College of Arts and Sciences Awards

Pam Masi was an invaluable resource in the A&S Dean’s Office during Mark Blackwell’s first year as interim dean. She completes an enormous amount of detail-oriented work independently—especially where budget, contracts, and purchasing are concerned—and only consults others when she has complex and sensitive questions that require input or when she has suggestions about how processes might be improved.

Pam anticipates potential problems and handles hiccups and setbacks well. She interacts appropriately and professionally with colleagues and offices within and beyond A&S, even when the circumstances are difficult.

The quality of Pam’s work is impeccable, and she has demonstrated both integrity and constraint in handling budget and personnel questions. She keeps the big picture in mind; she is very attentive to expenses and has initiated important conversations about, for instance, appropriate uses of various funds, always with an eye to the fiscal health of the College and the University.

Pam also helps to schedule and plan various meetings and high-profile events, such as the Deeds Symposium, the A&S Awards reception and ceremony, and the A&S Advisory Board meetings. The smooth operation of the Dean’s Office and the successful conduct of its day-to-day business is largely Pam’s doing. Her work always exceeds expectations.

Karen Shepardson’s commitment to excellence, dedication to fostering a positive work environment, dependability, and proactive approach to problem-solving make her an exemplary office coordinator.
 
Karen's unwavering devotion to both faculty and students is truly commendable. Her organizational skills have streamlined administrative processes, ensuring that faculty members can focus on their research and teaching while students receive prompt and efficient assistance. Beyond her impeccable organizational abilities, Karen's warm and approachable demeanor fosters a positive and welcoming environment within each department and brightens the campus community. She provides consistent guidance, support, and encouragement to both staff and students, creating a sense of camaraderie that enhances the overall educational experience.

Karen's outstanding work ethic and attention to detail shine through in every aspect of her role. Her meticulous management of departmental budgets, event coordination, and correspondence has been instrumental in maintaining smooth operations. Moreover, her ability to adapt to evolving challenges and technologies showcases her resilience and determination. Karen's dedication to her role as an office administrator is an embodiment of excellence and a true asset to our academic community.

Gwendolyn Williams has long been a valuable member of the Chemistry Department through her service as a laboratory instructor, but she has proven indispensable during the last few years in her role as laboratory supervisor. 

Gwendolyn oversees labs for several introductory and high-level courses, as well as for nursing and other health profession majors. She does an outstanding job preparing lab instructors to manage the experiments each week and ensuring that they have all the equipment and tools that they need to conduct experiments and grade reports.

Gwendolyn also dealt with the challenges of remote labs during Covid, which struck in her first year as a laboratory supervisor. She handled the rigor of preparing labs for several different courses in a semester, all with a friendly smile and warm demeanor.

Beside her excellent performance of the usual duties of lab supervision, Gwendolyn is also an outstanding teacher and mentor whose caring interaction with students sets her apart. She supports the diversity, equity, and inclusion mission of the University by instilling in students a belief that they belong not just at the University, but as a part of her extended family. She is always ready to lend a sympathetic ear when students are having a bad day and need someone to talk to, but at the same time, she can also provide the right push for them to knuckle down and get the job done.  

 

Since joining the Department of Biology in 2019, Laura Enzor has been a rising star as a biology teacher. She has continuously demonstrated teaching excellence, encouraging her students and engaging them in the classroom to ensure that they understand the material.

Laura incorporates an inclusive classroom policy and a class expectations section in her course syllabi. She not only highlights her recognition that every student is a complex individual, but also encourages students to be comfortable with messiness and challenges. Moreover, her commitment to good teaching extends beyond her own classroom. She has collaborated with two department colleagues on two separate grants to design and implement DEIJ practices in Introductory Biology in order to improve student success and to introduce diverse content. Laura also redesigned the labs for the same introductory course, which is a crucial gateway experience for a range of majors. Indeed, Laura also serves as the course coordinator for the Introductory Biology course; she organizes monthly meetings for faculty lecturers, runs weekly laboratory prep meetings for lab instructors, and meets weekly with Peer Support Workshop facilitators to provide equitable and responsive support to all students.

In addition to her extraordinary teaching performance, Laura has demonstrated outstanding performance in scholarship and service, having published three research articles and having been awarded eight grants, including the prestigious Connecticut Sea Grant and the Greenberg Junior Faculty Grant. She has even been awarded the United States Environmental Protection Agency Scientific and Technological Achievement Award!

Jack Powell has a long history of dedication to the Department of Psychology, having chaired or co-chaired the department for 18 out of his 35 years at UHart. His extraordinary mentorship of the faculty and staff in his department, best exemplified by his heroic service during 2023-24, was the basis of his nomination by departmental colleagues.

 Last year, when John Mehm retired in December after years of directing the Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology (GIPP), Jack stepped in as the interim co-director. In this essential role, Jack oversaw the largest number of faculty and staff searches in recent department history. Even after formally stepping down as department chair to begin his sabbatical on July 1, he continued to participate actively in the searches, which ended with the successful hiring of two staff members, three faculty, a GIPP director, and two GIPP associate directors.

In addition to the staff and faculty searches, Jack managed to write countless letters in support of faculty and teaching staff after spending time observing them in the classroom. Indeed, he wrote more end-of-the year evaluations than any other chair in the College.  

Jack has encouraged and supported many faculty grant applications and projects in the area of diversity, equity, inclusion. The Psychology Department ran an informal book club where they read and discussed work related to racism and anti-racist pedagogy, and Jack participated in these discussions with a keen ear to listen and learn. In fact, Jack dedicated some of his fall sabbatical to updating his course content regarding DEIJB issues so that he would be ready to return to the classroom this spring.

Perhaps the most important service Jack has offered the Psychology Department is his wonderful way of listening and thinking through challenges with his colleagues. In the wake of the COVID pandemic, Jack constantly and graciously fielded questions and concerns about University policies regarding teaching, masking, vaccinations, accommodations, and scholarship/service expectations.

Jack Powell’s door is always open, and his warm, welcoming "Hello!" continues to help guide a complex department through its storms.

Since her arrival at UHart in 2016, Julie Sochacki has grown into one of the most respected faculty on the UHart campus. Though she deserves recognition for her teaching, Julie is being recognized for the many acts of service over the last three years that have made a significant impact on the University and its students.

Julie brings a unique set of professional dispositions to her work as a professor, a mentor, and a university administrator. She is supportive, understanding, relentlessly positive, and resilient, and her modeling of these qualities helps students and colleagues see how attitude and affect can impact our work.

Because Julie behaves in ways that create positive energy, optimism, and a can-do spirit, she helps to engender those behaviors in others. Even when people come to Julie with complaints and frustrations, she will encourage them to reconsider those negative thoughts and transform them into positive actions or achievable goals.  

Julie’s work as head of the English/Secondary Education (ESE) program has been one of her most important service roles. The amount of time, energy, and creativity Julie has devoted to the program is astounding and her efforts have paid dividends. Since she arrived, all ESE graduates have graduated with strong GPAs and jobs in hand.

When the pandemic turned our world upside-down in 2020, Julie transitioned to a series of new roles at the University. In the immediate aftermath of the move to online classes, Julie revamped her own classes and helped her students manage their student teaching and other in-class responsibilities.  

In 2022-23, Julie served as interim director of the Center of Teaching Excellence and Innovation for one semester and then oversaw various faculty development and pedagogy initiatives, including the Teaching and Learning Collaborative. In 2023-24, Julie transitioned to another role, this time as associate dean in A&S, and has distinguished herself in at least two ways in this new role. First, she has identified a lack in our mentoring and guidance of faculty advisors and developed resources that served that vital purpose. Second, she has helped to improve communications with faculty and students so as to make the office more efficient and responsive.  Julie’s service has helped to make the institution a better place for faculty and students.

 Emma Asante earned her MA in Communication from UHart after completing a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting and marketing from Evangel University in Missouri.

Emma’s community relations career and her dedication to community service have taken her to New England, the Midwest, and in 2022, to Washington, DC, where she currently serves as vice president of community relations for NBC 4 / WRC and Telemundo 44 / WZDC.

Emma was a creative producer for local stations in Boston, Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, and Springfield, Missouri, before joining NBCUniversal in 2004 as a creative producer. She soon transitioned to the role of director of community projects at NBC Connecticut, where she oversaw the launch of the station’s Partners in a Caring Community initiative, which focuses on connecting with viewers through the causes important to their everyday lives. Emma served in that role for nearly 10 years before her arrival in Chicago in 2014.

In Chicago, Emma served for eight years as the vice president of special projects and community relations for NBC 5 Chicago / WMAQ, Telemundo Chicago / WSNS, and NBC Sports Chicago. He arrival there coincided with the launch of the stations’ Making a Difference initiative, focused on offering viewers inspiring stories that highlight people and organizations that are making a difference in the community. 

During her time in Chicago, Emma also oversaw two robust community action boards with several hundred local leaders to provide insight and direction to station leadership. The collaboration propelled Making a Difference to one of the stations’ signature brands. She also oversaw logistics and execution for large- scale on-air events such as the broadcast of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon and Chicago’s New Year’s Eve celebration. Emma also organized community participation in televised political forums and debates, parade activations, and other projects.

