive this distinction.

Winners are selected through a rigorous three – part process. First, they must be nominated by faculty members.  When selected, the nominees must submit a detailed application detailing their extracurriculars and leadership abilities.

According to Duran, the process was equally as rewarding.  "It [the award] required me to reflect on my time here, reminding me how hard I have worked," Duran stated.

The students must show excellence in community service, arts, leadership, athletics, career achievement, and academics (although they can leave the arts and athletics categories blank.) They must include faculty recommendations, as well as pieces of writing and what they are passionate about in the application.

"These last two years have been the most challenging and, simultaneously, the most rewarding two years of my life," Duran went further went to say. "It is easy to take on so much and forget what it is that you are doing or how you are making a difference so I am glad that this process sort of slowed me down and made me reflect, which I believe is the best reward, whether I won or not," she added.

For Frascone,  The Multi-Media Productions Center and the MT/S Honors Program were two programs that were special to him, and while he gave much to RCC, he feels RCC gave back to him as well.

"I couldn't pass up going to school for a fraction of the value and be able to work in my field years before the average student, and get an Honors AA degree that will look amazing to transfer," declared Frascone.

The nominee's application then goes to a campus selection committee. If it passes through that committee, it heads to the campus president, who then forwards it to the Office of University Life in Albany for another round of review. If it emerges triumphant from there, it is then recommended to the Chancellor.

Vanessah Raymond also found the process, "more tedious than I expected, because you don't really know what information you need to put in the portfolio, and what information would be superfluous."

The awards ceremony, where the winners will receive a framed certificate and a medallion to be worn at commencement, will be take place on Tues., April 5 at 3:00 pm. in the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany.