Molly Reilly is a social studies teacher in small, rural Alexandria Bay and she devotes her life to bringing the world to this North Country outpost. She claims the gritty world of war, politics, foreign policy, civic engagement and economics for her students in lesson plans.
“Everything I love, I get to talk about it all day long and make other people fall in love with it,” said Reilly, an active member of the Alexandria Central Faculty Association
Reilly does not separate the classroom from the community and the larger world. She sees teaching as a profession where, “What we do makes all other professions possible.” She emphasizes college and career readiness, and hopes some of her student flocks will come back to the area and make their careers there.
For her connection between academics and the business community, Reilly is being honored in mid-December in the “21012 Class of 20 Under 40 for Emerging Leaders,” sponsored by the Northern New York Business Organization.
The award is co-sponsored by the Northern New York Community Foundation, the Watertown Jaycees, the Watertown Savings Bank and the Watertown Times newspaper.
“This award shows that teachers are key leaders in our communities, not just in our schools,” said Janet Curtis, former teacher and NYSUT labor relations Specialist in the North Country.
“I don’t think anyone sees teaching as a business,” Reilly said. “There is a general perception that teaching is disconnected from economics.”
But Reilly disagrees.
“What we do or don’t teach makes someone more or less likely to take a risk,” she said. What students learn and connect with is often what helps them choose a career.
An academic enthusiast, Reilly has offered a college course to her high school students; she is also an adjunct professor for Jefferson Community College.
She is also politically active, running Amy Tresidder’s 2012 state Senate Democratic campaign against Patty Ritchie, who won the election.
For the Alexandria TA, she has served as treasurer, secretary and grievance chair. She took part in the NYSUT Leadership Institute and the AFL-CIO leadership training.
“I’m a unionist,” Reilly said simply. Her grandfather was a unionist in the steel industry in West Virginia and Ohio, where there was a lot of tension over working conditions and unionizing. He faced harm and violence in the anti-union swell, and Reilly lamented that finally “he ran away in the middle of the night when the managers tried to beat him down,” Reilly said. This left her grandmother to raise 11 children.
Reilly strives to make her local strong, to foster collaboration within the union, and to “stand up for what’s right.” She works with the Central Labor Council to help her union, colleagues and community.
By working with the council and members of other unions, Reilly said she learned that “change comes through legislation.”
Now, she said, she talks more pointedly and carefully to lawmakers to advocate for issues “important to all labor.”
Additionally, “It’s about civic engagement and, through paying attention, you’re able to drive the economic engine of your community,” she said.
Reilly has her master’s degree from the Rockefeller Institute for Public Affairs and Policy in Albany, and worked in Florida for a while.
“I came back to northern New York after 9-11 to be close to my family,” she said.
-- Liza Frenette