Vol. V. No. 2
September 04, 2012
WheelerNotes
Coordinator of Center for Excellence in Teaching and
Learning: Gordon State College can be proud of our
tradition of excellence in teaching and our focus on student
learning. With our annual “Teaching Matters
Conference,” our brownbag conversations on teaching and
learning issues, and strong work within divisions
supporting excellence in teaching and learning, we have
done a good job in ensuring that this quest for excellence
continues. However, as we prepared this year’s budget,
Dr. Burns advocated strongly that we give institutional
support for these efforts by identifying a position to focus
on T&L advocacy. On Friday, August 10, a faculty group
joined the Dean in efforts to describe this position. Please
review the job description that grew out of that
conversation. If, after reviewing the position description,
you wish to nominate someone to serve in this role (or
volunteer your own services), please contact Dean
Wheeler by September 15. Initially the person with this
assignment will teach three courses each semester in
addition to his or her T&L responsibilities.
Preamble: Gordon State College aspires to be a leader in
Teaching and Learning. We desire to achieve this goal by
becoming knowledgeable of new strategies, approaches
and technologies that have become available in recent
years, while also remaining mindful of strategies that have
served learners throughout the history of the modern
university.
The Coordinator of the Center for Excellence in Teaching
and Learning assists the VPAA and the Academic Affairs
Team by cultivating a culture of teaching and learning
excellence at Gordon State College. The Coordinator
reports directly to the VPAA or designee in that capacity.
Responsibilities include:
1. Participate in University System of Georgia
conversations and national conversations on
excellence in teaching and learning including actively
participating in listservs, System committees and
conferences.
2. Develop a Teaching and Learning Library/Repository
in which materials explicitly related to Teaching and
Learning are made available to faculty. Parallel to
this, the Coordinator will maintain records of specific
expertise in this field available from within the
Gordon faculty.
3. Help develop, promote, and disseminate the outcomes
of on-campus conversations about teaching and
learning and communicate availability of off-campus
training opportunities to the larger Gordon
community.
4. Work with Academic Affairs Office in the design and
delivery of the New Faculty Orientation with special
attention to providing appropriate mentoring during
the first year.
5. Make recommendations to VPAA on promoting
teaching and learning including identifying needs for
additional resources.
6. Work with the staff person in instructional
technology and the Coordinator of Distance
Education to ensure that these three offices work
collaboratively.
7. Establish additional office hours each week (to be
decided in consultation with the VPAA or designee)
to respond to CETL issues.
8. As resources are available, prepare a plan for a
faculty grant program that would support innovations
in teaching and learning.
9. Other duties as assigned.
Presidential Faculty Development Initiative: If summer
support for a scholarly project would serve you well,
please remember to review the application procedures for
the Presidential Faculty Development Initiative. These
policies and procedures are found at
http://www.gdn.edu/departments/academicaffairs/fac_deve
lopment.asp.
The deadline to apply for support under this initiative is
November 5, 2012.
DEANotes is a quasi-monthly publication of Academic Affairs
Walkers Welcomed: Periodically a group of special
people (many of them past their athletic prime) receive an
email inviting them to join colleagues for a walk around
Highlander Trail at noon. If you would like to be included
on this email list, please let VP Wheeler or AVP Baskin
know of your desire.
Gentle Reminder for Those Seeking Additional
Employment: Please remember that the Gordon Statutes
contain the following requirement for Approval of Outside
Activities:
Statutes E -1: For all compensated activities,
except single-occasion activities, the employee
shall report in writing through official channels the
proposed arrangements and secure the approval of
the president or his/her designee prior to engaging
in the activities. Such activities include consulting,
teaching, speaking, and participating in business or
service enterprises.
Please remember to seek this approval when you become
involved in these kinds of activities. The form for
requesting such approval is found on the Academic Affairs
web page [and the Human Resources web page] and must
be routed through the Division Chair, the Dean, and,
ultimately, to the President. This form must be attached to
any additional signature forms that may be given to you by
your other employer.
A Bit of Good News: We have 25% more students
enrolled in upper level courses this Fall than in Fall 2011.
Thank you to the division chairs, coordinators, and faculty
members who make this growth possible. The distributions
are found in the table below:
Unduplicated Headcount of Students in Junior/Senior
Courses by Discipline and by Year
Fall 2011
Fall 2012
EDUC
99
83
NURS
40
52
BIOL
54
70
MATH
3
5
HIST
28
50
ENGL
25
55
249
315
BaskiNotes
Complete College Georgia: You have all received Peter
Higgins’ email on Early Alert Reporting. Many of you
have first-semester students in your courses and can take
the opportunity to help the wayward ones get back on
course. Remember that while certain courses have been
spotlighted for reporting, you are all welcome to report on
any first-semester students who already show signs of
struggling in your courses. I thank you in advance for this
important work in support of our mission.
