Each community college gets to have a faculty member that the administration has chosen for the Nebraska Community College Association Faculty Member Award. For Northeast Community college, Anderson was chosen as a nominee and won. Who the award is given to is determined by letters of recommendation or the letters of submission that they get from the nomination letter.

Anderson is a media arts instructor. He started teaching part-time in 2010 and then started teaching full-time in 2013, making this his 11^th year at Northeast Community College.

“My career started in 1992, when I started going to Northeast actually. Which is kind of cool because all this started here at Northeast Community College,” Anderson said. “When I started going to school here, I was working for a local radio station and eventually worked for a couple different radio station. In 2000 I worked for US 92 locally. And eventually became their program director, operations manager, music director and news director.”

Anderson had his hands full because of his knowledgeable in many different fields of media arts. With a strong determination and a love for broadcasting.

“I held all these different positions and eventually we grew into two stations instead of just one. I was doing radio news in the morning, then in the afternoon I would cover TV,” Anderson said, “At night I would anchor them. I’d wake up, and it was a rinse and repeat the next day.”

It is said that teaching is one of the most rewarding jobs. When a teacher loves their job, their strive to help students is even greater.

“When I see students who have taken what they learned in a classroom or through a lab and go on to do great things on their own it is rewarding to me. I love to see my students succeed.”

Having a connection with students and knowing what they want to do is a guide to help Mr. Anderson understand how to help his students succeed.

“I think overall I’ve learned to be more relatable. The materials you’re teaching should be explained as to how they are relevant.” Anderson said, “Just by getting to know the student I can see what applications they’re using, what new devices they’re using, their interests, so then we can try to tie that information in to make it relevant to what they’re learning.”

Students in the media arts program might need some guidance because, like other majors, it is so broad. There is video, audio, digital journalism, broadcasting, social media and more. Communication with instructors and letting them know your goals can help them help you.

“Mr. Anderson is very knowledgeable about his subjects and gets his students excited to learn. He helped me excel by just wanting me to succeed on my projects and was always willing to help me.” Media arts student Trey Bruce said.

Anderson makes projects and activities in his class hands on, so students can get a real idea what it is like in the work field. He provides students with endless opportunities of advice and critique.

“With the class time I have taken with Mr. Anderson, each project allows us to have as much experience with our tools we use in our field to expose to more in the media field.” Media arts student Danny Alvarado said, “he challenges us with each project where our knowledge is put to the test