Alumni Employee Award

 DJ Dates is an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science at SUNY Corning Community College. While a student at the college, he started working part time in the Information Technology department and worked his way up to a full time position as a Programmer Analyst and later promoted to eServices Administrator.

During his time in IT, he received professional certifications from the Project Management Institute and the Oracle Corporation and completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Information Systems. Some of the web applications he had written for the college are still in use today, which means he has code in production that is older than the college students he is now teaching. While working in IT, he designed the logo for the College’s 50th Anniversary and three generations of the College’s public website.

In 2008, he left the IT department and became a part-time instructor while working on his Master’s in Database Technology. During that time, he created a YouTube channel for the videos he was creating for his courses and that channel has received more than 1.6 million views. After finishing his Master’s, he again became a full time employee of the college, this time as faculty. He has served on the College’s Middle States Accreditation Steering Committee, as the department chair of Computer and Information Science, and as the chair of the Strategic Planning and Institutional Assessment Committee. In 2018, DJ received a Sustainability Incentive Grant award from the President’s office, which he used to create the CCC Mascot Learn to Solder badge, which has been used by hundreds of local kids and adults learning how to solder. For the last three years, DJ has been part of the organizing committee for the Twin Tiers Mini Maker Faire, which last year brought more than a thousand people from the local area to the campus to take part in hands-on activities and demonstrations.

DJ currently resides in Campbell, New York with his wife Rachel and daughter Naomi.