Sergeant Michele Mason proudly served with the NYPD for 21 years in investigative and patrol capacities.  Michele’s major accomplishments in the NYPD include: the development and implementation of the NYPD Domestic Violence Policy and the production of training videos entitled “Creating a Culture of Integrity” and “Civil Enforcement” through grants from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.  While assigned to the 41^st Precinct, Michele was an initial responder to the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and was present for the collapse of both towers.

Michele holds a Masters of Arts in English Literature and a Bachelors of Arts in English from Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, New York.  She obtained her academic credentials while working full time as a member of the New York City Police Department. 

Michele joined the Monroe College family in 2004, as an adjunct faculty member in the School of Criminal Justice, where she served as the faculty advisor to the Criminal Justice Club and the Book Club.  In 2007, Michele joined the college as a full time faculty member, exchanging the title of NYPD Sergeant to Professor of English/Social Sciences.  She then joined the Academic Technology department as an Instructional Designer in 2013 until 2018. 

Michele is happily married to Retired Deputy Chief Thomas Mason, Office of Chief of Internal Affairs of the NYPD, and is the mother of two grown sons who work in the finance industry.  Michele relocated to New Braunfels, Texas for health conditions related to toxic exposure at the World Trade Center site on September 11^th 2001. 

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September 11, 2001, New York City was shaken to its core when two jet airliners crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. In the wake of the chaos, New York based Irish photographer Nicola McClean responded in the only way she knew how; she picked up her camera and took to the streets to try and capture the confusion and panic that surrounded her.

Nicola McClean has created an exhibition called Ground Zero 360, to honor the victims and their families of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center, and to never forget the sacrifice of so many innocent people on that terrible day. In 2011, Nicola exhibited her stunning collection of images to the public for the first time.

The spectator is able to discover, through Nicola’s images, the startling aftermath of one of the most tragic events in American history – seeing what she saw, hearing the stories she heard and meeting the people she met, particularly the heroic men and women of the New York City Emergency Services.

Through harrowing visuals, heartbreaking “missing posters” and a unique panoramic installation, Ground Zero 360 invites you to step into the past and feel what eight million New Yorkers were feeling in the days that followed the attacks.

Visitors  are able to hear the city’s previously unreleased emergency radio calls from that morning, and touch a fragment of twisted steel I-beam and broken granite from the World Trade Center.

Personal artifacts lent by families of police officers and firefighters who lost their lives at the World Trade Center, crosses cut from World Trade Center steel by ironworkers, and a flag that flew over Ground Zero are also part of the exhibit. Recent additions to the collection include a “Survivor Tree” cast in bronze and steel from the World Trade Center and the Freedom Tower and symbolic “towers” engraved with the names of all 2,996 victims killed on September 11th. This exhibition has the support of the National 9-11 Memorial and Museum, and has the support of The 9-11 Families (911families.org).