Billies Wins Award From NTID Deaf Professional Group

Recognition for Career Dedicated to the Deaf Cause

In recognition of her ongoing commitment to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, Patricia Billies of Fairport has received the Award of Excellence from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf’s Deaf Professional Group. Billies is associate director of the Postsecondary Education Programs Network-Northeast, a grant program supported by NTID, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology.

The NTID DPG annually recognizes members of the RIT community for dedication to improving the quality of life for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

“Pat always focuses on doing whatever will best advance the cause of deaf students and professionals,” said Regina Kiperman-Kiselgof of NTID’s Center on Employment, who nominated Billies. “She believes in putting deaf people first.”

Billies joined NTID in 1979 as an assistant professor of mathematics. In 1992, she became a senior admissions counselor, responsible for recruiting international students to the college. During her six years in admissions, international student applications rose 50 percent.

In 1998, she joined NTID’s Northeast Technical Assistance Center grant project as project coordinator. In this role, she managed the implementation of outreach services to 13 Northeastern states and territories served by the grant. She became associate director of the project in 2006. She also concurrently worked as associate director of the NTID Outreach Consortium, where she coordinated workshops and programs for middle school students who are deaf.

“Pat is an enthusiastic learner of new things related to American Sign Language and deaf culture,” said Kiperman-Kiselgof. “Her efforts throughout her remarkable career have affected the lives of countless students, colleagues and deaf people all over the country.”

Billies has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Nazareth College and a master’s degree in applied and mathematical statistics from RIT.

NTID is the first and largest technological college in the world for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. One of eight colleges of RIT, NTID offers educational programs and access and support services to the 1,100 deaf and hard-of-hearing students from around the world who study, live and socialize with 14,700 hearing students on RIT’s Rochester, N.Y., campus.

Web address: http://www.rit.edu/NTID.

For more NTID news visit http://www.rit.edu/ntid/newsroom.


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