The Outstanding Faculty Awards Ceremony was held on April 24, at the Student Center from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Staff and guests were greeted at the entrance and given a number of the tables they would be sitting at.

Outstanding faculty awards were given, there were a total of 19 faculty members awarded, 10 part-time and nine full-time.

The part-time faculty awards were for Engineering, Speech-Language Pathology Assistant, Real Estate, Business Administration, Mental Health Worker, American Sign Language, Biology, Paralegal, Woodworking Mfg. Technology and Anthropology.

Full-time faculty awards were given for Biology, Child Development, Earth Science, History, Engineering Design Technology, Automotive Technology, Nursing, Business Administration and Modern Language.

The award for Most Outstanding Faculty was given to Michael Pierini, culinary arts.

The crowd seemed to be having fun mingling throughout the room and talking to everyone.

The nursing department stood at the back of the room holding up posters and cheering for their professor Rachel Natividad.

Professor Rachel Natividad has been teaching at Cerritos College since 2002.

When the faculty winners were announced the nursing students cheered excitedly and loudly while waving their posters.

Fourth-year nursing student Nidia Cacon attended in support of Professor Rachel Natividad.

Chacon said, “She is the best. She was our nursing instructor, our very first nursing instructor. She pretty much helped to mold us into the nurses that we are today.” Canon got very emotional when talking about her professor.

Izabela Bojorquez, another fourth-semester nursing student, also there to support professor Natividad, commented about her instructor, “When everyone had all the nerves, the anxieties and the scares of starting a nursing program she was there to kind of hold our hand and tell us it was going to be okay.”

Bojorquez continued, “Honestly I couldn’t have asked for someone better to lean on at that time, because it was really daunting to be stepping into something so rigorous and she was there the whole time for us.”

Natividad said, receiving the award makes her feel “so humbled, feel honored, my students are amazing. I work with incredible colleagues so I can’t ask for anything more.”

Another staff award recipient was Dia Flores Vechayien, a professor of anthropology who has been an adjunct professor of anthropology since the Spring of 2016.

Vechayien said what drew her to Anthropology was, “I wanted to be able to see the world and understand humans from a cultural perspective.”

Regarding her award, she stated, “It’s such an honor to be part of such an amazing group of professors that were nominated and I feel such so much gratitude that I was able to give back to Cerritos College because it’s literally so amazing to transform lives of students.”

Professor Michael Pierini, culinary arts who received the Outstanding Faculty Award also received a loud cheer from his students as his name was called out. Pierini is a chef and was director of the culinary arts for 30 years.

Pierini said, his grandfather owned an Italian restaurant and growing up he would leave school and go to the restaurant. He attended culinary school at the California Academy in San Francisco.

Pierini shared how he felt winning the award, “Overwhelmed, I try to stay humble because my motives are always student-driven and I’m here for the students. I’m not here for myself for self-recognition.

“I’m not here for my own praise, I’m here for their praise. I would much rather have the students on the stand getting the awards than me.”

He said when he first got the email that he received the award his first thought was to decline it so someone else would receive it.

At the end of the ceremony, all recipients took a group photo and photos with their family members.