‘What a community feels like’ — Medgar Evers College celebrates dozens of employees for service
By David Gil de Rubio | dgilderubio@mec.cuny.edu
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” For those Medgar Evers College employees who were recently honored at the Medgar Evers College Office of Human Resources’ Service Awards, it’s a sentiment that was readily answered given the breadth of time they were being recognized for.
Starting with Norma Goodman, the Interim Associate Registrar for Enrollment Management, who just hit the half-century mark working at Medgar Evers College, employees were honored for hitting the upper end of 45, 40 and 35 years of serving at the college.
Also honored were those marking five, 10, 15, 20 and 25th work anniversaries. The Service Awards is something Medgar Evers College Human Resources Executive Director William White feels is necessary to do as an annual means of recognizing those employees who have tirelessly served the school.
“This is an event for me to really give back to our employees for all the service they’ve given to us,” he said. “It’s our version of saying thank you and honoring them for what they do.”
Check out this year’s honorees (the story continues below!):
50 YEARS
- Norma Goodman
45 YEARS
- Hillel Grape
- John Sumerlin
40 YEARS
- Marcia White
35 YEARS
- Rupert Brown
- Dwayne Bynum
- Chinyere Emmanuel Egbe
- Dwight Singletary
- Veronica Udeogalanya
30 YEARS
- Ivor Baker
- Chung Kin Lam
- Wayne Russell
25 YEARS
- Mark Phifer
- Karen Pitt
- Evelyn Wise
20 YEARS
- Georgette Brown
- Alicia Collins-Dennis
- Adero-Zaire Green
- Earl Horn
- Jua James
- Chinyere Nwasike
- Andre Williams
15 YEARS
- Julia Alexander Defoe
- Theodore Andrews
- Kisha Ball
- Iris Billy
- Marva Cain
- Grace Carter-St. Hill
- Rebecca Cenatus
- Wouanda Clement
- Beverly Davis
- Richard Denton
- Rickey Guerra
- Tonya Hegamin
- Mabel Korie
- Latoya Leopold Albert
- Regina Manley
- Jeuris Rodriguez
- Rupam Saran
- Carl Scott
- Shakima Scott
10 YEARS
- Jean Auguste
- Tanya Bell-Franklyn
- Lakeish Brown-Chapman
- Richard Calder
- Jacqueline Chang
- Katara Deriggs
- Marsha Escayg
- Latricia Franklin
- Dorla Grant
- Keisha Higgins
- Cecelia Horne
- Charlotte Hunter
- Tameka Kemp
- Chetara Murphy
- Harsha Rajapakse
- Andy Rennie
- Enest Richards
- Oluwaseun Salako
- Nadege Waithe
- Glenda Wallace
- Robert Waterman
5 YEARS
- Donna Actie
- DeAndre Badresingh
- Xavier Barretto Sotomayor
- Andrill Iurov
- Ann Mckenna
- Jose Ortiz
- Joe Padilla
- Mudiwa Pettus
- Shari Richardson
- Joyce Roberson-Steele
- Anton Rouse
- Franzeska Sampson-Bacchus
- Gerald Steede
- Sumeyra Tosun
- Cardinal Waithe
What is it that finds people giving their all to Medgar Evers College? For Dr. Robert Waterman, the Career Services Director who just hit the 10-year-mark, it’s taking his community building skills and finding a way to bridge the gap between primary educators and college students. A former engineer and substitute math teacher, (in addition to being Pastor of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Antioch Baptist Church), Waterman takes pride in his mentorship role at Medgar Evers College.
“I went from the President’s Office to Student Life to Male Development back to Student Life to Career Management — I’ve just been fixing things and moving on,” he said. “Helping those students to navigate and be comfortable at a college level played into my greatest takeaway, which is to make sure of that from [the perspective of] male development. From every year, I would adopt one student and make sure to walk them through the process.
“Basically, all the students I nurture and mentor, I still have community within and still have that conversation on the outside. And I do whatever I can to hook them up to different job opportunities and introduce them to different people.”
