Guess who?

Georgia Perimeter College’s fall 2014 faculty development day began with a guessing game slide show of baby photos featuring the cute “mugs” of faculty in their formative years.

The short slide show was a fitting start to a day where Dr. Pamela Moolenaar-Wirsiy, the Center for Teaching and Learning director, urged attendees to “rejuvenate; learn something, reflect and improve upon a technique or a new strategy that you can utilize in the classroom.”

Faculty took advantage of the “rejuvenation” portion of the morning, attending yoga and stress relieving sessions—and even learning to tango in an introductory course.

There were some blips to the morning, as construction zones on Clarkston Campus made it a challenge to get to the day’s sessions. Sidewalks and building entryways were blocked, and there was no running water in several classroom buildings, thanks to a morning water main break.

Campus improvements are being made this fall not only on Clarkston, but also on Decatur and Dunwoody campuses, noted Phil Smith, interim vice president of academic affairs, in his address to faculty. Funds for the improvements come from the University System of Georgia Board of Regents Maintenance, Renovation and Repair budgets and cannot be used for salaries or any other items at the college, he added.

Among the dozens of sessions faculty could choose to attend was “Teaching Circles: Birds of a Feather,” presented by Dunwoody professors Dr. Terry Bozeman and Mark Banas. They introduced the idea of teaching circles to increase interdisciplinary cooperation. Attending were science, math, English and ESL instructors. They all wanted to find out how to share information between disciplines.

“This is exactly what I think we need to increase collegiality,” said Jesse Hayden, an ESL instructor.

 The next teaching circle meeting will be at 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17 on Dunwoody Campus, but online options through Blackboard also are available. Contact Bozeman at terry.bozeman@gpc.edu for information.  

Faculty also learned about a new streaming video project available through the GPC Libraries. SWANK Digital Campus is a licensed program that offers feature films faculty can embed in their curriculum. Currently licensed titles for GPC include “To Kill a Mockingbird,”  “The Bicycle Thief,”  “Taxi Driver,” “Psycho” and “Singing in the Rain.” 

In other news from the event:

--Dr. Sheila Garland was introduced as the new dean of Health Sciences for the college.

--Dr. Susan Finazzo, interim director of institutional research, gave an overview of the results of the first Performance Alert for Student Success assessment at the college. More than 11,700 alerts were sent out to students who were close to failing a course; most issues were in math and science. A second PASS assessment alert was scheduled to go out Oct. 11.

--Dr. Don Pearl, GPC’s Complete College Georgia director, also announced a new First Year Experience task force. FYE is expected to change to a one-credit course designed to help students create a plan for college completion. For information about the task force, contact Pearl at Donald.pearl@gpc.edu