Hats Off to Mary Griffin!

Did you know that Madison College has CPAAC/SALA Adult Basic Education instructors provide workplace adult basic education services at five local healthcare facilities? One of these instructors, Mary Griffin has worked with hundreds of St. Mary’s Hospital employees for more than ten years! 

Her job: Helping the hospital’s Food and Nutrition and Environmental Services employees build English language, reading comprehension, writing, basic computer and basic math skills for the workplace. These employees are both native-born English speakers as well as English language learners from around the world. 

Mary works with employees to:
• Build vocabulary including English idiomatic phrases (Is ‘pass out’ different than ‘pass away’?  What are ‘dust bunnies,’ ‘brownie points,’ and ‘eyesores’? )

• Strengthen listening comprehension, grammar, clear speech for purposes of workplace communication including customer service.

• Successfully complete online mandatory training modules which build basic computer skills and vocabulary necessary for the job.

• Build skills that will allow employees to qualify for School at Work (SAW), an esteemed career development program sponsored by the hospital.

How does outstanding success look?
•  “One student born in Tibet received a Guardian Angel award from a patient. This student had lots of questions … about what exactly a ‘guardian angel’ is. He’s proudly wearing his pin every day, so I believe he understands what a special award this is.”
• “Another student received a Model of Mission Award. She brought her award letter to class so we could read it together and she could understand it better.  She was able to read significant parts of the letter without much help from me. Wow – she’s come a long way from our early days of learning to read together!”
• “A graduate of the ESL program passed her citizenship test this month. “
• “Two students who had strengthened their reading comprehension skills had preliminary test scores that qualified them for School at Work (SAW).

We in the School for Community and Corporate Learning/Business and Industry Services commend Mary Griffin for her outstanding commitment to student success and providing excellent service to our business customers!