Three named Joel Mack Award winners at NJC

Once again, winners of the annual Joel E. Mack Award  at Northeastern Junior College were announced during spring commencement exercises held May 11th in Jackson and Edwards Arena on campus. Recipients of this prestigious award in 2012 were NJC faculty members Judy Szabo, David Coles and Amanda Kerker.

The Joel E. Mack Award is considered the most prestigious teaching award on campus and is presented each year to one or more outstanding faculty members chosen by the students.  It honors the memory of Joel Evan Mack, a student at Northeastern Junior College in 1982. Mack, who was originally from Lyons, Colorado, was returning back to Sterling after a weekend away from campus. He stopped on I-76 to help two young men who appeared to be having car trouble. They murdered him in what can only be described as a senseless act of violence. Because Joel had often spoke highly of his instructors at NJC, his family began this annual award to recognize these outstanding teachers on campus. The Associated Student Government continues to sponsor this award each year.  Because the recipients are selected through a student voting process, faculty members consider it a huge honor to be selected. They are only eligible to win the award once every three years.

Winning the award in 2012 from the liberal arts department is Judy Szabo, a long-time professor , having worked fulltime for 23 years at NJC and when combined with her part-time years, has taught on the campus for a total of 35 years. She is best known for her instruction in English Composition I and Speech.  She is loved by her students for her kind, consistent and steady approach to education. This is her second time receiving the Joel E. Mack award and she has consistently received excellent evaluations from her students throughout her entire tenure at NJC. 

The second recipient of the Joel E. Mack award is professor David Coles from the math and science department. He has been working at the college for 16 years and has taught a wide variety of classes including environmental science, chemistry, geology and astronomy.  In the classroom he works really hard to keep the students active and learning with a variety of demonstrations and labs.  He is also very busy with students outside the classroom with his sponsorship of the Math, Science and Outdoor Club on campus which runs the annual star parties. In addition to the weekly club meetings, Coles organizes student  trips to Chimney Canyons, the local museum, and leads hiking, caving and backpacking  adventures to the Colorado mountains and Utah canyon lands. 

The third recipient of this award in 2012 from the business department is business professor Amanda Kerker.  Kerker just completed her fifth year  of teaching at NJC.  She teaches Human Relations, Marketing, Management, Intro to Business, Business Communications, Organizational Behavior and Computer Applications as well as advertising based curriculum. For several years she has been the advisor of the nationally recognized NJC Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) Team. Students say she is upbeat and always excited to teach . She makes the material real by sharing stories of how the information being  taught  in class is used in the real world.  Kerker, who is a alumnae of NJC, was named a Rising Star on campus several  years ago when she was a brand-new instructor in the business department.

These three honored teachers are but a sampling of the excellence NJC has to offer students who choose to attend and invest in their future by being on campus and in the classrooms at NJC.