Central Virginia Community College
Connie Deacon Receives Outstanding Staff Award
Lynchburg, Va. /Media Release/ Connie Deacon received the CVCC Outstanding Staff Award, presented at the 2009 Fall Convocation. Deacon, a full-time staff member in the Distance Education Center at the College, has primary responsibility for courses delivered through compressed video, also known as interactive television, a two-way video experience that links the four offsite CVCC centers to live classrooms on the main campus.
Deacon is from Amherst, Virginia, and graduated from CVCC in 1977 with a degree in secretarial science. After graduation, she worked at the Central Virginia Criminal Justice Training Center (police academy), located in Madison Heights at that time. She then moved to Louisiana and South Carolina for a few years, returning to Lynchburg in 1986. She worked in the accounts payable department for Intermet Foundries until 1995. In 1998, she was hired as an administrative program specialist at CVCC. She has been in her current position in the Distance Education Center since 2000.
Deacons responsibilities include working closely with the four offsite CVCC centers in Altavista, Amherst, Appomattox, and Bedford. She also works very closely with the instructors who teach the video and online courses. Her duties include attending scheduling meetings with the deans and center directors, developing compressed video schedules, working with students, making sure all the interactive video classes are set up and working properly, monitoring the connection on an ongoing basis, and alerting the IT department to technical problems when necessary. She coordinates the delivery of all instructional materials, tests, and assignments to the off-site centers and ensures their secure return to the instructors on the main campus.
Students who have first gotten to know Deacon from a video monitor are happy to recognize her when she is walking on campus, because they know she cares a great deal about them. She enjoys her interaction with them, answers their questions and sends them a video stream of a class, when needed. Deacon, who is also working on her bachelors degree, says she loves the challenge and the success of the distance education system and feels she is achieving something of value and learning something new each day. She sees the distance classes as an increasingly important part of education at the College. CVCC has confirmed that importance with a state-of-the-art Distance Education Center in the new Bedford Learning Resource Center on the main campus.
Deacons other interests at the College include working on the Diversity Committee, being actively involvement in the Classified Staff Association, and enthusiastically promoting CVCCs participation in the Lynchburg Christmas Parade. Off campus, she attends Tyreeanna United Methodist Church and enjoys working with the youth of the church. She has three grown children. One son is enrolled at CVCC, and another son has already graduated from the College with a degree in communication design. Her daughter is a senior in high school. Deacon says her children and her large extended family are very important in her life, and she enjoys celebrating each and every family event.
Release Date: 11:00 PM (EDT) 09/22/09
Release Number: 090922.OutstandingStaff
Media Contact:
Kathy Cudlin
Coordinator, Public Relations and Marketing
Central Virginia Community College
(434) 832-7609
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A Member Institution of the Virginia Community College System.