VGCC presents Glen Raven Awards to Faculty and Staff Members of the Year


VGCC’s 2013 award winners included, from left, Faculty Member of the Year Ross Ragonese and Staff Member of the Year Melissa Ayscue. (VGCC photo)

VGCC’s 2013 award winners included, from left, Faculty Member of the Year Ross Ragonese and Staff Member of the Year Melissa Ayscue. (VGCC photo)

At Vance-Granville Community College’s fall convocation in August, President Stelfanie Williams presented the college’s annual awards to a pair of outstanding VGCC employees. Collectively, the honors are known as the Glen Raven Excellence in Teaching and Leadership Awards. Glen Raven, Inc., the manufacturer with a site in Norlina, is a longtime supporter of VGCC. In addition to sponsoring the annual stipends to recognize excellence among VGCC instructors and staff members, Glen Raven has endowed several scholarships for students. Melissa Ayscue of Henderson, executive assistant for the division of Institutional Research and Technology, was named Staff Member of the Year for 2013-14, while Culinary Arts program head/instructor Ross Ragonese of Louisburg was chosen as the Faculty Member of the Year. Ayscue and Ragonese are now eligible to be considered for the N.C. Community College System’s statewide R.J. Reynolds Excellence in Teaching and BB&T Staff Person of the Year awards, respectively.

Melissa W. Ayscue has been a member of the staff at VGCC since 2005. A VGCC graduate, Ayscue earned an Associate in Applied Science degree in Secretarial Science – Legal. She then went on to work for the Vance County Tax Office and the Vance County Department of Social Services. Ayscue originally joined VGCC as a youth case manager for the Workforce Investment Act department, and in that role received a JobLink excellence award from the N.C. Employment Security Commission. She later served as the administrative assistant for the VGCC Prison Programs department and has been an executive assistant since 2009, first for Institutional Advancement & Information Technology, which became Institutional Research & Technology. Ayscue has taken on many other roles at the college, including serving as secretary of the Professional Advisory Committee and co-chair of the Sustainability Operations sub-committee, and providing administrative support for the committee that oversaw VGCC’s successful effort to earn reaffirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). “Melissa has long been the faculty’s point of contact for virtually everything outside of their own divisions, and especially for the I.T. department,” said Button Brady, a Biology instructor who chaired the SACS Reaffirmation Committee. “Not only is Melissa able to direct faculty to the best solution or person, she often is the solution!” Brady added, “She exemplifies the best of what VGCC aspires to be: an endless resource for the community she loves.”

Chef Ross Ragonese joined VGCC as head of the Culinary program in 2008. Ragonese was educated at the Culinary Institute of America (in Hyde Park, New York), Suffolk County Community College and the State University of New York at Farmingdale. For more than 20 years, he worked as a sous chef, chef and executive chef for restaurants, catering businesses, a hotel and a hospital. He moved to North Carolina in 2007 to enter the educational field, as head culinary instructor at The Fletcher Academy in Raleigh. Since becoming head of VGCC’s program, Ragonese has developed the “Vanguard Café,” at which his Culinary Arts students periodically prepare and serve lunch for the public. The café, located at the Masonic Home for Children in Oxford, has become increasingly popular with local patrons. Ragonese and his students have also represented VGCC by preparing food for special events such as N.C. Community College System conferences and “Business & Music After Hours” events in Warren County. For many years, Culinary students have served customers at the N.C. Hot Sauce Contest in Oxford, with Ragonese serving as a judge several times. In 2013, the Culinary program prepared a gourmet meal for VGCC’s first-ever Dinner Theater, held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the N.C. Community College System. Ragonese is also a Certified ServSafe Instructor/Proctor. “As an educator and role model, Chef Ross strives to ensure that all of his students are successful both inside and outside of the classroom,” said VGCC Dean of Business & Applied Technologies Angela Gardner-Ragland.