Iona College Criminal Justice Professor Dr. Cathryn Lavery will be the first woman and the first educator to receive the Detective Barney Ferguson Emerald Legacy Fund award at the organization’s annual 10-13 and May Day fundraiser May 30.

Lavery will receive the award for her service to the criminal justice field. Iona College has a very good reputation in the field of policing, according to Lavery, and she was selected to receive the award because of her teaching and training at Iona.

“It really is an honor to be recognized for the efforts I’ve done,” Lavery said. “Not just for my students, but for the program and for what I’ve done to help develop the program.”

The award Lavery will receive was named after the late Detective James “Barney” Ferguson, who served on the New York Police Department. Ferguson was renowned for his assistance to the NYPD as well as the first responder community, the Irish community and the community at large, according to his son, James Ferguson Jr.

“We decided to start this charity to continue his good works,” Ferguson said.

Lavery teaches a variety of classes at Iona, including Criminology and Introduction to Criminal Justice.

“I do like Intro the best, to be quite honest,” Lavery said. “I like teaching new students; I think it’s very interesting to see how they look at the field based on television and media and then what really happens in the field.”

Lavery has also helped develop other classes at Iona, including a class on profiling violent crimes and a class on forensic health issues in the criminal justice system. She also created the Criminal Justice department’s first team teaching course, where she tried to blend the academic perspective with the practitioner perspective.

Lavery also created a class on managing special offenders with Professor David Mulcahy, a federal probation officer who supervises special offenders.

“We were able to bring to the classroom my perspective of working with mentally ill offenders and drug addicts and him working with organized crime and gang members,” Lavery said. “So it gives the students a more well-rounded view of how the system works.”

Lavery also does research in addition to teaching. She has researched human trafficking, prison therapy programs and other topics in the past, and she is currently doing a study on social media, violent crime and their impact.

The 10-13 and May Day fundraiser will be in Juliano’s Caterers in New Rochelle. Tickets for the event are $65 in advance and $75 at the door; tables of 10 people are $650. The event sells out every year, according to Ferguson Jr. Iona’s Criminal Justice department has attended this event in the past. Lavery said she herself has attended the fundraiser multiple times.

“For anyone who has met Dr. Lavery, she is truly a person deserving of recognition for her decades of service and her absolute devotion to her students and their futures in law enforcement,” Ferguson Jr. said. “Dr. Lavery embodies everything we represent. She goes above and beyond the call of duty every day of every week.”

Other awards given out by the Detective Barney Ferguson Emerald Legacy Fund include the Person of the Year award and three Outstanding Service awards.