Office of Human Resources

Elisa Cohen, assistant director, testing, was nominated by Lori Bridel, Amy Carr, Gail Crum, Amy Gainor, Randa Moulden, and Chris Potts. Elisa created a one-college view for students desiring testing services. From five disparate campus-based testing teams, each with its processes and environments, she molded a unified approach to all the college’s testing activities. Previously, communications with students happened through email, text, and occasionally through individual cell phone contacts. Elisa educated proctors on the use of Google Docs and Sheets enabling all campuses to work from and track students’ needs from common documents. This practice resulted in less confusion for faculty, students, and testing teams while ensuring any student in need of testing knew how to approach HACC and what to expect. She was a proponent for creativity and new types of assessment that broke away from traditional testing or standardized testing. Elisa’s advocacy in this area enabled HACC to move away from placement testing and toward things like multiple measures and directed self-placement, simplifying the admissions process. Elisa’s team was integral in the rollout of both Examity and Proctorio at HACC, allowing students to continue taking class exams remotely, along with options for professors going forward. Her work with representatives from both companies ensured faculty could create assessments and allowed students to prove their knowledge. She was a fierce advocate for students with accommodations and worked collaboratively with the Student Access Services office. Her close communication with SAS ensured testing was available to accommodate and serve this increasing population of students. Elisa’s commitment to serving our high schools was evident from the way she built partnerships and quickly developed remote placement testing processes directed toward our Dual Enrollment and College in High School students. This action paved the way to allow continued enrollment for a large percentage of our student population. Our collegewide testing web presence was created through a collaboration with Elisa and each aspect of student services. This partnership ensured the availability of accurate and complete information and allowed students to smoothly navigate through HACC’s enrollment process. Elisa’s efforts to standardize testing practices, to create more options through varied testing platforms, and to streamline enrollment procedures through multiple measures and self-placement all contributed to simplifying student experiences and providing a more positive educational journey.

Asha Sahu, associate professor of Biology was nominated by James Schadewald. Asha led a team of honor society students in completing an award-winning research project. The project consisted of exploring the topic of community gardens, gathering data, analyzing, reporting the results, and implementing an action plan to distribute supplies for 25 container gardens. These container gardens were made possible through a grant opportunity to which she oversaw and encouraged students to apply. However, this was only part of why she was an amazing part of this project. Asha spent many hours assisting and directing two students on the Autism spectrum through the entirety of this project. She was far more patient than many could be and was an amazing support for these students. One comment shared by Atypical students was he never thought he would be able to do this type of work and speak in front of others. The other shared privately he normally does not like people but was able to find enjoyment in this research group. ensured success by establishing an inviting and inclusive environment for everyone. She encouraged but also allowed all the students to stumble and learn from their mistakes. She pushed them to go beyond their comfort zones and in this instance gave the needed confidence and connection that two atypical students needed. I was amazed at the transformation I saw in these students from the first to the last meeting. Her dedication to the success of all students is inspiring.

Vicki Van Hise, executive director of student access, was nominated by Marsha Leonard. Vicki Van Hise has tirelessly worked to improve services to all students, not just those registered with our office. Vicki ensured sufficient learning opportunities were available and accessible to all students. For example, supporting the need for faculty to record their lectures was indeed a benefit to all students. Additionally, she enhanced resources to support students’ progress through academics, workforce development, and student services. In an effort to get to know each department in the new college model, Vicki invited staff from each one to visit SAS during our weekly department meetings. This not only helped SAS staff to better understand the work t each department did, but it also helped all of them learn more about what SAS provides for our students. There is no doubt these meetings increased everyone's comfort level and opened the door for future collaboration to take place. Vicki's work led to improvements in key indicators of student success, including retention, graduation, transfer, and placement rates. Every week Vicki advocated for our students and helped them to reach their academic goals. She actively listened to their needs, researched the whole story when needed, and had discussions with faculty, department chairs, deans, and anyone else who needed to be educated on disability laws. Sometimes Vicki taught faculty how to enhance curricula to ensure design leads all students to acquire and demonstrate essential competencies. In addition to being very protective of her students and their rights to have accommodations, she was also very caring about all those she collaborated with, including her SAS team members. Vicki is a wonderful mentor with great leadership skills who deeply cares about her students and staff, other administrative/professional employees, faculty, classified staff, and all who share her passion for people who have disabilities.

Emanda Reiner, coordinator of the nurse aide program was nominated by Susan Biggs. The HACC Nurse Aide program coordinator, Emanda Reiner, continually demonstrated extraordinary commitment to students and the program. This was emphasized during the COVID pandemic by her ensuring nurse aide classes resumed once approval from Governor Wolf was received via an exemption to the first PA COVID-19 emergency declaration (March 6, 2020). The pandemic added additional requirements to the existing student screening procedures required of HACC's PA Department of Education-approved nurse aide program which included working with each clinical site to ensure our students followed facility COVID testing requirements, which varied from site to site and often changed as the number of reported positive COVID cases per county fluctuated. On several occasions throughout the pandemic, students were tested up to six times during a three-week class, and Emanda was responsible for keeping students informed and compliant. Emanda ensured all nurse aide classes held in the College’s partnering nursing homes followed Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and PA Department of Health (DoH) COVID protocols to reduce the risk of COVID exposure by students, instructors, and nursing home residents. These protocols included the wearing of PPE (face masks, face shields, and isolation gowns), proper and regular hand washing, social distancing, and ultimately working individually with any student who reported exposure to COVID or developed COVID symptoms. When quarantining was required of students, Emanda ensured students were re-registered in another HACC nurse aide class since the number of days to quarantine exceeded the number of permitted absences. On several occasions, Emanda rescheduled one class several times because the number of positive COVID cases in a nursing home required the facility to be close to outside visitors yet she persevered until the class was completed. Not only were students reporting their exposure to COVID outside of the classroom, but a few of the nurse aide instructors were also exposed to or tested positive for COVID and the class had to be postponed. Throughout this year-long exercise of scheduling and rescheduling, postponing, or canceling affected classes Emanda made herself available at all hours, including weekends, to provide direction and support to students. In closing, Emanda was faced with a year of numerous unique challenges, and despite implementing additional and time-consuming solutions, she took every opportunity to ensure students who wanted to become nurse aides had the chance to do so. Students are her priority.