Five Georgia Perimeter Decatur Campus students represented GPC at the National Model African Union Conference in Washington D.C. Feb. 19-22. They are Alex Myers, Shanteran Stinson, Marcus Tucker, Jaron Gills and Ugochukwu Ossai. The students represented the country of Tunisia in North Africa. They were assigned to separate committees and tasked with drafting and negotiating resolutions pertaining to various issues in Africa. Also, Myers was presented with one of three Committee Leadership Awards in recognition of his work and leadership role. GPC participation in Model African Union was coordinated by the Decatur Campus Civic and Political Awareness Club.

Emmanuel “Slate” Lyons was interviewed March 3 by WSB’s Myrna Brown about his role in the Teens Against Dating Violence summit to be held in Duluth March 14. Lyons is a student in the DeKalb Early College Academy program, which is a partnership between GPC and the DeKalb County school system. Also, Lyons was a performing artist and co-host of the Teen Dating Violence Awareness event held at the DECA site March 6. Other DECA students performed at the open mic event as well.

Newton Campus Student Government Association officers Sri Rajasekaran, president; Alexis Duffey, secretary; and Logan Malcolm, chief justice, attended the University of Georgia’s annual Georgia Collegiate Leadership Conference Feb. 7. The 2015 GCLC theme, “Be Bold,” focused on inspiring every attendee to be bold in his or her leadership. During the conference, Rajasekaran was selected as the Emerging Leader Award recipient. As part of her win, Sri will receive a scholarship to attend next year’s GCLC conference.

During the Board of Regents-sponsored Student Advisory Council Conference held Feb. 12-13, Newton SGA president Sri Rajasekaran was one of the three student finalists nominated for the Regent Willis J. Potts Student Advisory Council Leadership Award. 

Ayush H. Patel spent fall semester 2014 in South Korea at Sogang University on a study abroad trip. 

Georgia Perimeter SGA presidents Adam Smith, Alpharetta; Aissatta Siallo, Clarkston; Marc Aitcheson, Decatur; Jonathan Williams, Dunwoody; and Sri Rajasekaran, Newton, were among student government leaders from across the state who met with University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby and Georgia Governor Nathan Deal.

The Civic and Political Awareness Club on Decatur Campus focused fall semester on educating GPC students on the importance of voting and on the actual act of voting, in terms of where to register and vote. Club members put up flyers and a board educating Decatur students on the election and voting and also held two events to encourage students to go out and vote. Also, club advisor and political science faculty member Barbara Robertson visited multiple classrooms to educate students on registering to vote and on the election itself.

Four Georgia Perimeter students have won awards for their presentations at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Mid-Southeast conference held Nov. 13-14 in Gatlinburg, Tenn.

Olatide Omajaro won first place for his presentation on “Data Analysis and Feature Selection Techniques for a Machine Learning Process to Assess Maturity in Cotton Fibers.” The second-place award went to Tyler Flynn and Joseph Sadler for “Daedalus: The Internet-Capable Quadcopter.” Rob Townsend took third place for “Elsa Illustrated: A Dynamic and Static Perspective on Neural Network Design.” Other GPC students who gave presentations included Ahmed Alsammarraie, Eli Bukasa, Mike Churvis and Nat Kumaresan.

Student presenters are chosen to give 15-minute presentations on their work or research after submitting an abstract. Winners receive a certificate, money and publication in the proceedings of the conference. ACM is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences, and applications of information technology. The conference is in its 55th year for student competition.

Georgia Perimeter College was awarded the Southeast Regional Student Math Team Award at the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges conference held in Nashville Nov. 13-16. The award was in recognition of the GPC student math teams’ performance during the 2013-14 academic year.

GPC had the top team score in the Southeast and placed 8th overall nationally. Students Trung Quach, Bo Guo and Thong (Darren) Pham had the second, third, and fourth highest overall individual scores in the Southeast, respectively. Trung Quach’s overall individual score was 16th in the nation. Hoai Thuong Nguyen was the top-scoring female participant in the Southeast and was invited to join the Association for Women in Mathematics. Other top GPC scorers included Nathanael Williams, Jonathan Williams, Tu Pham and Anh Ho.

GPC faculty members Allison Wolf, Iason Rusodimos, Barrett Walls, Diana McGinnis and Amir Barzegar ran the students’ training sessions.

The AMATYC Student Math League is a national competition for students at two-year colleges. The competition consists of two exams, one in the fall and one in the spring. There were 190 schools competing, and thousands of students involved. Team scores are computed by taking the top five scores at each school each semester. 

Members of the Georgia Perimeter Drama Club participated at the Working Title Playwrights’ 24 HR Plays event held Nov. 8-9 in Atlanta. Student Justin Beaudrot was chosen to co-write a play. Three students, Truman Griffin, Jessie Hughes and Nzinga Imani, appeared in the plays. Amy Diallo helped with the tech crew, and Ever Devereux was assistant stage manager for the entire event. GPC student volunteers also got a special thanks listing along with the sponsors in the program. Jill Patrick, managing artistic director of the Working Title Playwrights, said the event was “the most winning 24 HR Plays we’ve hosted since the first one six years ago. Because of GPC’s Drama Club help, it was definitely the most smoothly run.”