OCC honors two professors of the year

Deirdre Newman

ORANGE COAST COLLEGE -- When Karen Mortillaro was in vocational school

with dreams of becoming an artist, she was told that she was mentally

retarded and her expectations to go to art school were too high.

But Mortillaro persevered and eventually got both a bachelor’s and

master’s of fine arts, founded a company with her husband and has been

teaching students at OCC for the past 32 years.

Last month, Mortillaro found out that she was chosen as a Faculty

Member of the Year, along with math professor Valerie Hayward.

Mortillaro received two separate nominations -- one from within the

art department and the other from the counseling department.

“That’s quite an honor to know that two colleagues in two separate

areas submitted my name,” Mortillaro said.

Twelve professors were nominated for the annual award, including Ken

Hearlson, the controversial political science professor who was accused

and cleared of harassing Muslim students last fall.

Hayward and Mortillaro will be honored and will give presentations

publicly on April 16 and will also speak at the college’s graduation

ceremony on May 23.

Mortillaro mainly teaches 3-D color and design classes in the new,

cavernous Art Center building.

“I see myself as a motivator with high expectations,” she said. “There

are no such things as stupid or dumb questions and no such thing as

failure.”

She has a hands-off, intuitive style of teaching -- giving her

students projects and letting them run with them while knowing when to

step in and offer support and suggestions, she said.

For the past 25 years, she has also been collaborating with the

Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa so her students can get

real-life experience designing projects for the center’s clients.

Student Dana Ollestad, 21, says he appreciates the opportunity to

stretch his artistic ability beyond the confines of the classroom.

“We’re doing a project for Fairview that may be outside some people’s

comfort zone,” Ollestad said. “Her class builds character. Instead of a

single subject, it’s more like a life lesson.”

Hayward joined OCC in 1989. She gravitated to the classroom because of

her love of math and experienced teaching at Long Beach State.

In the classroom, Hayward is soft-spoken and easily prone to laughter

as she tries to explain complicated topics like probability. She engages

students in conversation and is empathetic when they don’t understand

certain concepts, her students say.

“She’s like the nicest teacher I’ve ever had,” said Ron Klucsar, 19.

“She’s inspiring. She really cares.”

Hayward is also the founder and director of the Coast Community

College District’s TEACh3 program, which trains students for careers in

teaching.

She created the program after noticing a void for this kind of

experience at the community college level and stepped in to fill it when

no one else volunteered.

“I said I’d like to pursue at least the curriculum for this because I

thought we had so much to offer,” Hayward said.

Hayward said she was also honored to be recognized for her skills as a

Faculty Member of the Year.

“It was kind of exciting, then it was like ‘oh my gosh,”’ Hayward

said. “It’s a great place to work and I’ve had some wonderful mentors.”

The topic of Hayward’s presentation on Tuesday is titled “Math, Who

Needs It?”

* Deirdre Newman covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .