SUNY Diversity Official Carlos Medina to Speak on Feb. 26 at SUNY Cortland

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Carlos N. Medina '78

CORTLAND, NY (02/17/2009)(readMedia)-- Carlos N. Medina, a 1978 SUNY Cortland graduate who serves as assistant provost in the SUNY Office of Diversity and Educational Equity, will speak on Thursday, Feb. 26, at SUNY Cortland.

Medina will deliver the keynote speech at the College's 11th annual Unity Celebration from 5:30-7 p.m. in the Corey Union Function Room. The dessert reception, which commemorates the cultural diversity on campus, is free and open to the public.

Medina has served 25 years in New York state government at increasingly higher levels of responsibility. Named to his current position in early 2008, he previously managed the Bridge Program, SUNY's flagship welfare-to-work initiative, as the director of student support services for SUNY's Center for Academic and Workforce Development. He also worked for the New York State Education Department from 1989 to 1997 managing a host of teacher preparation, math and science enrichment, educational opportunity and professional development programs across the state.

A Puerto Rican native, Medina was the product of a financially struggling, single parent family (his father died when he was young) in Brooklyn, N.Y., where few of his classmates were encouraged to seek higher education.

Recognizing his own potential to attend college, he enrolled in SUNY Cortland's Educational Opportunity Program (EOP).

He earned a bachelor's degree in physical education from the College. Later, Medina obtained a masters in professional services degree in human services administration from Cornell University under a prestigious graduate fellowship program. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership and learning.

"EOP gave me the boost I needed," Medina recalled in 1990 in a profile published in the winter edition of his SUNY Cortland alumni newsletter, Columns. "I was kind of independent and studied hard. But when I needed encouragement, I knew I could get it from the EOP people. They were very supportive ... I felt I was part of a larger group, and I felt at home."

For his first job, he accepted a summer intern position with the New York Sate Division for Youth working with delinquent youth at the South Lansing Center on the outskirts of Ithaca, N.Y. By summer's end, however, the internship had evolved into a full-time job and he was named director of recreation. Three years later, he became a counselor for troubled youth at the Oneida Secure Center in Utica. He then became a counselor at Camp MacCormack in Brooktondale, N.Y., which was revamping its programs to handle more difficult juvenile offenders, before taking administrative team roles as his responsibilities increased.

In 1989, he was selected from a pool of several hundred applicants to receive a Regents Minority Professional Development and Management Fellowship. The one-year appointment allowed him to participate in a management-training program sponsored by the New York State Department of Education.

In 1990, Medina had become a State Department of Education administrator assessing the quality of state-funded educational programs through the Bureau of Professional Career Opportunity Programs. In that role, he evaluated many state-funded science and technology programs being taught on college campuses under the umbrella of Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Programs. That same year, he was honored with the SUNY Cortland EOP's Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Medina chaired the New York Hispanic Heritage Month Committee in 2005 and was co-chair in 2004. A member of the Minority Participation Subcommittee of the New York State Council on Graduate Medical Education from 1995-1998, he served on the Executive Board of the City of Albany's Empowerment Project in 1995-96. Medina was honored with the City of Albany Mayor's Community Development Service Award in 1994. He chaired the Commissioner's Affirmative Action Advisory Board for the New York State Education Department in 1992-93.

One of the first undergraduates at Cortland to teach unarmed self-defense as a physical education course, Medina is an internationally ranked and certified Shotokan karate instructor, judge and examiner by the Japan Karate Association. He achieved the rank of second degree black belt in the traditional Japanese style of Hakkoryu Jujitsu. In 1999, he coached and led a highly talented team of young competitors representing the U.S. at the Jr. World Karate Championships in Budapest, Hungary. As a competitor, he won the Gold Meal of the American Athletic Union (AAU) National Karate Championships in 1999 and 2000 both in Kata and Kumite events.

He is married to another SUNY Cortland graduate, Connie Marshall Medina '79. They have two sons, Justin Miguel, a junior at Hartwick College, and Camilo Noel, a freshman at Bethlehem Central High School. The Medinas live in Delmar, N.Y.

For more information, contact Ann Cutler in the Multicultural Life Office at (607) 753-2336 or ann.cutler@cortland.edu.

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