Two NCSSM-Morganton teachers honored for contributions to students, programs

From molding clay sculptures to building underwater robots at Lake James, two NCSSM-Morganton teachers have earned statewide recognition for shaping innovative programs that blend creativity, science, and hands-on learning for their students.

CLASSROOM INNOVATION

Courtney Long, the instructor of visual arts and a recipient of the 2026 NCSSM Exceptional Contribution Teaching Awards, held a different tool at any given glance, coaching the students in their use and demonstrating along the way.

“I focus on quality, not quantity,” she said, gliding between rooms to explain how the students use kilns, raw materials, and other scientific approaches to developing art.

Long received the award in Classroom Innovation, a move she attributed to her development of the arts program.

Long joined NCSSM in June 2022 as part of the first cohort at the campus, first teaching art in a physics lab before moving to a study room and finally ending up in the newly finished Joiner Hall.

Along the way, she collaborated with science and humanities teachers, due to their proximities to her classrooms.

“One of the things about innovation is collaboration,” Long said. “Also thinking creatively about the spaces that I was working in. … I had to think creatively about how to deliver the curriculum without tools or equipment, and I had to collaborate with the community.”

She said in the early days, she worked with West Union Art Studios to use their kilns, and she used her glaze lab at home.

As the school grew, she requested specific equipment to accommodate student needs and worked to integrate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) learning through interwoven studies with the chemistry department and the school’s raw materials instructor.

Depending on the room students are in, they directly work with different bases, paints, kilns, and tools. For Long, it boils down to the art they create at the end of the day.

“I only get them so many hours a week and this might be the last art class that they ever get to take,” she said, presenting two-dimensional drawings of sunflowers, pears, and skulls. “I want them to leave here with some kind of family heirloom in a way — something to be cherished and hung and kept. I want the work that they draw to be long-lasting and meaningful.”

SERVICE TO STUDENTS

Long wasn’t the only Morganton-based NCSSM teacher to receive recognition for Exceptional Contribution. Matt Hilton, the instructor of computer science, also earned bragging rights and a small monetary award for Service to Students.

Hilton, who entered NCSSM-Morganton as a teacher in 2022, is heavily involved in the robotics teams and helped to build much of the engineering and computer science department.

According to Hilton, the demand for robotics was greater than expected when he started.

“We realized very early on, within the first couple days of actually having students on campus, the need and the want from the students for competitive robotics opportunities to the point that we had a standing-room-only interest meeting in our large American studies room,” he said.

Since then, Hilton has overseen teams, providing 50 to 60 students access to three competitions covering first-time team challenges; VEX robotics, a curriculum designed for students to learn different STEM skills; and underwater robotics.

One project he highlighted is a several-year-long project at Lake James, developing an underwater, remote-operated robot with the Lake James Environmental Association.

“Through those things, I think that’s kind of where the award came from,” Hilton said. “How heavily involved with students — to help them develop leadership skills and provide opportunities for them to implement their knowledge in a wide variety of areas and also making it a welcoming environment.”

BOTH RECIPIENTS

Long and Hilton both plan to continue collaborating, putting resources together with other departments to develop new opportunities for students.

“My students can try anything, but if it doesn’t work out, they learn more if it doesn’t go successfully,” Long said. “We ask ourselves why it wasn’t successful and then we make another and we try again.”