Advising Henry County Students: If you have an advisee
who takes classes at the Academy in Henry County, he or
she has the benefit of a “supplemental” advisor onsite. Our site coordinator, Ms. Glenice Graves, is
available to answer questions about registering for classes,
counsel students with personal issues, and advise students
on basic academic matters. She will not replace the
student’s academic advisor, and she is careful to
emphasize that fact with the student. If needed, she will
help a student with obtaining the advisor’s contact
information. If a student asks for clarification of academic
concerns (basic only), Ms. Graves will use a core
curriculum worksheet and scan and forward the worksheet
to you and the student. She has been teaching English for
us on either a PT or Temporary FT basis for a number of
years and has sound advising experience in the general
education core curriculum.
Special note on Military Veterans: Please remember
that, if you have a veteran in your classes, you play an
important role in helping the college comply with the
Department of Veteran Affairs’ regulations for payment of
veterans’ benefits to students. See the email and memo
sent August 15 from Registrar Barras. The triggers are
1) missing three consecutive weeks of class and/or
2) withdrawal with a W or WF. Please notify the Registrar
immediately when this occurs. Veterans are identified on
your class rolls in Banner.
Note about SSC Advisors: While the three advisors in the
Student Success Center—Anissa Howard, Tonya Moore,
and Wanda Stuckey—are primarily advising new
students with learning support requirements, part of their
workload will extend beyond this student population. We
are looking at additional variables to help us identify other
members of the freshman cohort that might be “at risk,”
and our SSC advisors will be advising as many of these
students as their schedules will allow.
Learning Communities: As early as it seems, this is an
appropriate time to be thinking about ideas for learning
communities for next fall. Part of our Quality
Enhancement Plan is our learning community program for
first-year students. If you may be teaching a course next
fall that is typically taught to new students in a fall
semester, you have an opportunity to create a different
kind of learning environment in concert with a
colleague. I would be glad to discuss ideas with you, as
would members of our advisory group: Sandra Blythe,
Gary Cox, and Lynn Rumfelt.
DEANotes is a quasi-monthly publication of Academic Affairs
Faculty Development Opportunities: The USG Office of
Faculty Development has scheduled a series of workshops
this year that should appeal to a broad spectrum of faculty
interests (see list below). Sessions will be offered both
face-to-face and online. For the face-to-face sessions, you
will find registration open for the Fall Semester only. Later
in the Fall semester, they will open registration for the
Spring workshops. If you do sign up for a session and then
are unable to attend, please let them know, as they
maintain a waiting list when registration reaches the
maximum. Registration for the series and more
information about the sessions can be found at
http://www.usg.edu/facultyresources/faculty_development/
workshops/category/academic_year_2012-2013. (Or go to
USG home page, Academics, Faculty Affairs, and the link
at the bottom of the page.)
• September 12, 2012 Teaching with D2L
• September 28, 2012 Multimedia Learning:
Principles and Applications to Course
Design/Presentations
• October 10, 2012
Student Grading: Why Not Use Video
• October 19, 2012
Using the iPad Academically and Beyond
• November 7, 2012
More than a Talking Head - Innovative Use of Web
conferencing
• November 16, 2012
Accessibility Matters: Section 508 Compliance in
Higher Education
The Office of Faculty Development is again sponsoring
the Teaching and Learning Conference next spring. The
only information they have provided at this point are the
scheduled dates of April 4 – 5, 2013.
GahrNotes
Dr. Lewis Fang has a presentation proposal that was
accepted to be presented at a national convention. The title
of the presentation is A Tier-III Intervention for
Elementary Mathematics Word Problems Solving,
accepted by the School Science and Mathematics
Association (SSMA) to be presented at the 2012 SSMA
annual convention, in November, 2012, Birmingham AL.
Dr. Jennifer Gardner attended the Georgia Veterinary
Medical Association Board Meeting Sunday, August 26,
and is leading a movement via the Animal Welfare
Committee to change legislation at a state level to mandate
every county in Georgia provide Animal Control facilities
with properly trained and accredited staff. She is also
advocating for subsidized educational programs for all
state and county animal control officers.
- Addressed the Pike County Commission on Tuesday,
August 28, promoting Animal Control, drafting animal
welfare legislation, and upholding an adherence to state
mandated Rabies control laws.
- Elected to the Advisory Board of SNUP, Spay/Neuter
Upson Pets.
- Conducting a seminar for all animal control officers,
rescue and shelter workers on September 5th to review
proper quarantine, vaccination, and disease management
protocols.
Dr. Henry Gore served as an AP (Advanced Placement)
Calculus Reader for the Educational Testing Service on
June 10 – 16, 2012 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Dr. Greg Hartman reviewed The Biology of Small
Mammals by Joseph F. Merritt (The Johns Hopkins
University Press) for the American Society of
Mammalogists. The review was published in the August
2012 Journal of Mammalogy.
Dr. Richard Schmude:
I. Book: “Artificial Satellites and How to Observer Them”
was published on July 5, 2012.
II. Awards
1. Peggy Haas Service Award: Awarded on July 7 in
Lincolnshire, IL by the Association of Lunar and
Planetary Observers (ALPO). This was given for service
to the ALPO.
2. Jon Wood award given on August 18 by Stephen
Ramsden in Hampton, GA. The award was given for
public astronomy outreach.
