Vice-President for Academic Affairs Talk

The Q/A session with VP of academic affairs at GGC

This is a compilation of the Q?A session held at Bldg B atrium.

Academic Freedom
It is important to have a freedom in academia, in the classroom. Faculty is free to design, deliver their course in a subjective way depending on their student-audience.

What are the concerns relating to not having tenure?
Faculty are given appointments of 3/5 years. All faculty at the University System of Georgia have yearly renewable annual contracts. A period on 9 months is given to each faculty before a decision is made by GGC not to renew the yearly contract.

On Friday, Aug 5th at 4:00pm the 8000th student was registered at GGC.

Master plan for future student enrollment, building, developmental at GGC
The new SST lab facility is being built for about 10,000 students. GGC has a plan of getting about 9000 students for academic year 2011-2012 to get a student/faculty ratio of 20:1. After 9000 student enrollment, there will be a pause in student enrollment

There is another building being planned to be built in 2014 for a total student enrollment of 15,000 teaching space.

The quality of education at GGC?
About faculty hiring, last year there were about 6000 applications for year 20110-2012, out of these applications, about 120 new faculty were hired. This shows selectivity in faculty hiring process. Center for Teaching Excellence adds to teaching skills of faculty. The student retaining rates at GGC is around 80% which is competent with UGA, GATech, GSU. Tutoring center aids student learning at GGC.

Preparedness towards student transition from high school to college graduation at GGC
School of Transitional studies at GGC started in Aug 1st. Its focus is on 1st year college students that includes tutoring, student mentoring, GA state received a 1 million grant from Melinda and Gates Foundation and GGC will have its share in improving college education.

Will there be an increase in usage of online teaching pedagogy?
Impact of online hybrid courses is being studied at GGC and GGC is flexible in increasing the online component of teaching pedagogy. However, SACS paper work did not have any proposal for only online courses.

Prospects of increase in support/office staff at GGC
Until now, GGC has used the monies allotted for hiring support staff for hiring new faculty. In future, GGC considers improving the support staff to help smooth functioning of college.

Committees for new faculty
School related committees
Discipline related committees


Faculty evaluation at GGC
Faculty evaluation is done annually. On 2nd Monday in April, the faculty give their portfolio to the school dean.

The four areas of portfolio are:

Teaching: new pedagogy, assessment tools used

Student engagement: Volunteering at GGC events, student mentoring, outside-class events

Scholarship: relating to faculty discipline

Service:

Student surveys/feedback:
After the portfolio is turned-in the school dean will speak to each faculty to let them know their future job at GGC.

Long-term commitment to Open-Access at GGC
GGC is the only school at USG to adopt open-access. GGC believes in this open-access admissions in future.


Plans for internationalization
In January, new international students are planned to be admitted, GGC has started the paperwork and is looking forward to hear from SEVIS, USCIS.

QEP: Quality Enhancement Plan
GGC has identified "Internationalization" as its agenda for QEP. An effort is made by GGC to internationalize its curriculum.


Faculty development initiatives at GGC