Employees of the Month Karimah Ellis Wilson

Karimah Ellis Wilson

Academic Advisement

For Karimah Ellis Wilson, student success is both the mission and the daily work.

As director of Advisement Academies in Kingsborough Community College’s Office of Academic Advisement, she leads a team of academic advising professionals who support student readiness, retention and graduation.

For almost two decades, Karimah has stayed focused on helping Kingsborough students earn their degrees. She is involved in the advising process from helping students get ready to register for classes to creating events that help them build and maintain relationships with advisers during their time at the College. She also helped develop a system to identify programs incoming students may be eligible for and connect them with services that can support them.

“Knowing that the work we do can shape their path toward greatness keeps me inspired every day,” said Karimah. “At KCC, we have a real opportunity to set our students up for success. When students thrive at a two-year institution, it can launch them toward long-term achievement and confidence.”

Her commitment has earned the respect of her colleagues and led to her being named Kingsborough’s Employee of the Month. In her nomination, her colleague, Karen Cromas, who has worked with her for 17 years, described Karimah as someone who goes above and beyond as both a leader and a human being. “Karimah is the perfect balance of a competent and respected leader,” Karen noted. “She will go out of her way to help a student, staff member, or anyone who needs assistance. It’s just her nature!”

Always drawn to work centered on helping others, her job makes the most of her innate skills. “When I was young, I wanted to be a teacher, but I always saw myself working in service of others,” Karimah said. “I’m grateful that Kingsborough gives me the opportunity to do that.”

One of the strongest examples in the nomination points to Karimah’s leadership during the COVID shutdown. Karen wrote that Karimah had the advisement office up and running within two days after the College closed and made sure staff had the information and equipment needed to advise and communicate with students, team members and other departments. She added, “I truly believe KCC Advisement would not have survived so well during COVID if it wasn’t for Karimah’s great knowledge, skill and integrity…and big heart.”

Her favorite day of the year is commencement. “Getting an associate degree is uniquely special because it is so often the beginning of a great journey or the culmination of so many dreams,” she said. “There are so many stories behind the faces of those parents and young children we see at graduation.”

Outside of work, Karimah enjoys spending time with her family. The mother of four children between the ages of 6 and 17, she jokes that she is “basically an Uber driver on the weekends and before and after school.” She said she is also “proud to work with some of the smartest people at KCC every day.”