Enjoy the Hanging of The Greens Event below.

Public Health Professor, Dr. Damian Francis, receives invite from World Health Organization to extend his nomination to the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Evaluation until 2027.

The annual Poster Showcase is the culminating experience for Community Health course, allowing students to display their service leaning efforts during the fall semester.

Students serve in a community organization where they learn through experience how to identify community health needs and developing strategies for addressing those need through mutual learning, critical thinking about the root causes of the health needs, and sustainable solutions.

Students also learn how to interact with community members from diverse backgrounds. A major aspect of the service-learning experience is for students to learn how to work collaboratively with community partner(s) in addressing health and social issues and take their learning beyond the classroom by applying concepts learned in class to real-world challenges.

This year, students selected to perform their service learning from a list of over 20 community partner organizations working in fields such as sustainability, human services, and after-school programs.

Through the service-learning experience, the public health program at Georgia College was able to give over 1,000 total hours to the community and impact the lives of individuals served by our community partners.

This fall the Poster Showcase took place in the Peabody Auditorium on December 8th and attracted many Baldwin County community members as well as Georgia College faculty and staff who were eager to observe what students had achieved in their semester-long endeavors.

A panel of three judges, consisting of Dr. Mandy Jarriel, Dr. Jeff Turner, and Dr. Jim Berger, visited each of the 15 posters on display and listened to students provide a 5 minute oral presentation of their work and its impact on the community.

At the end of the event, two posters received awards as the first-, and second-best posters. The first place went to Abigail Giddens who performed her service learning at the WINGS Domestic Abuse Shelter.

The second place went to Maddie Smith and Karli Galloway who performed their service learning with Dr. Damian Francis and Maddy Meiser at the Center for Health and Social Issues.

Below are photos showcasing the first and second place winners of the fall 2023 Poster Showcase.

Article by Kaitlin Van Voorhis, BS, Graduate Assistant, School of Health & Human Performance

Other Presenters:

Learning takes place well beyond the classroom in the School of Health & Human Performance. Dr. Turner’s environmental health students met with Stephen Wright who is the Assistant Director of Georgia College & State University's Aquatics for the Wellness & Recreation Center. He is also a Certified Pool Operator (CPO).

Students used the visit to look at three things: 1) injury prevention in the aquatic setting (particularly drowning prevention), 2) infectious disease control, and 3) the professional work of an environmental health professional (since Department of Public Health staff conduct pool inspections).

Outdoor Education's senior lecturer, Dr. Liz Speelman, along with students in the Experiential Education course attended the National 4-H Congress in Atlanta, Georgia over Thanksgiving weekend. Over the course of Saturday, our students facilitated over 600 4-H participants from all over the country. The students were teaching the participants how to facilitate teambuilding activities focused on communication, leadership, conflict management, group decision making and working effectively as a team.

Thank you to alumni Macey Carson, Madison Green and Erin Smith for facilitating during this event.

Dr. Damian Francis, Assistant Professor in the School of Health and Human Performance hosted the 2nd Professional Development and Networking Dinner on Nov. 1. The dinner is part of a capstone course, Senior Seminar in Public Health, which was introduced in fall 2022.

The dinner provides students with the opportunity to network with stakeholders from various professions including healthcare, business, and industry to hone skills in marketing their employability while building a network for future internships, mentorship and recommendations.

This year’s dinner featured members of the College of Health Sciences Board, Alumni, Career Center, College of Business and Georgia College & State University Foundation.

Professionals share personal and work experiences from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Public Health, hospital systems and national non-profits such as Community Organized Relief Effort: CORE.

The dinner was attended by 35 students and 17 professionals with funding from Alumni Foundation and Auxiliary Services.

Nov. 12-18 was National Nurse Practitioner Week. We have some of the best at Georgia College & State University.

Congratulations to our December 2023 graduates!

Please enjoy the latest edition of the student-led newsletter “The Scrub” .

Cat Colcombe was a graduate assistant with School of Health & Human Performance, public health professor, Dr. Damian Francis and currently works for the Alzheimer’s Foundation.

She provides guidance for caring with loved ones impacted by the disease especially during the holiday season.

You can watch the short news story below.