Nicole Bata

Nicole Bata of Salisbury, a general studies student at Wor-Wic Community College, was recently selected as the 2010 winner of the Portz award for an outstanding honors student at a two-year college in Maryland.

Bata is the vice president of service for the Alpha Nu Omicron chapter of Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) at Wor-Wic.

A full-time computer-aided drafting technician at Davis, Bowen & Friedel in Salisbury, Bata recently gave a presentation about her job to local high school freshmen for Young Professionals Career Day at Salisbury University (SU).

She serves on the advisory committee for the Career and Technology Education program at Parkside High School and helped judge the annual SkillsUSA local competition. Bata also participated in the annual Salisbury Area Chamber of Commerce Riverwalk Cleanup.

As a member of Public Radio Delmarva, Bata underwent training to be a volunteer announcer for WSCL (89.5 FM) and is interested in someday working on Neil Conan’s show, “Talk of the Nation,” for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C.

“Wor-Wic helped me tremendously with goal setting. And, a few [instructors] helped me see that I’m good at public speaking,” Bata said.

After graduation, Bata plans to transfer to SU to major in communications, with a focus on media and radio production.

Two annual awards, one for a community college student and one for a four-year college student, were endowed by Dr. John Portz, former director of the honors program at the University of Maryland College Park, through the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council (MCHC). Dr. John and his wife, Edith, created the Portz award to honor the achievements of honors students in Maryland, their home state. Every higher education institution in the state that is an MCHC member can nominate one student as a candidate for the annual award.

Bata is the eighth Wor-Wic student to receive the Portz award in the past 13 years.

“No other school has had as many Portz award recipients as Wor-Wic,” said Dr. Ray Hoy, president of Wor-Wic. “This speaks volumes for the quality of our honors program.”

Cassandra Dasher received the award in 2009, Valerie Edwards in 2006, Joy Andrews-Hooker in 2005, Jordan Nichols in 2004 and Kimberlee Bermont in 2003. Other former Wor-Wic student recipients were Mary Chalanick in 2000 and Robin Finley in 1998