The Pulse

Congratulations to Georgia College's Class of 2022! Best wishes in your future endeavors.

Check out the Front Page special commencement piece here.

The Teaching Excellence Awards recognize faculty & departments/programs for their contributions to Georgia College. Colleges select nominees for the awards and forward them to the university faculty awards committee who select the recipient for each award category.

Congratulations to the 2021-2022 COHS recipients!

Laurie Hendrickson McMillan Faculty Award, Talecia Warren, Nursing

This award recognizes excellence in teaching, research, and campus and community service to a College of Business or School of Nursing faculty member.

Excellence in Scholarship & Creative Endeavors Award, Jin Park, Health & Human Performance

This award is to encourage and reward excellence in peer-reviewed, juried scholarship and creative endeavors.

Teaching Excellence Award, Liz Speelmen, Health & Human Performance

This award is to encourage and reward excellence, innovation, and effectiveness in teaching. The recipient of this award will be the university’s nominee for the Regent’s Teaching Excellence Award and will be the December commencement speaker.

Every April, Georgia College hosts the Celebration of Excellence Awards Ceremony to recognize staff who have shown excellence in their field and dedicated service to the University community.

Congratulations to the 2021-2022 COHS recipients!

Outstanding Leadership Award, Julie Colis, Administrative Manager, COHS

This award recognizes individuals in leadership roles/capacities who have gone above and beyond in their service to students, colleagues, and other Georgia College community members during the last academic year.

Individual Service Excellence, Kristy Tenbus, Academic Advisor

This award recognizes individual staff members who have gone above and beyond in their service to students, colleagues, and other Georgia College community members during the last academic year.

Congratulations to the following:

• Jennifer Goldsberry, Nursing - Tenure and promotion to associate professor
• Kevin Hunt, Health & Human Performance - Promotion to full professor
• Mandy Jarriel, Health & Human Performance - Promotion to full professor

Two in-state winners and several of our International student-athletes are represented in the PBC, in fact, our tennis program has 12 student athletes from nine different countries.

We are proud of our student athletes' holistic success. Coach Barsby is a former National Coach of the Year, and mentors student-athletes. Our International student-athletes arrive knowing no one and leave absolutely loyal to Georgia College for life.

The month of May is nationally recognized as Autism Awareness month. In the spirit of celebrating autism awareness, The CHSI partnered with The Life Enrichment Center to provide a night of arts and crafts. This event was community-based and focused on individuals living in Baldwin County who may be impacted by autism. Tanner Cobb, CHSI Graduate Assistant, led two free crafts that included salt art and Easter egg maracas. During the dinner portion of the night, a conversation was opened in the room. The conversation was focused on autism and the impacts it can have on people’s lives. The Center was grateful to all who showed up and is excited about future partnerships with the LEC.

Temple Care is a faith-based intervention program to educate children ages 6-11 in Baldwin County, GA about the importance of proper handwashing, the importance of exercise for cardiovascular health, and the importance of proper nutrition to fuel the body. In the cardiovascular health section, children were taught about the importance of exercise and how to prevent heart disease from a young age. The participants were given stethoscopes to hear their heart rates before and after exercise to see the effect that exercise has on their bodies.

For the handwashing section, glow gel was put on the children’s hands to simulate germs and they were told to wash their hands with no prior instruction on the handwashing technique. Their hands were checked with a black-light to see how much of the gel was left on their hands, showing how well they wash their hands. They were then taught the proper handwashing technique and glow gel was used again to evaluate if there was an improvement in their handwashing behaviors. We also discussed the times that they should wash their hands (i.e. after playing outside, after using the restroom, etc.). For the nutrition section, we discussed the importance of eating right to fuel the body along with basic nutritional recommendations like how many servings of fruits and vegetables they should eat every day.

The last part of the event included a lesson on the ‘3 Circles Method’, which discusses God’s design, how sin leads to brokenness, and how repenting and pursuing the Gospel will lead to eternal life.

THESIS

Grant Pheil: The Academic Work-Life Balance of Entry-Level Athletic Training Students and Its Implications

PROJECT

Rebecca Goldman: Knowledge of RED-S Among Collegiate Athletes

Johnny Nguyen: The Prevalence of RED-S Among College Athletes

Landon Childers: Correlation Between Pitching Velocity and Plyometric Output

Anfernee Powell: Effects of Foam Rolling and Static Stretching on Dorsiflexion of the Ankle Joint

Rosanna Jaramillo: Shifting the Focus of Mental Health onto Graduate Students

Mitchell Clegg – Project: Effect of a 4-week accentuated eccentric loading back squat program on strength, speed, change of direction, and intermittent endurance capacity in female soccer players. MS. Health and Human Performance: Human Performance Concentration

Shawn Olmstead – Thesis: Training Volume and Countermovement Jump Characteristics throughout a Competitive Cross-Country Season in Males and Females. MS. Health and Human Performance: Human Performance Concentration

Imagine stepping foot onto campus for the first time with a dream of helping others live healthier lives yet being unsure how to move forward. That’s exactly the situation Caroline Jones and Nicole Andrews found themselves in just four years ago.

