Friday, March 26, 2004.

Celebrating excellence, New York State United Teachers today honored nine NYSUT members in six awards categories selected from different constituencies whose accomplishments in the union have been outstanding and who have made significant contributions to their professions.

"Our members are involved in making our school, college and university and health care systems run smoothly," said New York State United Teachers President Thomas Y. Hobart, Jr. "From teachers to bus drivers, teacher aides to cafeteria workers, school nurses to counselors; we make New York education work for our children."

• Leadership: Jane Conetta
• Leadership: Carol Slotkin
• Health Care Professionals: JoAnn Walsh
• School-Related Professionals: Carol Odierno
• Higher Ed: Lorraine Cohen
• Higher Ed: Rosemary Hennessy
• Retiree: Louis Cammarosano
• Retiree: Abe Levine
• Teacher of the Year: Lynn Gatto

'Not for Ourselves Alone' Outstanding Leadership Award

Jane Conetta

As an elementary teacher with a background in science, Jane Conetta knows a body in motion tends to stay in motion.

As president of the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers, she embodies that principle in her teaching and her union work. Col-leagues say she is an inspiration to those new to the profession.

When Beth Warnken became a first-grade teacher in the fall of 1989, there were 30 kids in the class.

"What got me through that year was the fact that I had a mentor, and that mentor was Jane Conetta," Warnken recalled recently. "What success I've had, I know I owe a lot to her, because she gave me a really good foundation as a teacher, and as a unionist to build on. And she does that for everyone in the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers."

For those efforts and more, the Long Island local nominated Conetta for NYSUT's statewide union's "Not for Ourselves Alone" Outstanding Leadership Award.

In accepting the award, a Susan B. Anthony engraved coin, Conetta praised NYSUT's "culture of encouraging and embracing women leaders," as well as First Vice President Antonia Cortese "for making the path easier for all of us."

Carol Slotkin

Carol Slotkin, president of the Western Sullivan United Teachers and SRPs, has long ties to the labor movement. Just five years after attending her first union meeting, she was elected the first female president of her local, then called the Jeffersonville-Youngsville Faculty Association. Two years later, in 1976, she was elected president of the Sullivan County Teachers' Council, a position she held for more than 20 years.

Some of her most difficult, but most rewarding, struggles as a union head were leading her local on an 18-day strike in 1984 and organizing School-Related Professionals in her district. She also oversaw the merger that created the Western Sullivan UT & SRPs.

Slotkin told RA delegates to take full advantage of the resources available through their statewide union. "It doesn't matter how large or small the local is," she said.

A member of the NYSUT Executive Committee since 2000, Slotkin was instrumental in the formation of the NYSUT Women's History Committee. She has been a member of the Board of Directors since 1980.

To emerging union leaders, she offered the following: "The future of this union is in your hands. What you do with it in the next 35 years is really up to you."

Health Care Professionals Member of the Year

JoAnn Walsh

A visiting nurse and union activist, JoAnn Walsh, Federation of Nurses/ United Fed- eration of Teachers, has taken a lead role in advocating for her profession and her patients.

Once a medical secretary, she went back to night school to become an RN.

She works with senior citizens as a visiting nurse, specializing in wound care. She also champions health issues — including testifying before Congress.

"I'm a quiet person — except when I'm fighting for my patients," she said.

She credits the union with helping her to find her voice.

"I've been able to accomplish things with the union I never thought possible," she said in accepting her award.

Just a few days before, she had been in Washington , D.C. working with the American Federation of Teachers' Healthcare division to lobby for the abolition of mandatory overtime for nurses, safe nurse-patient ratios, and other pressing nursing issues.

She has also testified before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The union, she said, "... saw things in me I didn't see in myself."

SRP Employee of the Year

Carol Odierno

For those who know Carol Odierno, a teacher aide and founding member of the School-Related Professionals chapter of the Sayville Teachers Association, to know her is to love her.

"I honestly have to say that for myself, and for dozens of students, I don't know where we'd be without her," said Kevin Noonan, who has worked with Odierno for eight years at Sayville High School on Long Island .

Her impact in the union reaches far, noted Teresa Konopelko, president of the SRP chapter of the Sayville TA, who nominated Odierno for the award.

