Starting spring 2020, Georgia Highlands College will extend classes being offered at night to students in Douglasville. The new classes will include college algebra, American history, English composition and physical science.

Each night class will take place on a different weekday and be available to students as a 6PM to 8:30PM class.

Vice President of Academic Affairs Dana Nichols explained that the addition in scheduling comes from a collaboration between each academic division working together to provide more options for GHC students.

“At GHC, we understand that today’s students often have to balance work and other responsibilities in conjunction with earning their degrees,” she said. “Our faculty continue to design course scheduling options that are convenient and that allow students to complete their degrees in a timely manner.”

For reference, here’s an example of a 12-credit-hour schedule with the new night classes in Douglasville:

MATH 1111

Monday 6-8:30PM

 

HIST 2111

Tuesday 6-8:30PM

 

ENGL 1102

Wednesday 6-8:30PM

 

PHSC 1011K

Thursday 6-8:30PM

The new night classes in Douglasville will begin spring 2020. The deadline to apply for spring is December 1.

Learn more at highlands.edu

Prospective Georgia Highlands College students can now apply, enroll and register for classes sooner than ever before.

Students interested in taking courses in spring 2020 can submit their applications and necessary documents by November 1, 2019 to receive priority processing.

“The earlier students apply and submit their documentation, the faster each student can be processed and admitted,” said Maggie Schuyler, GHC director of admissions. “And the earlier they are admitted, the earlier they can attend orientation and get registered for classes.”

Schuyler hopes that the priority deadline will encourage earlier applications, expediting the application processing time for students who want to lock in the classes they want for the coming semester.

The traditional spring application deadline remains December 1, 2019.

A priority deadline will also be made available for upcoming semesters. March 1, 2020 will be the priority deadline for summer admission while April 1, 2020 will be the priority deadline for fall admission.

Learn more or apply online today at highlands.edu

Georgia Highlands College nursing faculty and staff are hosting information sessions for anyone interested in learning more about GHC’s nursing program.

The sessions will cover the application process and course requirements while also giving attendees the chance to tour nursing classrooms and the simulation lab.

Each session will be held in room 233 at GHC’s Heritage Hall site in Rome from 6 PM to 7 PM.

Session dates:

• Thursday, November 14, 2019
• Thursday, February 6, 2020
• Thursday, March 5, 2020

Anyone considering admission to the nursing program for fall 2020 is strongly encouraged to attend a session.

Applications for fall 2020 admission open in January. The deadline for fall 2020 admission is April 1, 2020.

For more information about the sessions or GHC’s nursing program, visit highlands.edu/nursing or contact Chance Hooper at chooper@highlands.edu

Georgia Highlands College’s Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) chapter will be hosting a fall festival on Saturday, October 26. The festival will be held at GHC’s Cartersville location from 11 AM to 3 PM.

The event is free and open to the public.

Highlights of the festival include a costume contest, trick-or-treating, face painting, a bounce house, a hayride and a pie eating contest. Cotton candy, popcorn and hot chocolate will also be offered.

Guests will have the chance to tour GHC’s new STEAM building while visiting, as well.

“Our hopes are that this festival will not only create a great fellowship opportunity for our GHC students and the community but that it will also bring more attention to GHC and our Cartersville site, especially the new STEAM building,” said Karen Huggin, PTK advisor.

PTK, an international honor society, is one of GHC’s many award-winning student organizations. Learn more about GHC at highlands.edu.

PTK student poster:

Georgia Highlands College’s business administration program is looking to the past to give students the hands-on experience they need to take charge of their futures. For this year’s annual community service learning project, students have been charged with creating a comprehensive business plan for Cartersville’s historic Bandy Building.

In 1940, the tufted textile industry was booming across Northwest Georgia. Bartow County resident and business leader B.J. Bandy worked to meet the growing demand for tufted robes, rugs and other products by expanding his business, Bartow Textiles, with the construction of what was reportedly the largest chenille factory in the world, the Bandy Building.

Today, the 47,000-square-foot historic Bandy Building is owned by John Lewis of John S. Lewis Property Management. Lewis, a developer and property manager, has restored more than 30 offices and buildings in downtown Cartersville, earning him the Georgia Cities Foundation’s Renaissance Award in 2012. Lewis hopes to further renovate and repurpose the Bandy Building, which is currently home to a salon, an art studio and a photography studio.

