Photo by Benand Beccalee/Kathy Corbalis
Kathy Corbalis, former executive director of college relations at Atlantic Cape Community College, has received the 2023 D. Richard Petrizzo Award for Career Achievement from the National Council of Marketing and Public Relations. The Petrizzo Award honors a professional for career accomplishments in community college marketing and public relations. It is named after the award’s first recipient, a former NCMPR president who helped shape the organization in its early years
Corbalis retired in 2013 after nearly 30 years in her executive director position at Atlantic Cape. A hallmark of her time there is her experience with crisis communications, leading communications during emergencies, such as when an escaped convict came to the Mays Landing campus and during Superstorm Sandy. Atlantic Cape serves two Jersey shore counties, Atlantic and Cape May, and many students and faculty were affected by the storm.
“How we responded became textbook examples we presented on at NCMPR conferences,” Corbalis said.
She joined community college marketing after working several journalism and public relations jobs, each for a few years. She remained at Atlantic Cape for the remainder of her career for a number of reasons: she felt good about the work she did for the college, promoting affordable and accessible education to community members; and she loved the fact that community colleges are, by nature, always adapting and changing.
A member of NCMPR’s board of directors from 2006 to 2013, Corbalis has won more than 100 professional awards and presented at numerous district and national conferences. She has written op-eds and articles that have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Press of Atlantic City and NCMPR’s Counsel magazine.
Since retirement, Corbalis has continued to give back to the industry. As a trained journalist, she relied upon NCMPR to help her learn more about public relations, and she considers it her job to mentor new professionals.
She is an alum of Syracuse University in New York and Rowan University in New Jersey.