Her community leadership involvement includes Salvation Army Metro Chicago Advisory Board Chair, diversity committee member for the American Red Cross, Urban League of Greater Hartford Board of Directors, Development Committee for HARC - serving people with disabilities, Corporate Communications Committee for Juvenile Diabetes Research Founds, and Board of Governance for Hartford’s Journalism and Media Academy.

 

A native of Massachusetts, Chaz Davis lost his vision in 2014 because of a genetic condition known as Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy. Shortly after graduating from UHart magna cum laude with an undergraduate degree in criminal justice, Chaz completed the Independence Training Program at the Colorado Center for the Blind. After working there with a social worker and rehabilitation counselor, Chaz found his purpose in life. Motivated by this pivotal encounter, Chaz studied and obtained his master’s in social work from the University of Denver in 2019, subsequently working for three and a half years as an adjustment to vision loss mental health counselor for older blind adults in Massachusetts.

In the spring of 2022, Chaz returned to the Colorado Center for the Blind, where he now serves as director of youth services. Chaz enjoys witnessing blind youth find their own confidence and success as they experience new and challenging activities. Chaz ensures that the same philosophy about blindness that he credits for his own positive philosophy is infused into every activity for youth he develops and oversees. Chaz embraces an idea from one of his friends, Randy Pierce: “Going blind can be hard, but being blind doesn’t have to be.”   

Chaz is a U.S. Paralympian and American record holder in the sport of track and field, having competed in the 2016 Paralympic Games in Brazil. Chaz views running as a powerful social and emotional outlet and is passionate about improving accessibility in the world of endurance sport. 

2023 Honorees

• Nicole Mazzarella, Director of Collegiate Admission
• Jean M. Roberts, Chemistry Lab Supervisor
• Emily Scott, Manager of Student Services & Evaluation

2022 Honorees

• Sean Congdon, Laboratory Supervisor, Department of Biology
• Zachary Haines, Media Laboratory Supervisor, School of Communication
• Karen Schermerhorn, Academic Support Specialist, School of Communication

2021 Honorees

• Mary Dowst, Office Coordinator, Departments of Biology and Chemistry
• Nancy Dudek, Office Coordinator, Department of English and Modern Languages
• Donna Galin, Office Coordinator, Departments of Computing Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics (Currently Office Coordinator in the Department of English and Modern Languages)
• Susan Gottlieb, Office Coordinator, School of Communication and Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies
• Sharmon Kennedy, Office Coordinator, Department of Psychology
• Cindy Oppenheimer, Office Coordinator, Departments of History and Philosophy; Politics, Economics, and International Studies; and Sociology and Criminal Justice

2020 Honorees

• Shelley Fischer, Office Coordinator, Department of Mathematics (Currently Office Coordinator, Department of Education, College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions)

• Pamela Masi, Office Coordinator, Department of History (Currently Executive Assistant, Dean's Office)

2023 Honorees

• Sheikh Rabiul Islam, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Computing Sciences
• Margaret Tarampi, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

 2022 Honorees

• Susan Grantham, PhD, Professor of Communication
• Aime Levesque, PhD, Associate Professor and Biology Dept. Chair
• Hashini Mohottala, PhD, Associate Professor of Physics

2021 Honorees

• Robert Decker, PhD, Professor of Mathematics
• Kelly Weber, PhD, Associate Director, Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology, Clinical Teaching Associate Professor of Psychology

2020 Honorees

• Bin Zhu, PhD, Associate Professor, Biology; Director, Environmental Studies Minor
• Lynne Kelly, PhD, Professor, School of Communication
• Nicholas Ealy, PhD, Professor, Department of English and Modern Languages 

2023 Honorees

• Lisa Schwartz Lobel ’89, Co-Owner, Boston Casting
• Aïda Alassane N'Diaye-Riddick '92, Founder, Empower Us 

2022 Honorees

• Thomas Carroll ‘79, Founder and CEO, Brand Equity Ventures
• Tangie McDougald ’11, CEO and Founder, Community Matters, LLC
• Pedro Segarra ’81, Workers’ Compensation Commissioner

2021 Honorees

• Robert Ellis ’72, Vice President, Director of Marketing, The Wyatt Company (Retired)
• Latoya Nichole Hampton ’03, Mitigation Specialist, Federal Community Defender Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania

2020 Honorees

• Marcy Campbell ‘82, Vice President, Global Professional Services, Digital & In-store Commerce, SME Sales PayPal, Inc.
• James C. Rovella ’80, M’82, Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection