Raritan Valley Community College’s Marketing Department has received several regional honors from the National Council of Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR), highlighting its efforts to effectively communicate with prospective students, as well as members of the community, about all that the College offers.
RVCC Director of Marketing Rick Burchfield has been named Communicator of the Year for NCMPR’s District 1 region. The prestigious honor is given to a public relations or marketing professional who has demonstrated outstanding leadership, skill, and impact in two-year college communications.
The National Council for Marketing & Public Relations represents marketing and public relations professionals at community and technical colleges. An affiliate of the American Association of Community Colleges, NCMPR has more than 1,600 members from nearly 600 colleges across the United States and Canada.
Burchfield, a resident of Budd Lake who’s been at RVCC since 2022, was nominated for the award by Rodney E. Altemose, RVCC Associate Vice President for Strategic Enrollment Management. Burchfield was celebrated at NCMPR District 1’s regional conference, held October 14-16 in Buffalo, NY.
Speaking about why he nominated Burchfield for the award, Altemose said, “One of the things I admire most about Rick is that he understands that the best way to tell RVCC’s story is through our students. He doesn’t simply find a student to put in an ad. Rick talks with them. He listens to them. He creates an environment in which they feel comfortable, respected, and heard. That investment is reflected in the final work: dynamic, student-centered video and storytelling assets that have become the foundation of RVCC’s marketing. These new pieces have replaced scripted institutional language and stock imagery with authentic stories that prospective students recognize as relevant to their own lives.”
RVCC’s Marketing Department also received several other NCMPR awards in a number of categories at the organization’s regional event, including
• The College’s newly designed Website (https://www.raritanval.edu/): Gold Award
• Interior Signage/Displays for RVCC’s ads at Bridgewater Commons: Gold Award
• Successful Recruitment or Marketing Program Campaign category, which included the new website relaunch, as well as print and digital marketing assets and videos: Silver Award
• Digital Advertisement for a free tuition program: Bronze Award
• Print Wild Card for a recruitment folder: Bronze Award
• Promotional Video-Short Form, featuring RVCC student Esmeralda Ochoa highlighting RVCC’s student support services on campus (https://youtu.be/e_zvyn7SCe0?si=J2DeumzyCj_LhHJI): Bronze Award
“These awards, including Communicator of the Year, belong to our entire department. This past year, a small team delivered a redesigned website, a unified recruitment campaign, and our first operational CRM. I’m grateful to work with such talented, dedicated people,” added Burchfield.
Burchfield’s career spans more than two decades, beginning with 10 years in journalism and most recently managing 14 hyper-local websites as Patch’s associate regional editor for Somerset and Morris counties. Working in higher education for the past 14 years, at County College of Morris (CCM), Bloomfield College, Lehigh University, and now RVCC, he has led strategy, storytelling, and implementation with an audience-focused, measured, digital-first approach.
At RVCC, he has led a website redesign and a CRM implementation, hired the College’s first CRM administrator, developed a Canva for Nonprofit template system, and, this year, led the College’s first fully unified and brand-centered digital enrollment campaign.
At CCM, he served on multiple college committees and was the staff representative on the presidential search that resulted in the appointment of Dr. Anthony Iacono. At Bloomfield College, he led all marketing initiatives and created the institution’s 150th anniversary logo and brand. He also co-chaired one of four strategic planning subcommittees. As director of marketing for Lehigh’s newly formed College of Health, he helped build the initial marketing plan for its graduate programs.
He holds an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, with a minor in English, from Penn State.
As the District 1 2026 Communicator, Burchfield automatically will become one of seven finalists for the national Communicator of the Year award, which will be presented in March as part of NCMPR’s national conference in Chicago.
NCMPR’s District 1 region includes Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec.
RVCC is located at 118 Lamington Road in Branchburg, NJ. For further information, visit www.raritanval.edu.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 22, 2026
Media contact: Donna Stolzer, donna.stolzer@raritanval.edu
PR #26
