Kongrats, perfesser!

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Plainfield's first cable TV station director, Rebecca Williams, has a new job.

Starting September 1, Rebecca will be a full-time, tenure-track member of the English faculty at Essex County College. At ECC, she will be teaching composition and literature.

Under Rebecca's energetic leadership, Plainfield finally launched its public access cable TV station -- PCTV-74 -- which had been part of the franchise agreement negotiated with Comcast in 2000. Rebecca oversaw the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment to manage the station and broadcast locally originated programming, which is the heart-and-soul of public access TV.

She brought an air of professionalism -- which is so often lacking in public access TV -- to Plainfield's TV programming, while never losing a friendly, engaging and supportive touch.

With her encouragement, the community responded with homegrown programming, which is the genius of public access TV.

A doctoral student in English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Rebecca had seventeen years of experience in media before taking on the cable station assignment. Besides her experience as an independent film/video maker, Rebecca taught for four years in the graduate film program at New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, additionally serving on the board of directors of Women Make Movies.

One high point of her media career was working with the famed African-America photographer Gordon Parks on a book project of his photography.

Another high point is one that she says she will dearly miss: her beloved American Literature classes offered at the Plainfield Senior Citizens Center. The Seniors were very responsive and over many semesters read and discussed a great deal of literature on African-American history, culture and politics.

We all wish Rebecca well in this new chapter in "The Adventures of Rebecca Williams: Rebel, Innovator and Energizer."

-- Dan Damon

P.S. PT would be remiss if we failed to point out Rebecca was also the campaign manager/motivator for Councilor-at-large Ray Blanco, the current Council President, when he successfully ran for Council as a New Democrat.

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