Cruz-Guzman honored for outstanding achievement

Melanye Cruz-Guzman of Baldwin, who attends the Nassau BOCES Adult Education Program, earned the prestigious George Farber Outstanding Student Award this year.

The award celebrates a variety of Cruz-Guzman’s remarkable attributes including passion, perseverance, enthusiasm, outstanding character, scholarship, and a willingness to help others. Board members, administrators, staff, and family were on hand to celebrate at a special ceremony earlier this spring.

Cruz-Guzman is committed to pursuing a career in dentistry. When she came to the Adult Education Program, she was attending college and already had a full schedule. Undaunted, she moved classes around in order to make room for dental assisting courses at Nassau BOCES, where she diligently dove into her studies.

She dutifully applies herself to the course content and asks insightful questions, pours over handouts in depth, and reads ahead in the text in order to better master the material. As a result, she has emerged as a class leader with test scores consistently in the 90s. 

Cruz-Guzman assisted her teachers with the set up of Google Classroom, where she regularly posts her class notes. She brings her artistic talents to bear when creating her notes to include accurate color illustrations of dental anatomy, periodontal structures, dental instruments and devices, and other relevant materials. She also translates these notes into Spanish for her classmates who are not as comfortable with the English language. She arrives early to class each day and stays after, helping to clean up when needed, putting away dental demonstration models and arranging desks. 

“Ms. Cruz-Guzman is honest, diligent, compassionate and helpful, and her energy and enthusiasm are evident in everything she does. She is an outstanding student whose contribution to the class is exceptional, yet she is humble about her accomplishments and accepts praise gratefully,” said her award nominator. “Melanye gives her all to everything I’ve ever seen her do. She is thoroughly dedicated to the field of dentistry, and I have no doubt she will be promoted throughout the course of her career. She is a passionate student, and her classmates and I are fortunate to have her.”

“Not only do these students demonstrate the very best of Nassau BOCES, each of them has also shown the true spirit of George Farber,” said James Widmer, Deputy Superintendent. “They all have passion, determination, enthusiasm, outstanding character, scholarship, and willingness to help others. Their collective stories are an inspiration to us all.”

For the past 16 years, outstanding students have been earning this award in memory of former Nassau BOCES Board President George Farber, whose passion for improving the lives of students was surpassed only by her love and care for them. Farber was the longest-serving board member in Nassau County, having served from 1971 to 2009.

–Ben Fiebert