III. Publications
1. A. Mallama and R. W. Schmude, Jr. “Cloud and
variations in the integrated luminosity of Jupiter” Icarus,
Vol. 220, pp. 211-215 (2012).
2. R. W. Schmude, Jr. “Jupiter’s Changing North
Equatorial Belt” Georgia Journal of Science,
Vol. 70, No. 2, p. 92-97 (2012).
IV. Talk
“Jupiter’s Red and White Oval Storms in 2011-2012” a
talk given to the Houston Astronomical Society on August
3, 2012 at the University of Houston [~100 attended].
Dr. Marwan Zabdawi
-Completed the design of the online class for Math 1001
for the spring of 2013; USG initiative to offer CORE
courses online by every institution
-Will be taking eight students total from the Engineering
Club and the Class of ENGR 1100 to the Caterpillar plant
on Wednesday 9/12/12.
DEANotes is a quasi-monthly publication of Academic Affairs
KnightoNotes
Dr. Brenda Johnson:
• attended the International Economic Development
Council (IEDC) webinar on July 30, 2012 highlighting
the best practices in preparing rural business
communities to be more resilient in the wake of
disasters.
• also participated in the Desire2Learn Train the
Trainer session in Athens on August 13-15.
Dr. Christy Flatt has the honor of becoming a Social
Action Committee member for the Sociologists for Women
in Society (SWS). Dr. Flatt will be assisting the chair in
updating Fact Sheets and in the selection of an
undergraduate student who has made a significant
contribution to a disadvantaged group for the yearly Social
Action Award.
Congratulations are in order to Dr. Jeff Rogers who has
written a chapter in the William Gilmore Simms’s
Unfinished Civil War: Consequences for a Southern Man
of Letters, edited by David Moltke-Hansen (The
University of South Carolina Press). The book is subject
for release in February 2013.
A special thank you goes to Dr. Joe Mayo for his
outstanding workshop for Gordon faculty entitled
Successful Teaching and Learning through Analogies that
was conducted on August 10, 2012. Dr. Mayo is a
nationally-respected scholar in the area of teaching
methodology and it is an honor to have him as a faculty
member at Gordon State College and in the BSS division.
Dr. Ric Calhoun is currently pursuing the Online
Graduate Certificate Program in Computer Information
Systems at Georgia Southwestern State University and
completed the CIS 5310, Decision Support Systems this
past summer. Congratulations Dr. Calhoun!
WhitelockNotes
Prof. Robert Perry Ivey will be a
speaker/presenter/performer at the Crossroads Writing
Conference in Macon, Georgia the first weekend in
October.
Dr. Marc Muneal spent two weeks in London this May,
supported by a President’s Faculty Development Grant,
doing research on British novelist/journalist/celebrity chef
Fanny Cradock. He also served on the judging panel for
the 2012 Melsha Snaggs Enrichment Scholarships, which
saw six scholarships awarded to high school and college
students by the Trinidad and Tobago Association of
Georgia in commemoration of T&T’s 50th anniversary of
Independence. Finally, Dr. Muneal had an article,
“Anatomy of an Afterthought: Charles Kingsley, the
‘Accursed Slavery Question,’ and the Function of the
Quadroon in Two Years Ago,” accepted for publication in
Nineteenth Century Contexts.
Dr. Stephen Powers’ poem, “Dolly Floats,” is in the latest
issue of Tapestry.
Dr. Rhonda Wilcox served as co-convener and program
co-chair for the fifth biennial Slayage conference on the
Whedonverses, at the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver, Canada, July 12-15. She also presented a
paper: “A Soliloquy by Any Other Name: Speech-making
in the Whedonverses.”
Dates & Deadlines
Oct 8, 9
Midterm – Withdrawals and grade appeals after
October 4 will be an automatic WF except in cases of
hardship as documented and approved by processing a
Student Petition.
Fall Break for Faculty and Students
Oct 10
Georgia History & U.S. Constitution Exam
Oct 17
Sophie Shao - Cello
Oct 17
Student Recital: Featuring Music & Theater Students
2:00 p.m. FA Auditorium
Instrumental Music Concert - begins at 7:30 p.m. FA
Auditorium
Early Registration for Continuing Students
Oct 4
Oct 23
Oct 29Nov 16
Nov 9
Presidential Investiture Time & Location TBA
Nov 21
New Student Orientation – Alumni Mem Hall
Group Advising/Registration (Spring 2013 Semester)
Administrative Offices are open
Nov 21-23
Thanksgiving Holidays for Faculty & Students
Nov 22-23
Thanksgiving Holidays for Administrative Staff
College Closed
Student Recital: Featuring Music & Theater Students
2:00 p.m. FA Auditorium
Choral Music Concert - begins at 7:30 p.m. FA
Auditorium
Instrumental Music Concert - begins at 7:30 p.m. FA
Auditorium
Last day of classes
Final Exams
Nov 15
Nov 28
Nov 29
Dec 3
Dec 3
Dec 4-7
Dec 17 thru
Jan 1
College Closed
DEANotes is a quasi-monthly publication of Academic Affairs