Sharon Aguiar and Hana Forest have been named Colorado Mountain College’s Faculty of the Year for 2016 for its two Summit County campuses on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

Each year, students and faculty at each of CMC’s 11-campus system, as well as its online learning department, nominate a full-time and adjunct faculty members for the awards. Aguiar was chosen among her peers for the full-time honor, and Forest as the top adjunct.

Aguiar, who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC-Santa Barbara and a master’s from CU-Boulder in multicultural, bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) education, spent more than a decade teaching English in the Summit School District and abroad before becoming an ESL instructor at CMC. Peers noted Aguiar’s unique ability to connect with and support her students to reach new academic standards and life goals.

“I am fortunate to work with brilliant, talented and inspiring students and colleagues every day,” she said in a news release.

Forest, meanwhile, studied at Masaryk University Brno in the Czech Republic, possessing a bachelor’s in financial management, a master’s in upper secondary teaching training with emphasis on English and math, and a doctorate in English focused on language structure. In addition to teaching ESL courses, she also teaches math at CMC, where’s she’s worked since 2002.

“I have been very lucky to work with a great number of amazing adult learning who have inspired and motivated me to become the teacher who I am today,” Forest said in the release. “I have learned from them as much as they have from me.”