July 10, 2015
Exchange Child Care Leadership
Award Nomination for Carol LaLiberte
Dear Reader:
Leaders influence the actions of others without coercion. Leaders use multiple
strategies and tools to effect change. Leaders inspire others to achieve shared goals.
Leaders encourage, set standards, and sometimes take charge. Carol LaLiberte
embodies every aspect of leadership.
Carol has taught at Asnuntuck Community College for more than 15 years. She has a
dedication to facts, figures, and people. Her teaching and mentoring clearly inspire her
students to do more than they ever imagined they could. Carol has transformed a
somewhat stale, outdated Early Childhood Education Associates degree program into a
vital, current, thriving major at Asnuntuck Community College. She accomplished this
within three years through vision, effort, hard work, diligence, persistence, and
leadership.
Carol LaLiberte’s vision of what excellent Early Childhood Education should look and
feel like has enabled her to be extremely creative and productive. She designed and
taught a Substitute Teacher Training Institute to train 15 substitute teachers in ECE.
She established a Student to Student Mentoring and Student to Community Mentoring
programs for new students and those who are about to graduate. She served on the
Three to Three Leadership Team for the Enfield early education collaborative, KITE.
Carol redesigned the ECE Advisory Board at Asnuntuck Community College to include
local stakeholders such as daycare providers, alumnae, and other interested employers.
Carol’s leadership occurs in multiple ways. The college holds registration in a front
hallway and Carol noticed that children waiting with their parents were often bored. She
supervised the establishment of The Children’s Nook, a creative, interactive exploration
area for children to use while their parents are registering for classes. This particular
initiative shows just one example of how Carol pays attention to details and at the same
time has a vision of what else might be possible.
Carol shepherded our ECE program from conditional accreditation to full accreditation
from NAEYC. Her knowledge of regulations, her ability to get students and faculty to
rally behind approval, and her ability to work tirelessly to accomplish meaningful goals
are a powerful combination. Her leadership efforts were recognized by the Board of
Regents with an Excellence in Teaching award for Spring 2015 and a Superior
Teaching Award, Spring 2014.
Carol LaLiberte is an inspired, talented leader. She has rallied support when it was
required, worked quietly along side of students to help them achieve success, and she
has a clear vision for what the Early Childhood Education program needs to be now and
within the next five years. Her leadership abilities in communication, problem solving,
establishing a common vision, and her ability to roll up her sleeves and help get things
done is testament to her many fine leadership skills and qualities.
Sincerely,
Jean Egan, Ph.D., CFLE
33 Woods Hollow Road
West Suffield, CT 06093