Faculty & Staff Profiles

Still on the fence about attending college during the COVID-19 pandemic? Fall classes start at Tidewater Community College on Aug. 24. There’s still time to enroll. Business Professor Linda Williams offers her thoughts on why community college is an ideal option during these uncertain times. Why TCC? TCC delivers an educational experience that is every […]

Antonio “Tony” Passaro Jr. spent the first fifteen years of his career working as a state trooper. He was later assigned to high-tech computer crimes for the Virginia State Police and held a cross-designation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency. Today he is the Criminal Justice program director and department lead for the Norfolk Campus. “I […]

Kelly Kraynak’s introduction to law enforcement started when she was 16. “I had my wallet stolen out of my car,” she said. The ensuing conversation with a police sergeant inspired her to see policing from the inside.  Recently retired from a 30-year career with local and state police in her native Connecticut, Kraynak joined Tidewater […]

Tidewater Community College English instructor Daniel “D.L.” Pearlman has a way with words. In the last two years, his poetry has received five awards, including the 2019 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize for his book of poetry, “Normal They Napalm the Cottonfields.”  The prize was presented to Pearlman in December at the Dogfish Inn. Pearlman also […]

Tidewater Community College students have always known how special physics Professor David Wright is. Now the rest of the world knows, too. Less than 24 hours after TCC student Erica Church shared a video montage on Twitter of the professor who thinks nothing of hopping on pogo sticks, lying flat on a bed of nails […]

Tidewater Community College will recognize five faculty and staff members from across the college with annual special awards on Aug. 23. Selected by their peers, the honorees will receive their awards at TCC’s 2019 Fall Convocation at the Chesapeake Campus Student Center. Professor of the Year Debra Duffy, who teaches geology and oceanography, is TCC’s Professor of […]

Get to know Kia Hardy, dean of student services at the Norfolk Campus. What is your favorite thing about your job? I enjoy working with adult learners, whether they are young adults or nontraditional students. The conversations we can have are different at the college level, especially as students are trying to find the next […]

Don’t be surprised to walk into Amanda Leo’s college classroom and see Candy Land along with Twister and Bopit and some Legos scattered on the floor. Creativity is one of the chief reasons Leo gravitated toward occupational therapy as a career. She also embraced the notion of helping people improve their everyday lives by learning, […]

If learning building codes sounds dry, you’ve never taken Christina Jackson’s class at Tidewater Community College. The code team leader for the City of Norfolk uses real-world examples to make the International Residential Code come alive to a classroom of contractors, veterans, future engineers and recent high school graduates. Better yet, her class prepares students […]

Alejandra Diaz-Rangel planned to be a Spanish teacher but after attending community college discovered something she enjoyed even more: helping others succeed. As the FastForward career coach at Tidewater Community College, she’s doing just that. “My job is to be with you from the moment you show interest until you gain employment or move up […]