We know how exceptional our Director Judith Roberts is, so we are thrilled that she is getting some well-deserved recognition!
Judith Roberts is one of the 2023 recipients of the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education’s Outstanding Educator Award!
From the Nomination:
The staff of The Literacy Project nominate our Executive Director, Judith Roberts, for MCAE’s Outstanding Educator Award for 2023. She has provided exceptional leadership for the past 16 years, at the helm of our adult basic education program in western Massachusetts. As Judith prepares for retirement at the end of this school year, we honor and celebrate her tremendous contributions to The Literacy Project and to, in her words, “our courageous adult learners.”
Judith signs her emails, “With love and literacy,” and this is a perfect description of how she approaches her work. With a passion for reading, poetry, books and libraries, Judith is continually inspired by the hard work our students do everyday to transform their lives through education. She offers her own story as an example of what’s possible: as an adult learner herself, Judith took over 15 years to complete her community college degree, taking one class at a time while raising a family as a single parent. She then completed her Bachelor’s Degree at Smith College and finished her Masters’ at Harvard when she was in her 50s. Like so many of our students, Judith is an Educational Superhero.
Judith has a deep and enduring respect for our students, and she continually evaluates new programs and initiatives with one key question: will this make a difference to our students? Over and over she asks, “What do our students need? What else can we do to ensure student success?”
By putting students and their needs in the forefront, Judith has kept us focused on what matters most. During the pandemic, Judith began a fundraising campaign to allow The Literacy Project to award a chromebook to every student who needed one. She makes it clear to the students that these are computers for them to keep, to support them as they move on to college and careers. More than one student has said that no one had ever put that much faith and trust in them before, and they were determined to live up to those expectations. Even though we have moved past the pandemic, we continue to provide chromebooks to every student, thanks to Judith’s exceptional success at fundraising.
In addition to her passionate support for our students, Judith is tireless in her efforts to support the staff. She promotes a healthy work-life balance, instituting “mental health days” during the pandemic and reminding us regularly to take care of ourselves and our families first. Most importantly, Judith prioritizes pay equity and seeks to offer a truly livable wage. Our bookkeeper jokes that the most frequent question Judith asks her is, “Can we afford to give staff another raise?” Thanks to Judith’s creative and relentless fundraising efforts, the answer is often, “Yes.”
For the past 16 years, Judith Roberts has led The Literacy Project with love, in service of literacy. She has touched so many lives through her dedicated work to support adult basic education, and her legacy will continue long past her retirement. We will miss her.