Jones recalls being committed to Georgia Tech. Her dad is a proud Georgia Tech alumnus. But if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then there is something special about Georgia College & State University that many don’t initially see.

“I was one of the many who came to Georgia College thinking they would be gone in a year. Boy, was I wrong about that,” she said. “I fell in love with Milledgeville, from always having a familiar face on campus to the small class to professor ratio, Georgia College became the place that I knew I would succeed and put me in the best position to achieve my goals.”

Andrews knew she had found her home after visiting campus for a tour.

“When I first toured the campus, I knew that this is where I wanted to go. The campus was gorgeous and felt like the perfect fit,” Andrews said.

Exercise science was an easy choice for both seniors. While Jones wants to pursue physical therapy, Andrews saw many different career opportunities for a graduate with an exercise science degree. Growth is a common theme both seniors use to describe their time at the university.

Read more of this Front Page story here.

Pictured below, from left to right: Nicole Andrews and Caroline Jones

Exercise Science students worked with University Communications to create videos that have been used as part of GC’s Wellness Initiative. The title of the series is “GC 3-Minute Desk Exercises” and the students focused on the hips, neck, and feet. Check them out below.

Neck Exercises

Feet Exercises

Hip Exercises

Exercise Science students in the Applied Research class received the “Outstanding Research Critique Presentation” with $200 scholarships from the International Organization for Health, Sports, and Kinesiology on April 2.

Picture of the group. (from left to right: Jordan Ashcraft, Alexis Thomson, Mary Griggers, Grace Jackson)

I work as a Health Educator II with the West Central Health District. Even though my office is in Columbus, I work with community partners throughout our 16-county district. Health promotion covers a wide variety of topics, so I am constantly managing a number of different projects and budgets focused on nutrition, diabetes, hypertension, physical activity, and tobacco education. I enjoy getting to work closely with our community partners to help in reaching our community and building capacity for a healthier district. The picture I shared is from an event we hosted last fall with our library partners to promote healthy hydration. We had students and community members attend to taste fruit-infused water and shared education on sugary drinks and reading nutrition labels. Every day is a little different, and I enjoy getting to share my passion for public health every day.

Recently, our 2022 graduating MSAT class received Board of certification exam results. Congrats to the class of 2022 for a 100% pass rate on the exam.

We thank our incredible alumna, Kirby Kelley, ATC from Southlake Orthopedics, for coming to teach our students about insurance, casting, & suturing!

Special Thank You to our Medical Director, Matthew Toth, M.D. from Ortho GA, for coming to speak to our first-year students twice this past month on the upper extremities, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hand.

Congratulations to Dr. Ernie Kaninjing who won a two-year grant award from the Department of Defense through the Office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) for the fiscal year 2021.

This funding mechanism seeks to promote health equity research and improve prostate cancer outcomes. Dr. Kaninjing's research title is “Grounded theory study of the social determinants of migrant health factors impacting prostate cancer care and survivorship among sub-Saharan African Immigrant Men diagnosed with prostate cancer.”

Graduating nursing major Samantha Summerville has lived with Type 1 diabetes for the last 15 years of her life. By the time she was ready to go to college, she’d grown so accustomed to all the electronic alarms warning her about blood sugar fluctuations that they didn’t wake her up anymore.

A family friend recommended a medical alert dog, and that was how Summerville met Mo, a goldendoodle trained to notice her medical needs before the technology does.

He’s also trained in basic obedience, public access and scent training. She adopted him in her freshmen year, and the two of them have become inseparable. In fact, he’s as much a part of her nursing cohort as she is; he’s been included in the class photos and will be walking with her at graduation.

Read more about Mo in the Front Page story here.

Katey Jones, ’18, and Heather Laflam will be the first to graduate from Georgia College’s nurse-midwifery master’s program, the only state program in Georgia.

Still in its infancy, the midwifery program is the first of its kind in Georgia. The university is using the degree to educate more nurse-midwives in Georgia, a state-ranked 49th in maternal mortality nationally.

The program is unique because its training nurse-midwives are required to complete clinicals within the state.

“Two years of working, planning and creating programs and classes—and here we are with our first graduating class. It’s very exciting,” said Monica Ketchie, associate professor of nursing and nurse-midwifery coordinator. “This is for the women of Georgia, and I’m very proud of Katey and Heather—both of them have a lot to offer women’s health.”

Nurse-midwives, as opposed to lay midwives, are certified, registered nurses that specialize in caring for women throughout their lives. Nurse-midwives receive focused education in pregnancy, labor and birth, but also learn primary, contraceptive and menopausal care.

And while they can deliver outside hospitals, this is not the norm and most practice within hospitals.

