JAMESTOWN, N.Y. – Barbi Price from Jamestown High School has been named the 2022 College Connections Teacher of the Year by SUNY Jamestown Community College. Price, who retired in June, taught public speaking to her students through the College Connections high school program.
Each year College Connections recognizes a teacher who best exemplifies the core program standards. Price was chosen from among more than 200 teachers from 38 partner high schools and BOCES centers who taught during the 2021-2022 academic year.
College Connections Teacher
of the Year.
“Student evaluations from Barbi’s courses are consistently excellent,” said Jade Barber, director of high school partnerships at JCC. “She brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the classroom, igniting a fire in her students. It’s evident that she has cultivated a caring and respectful environment that the students recognize and value.”
JCC has offered concurrent enrollment courses to qualified high school juniors and seniors through the College Connections program since 1998. The courses, taught in partner high schools by JCC-approved teachers, allow students to earn both high school and college credit.
Price was nominated for the award by Simone Sellstrom, director of media, visual, and performing arts and coordinator of communication for JCC, and College Connections faculty liaison for communication.
“Barbi is an outstanding instructor," Sellstrom said. "She continues to maintain the rigor and quality expected of a college classroom across all courses she teaches. She is innovative, caring, and engages students. Her students will enthusiastically tell you what a difference she has made in their lives. We are fortunate to have an educator like Barbi in our community.”
Price’s career in education spans 48 years. She taught at Jamestown Public Schools beginning in 1979. Price also served as a humanities adjunct instructor at JCC.
"I loved teaching because I kept learning and I adored my students," Price said. “College Connections seems to be the perfect vehicle for introducing motivated high school students to college course content. Students get college credit for the courses that they complete in high school, and, hopefully, that helps them out in a multitude of ways: either by getting them into a college, by showing that they are capable of handling a college workload, by lightening their college schedule, or by allowing them to skip some general education requirements. It’s a win-win situation for many high-achieving high school students.”
According to Dana Williams, principal at Jamestown High School, students were always excited to take public speaking with Price.
“I truly believe it allowed them to develop poise and confidence that assisted them greatly as they moved through their educational and employment careers," Williams said. "She also would actively work with any student who was preparing for a big speaking engagement, including our valedictorians and salutatorians each year, prior to commencement. Barbi has always been a teacher who students count as one of their absolute favorites, and her influence continues with them long after high school.”
During the 2021-2022 academic year College Connections offered 68 different credit courses in 38 area high schools, serving more than 2,300 students across the region.