English Professor, a CCC Alumna, Wins College's Top Teaching Award

A professor known for her zest for life and learning – both inside and outside the classroom – has won the top instructional award available to Camden County College faculty. Eileen Radetich of Haddonfield received the 2014 Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award.

According to academic affairs Vice President Margaret Hamilton, instructors are nominated based largely on their concern and sensitivity to the needs of their students and on their ability to demonstrate positive learning outcomes. Recipients of this award display a human quality in the classroom and exert a lasting influence on their students.

“Since joining the College’s full-time faculty, Professor Radetich has been awarded numerous grants from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities to conduct research and present seminars on topics such as Jane Austen, Irish literature, Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe. She is a prolific speaker and rarely turns down an offer to share her knowledge with an interested audience,” Hamilton said. “But it is in the classroom where she truly shines. Her colleagues say that she brings an overwhelming enthusiasm to the classroom and that her willingness to listen and work with people is one of her most enduring qualities. In addition, her students overwhelmingly describe her teaching as inspirational and charismatic.”

Radetich, like many of the students she now teaches, raised her family before pursuing higher education. She completed an associate degree at Camden County College and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English. She later received a master’s degree in English literature from Rutgers University – Camden.

After beginning her teaching career at CCC as a part-time instructor, she was hired full-time in the English Department in 2003. She currently is a doctoral candidate at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

A faculty committee selected Radetich for the award, which is funded by the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation. Prior winners include Martine Howard and William Lavell (2013); Pablo Echeverria (2012); Lawrence Chatman and William Taylor (2011); Jennifer Hoheisel (2010); Elisabeth Bass (2009); Dianne Falvo and Carla Monticelli (2008); Faustino Gonzalez (2007); William Wilhelm (2006); Robert Lorenzi (2005); Dorothy Brown and Hoda Zaki (2004); Catherine Boos (2003); Kelly Jackson (2002); Claire Berger (2001); Adrienne Coons (2000); Paul Harris (1999); and Ellen Freedman (1998).