Read more of this Front Page story here.

The role of a preceptor is vital in helping our students achieve the hands-on experience required for them to put classroom knowledge into practice. Preceptors’ willingness to share their knowledge and expertise is a tremendous gift to our students and the nursing profession.

We want to highlight an FNP preceptor who has recently gone above and beyond to work with multiple FNP students while maintaining a heavy patient load throughout the pandemic.

Shaune Fuller-Gonzalez

Finding clinical placements for our students is always a challenge but has been particularly difficult since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that time, Ms. Fuller-Gonzalez has worked with eight of our Family Nurse Practitioner students for approximately 1,000 hours. Our faculty have remarked that they have observed that Ms. Fuller-Gonzalez goes "the extra mile" while working with our students to ensure that they get the best clinical experience possible.

She works at Care Connect- Griffin Urgent Care in Griffin, Ga.

Website: https://ccthealth.org/careconnect-urgent-care-griffin/

Some of the comments made by students about Ms. Fuller-Gonzalez include:

• She is very knowledgeable and takes time to talk through each patient encounter to enhance learning.
• She encouraged autonomy, so I could practice my skills and think through scenarios relatively independently.
• The preceptor was very sensitive to the cost for her patients.
• At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was very little time for 'extra' teaching, though she tried to make the experience as valuable as possible.
• The preceptor made every attempt to relate to her patients truly. She was wonderful at minimizing costs for uninsured and Medicaid/Medicare patients, and I appreciated her efforts.
• It was a very difficult time trying to do clinicals because the clinical site offered free COVID-19 testing. Where they would typically have 12-15 patients, they were seeing 80 to 100 patients per provider for several weeks. Students were not allowed to see the COVID-19 patients, and there were very few "regular" patients coming into the clinic during that time. However, the preceptor was very sensitive to this issue, and she made every attempt to supplement my learning.

Thank you for being a rockstar for our students and the School of Nursing!

• Congratulations to Dr. Sterling Roberts, Dr.Talecia Warren, and Dr. Leslie Moore on their manuscript “COVID-19 Pandemic: Effects of Replacing Clinical Hours with Virtual Simulation in BSN Pre-Licensure Nursing Education” accepted for publication in the journal Nursing Education Perspective.

Tammy Carroll – State Director of Clinical Services, Benchmark Human Services

Tammy Carroll joined Benchmark Human Services in 2011. Her passion and drive in serving children and adults with special needs are evident in her daily living and practice. Tammy has over 30 years of experience serving others across several different states. Before joining Benchmark, Tammy served as the Director of Clinical Services for Partlow Developmental Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Additionally, she served as adjunct faculty, training students in the applied behavior analytic field at Georgia State University, the University of Alabama, and Armstrong Atlantic State University, which is now Georgia Southern University. Tammy has a niche for envisioning potential markets and growing them. She also enjoys mentoring others towards higher professional growth.

Tammy graduated from Auburn University at Montgomery with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. Then she pursued a Master of Science in Counseling and Human Development from Troy State University. After taking two years break from school, Tammy returned to the University of Kansas, where she pursued another Master of Science and a Doctorate in Human Development and Child Psychology. Tammy is a board-certified behavior analyst at the doctorate level.

Tammy believes work hard and playing harder. She enjoys being with her family on the lake, vacations, and visiting other family members in her spare time. Tammy also enjoys gardening, practicing Pilates, yoga and just sitting still.

Elizabeth Fuqua- Associate Chief Nursing Officer, Atrium Health Navicent Baldwin

Elizabeth joined Navicent Health in 2011 and currently serves as the Associate Chief Nursing Officer at Atrium Health Navicent Baldwin. Elizabeth has over ten years of healthcare experience and is passionate about people, leadership, and customer satisfaction. Before joining Navicent Health Baldwin, she served as the Director for Inpatient Oncology and Palliative Navicent Health in Macon, Georgia.

Elizabeth graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of North Alabama. She also completed her Master of Science in Nursing in Nursing Clinical Leadership. In addition, she earned various notable awards and achievements, including serving as an Ambassador for GHA, Best in Class Employee Engagement and Executive Coaching Academy Passion Award.

Elizabeth enjoys cooking, gardening, college football, and public speaking during her time away from work. Elizabeth seeks out opportunities to transform nursing culture and lead, motivate, and inspire others to perform at their highest level.

David Babb – Physical Therapy Assistant and Managing Partner, Serenity Physical Therapy

David Babb has been a Physical Therapy Assistant and Managing Partner of Serenity PT in Milledgeville, GA, since 2010. He is a Milledgeville native. David received his Associate of Science in Physical Therapy Assistance from Middle Georgia College and Bachelor of Science in Health Education from Georgia College.

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Email: healthsciences@gcsu.edu
Website: www.gcsu.edu
Location: 231 West Hancock Street, Milledgeville, GA, USA
Phone: 478-445-5771
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