Dr. Layton McCurdy (left), chairman of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, presents Williamsburg Technical College instructor Margaret Chandler with the certificate nominating her for the Governor’s Professor of the Year Award.

Williamsburg Technical College Instructor

Nominated for Governor’s Professor of the Year Award

Margaret Snowden Chandler, English instructor at Williamsburg Technical College, was recently nominated for the Governor’s Professor of the Year Award.  Her teaching responsibilities at the College include university-transfer courses such as English 101 and 102 and American literature courses. In addition to her teaching duties, Chandler is also in charge of the College’s dual enrollment program which offers high school students both high school credit and college credit for a single course.  She is chair of the College’s recruitment, retention and marketing committee and outgoing chair of the faculty senate.

She serves as advisor for the associate in arts, associate in science and general college studies programs, is president of the Friends of the Hemingway Library group and is ambassador for the Williamsburg Regional Hospital.  Other affiliations include the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Association for Women in Community Colleges, and the South Carolina Technical Education Association (SCTEA). She has been named in Who’s Who Among American Teachers and has been nominated by her peers as SCTEA Faculty Educator of the Year.

Chandler earned her bachelor’s degree in English and French from Columbia College and her master’s in education degree from the University of South Carolina.  She has also taken courses through the University of Phoenix, the University of Iowa and Francis Marion University.

Each year the Governor and the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education jointly sponsor two Governor’s Professor of the Year Awards.  One is conferred on a faculty member at a South Carolina public or private senior college or university.  The other is conferred on a faculty member at a two-year institution of higher learning. 

A nominee must be a full-time faculty member of the nominating institution with a substantial record of experience and excellence in teaching at the institution. Winners receive a formal citation and check for $5,000 presented during a ceremony hosted by the Governor’s office.  In addition, the winners and the institutional nominees are recognized at a luncheon in the fall, with a limited number of finalists receiving awards of $500.

Each regionally accredited public and private institution in South Carolina is eligible to nominate a faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional teaching performance.  The Governor’s office and the Commission on Higher Education establish a selection committee including representatives from these offices and from appropriate civic, business, government, and academic organizations.