Maria Garcia

Maria Garcia of Maywood, NJ was unable to finish her education in her native country, Spain, so after arriving in the United States, she learned English and started at Ramapo to follow her dream of earning a college degree. For most of her college career, she has been on the Dean’s list, and has been nominated as the best student in the Spanish program.  She is a member of the Spanish Club, the Book Club and tutors in the Spanish Lab.

She has also been involved in off –campus leadership positions at Sacred Heart church in Suffern. She was one of the coordinators of the Spanish Religious Education Program; she also participated during mass as a Reader and Eucharistic Minister until she moved to Maywood a little over two years ago. She works part time in St. Dominic’s School in Blauvelt, NY as a teaching assistant.

After graduation she hopes to find a job in a school district close to home. In the near future she hopes to be able to go back to school to earn a Master’s Degree.

The senior has a double major in Spanish and History, and a concentration in Education. Her GPA is 3.7.

Awarded Scholarships

2017

Sykes Family Scholarship

Suzanne Sykes and her late husband, Donald, founded Marpac Industries Inc. in 1967. Marpac manufactured custom plastic containers for specialty chemicals, with offices in Waldwick, NJ and manufacturing sites in New York, California, Oklahoma and Ireland. After selling the company in 1998, Sue enrolled at Ramapo as a returning adult student. She earned her degree in American Studies in 2006 and remains very active with her alma mater.

Of her experience at Ramapo, she says, “The encouragement of the faculty was the probably the most surprising and most meaningful for me. I had some initial concern about how I would be accepted by other students, but it had not occurred to me how the professors might feel about an older student. I was put at ease and never felt uncomfortable. On several occasions, professors told me that they appreciated my presence in their classes, because it changed the dynamics and brought fresh perspectives. Needless to say, I was delighted.”

Sue was a volunteer counselor with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), which provides small business mentoring and training, and is a former member of the Alumni Advisory Board of the School of Humanities and Global Studies. She now devotes her volunteer hours to various leadership roles in her church and the Ramapo College community. She established the Sykes Family Scholarship to benefit other returning adult students who are pursuing American Studies at Ramapo. She hopes that by completing her college degree as an older adult, she has set a good example for her five grandchildren that learning is a life-long rewarding endeavor.