How Marist Made Chris Algozzine the Person He is Today

Chris Algozzine '98 pictured with his daughter Andrea '19 at her graduation. Source and Credit: Chris Algozzine

With a strong personal connection to the campus, Algozzine went from student to professor in the course of a lifetime.

Marist College has always constituted a close community — students maintain special bonds with faculty, while meeting peers along the way that will become close friends and family for life. And Chris Algozzine ‘89/M‘95 is living proof of this.

“I always felt like Marist was my second family,” said Algozzine.

Algozzine started as a student majoring in computer science and thrived as a Red Fox. He met his wife at Marist and now is a father; both of his children have academic connections to Marist as well. 

Algozzine then moved on to graduate school, obtained his master's in management information systems and worked at IBM for 26 years. Through it all, he still feels Marist shaped his knowledge the most.

“Marist does a great job of teaching us the skills we need for what we want to do in our careers,” said Algozzine. 

When he was starting to feel not as happy while working at IBM, Algozzine knew he needed a change. He confided in a former classmate who is now a professor at Marist, Dr. Alan Labouser, who encouraged him to come back and teach at his alma mater, beginning as an adjunct faculty member.

“I remember the very first class I ever taught… they stuck me into the Lowell Thomas basement,” Algozzine said. “I remember driving home that night on cloud nine.”

Indeed, Marist was where Algozzine was meant to be. 

Now, as a senior professional lecturer of computer science and math since 2015, Algozzine continues to make his mark on the Marist campus. The classes Algozzine took as a student about learning how to problem solve and handle the world outside of the classroom made him into the person he is today.