GC Journeys Newsletter

The 4th annual Posters at the Capitol, sponsored by the Georgia Undergraduate Research Consortium, will be held on March 30th at the Georgia State Capitol. The event allows undergraduate researchers to showcase their work for their legislative representatives, lobbyists, and the general public. Due to the limitations on size, this is a very competitive event. This year, four students from Georgia College were accepted. Only Kennesaw State University (5) and Georgia State University (5) had more students accepted.

Students Accepted:

• Cody Cox (Mentor: Dr. Hasitha Mahabaduge)
• Lauren Stone (Mentor: Dr James Daria)
• Evan Dunnam (Mentor: Dr. Hasitha Mahabaduge)
• Matthew Berry (Mentor: Dr. Hasitha Mahabaduge)

On Friday February 18th the first floor of the Maxwell Student Union filled with over 200 students who were eagerly waiting to build their own GC Journeys stuffed animal. The Office of the First-Year Experience partnered with GC Journeys to bring the “Build a Pal” event to campus.

Students learned about the different transformative experiences offered through GC Journeys, then took a slip of paper to write how they hoped to be transformed by their GC Journeys experience. They placed the slip into their new stuffed animal to be reminded about their aspirations each time they saw their “pal.” The 200 animals each came with their own adoption certificate and GC Journeys shirt, they were all claimed within 30 minutes.

This was the second time the GC Journeys Build a Pal event has been held on campus in the past three years, and students are already asking when it will return.

2022 GC Journeys Project Mini-Grants have been a huge success, supporting innovative projects across GC. If you are currently leading a transformative experience, feel free to apply for a mini-grant here. The GC Journeys Project Mini-grants are decided on a rolling basis, and will be available for the rest of the semester.

GC Journeys has awarded Project Mini-Grants to support faculty who are leading transformative experiences in the following departments:

• Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
• Department of Art
• Department of Government and Sociology
• Department of Teacher Education
• Department of Accounting
• Department of World Languages and Cultures
• Department of Economics

Additionally, GC Journeys awarded 2022 Departmental Planning Mini-grants for:

• 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

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.To read more information about the submission requirements, visit the MURACE homepage.

Only abstracts for completed research or creative endeavors will be accepted for regular conference presentations. However, if students haven't completed research, there will be "work in progress" sessions, as well. Submissions must acknowledge whether work is complete or in progress.

Students can submit their work here.

Georgia College faculty who have led multiple transformative experiences are partnering with the Center for Teaching and Learning to offer faculty-led workshops to discuss transformative experiences as part of GC Journeys. The workshops will focus on Capstones (Dr. Stephanie McClure), Internships (Angela Criscoe), Service Learning/Community based Engaged Learning (Dr. Stefanie Sevcik), and Study Abroad (Dr. Stephanie McClure, Dr. Jehan El-Jourbagy).

Register here to sign up for the workshops.

GC Journeys was named the 2021 Regents’ Momentum Year Award for Excellence in Teaching and Curricular Innovation winner. Members of the Georgia College community were invited to the Board of Regents ceremony honoring award recipients.

Senior Economics Major, Maxwell P. Harley, recently won the Best Undergraduate Research Paper at the Academy of Economics and Finance (AEF) Conference. He was mentored by Dr. Brooke Conaway. His paper was titled, "Does the Edition of a Sony PlayStation 5 Affect Its Secondary Market Price?"

Savannah Taylor is Georgia College's nominee for COPLAC's David J. Prior Award. The David J. Prior Award recognizes senior-level undergraduates whose academic careers and future goals have been shaped by the transformative power of the liberal arts and sciences experience at a COPLAC institution.

Ms. Taylor is a senior Economics and Languages double-major from Metro Atlanta. She has been involved in several transformative experiences, including environmental and service learning projects, the Leadership Certificate program, the GEM (Georgia Educational Mentorship) program, undergraduate resarch, and GC's Newman Civic Fellow.

The Office of Leadership has announced Leadership GC, a 10 month program targeting full-time staff members are eligible to apply, provided they have maintained at least twenty-four months' unbroken service at the university.

Participants will learn the skills to practice leadership in your profession and community, and have the opportunity for networking, while developing leadership skills. The deadline for applications is March 11th. Learn more here.

March 4th 12-1:00- From Classroom to Work Experience, Incorporating Skills into a HIP Internship - Angela Criscoe

Interested in internships for your students? Check out our upcoming Lunch & Learn sessions with HIPs Champions! In this session, Angela Criscoe will help participants identify the key elements and skills within their programs that will help students acquire a HIP internship. Don't offer internship credit in your program? Learn how students can acquire GC Journeys credit for an internship through a new non-credit Internship course.

This virtual workshop will take place at 12 noon on March 4. The meeting link will be sent out to registrants on the day of the workshop.

Register here.

April 15th- 12-1:00 Community-based Engaged Learning- Dr. Stefanie Sevcik

Interested in learning more about community-based engaged learning? Check out our upcoming Lunch & Learn sessions hosted by HIPs Champions! Please join Dr. Stefanie Sevcik for a discussion of the framework for building successful community partnerships. Do you want to brush the dust off of a general education course you have taught countless times to make it feel more impactful? Maybe you want to take your advanced seminar students out of the classroom and into the community? We will walk through the stepds involved in taking a course you already teach and incorporating a high-impact service-learning experience for your students. We will also discuss examples of service-learning projects happening in courses across the campus and resources to turn your idea into a reality.

This virtual workshop will take place at 12 noon on April 15. The meeting link will be sent out to registrants on the day of the workshop.

Register here.

April 19th 3-5pm- Design for Transformative Learning & Essential Learning Outcomes - Drs. Cynthia Alby & Simeco Vinson

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.

April 22nd 12-1:00 Faculty Teaching in Study Abroad - Drs. Stephanie McClure and Jehan El-Jourbagy

Interested in learning more about study abroad? Check out our upcoming Lunch & Learn sessions with HIPs Champions! Drs. Stephanie McClure and Jehan El-Jourbagy will share about the how and why of teaching in study abroad programs. This high-impact practice is truly transformative for both students and faculty. Students are often more interested in participating in study abroad programs when those programs include faculty from their own campus.

This virtual workshop will take place at 12 noon on April 22. The meeting link will be sent out to registrants on the day of the workshop.

Register here

Email: journeys@gcsu.edu
Website: https://www.gcsu.edu/gcjourneys
Location: Carl Vinson House