"Having somebody like Carol, who encourages and supports everyone around her and who so strongly believes in doing what's right for the children, our union and our statewide union, means so much to all of us," Konopelko said. "No matter what she goes to, especially the NYSUT conferences and training workshops, she comes back and makes sure people get the information they need," Konopelko said.

"This award is a fitting tribute to a woman who has touched the lives of all of us," said Joseph Ladolcetta, a special ed teacher at the middle school.

Higher Ed Member of the Year

Lorraine Cohen

Lorraine Cohen has spent much of her life working to ensure that people on welfare have the chance to improve the quality of their life through education.

"As teachers, we know that low-income children are at much greater risk in every way for not being successful in school," said the social science professor at LaGuardia Community College . "We know that education and training is what gets people off welfare and allows them to transition into living-wage jobs."

To help make a difference, she led the fight to ensure passage of City Council bill Intro 93, which permits people on welfare to attend college or vocational school as part of the City's workfare requirements.

A member of the Professional Staff Congress, Cohen chairs the Women's Committee, co-chairs the Subcommittee on Education, Welfare and Low-income and serves on the delegate assembly and organizing drives.

Giving thanks to NYSUT and union members for the award, Cohen said: "It's a great moment to be recognized for what you're doing. I believe I could only be doing this work in a union that welcomes coalition-building between labor and community organizations."

Rosemary Hennessy

Using this year's RA theme of "One tree, many branches," award winner Rosemary Hennessy pointed to the cutout of the giant tree on stage and said "One root on the tree behind us is surely international solidarity."

A member of United University Professions, the union for SUNY academic and professional faculty, Hennessy believes that "as working people we have the power of the majority." She practices that philosophy in her teaching as assistant professor at SUNY Albany, and in her union work. She has served on the UUP executive board and UUP's Statewide Solidarity Committee. She also represents the union on the International Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, which supports the many Mexican factory workers who work in deplorable conditions to make goods for export.

Hennessy has made her mark by ongoing efforts to reach out to the Mexican workers. "We've become a trusted friend and ally," she told delegates.

She continues to explore roles of class, gender and culture in her writing and widespread conference speaking.

Retiree Member of the Year

Louis Cammarosano

Described as a "born unionist," Louis Cammarosano has been advocating for teachers' rights since he started teaching in 1956.

A retiree from the Harrison Association of Teachers, Cammarosano is still an advocate for retired and inservice members.

"You can't stand on the sidelines and criticize," he said. "You've got to get up off your duff, otherwise you have yourself to blame."

Cammarosano served as president, first vice president, second vice president and treasurer of the now defunct Westchester Teachers Association.

In his work with the statewide union, Cammarosano was a founding member of VOTE-COPE and a coordinator for 20 years. A staunch advocate for the voluntary political action fund, he wouldn't go to the hospital to treat a painful gallstone emergency until he knew someone would finish making contribution calls.

Abe Levine

Since joining the union in 1951, the United Federation of Teachers' Abe Levine has been a tireless activist. Levine retired in 1993 after serving as elementary school vice president of the UFT for 33 years. He now serves as the vice chairman of the UFT's Retired Teachers Chapter.

He was introduced as "the man at the microphone," since he is always an active participant at union assemblies. He noted the tremendous leadership of all the union greats he has worked with: Charles Cogen, Al Shanker, Sandra Feld-man, Randi Weingarten and Tom Hobart. "We retirees can be proud of what we helped build," Levine said. "Never forget our great union was formed by the battles of the past and sacrifices of so many."

He said union pioneers helped make retirement something to look forward to rather than fear.

Lynn Gatto

Rochester Teachers Association's Lynn Gatto showed RA delegates she has one of the most important qualities of a great teacher: flexibility.

With the convention running about an hour behind, Gatto got big applause when she said: "Good teachers don't sit well ... You all have been sitting here for four hours, so I'm going to throw out my speech!"

Gatto gratefully accepted an iPod Apple computer, noting her inner-city Rochester elementary school is so technologically needy she "had to make a deal" with her principal to locate a computer that could run a state-of-the-art software system she won as New York State Teacher of the Year. The 29-year veteran teacher urged delegates who work in city schools to "write grants and fight" for their students. And she implored those who work in more affluent schools to remember and support their urban colleagues.