ALTAMONT — An Altamont resident is receiving one of the state university system’s highest awards as an associate professor.

Kathy Johnson, who teaches at the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, is being awarded the State University of New York’s Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service.

“This really is the crowning point of a professor’s career,” she said.

Johnson teaches English and writing at Cobleskill, where she said she puts in about 50 to 60 hours of work a week. While full-time professors are supposed to teach three or four courses, she said many often take more. With three or four hours a week per course and hours of prep time, grading, and being available to students, it adds up. Johnson also commutes 35 to 40 minutes from her home in Altamont to Cobleskill, arriving at around 7 a.m. and leaving around 5 p.m.

She grew up in a Michigan town with about 4,000 people. Trying to get away from her small-town life, she chose to attend the biggest college she had gotten into, which was Michigan State University. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in English and her master’s degree in education there, and it was at the university where she also met her husband, William. They were married on campus, and moved to New York where her husband worked for New York State and Johnson worked at both Guilderland High School and the Job Corps in Glenmont for two years before someone told her about an opening at SUNY Cobleskill.

Johnson began teaching reading and writing skills before moving up to a higher level in the English department, and then a higher level after that, and so on. She once was an interim department chairwoman for a year, and serve as a composition coordinator for three-and-a-half years; she now serves as a master faculty advisor.

Despite the length of her commute, Johnson said she enjoys the drive, as well as the campus, which she feels has become forgotten as a choice for local high school graduates. The campus has about 2,200 students, and her class sizes do not grow larger than 25 people. Her smallest class is a 9 a.m. English 101 course with six students.

“I love it and they love it,” she said. “We have a lot of discussions and we’re able to do it.”

She said the students at Cobleskill have more of an opportunity to ask questions, and she can sometimes grade their papers the same day they turn them in.

“It’s just a more intimate feeling,” she said.

Her favorite course is on nature writing, or English 320. She and her students read authors such as John Muir, John James Audubon, and Michael Pollan. She said she prefers teaching the nonfiction narrative.

“I think the students find it easier — they like to write about themselves,” she said.

As a teacher of writing, Johnson has not only been approached by her own students, but by those studying other fields in need of advice on an essay or thesis paper. Johnson has learned about a number of subjects from students.

“Math, science, cows, dairy,” she went on. “We are a very diverse campus with our offerings.”

She has learned about hydraulics from students studying tractor repair in the school’s John Deere program. And she has learned about fisheries, bovine hoofcare, insects, and the different types of stall structures for livestock.

Johnson said that Cobleskill students come from local areas, other rural parts of New York State, cities like New York, out-of-state, and even overseas.

The surrounding area reminds Johnson of her hometown in rural Michigan, and she said she also enjoys the small-town feel of Altamont. She sometimes wonders what it would have been like attending a small school like Cobleskill rather than a large university.

“I wonder if maybe I would’ve liked a smaller campus,” she said. She recalls some of her classes having hundreds of students attend.

The students and faculty at SUNY Cobleskill helped Johnson achieve her award. In order to qualify, Johnson had to obtain letters of support from students and staff.

One letter came from a student who had written about using writing to deal with his grief, saying the writing was therapeutic for him.

Johnson also had to show that she volunteered with groups such as 4-H, Community Caregivers, and the Altamont Free Library.

“I do a lot of sewing for them,” she said. “It’s a good stress reliever.”

After having to submit everything in December, Johnson found out last week she had won. She said she first told her colleagues who had spearheaded efforts to nominate her, and then sent photos of the letter to her husband and three daughters.

“For me, it was the confirmation of what I do — and the encouragement of those around me,” she said, of her perseverance of the award.

On May 13, during the school’s commencement ceremony, she will accept her award. She is a little nervous, though she isn’t giving a speech, to go up and accept an award in front of her peers, she said.

Johnson believes the humanities should not be dismissed in favor of the sciences or other subjects.

“Humanities are essential,” she said.

She said job recruiters often seek graduates who can write well, and complain that those they hire often aren’t able to. Johnson recommends students study writing and the humanities, or even minor in English, to gain such skills.

She also recommends to students that they think for themselves — don’t steal ideas or phrases from online, she counsels. Plagiarism, said Johnson, is an unfortunate problem she has to deal with as an educator, and the internet has increased its frequency.

SUNY Cobleskill’s policy is to leave it to the instructor to deal with plagiarism. Johnson said she tries to have students learn from it when it does happen.

But Johnson prefers to focus on the positive aspects of her career; she said she has a job she enjoys coming to every day.

“Enjoy the job,” she advises other instructors. “Get to know your students personally.”

Johnson has kept in touch with several of her students over the years, such as two who now live in Altamont, a student from Pennsylvania, and a student who now has the highest grades at Albany Law School.

“Her parents get updated first when she gets good grades, and then I get the second email,” she said.

Johnson, who is 56, said that she would like to spend another three years or so at Cobleskill, until her daughter has graduated from high school. Then, she would like to take a sabbatical to study literature in the Caribbean. She has traveled there before, she said, and enjoys the literature, music, and food. A favorite author of hers is Antiguan-American novelist Jamaica Kincaid.

Corrected on May 10, 2017: Originally, Kathy Johnson’s title was incorrect; she is an associate professor.