GC Journeys Newsletter

JANUARY 2022

GC Journeys Departmental Mini-Grants Winners

Spring 2022 GC Journeys Departmental Planning Mini-grants offer up to $5,000 for departments to analyze the department/program’s current GC Journeys plan and to create an action plan for institutionalizing, strengthening, and/or expanding students access to Transformative Experiences (HIPs) within the department’s curriculum.

This year’s award recipients are:

• Department of Accounting

• Department of Economics and Finance

• Department of Information Systems and Computer Science

• Department of English

• Department of Management, Marketing, & Logistics

• Department of Psychology

• Department of World Languages and Cultures

Congrulations to these departments. Faculty leading individual projects can still apply for the GC Journeys Project Mini-grants. These mini-grants will provide funding support for supplies, etc. for individual projects, so faculty leading transformative experiences. These will be decided on a rolling basis. GC Journeys Project Mini-Grants can be found here.

Service Learning in the Community Health Poster Showcase

On December 2nd, Dr. Ernie Kaninjing moderated the Community Health Poster Showcase, sponsored by the School of Health and Human Performance. Participating students showcased the results of semester-long community health service learning projects.

Communities of Practice: Update

This Spring, GC Faculty have the opportunity to participate in 2 featured Communities of Practice to support Transformative Learning Experiences: Service Learning (Dr. Sevcik) and Writing (Dr. Bracewell).

GC Journeys is offering $300 for all participants in Spring 2022 Service-Learning Communities of Practice to support new and ongoing service-learning experiences for students. Each group of the following groups will meet 5 times over the course of the Spring 2022 semester:

This Community of Practice is designed to benefit people who are new to service-learning collaborations who would like to develop an idea for a project or who have a project in its early stages, but have yet to implement it fully. Through a community of engaged, supportive peers, we will discuss the components of excellent service-learning projects, opportunities for support, and the steps to successfully implementing your project.

To join the communities of practice for service learning, please email: Dr. Stefanie Sevick.

To join the communities of practice for service learning, please email: Dr. Joy Bracewell.

GC STUDENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE- MAR 25

The GC Student Research Conference is celebrating its 25th year. This year's conference will be hybrid, but will continue to provide undergraduates at Georgia College from all disciplines the opportunity to submit their mentored scholarly work for consideration to present to the campus community.

Only abstracts for completed research or creative endeavors will be accepted for regular conference presentations. Work in progress will have its own session. Submissions must acknowledge whether work is complete or in progress.
To read more information about the submission requirements, visit the MURACE homepage.

Students can submit their work here.

Upcoming GC Journeys Programming

Flipping the Classroom - Jaclyn & Simeco- Feb 10th

In a flipped classroom, the traditional lecture and homework elements are reversed, asking students to complete course tasks (i.e., handouts, readings, videos) outside of the classroom and work on problems and solutions while in class. This strategy aims to deepen students' engagement and knowledge by repurposing instruction, so students inquire about lecture content, apply their knowledge, and participate in hands-on activities while in class.

Participants will receive more than a conceptual understanding of flipping the classroom during this session. We will reveal proven instructional strategies that engage students who are not always motivated to complete out-of-class work.

Sign up here: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/34003d9b10dd4df6a2c4abff231fbf12

April 19th 3-5pm- Design for Transformative Learning & Essential Learning Outcomes

To provide a better understanding of the GC Journeys initiative and help you decide how to incorporate transformative experiences and essential skills into your courses or program, we designed a pair of workshops, Transformative Experiences and Essential Learning Outcomes, both of which have been shown to increase student retention and student engagement rates.

GC Journeys answers several questions: How can faculty and staff make their work more joyful, meaningful, and purposeful? How do we build more meaningful relationships with our students? How do we distinguish our curriculum in a system that doesn't provide much opportunity for creating something liberal-arts-specific? Further answers to these questions can be found in the pair of workshops. Nearly two-thirds of GC faculty have completed the pair of GC Journeys workshops, and our goal is to get to as close to 100% completion as possible!

These highly interactive workshops filled with engagement will provide you with ways to help make the classes and the programs you teach life-changing for students and more meaningful for you.

Please join Drs. Cynthia Alby and Simeco Vinson on April 19th from 3-5 pm on Zoom and find out why the GC Journeys program is already getting nationwide attention. We especially encourage new faculty to attend to better understand GC Journeys and how it applies to you!

Register for Design for Transformative Learning & Essential Learning Outcomes! The Zoom link will be emailed to registrants on the morning of the session.

Posters at the Capitol Returns

The Georgia Undergraduate Research Collective (GURC) is partnering with Georgia College to co-host the 4th annual Posters at the Capitol event. Posters at the Capitol will be on March 30th, 2022.