Submitted by South Puget Sound Community College
One South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC) faculty member has earned the 2016 Teacher Excellence Award from The Evergreen State College (TESC). Math professor Neesha Patel was honored for making significant impact on the lives of her students.
Each year, the Provost at TESC invites incoming students to nominate a teacher that has made the biggest difference in their education. This year, SPSCC’s Patel was identified as a winner based on a nomination written for her by SPSCC graduate John Morris. Patel was recognized by SPSCC president Tim Stokes and the Board of Trustees at their last board meeting on January 10.
Submission by Morris:
“I went back to college when I was 32 and my placement tests put me into pre-college Algebra, which I thought I would hate. I never enjoyed math in high school and the first time I went to college I made every effort to avoid taking it. Neesha Patel was my professor for my first pre-college Algebra course and she turned me around on the subject. Rather than feeling like I was suffering through something necessary to get my degree, by the end of the class I decided to shift my focus from history/English into STEM and actually chose the degree track I did because it required the most math. There are not many people I can point to who made an entirely new field of knowledge accessible and enjoyable to me. She’s one of them. I will always have this love of mathematics and that’s due to her command and love of the subject and her commitment to helping all her students succeed.”
Patel has been teaching at SPSCC since 2010 and currently teaches the Essentials of Intermediate Algebra and Pre-calculus I courses.