The collaboration between John Lewis and GHC came about when Joseph Slattery, founder and CEO of Slattery Company, reached out to the GHC’s business program looking for interns. Mecole Ledbetter, program coordinator, thought Slattery’s ideas would be a great fit for GHC’s operations management portion of the bachelor’s in business program.

“Through our discussion, I realized that this project would require more than just an intern or two, but rather a full class that could adopt this as a hands-on, learning and execution project,” Ledbetter said.

The learning project has now taken shape as the main focus of this semester’s operations management course at GHC led by Professor Denie Burks.

“The project will allow students to better understand the management processes and how they work together and independently,” Burks said. “It will require teamwork and collaboration, communication and brainstorming, as well as patience and respect for each person’s individual opinion and input.”

Trent Mull, a business student at GHC, is up for the challenge presented by the Bandy Building project.

“It’s an amazing opportunity for us as a cohort to have real world application of the skills that we are learning in our classes,” Mull said. “I believe I speak for the cohort when I say that we are excited, we are determined and we are honored to be given the opportunity to hopefully give the people of Cartersville and the surrounding area a building they can be proud of.”

Slattery is also hopeful that both GHC students and the Cartersville community as a whole will benefit for the innovative class assignment.

“While most similar college projects are conceptual in nature, John Lewis has presented GHC with a hands-on opportunity that if effectively applied will produce benefits for the students, GHC, John S. Lewis Property Management, the City of Cartersville and Bartow County,” he said.

Learn more about GHC and the four-year business program at highlands.edu

PHOTO: Bandy Building in 1945, Photo credit: Bartow History Museum

As seen in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

More young female players unwilling to give up beloved sport for softball

By Helena Oliviero

Her teammates shout their support from the dugout to pump her up.

He’s scared of you, Ashton.

Here it comes. Don’t miss it.

Goodbye, ball!

Facing pitches nearing 90 miles per hour, Ashton shows patience. She draws another walk and advances to first base.

At first glance, this Georgia Highlands College baseball intrasquad scrimmage is not particularly significant. There are no fans in the bleachers. And the coach ends the game in the seventh inning because a pitcher feels tenderness in his throwing arm.

And yet, Ashton, who started playing baseball at age 4 and has been a solid player at every youth level, sometimes a star, is making history once again on this picture-perfect baseball field about 10 miles northwest of Kennesaw. The young Marietta woman is the first female player on the Georgia Highlands baseball team, an NJCAA Division I program. Ashton is also believed to be the first girl to start a varsity game as a pitcher at Wheeler High School, known for perennially strong sports programs. And last year, at only 17, she landed a spot on the roster for the USA Baseball Women’s National Team.

“I’ve always loved the game of baseball,” said Ashton. “Everything is faster and more competitive in the next levels, and no matter how fast or how hard it is, it doesn’t change my mind of whether I want to play or not.”

Ashton is part of a tiny but growing group of girls in Georgia and across the country determined to play baseball and search for ways to keep playing when they reach their teen years — and beyond. And while the number of girls playing baseball remains small, they are determined to break the gender barrier, even as they age, and it becomes increasingly challenging to keep playing.

While you see the occasional girl playing Little League, nearly all of them who want to continue playing ball get channeled into softball, in part because that’s where scholarships are.

Girls and boys play tennis, soccer and basketball. They both run marathons. But when it comes to baseball, the conventional wisdom has been boys play baseball, girls play softball.

But softball is a distinct sport with different pitching — often underhanded with a windmill-style motion, different balls (softballs are larger), different sized fields, different equipment, even different rules of the game.

Biology plays a role. Boys, especially older boys, often have an edge over girls in size and strength, allowing them to throw faster and swing harder. But girls will say the toughest obstacles are against stereotypes — that baseball is only for boy.

[...]

A deep love of the game

Ashton started playing baseball when she was 4, tossing plastic balls, swinging a tiny wood bat in her family’s yard. From the start, she was making easy contact with the ball. Her parents could tell their older child, and only daughter, had exceptionally good hand-eye coordination. And she was fast, too.

