WESTCHESTER COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATOR DR. NEGAR FARAKISH RECEIVES NATIONAL AWARD

Dr. Negar Farakish, Assistant Dean of Developmental Education at Westchester Community College, received the National Association for Developmental Education (NADE) Outstanding Thesis/Dissertation Award. Her doctorial dissertation, Educating the Academically Underprepared, was prepared at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Dr. Farakish holds a doctorate degree in Higher and Post-secondary Education, an Education Specialist Degree in English, a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and a Bachelor of Arts in English Translation. In 2008, under the direction and guidance of her advisor, Dr. Anna Neumann, at Teachers College, Columbia University, Negar completed her doctoral dissertation.

A developmental education practitioner, she has considerable experience in the field. Her familiarity with the challenges faced by instructors in meeting the academic and non-academic needs of their students motivated her to research the practices of developmental reading/writing instructors. In her dissertation study, she focused on a group of instructors who were credited with success in teaching reading/writing at their institutions. She captured their pedagogical and professional development practices, providing a window into the views, experiences, and promising practices of these successful instructors.