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Karin (Orbon) Curran is currently an Associate Professor of Accounting & Finance and the General Business Program Chair at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts. Since joining Nichols College, she has taught a variety of courses in the day program, UGO progam and Competency-Based Education Program.  At the time of her award, Karin was a Business/Instructional Technology teacher at North Brookfield Junior/Senior High School in North Brookfield, MA, where her projects included developing and instructing an online course, "Investing in the Stock Market" through the Virtual High School Program beginning in 1993 and teaching college-level accounting courses to North Brookfield students for which they received credit at Nichols College. She also was the Director of the Senior Focus Mentor Program, which paired students with professionals from the community, providing expanded educational and training opportunities beyond the classroom walls.  After receiving the American Council for International Education's (ACIE) Excellence in Teaching Award, she participated in a fellowship teaching Economics and American Culture in Russian high schools and universities in the Chelyabinsk region and shared her distance learning experience with fellow Russian educators in a series of presentations. One year later, she created a Russian Culture Program in the North Brookfield Public School System by bringing her host sister, Ms. Elena Deklenko, to the U.S. for the school year as the instructor. She has taught Investments, Entrepreneurship, Accounting, Marketing, Web Page Design, Personal Finance and Computer Applications at Shepherd Hill Regional High School in Dudley, MA, where she also started the Investment Club.   Over the years, (Orbon) Curran has served as an advisor for various classes, the yearbook and Students Against Destructive Decisions (S.A.D.D.), the Accounting Club and has chaperoned students on numerous trips overseas with the Travel Club from both high schools as well as in the "People to People" program as a teacher ambassador in Australia. 

Karin also is involved in a variety of community projects ranging from providing local high school students Bloomberg Training to offering personal finance workshops to a local women's shelter and manufacturing ESOP.  She is a financial consultant for the Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust and a partner in a USDA grant creating and instructing a Financial Literacy and Excel course to BIPOC farmers and ranchers. 

(Orbon) Curran is also a recipient of the "Nichols College Alumni Achievement Award" and has been recognized by the Massachusetts State Senate, Massachusetts Department of Education, and Massachusetts Business Educators Association for her contributions in the classroom.