GENESEO, N.Y. – Three SUNY Geneseo faculty members have received a 2014-15 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching. Two of the recipients are from the Department of Music: Joan Floriano, who teaches voice, and Ernest Lascell, an instructor of clarinet and saxophone. Jasmine Tang, who teaches both elementary and intermediate Chinese in the Department of Languages and Literatures, also received the award.
Floriano is a Geneseo alumna and has been a Geneseo faculty member since 2008. She earned her master’s degree and performer’s certificates in voice and opera from the Eastman School of Music. She also is a specialist in Italian diction. She often performs on the musical stage in opera and musical theater and is a frequent clinician and master teacher in high schools in the western New York region. Floriano also is a lecturer in the music department of Nazareth College. She is active in the Central New York chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
Lascell has been on the Geneseo faculty since 1985 and also is a member of the Geneseo Woodwind Quintet. He received his bachelor’s degree in music education from Nazareth College and his master’s degree in performance and literature from Northwestern University. In addition to his college work, he served as director of instrumental music at Bloomfield Middle and Senior High Schools from 1984 until his retirement from that post in 2009. He also has served on the music faculty of Houghton College. Lascell received the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Musicians’ Award for Outstanding Music Educator of the Year in 2005.
Tang has been a member of the Geneseo faculty since 1991. She earned her bachelor's degree in psychology at Geneseo and received a master’s degree in liberal arts with a concentration in Chinese education from Empire State College’s School for Graduate Studies. In 2012, Tang received an Award of Distinction from the Chinese Language Education and Research Center (CLERC) for outstanding contributions to the promotion of Chinese language education in the United States. In 2013, she received the Award for Outstanding Academic Contributions to the Field of World Languages and Culture from SUNY Empire State College.
“Adjunct teachers across the SUNY campuses provide consistently excellent instruction and are a key component of our faculty as we seek to increase access, completion and success among students,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “Those honored with this year’s award have demonstrated extraordinary dedication to their students and an exceptional commitment to quality teaching.”
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