She hit a home run at her first at bat at her very first T-ball game. By the time she was 10, she was on a competitive traveling team.

Ashton said she rarely heard snide comments about her playing baseball — and when she did, they came from players on other teams, not from her teammates.

At least one softball coach tried to recruit Ashton to play softball. And when she was 12, she acquiesced — to one practice. She didn’t like the smaller field, larger ball, underhanded pitch.

“I tried it but wasn’t feeling it,” said Ashton. “It’s just so different than baseball. It’s like comparing pingpong to tennis.”

Dash O’Neill, the head coach for the Georgia Highlands baseball team, recalled the moment he attended one of Ashton’s games earlier this year to evaluate her.

“She reached out to me like other players and asked for an opportunity,” said O’Neill, who also coached at Chattahoochee Valley Community College for several years. O’Neill has helped over 190 players advance to four-year institutions, as well as helped produce 16 players drafted by MLB teams.

He was impressed. She threw the ball well. She was fast. A good defender.

“She’s very tough mentally,” he added. She wasn’t a token girl on the field. She looked like she belonged.

[...]

“To me, the part that she is a woman was not part of the equation. I saw a baseball player who wanted to play,” Georgia Highlands College baseball coach Dash O’Neill says of redshirt freshman Ashton Lansdell.

While he recognizes Ashton’s trying to accomplish at a high level, something very few women have achieved, he emphasized the following point repeatedly: “To me, the part that she is a woman was not part of the equation. I saw a baseball player who wanted to play.”

O’Neill encouraged Ashton, currently playing second base, to sit out this season as a redshirt to adapt to the increased speed of the game. Ashton agreed, saying she will use the year to develop. Redshirting college athletes is a way for coaches to give players more time to develop before getting on the field or court without having to lose any of their eligibility.

TO READ THE FULL STORY, PLEASE VISIT AJC. 

Last summer, Georgia Highlands College students travelled by canoe deep into the rainforest of Panama to spend the day visiting with and learning about the Embera tribe. It’s moments like these that students like Derrick Whitaker know will last a lifetime.

“I always wanted to travel and experience new cultures,” GHC psychology major Whitaker said. “I’m also excited to use all the Spanish I picked up while overseas.”

Whitaker and a group of fellow students and GHC faculty went on a study abroad trip to Panama, highlights including a visit to the Embera tribe, an excursion to the port town of Portobello and a visit to the famed Panama Canal.

During their travels, students learned Spanish and worked toward earning college credit in a variety of health, business and culture courses.

GHC Professor of History Bronson Long, director of global initiatives and study abroad, agrees that study abroad programs are a great way for students to learn about other countries and people.

“It is a unique learning experience that brings students into contact with different places and cultures,” he said. “Students who participate in study abroad trips frequently report that it was the most valuable thing they did as a college student. As we live in an increasingly globalized society, studying abroad is also a good way to prepare for the workplace after college.”

In May 2020, GHC faculty will be leading a trip to the United Kingdom. The group will tour London, Windsor, Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon. Through the trip and additional coursework, students can earn credits in communication, business, health sciences and history.

GHC also partners with other University System of Georgia (USG) institutions to offer expanded study abroad opportunities. Students can travel with Kennesaw State University students to Montepulciano, Italy or participate in USG Goes Global programs across Europe and Asia.

Information sessions about upcoming study abroad opportunities are scheduled throughout October and November at several different GHC instructional sites. Students can attend these sessions to meet faculty, learn about costs and how to afford studying abroad, and find out more details about the various destinations available.

Members of the community are also invited to attend GHC’s study abroad trips.

For a schedule of information sessions and full details on study abroad opportunities at GHC, visit studyabroad.highlands.edu

Georgia Highlands College’s Campus Police department is streamlining its efforts to respond to safety needs and requests with a centralized dispatch center. The new number for all GHC campus safety needs is (706) 295-6347.

“GHC decided to start the dispatch center to give the campus police one universal number as opposed to the five different numbers platform we were previously using,” Chief of Police David Horace said.

The dispatch center, contracted through the National Association of Campus Safety Administrators, will centrally dispatch all campus police calls for services to each of GHC’s locations (excluding Marietta).

“The new centralized model will help GHC Campus Police efficiently, effectively, courteously and promptly receive and record requests for police service while also rapidly dispatching police units and disseminating critical information,” Horace added.

Horace encourages all students, faculty, staff and community members to store the new phone number, (706) 295-6347, in their phones for quick and easy access. Everyone is asked to call the new dispatch center for any and all campus safety requests from any GHC site (excluding Marietta).

When calling the new dispatch number, callers are presented with three options. Option 1 is for emergency situations. Option 2 will put a caller in touch with a campus safety officer, for non-emergency needs, while option 3 will reach out to Chief Horace directly for non-emergency requests.

For campus safety needs on GHC’s Marietta site, students, faculty and staff should continue to contact Kennesaw State University police. For non-emergency calls at Marietta, call (404) 578-6206 and for emergencies, call (470) 578-6666.

Georgia Highlands College’s student newspaper, the Six Mile Post, finished the 2018-2019 academic year with a bang, bringing home awards from the Georgia College Press Association, the Southern Regional Press Institute and the Associated Collegiate Press.

This year, a new group of students and a new faculty adviser are leading the newspaper into its next volume.

Editor-in-Chief Olivia Fortner, a sophomore business administration major and the paper’s returning lead editor, is looking forward to another successful year for the publication.

“We hope to be an award-winning newspaper again this year,” she said. “The team we have now is competent and talented. Though many of us are new to the newsroom, the skill sets and personalities here have a lot to bring to the table.”

Assistant Professor Allison Hattaway, the organization’s new adviser, thinks the Six Mile Post will improve those skill sets even more.

“I believe that students really gain a tremendous amount of confidence when they participate in a student publication staff,” she said. “I’ve also seen how well a staff bonds as they work together and friendships are formed that last lifetimes. It’s a very special and unique team to be a part of.”

Like many on the student staff, this is Hattaway’s first year with the paper, as well. While she’s new to the Six Mile Post, she isn’t new to student publications. She previously advised both the student newspaper and yearbook groups at Shorter University. Hattaway is excited to bring her expertise to the Six Mile Post.

“I see it as a wonderful opportunity to represent students across all campuses and to help students gain a solid journalism foundation,” she said.

For students looking to get involved with the Six Mile Post, the publication is still seeking volunteer writers, photographers and artists. Those interested can apply online at sixmilepost.com

The first issue of the new academic year’s volume of the Six Mile Post will hit the stands on October 8. Copies of the award-winning publication can be found at each GHC location or online at sixmilepost.com

Georgia Highlands College and Floyd County Schools brought together hundreds of students last week for an unforgettable project-based STEM learning opportunity at GHC’s Paris Lake in Rome.

For the second year in a row, fifth graders from elementary schools across Floyd County took to the lake to measure their STEM skills. Teams of students created boats from cardboard materials and then placed their creations into the water for the ultimate test: will it float?

This year, 382 students came together to create 102 cardboard boats. From bow to stern, the only permissible shipbuilding materials were cardboard and duct tape. With boats crafted and crews ready, students set sail from the dock at Paris Lake in their vessels and steered toward land using wrapping paper tubes and bare hands.

For some students, it may have been their first time out on a lake, but for all students, it was a chance to put what they learned in the classroom into action.

“STEM projects and project-based learning gives each student a chance to find their strengths, gift and talents. Plus, it allows them to do more hands-on activities where they tend to learn better in a more engaging environment,” said Nathan Medley, instructional technology specialist with Floyd County Schools. “My desire is for our students to be able to have multiple learning experiences. Every student is an individual and will learn differently.”

The dry land held plenty of appeal and learning opportunities, too. Activities led by GHC’s STEM Center included creating a piano from bananas, a demonstration of a frog dissection, hands-on circuitry lessons, water art and more. The YMCA of Rome & Floyd County and Rome-Floyd ECO Center also committed time, resources and volunteers to making the event a success.

“The STEM Center did an outstanding job and the kids loved the activities they provided,” Medley said. “It was a tremendous learning experience all around.”

GHC faculty and staff were excited to help bring STEM to life for students for the second annual event.

“This event is a great way for GHC to give back to a local school system and to showcase the great resources that GHC has to offer to the community,” GHC Assistant Professor Jason Christian said.

After this year’s continued success, a third annual cardboard boat challenge is already in the works for next year.