Other honorees came up through Medgar Evers College as students and include 15-year veterans like Enrollment Management Administrative Executive Manager Kisha Ball and Office of Academic Affairs Administrative Specialist Shakima Scott. Both Class of 2011 alums cite people ranging from faculty and staff to students as to being a key piece of what makes Medgar Evers College so special.
“It’s a little bit of a nice community,” Scott said. “We have some great students and now working with them and seeing the other half and what it’s like behind the scenes is actually something I like.”
Ball added, “Being a student/alumni/employee, I got to experience what it was like getting a quality education as a student and then working here to also serve the students and give them the same opportunity that I was afforded.”
Alumni Representative Marsha Escayg, who is part of the Class of 2016 and got honored for a decade’s worth of service to Medgar Evers College, agreed that relationships have been a major component of her journey at the school.
“My best friend works here and I’ve met great people,” she said. “My first boss, former COO Jerry Poseman, was my biggest mentor and advocate. Even until today, if I need advice, I can call him. And because I was in student government for two years from 2014 to 2016, that gave me an inside view of how things work as a student and an employee. All this helped me learn how to navigate my way through different spaces and use that to help our students.”
For others, like Jua James, who works in Web Site Support as an IT Associate and was honored for 20 years of service, her Medgar Evers College roots run deep.
“My dad worked at Medgar Evers College as the Director of Financial Aid, so the school has always been a part of my life,” she explained. “I live in the community, so it was natural to come here since I graduated from here. It feels really good to give back to the community.”
And while others may not be Medgar Evers College alums, the school’s reputation is one that drew them to work here. Administrative Events Manager Beverly Davis (15 years) came from the corporate side of the coin and just happened to be brought aboard when she was advocating for mentorship program Today’s Students Tomorrow’s Teachers to form a partnership with Medgar Evers College. That happy accident is something she is forever grateful for.
“I received an email saying that Dr. William Pollard was the new president coming in,” she recalled. “I came in under him and over time, I came to appreciate that Medgar Evers College is this hub and jewel of Brooklyn. We’re educating members of the future generation that come from all over the country.”
That Medgar Evers College reputation is also what pulled in Flatbush native and current Athletic Director Chetara Murphy (10 years), who was coming off a decade working in athletics and aquatics at Long Island University.
“I’m a Brooklynite, so I know Medgar Evers College,” Murphy said with a laugh. “It’s in the blood and veins of Brooklyn and not just Central Brooklyn and Crown Heights. Once I saw Medgar Evers College, I knew I had to apply. I got the call, got chosen and I’ve been here ever since. Coming here, you have your tribe of people and that tribe of people understand how to get the work done to move the needle to improve the institution. I know what that feels like within my tribe here at Medgar Evers College. Understanding and knowing what a community feels like is what brought me to Medgar Evers College and kept me here.”
Honored for a decade of service, Charlotte Hunter has worn many hats during her 10 years at Medgar Evers College. In addition to being the Community Outreach Programs Manager and Special Assistant to the Dean at the School of Professional and Community Development (SPCD), she is the Director of Development and External Relations and Chief of Staff for the Center for Black Literature (CBL) at Medgar Evers College. It’s a move she gladly made after being an Assistant Director of Marketing & Public Relations at NYU. For Hunter, the appeal of Medgar Evers College ranged from who she’d be guiding and her familiarity with late school founding member Al Vann to the importance of the school’s namesake.
“I lived in the community, so I’ve always been here since Bedford Bowl was across the street [from AB-1],” she said. “I get to see people that look like me. People of color — Brown and Black working in a collegial sense in a college atmosphere and environment. We have a school that is founded in the community that is about the community and is about service to the community. And to a community that really needs the service. I can go to work every day trying to change lives and help people. Sometimes it works out and sometimes, not so much. But you live to see another day.”
She added, “Everything is relevant to whoever it is relevant to, but I feel like there is a purpose. There’s a whole ‘social justice in our DNA’ mission. I know people get away with saying ‘Medgar what?’ or ‘Medgar who?’ Medgar Evers College. Do you not know who he is? Let me just tell you. You don’t know and now you know. I really think it’s important that we say his name every day. Now, we’re in an environment where you can’t say certain words, but I can still say the man’s name.”
