Press Releases

April 10, 1999
Chuck Hitchcock Wins Teaching Award

Contact:
Jane Finalborgo
(516) 287 8313
Fax: (516) 283 4081

Dr. Charles G. Hitchcock, Professor of Sociology at Southampton College, will receive Long Island University's David Newton Award for Teaching Excellence at an April 20th ceremony at the University's Brooklyn Campus.

Dr. Hitchcock, a resident of Springs, N.Y., has taught at Southampton College for 32 years and was director of the Social Science Division from 1975 to 1979. He served as chair of the Faculty Council and is concluding his tenth season as head coach for the men's tennis team. Prior to coming to Southampton, he taught in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh. He received his Ph.D. in sociology in 1972 from Union Graduate School.

A community specialist, Dr. Hitchcock encourages his students to appreciate diversity and to explore cultures other than their own. He teaches many courses that are directly rooted in the sociology of the community, on a theoretical level as well as on a geographical level -- for example, Social Stratification of the Hamptons, the Local Community (focusing on the five East End towns) and Field Observations in Community Studies.

To that repertory he has added classes that benefit his two main areas of research: homosexuality and environmental decision making. During his first sabbatical he wrote a paper on how the National Gay Task Force might work with the Catholic Church and the mass media to demystify homosexuality. During his second sabbatical he conducted over 40 interviews with local people who helped to shape environmental decisions affecting life on the South Fork. As a result of both experiences, Dr. Hitchcock has brought a wealth of information to his classroom teaching.

In addition, he has been active in a wide array of community organizations using those experiences to enrich his classes at the College. For six years he chaired the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals. He also chaired the Board of Directors of The Retreat, a local domestic violence agency. He helped to form the East End Gay Organization and co-chaired the New York State Gay and Lesbian Lobby. In 1984 he ran for New York State Assembly and walked to 4,300 households from Medford to Mastic to learn first-hand what people perceived to be their most immediate problems.

Winners of the Newton Award are selected by a committee of their peers following nomination and support from faculty, students and alumni. The award is named for David Newton, a former executive vice president of Long Island University. At the awards presentation, noted writer and curator of the George Polk Awards, Sidney Offit, will give a talk entitled "Reflecting on Two Decades of the George Polk Awards: Campus Politics." The ceremony begins at 4 p.m. in the Brooklyn Campus' Schwartz Memorial Auditorium, Room 107 in the Zeckendorf Health Science Center.

The other winners of the Newton Award are Maren Lockwood Carden, Professor of Sociology at the Brooklyn Campus, Madiha Sidhom, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics & Industrial Pharmacy at the Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy, and from the C.W. Post Campus: Phillis Dircks, Professor of English, David Weiss, Professor of Health Care and Public Administration, and Sally Wahrmann, Associate Professor of Accounting.