Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2018 – Herkimer: Steven Mezik

Steven T. Mezik is an Associate Professor of Business at Herkimer County Community College. He has a B.A from Hartwick College and an M.S. from Texas Tech University. He began teaching at Herkimer in 2000 and in the fall of 2002, began teaching online for the college.

Over the years, he has developed a number of different course different courses for the college. Mezik found that the online learning format gave students more flexibility in their studies versus the traditions brick and mortar classroom.  Presently, he is one of the SUNY advocates for SUNY OER initiative. It is his goal to combine the flexibility of an online education with the cost advantages of an OER textbook to increase the availability of a college degree to more students.

Coming to Herkimer College, I found an institution at the forefront of online education. As the technology has changed, so has have the needs of out students. For a working, single parent – the time commitment as well as the cost of college can be prohibitive. An online degree from SUNY can open doors that have previously been closed to those non-traditional students. With the inclusion of “Open Education Resources” or OERs, the cost of textbooks can also open up more doorways for students. What we can now create is a global classroom, with students from every corner of the world – all with fast and easy access to their courses and the textbooks that they need.