Professor of History, Dr. Matt Smalarz named the 2017 Educator of the Year!

At the 14th Annual Founders Day celebration, the Student Body of Manor College awarded Dr. Matthew Smalarz with the Educator of the Year Award. This award is a student nominated award where the students hand in nominations about their beloved professors and upon careful review from the Student Senate, an Educator of the Year is picked.

This year, Professor of History, Dr. Smalarz was awarded this honor.

One student said “is extremely helpful and cares about our education.”   A professor who “is a tough professor but his lessons are very detailed.” Another student commented saying, “He makes sure everyone in the class knows what they are supposed to be learning and goes at the pace of class. He always responds when you need him and he is good with explaining lessons.”

His love of teaching and patience is evidenced by this award, “(He is) very professional! Each class he is excited and prepared. Most people in the class, on our first test, were very worried that we were not prepared but after the test we all passed! He puts the material in our heads and we all talk about how he really makes sure we know our material.”

This past September marked 4 years of teaching at Manor for this professor and he is highly respected by his colleagues, who describe him as someone who goes “above and beyond his job” and who is a “great guy”.  This professor is also the Chaplain for the Manor College Men’s Soccer team and he volunteered his personal time to attend every practice and game to show students the that there is more to athletics than athletics…he showed them the spiritual side. It is rumored that he has an impressive collection of vintage major league baseball hats (along with minor league teams) and that if he had the chance, he would front a rock band!