A new student organization at Georgia Highlands College is well on its way to a full membership with the Southeast Collegiate Soccer Alliance and a chance to compete in state championship tournaments.

The new GHC Soccer Club was started last year by students who wanted to play extramural soccer at GHC. Extramural teams travel and play against other club sports teams from other colleges.

“We started last spring with some co-ed teams playing in adult leagues with the Rome YMCA and LakePoint in Cartersville,” Director of Student Life John Spranza said. He also serves as coach for the GHC Soccer Club. “This year, we joined the NIRSA (National Intramural & Recreation Sports Association) Region 2 soccer league, also called the Southeast Collegiate Soccer Alliance.”

The SCSA has both men’s and women’s leagues and any college in the region can join to play within a state-based conference.

Currently, the GHC Soccer Club is an “Affiliate member” and must create its own schedule of at least 3 games versus other SCSA members to qualify for full membership next season. Once the team receives full membership, it is eligible to compete in post-season championships.

The GHC Soccer Club currently has two teams. The men’s team has a roster of 24 and the women’s team has a roster of 15. The teams are made up of students from across GHC’s locations, but they meet and practice in Cartersville.

The GHC Soccer Club will play against other colleges, including Bryan College, Jacksonville State, the University of West Georgia, Dalton State, and more.

“It’s sometimes difficult to get enough students involved to play intramural sports, so Club sport teams like the Soccer Club offers an outlet where students passionate about something can still be competitive and have some fun,” Spranza said. “We have students from nearly all of our GHC locations playing on both the men’s and women’s soccer teams, so it’s built relationships with students that they might not have otherwise met just because of the distance between campuses.”

Spranza said there are a lot of students at GHC who really like to play soccer and who have played throughout high school or in other adult leagues. He stated home games are very popular and usually get quite of few in attendance to come watch and cheer them on.

“The GHC Soccer Club gives them the opportunity to play for GHC and instills pride and school spirit with them, their friends and family,” he said.

To learn more about the GHC Soccer Club, contact the Student Life Office at the GHC location nearest you.

Georgia Highlands College leads the University System of Georgia’s state colleges in enrollment growth for fall 2018 with a 2.8 percent increase. GHC continues to hold the second highest enrollment for state colleges in Georgia.

According to the USG, fall 2018 enrollment in the USG’s 26 colleges and universities had an increase of 1.1 percent over the previous year, making this fall the fourth consecutive year that enrollment continued to reach an all-time high in the USG’s total student enrollment.

“While the University System of Georgia continues to see modest increases in enrollment, more students than ever are graduating from our institutions,” Chancellor Steve Wrigley said. “The number of USG students annually earning degrees is up 21 percent since 2011, when the Complete College Georgia initiative related to college attainment launched. With this success, we remain committed to our goals of making college more affordable and accessible, finding greater opportunities to be more efficient and ensuring more Georgians enter the workforce with a college credential.”

The enrollment numbers were released in the USG’s “Fall 2018 Semester Enrollment Report,” which breaks down enrollment by institution, class, race and ethnicity, in-state, out-of-state and international students, as well as gender and age.

The full enrollment report is available here 

Georgia Highlands College is launching a new platform called Navigate to help students with everything from admissions and financial aid to knowing what classes to take and when.

Navigate was created by the Education Advisory Board (EAB). EAB is a best practices firm that uses research, technology, and consulting to address challenges within the education industry.

Navigate is designed to give students a college onboarding experience with tools that will help them create an academic roadmap to graduation and a timeline to degree completion, as well as serve as a primary communication channel with academic advisors.

The platform promotes strategies on saving time and working toward degree completion on a successful track that, with the help of advisors, is built around a student’s goals and commitments inside and outside the classroom.

Early student testing has been very positive.

“Going to college can be frustrating and stressful for any student, and as a mom of three returning to college, I think Navigate will be a great guide that will give students like myself a more structured approach,” GHC student Shemetrice Davis said. “I look forward to using the system again when the full version launches.”

Navigate is an objective-based system with clear steps toward a successful experience at GHC. The program also includes tools for improving advising support services and business processes.

“GHC is always looking for new and innovative ways to help students save time on their path toward graduating, and saving time also saves students money,” President Don Green said. “This new program bolsters GHC’s ability to provide each student a clear path to graduation with little to no debt upon completion.”

Navigate enhances advisors’ ability to communicate, collaborate and work with students more quickly and efficiently than ever. The user-friendly program allows GHC faculty and staff to follow along on each student’s journey and communicate via text and email to help students move forward every step of the way.

Navigate will launch mid-November for a small pilot cohort of students, and then in spring 2019, GHC will launch the program for all students. Throughout spring 2019, the Navigate Engagement Teams will continue to build functionality to reach additional students and to incorporate additional departments.

To learn more about Navigate, please visit: navinfo.highlands.edu

To learn more about the Education Advisory Board, please visit: eab.com

Each semester GHC’s bachelor’s in business administration (BBA) students take on service learning projects that are focused on using the skills and knowledge they gain from the classroom to help out the community in some way.

The students chose Children’s Advocacy Center in Cartersville for their fall community project.

The Children’s Advocacy Center serves as a site for forensic interviews of children in possible neglect or abuse cases and also serves as the home office for the Positive Parenting Program curriculum of the Hope in Your Home program.

The BBA students have scheduled out service days and are managing a donation drive at each of GHC’s locations across Northwest Georgia.

During one of their service days, the BBA team organized a field trip for children at the center to visit the Tellus Science Museum and eat pizza. At the same time, the BBA students also worked at the Children’s Advocacy Center to help with its landscaping, including constructing rock paths, laying pine straw, and pressure washing. The BBA team also helped inside with painting and cleaning some of the rooms.

The donation drive, which ends Nov. 8, has donation boxes at each GHC location and scattered throughout areas where each of the students live and work.

Bachelor’s in Business Coordinator Mecole Ledbetter stated GHC’s BBA program is more than just classroom lectures because professors include as many opportunities as possible to give students real world experience like this one.

“Professional career management and development has also become a major part of our curriculum,” she said. “We want our students ‘workforce ready,’ and because of this, we have partnered with local companies such as Floyd and Cartersville Medical, Harbin Clinic, Shaw, Mohawk, Lowe’s Distribution, and more for expertise on industry challenges, opportunities and trends that can help us keep our programs agile and responsive.”

Ledbetter added that industry tours, service learning projects and industry class speakers help accomplish this goal.

To learn more about GHC’s BBA program, please visit: sites.highlands.edu/bba/

To learn more about Children’s Advocacy Center, please visit: https://advochild.org/contact-us/a-better-way-childrens-advocacy-center/

If you would like to donate to the BBA donation drive, please visit the GHC location nearest you.

Georgia Highlands College hosted a Medical History Workshop this week for students with the Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home. The focus was on the threat of epidemics in today’s society.

“The academic workshop was organized for students and faculty and focused on two issues in medical history of both local and global importance,” Professor of History Bronson Long said.

Long explained the workshop examined two important ways disease shaped the past, namely the role of disease in the European conquest of the Americas in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries and the Influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 following the First World War.

Associate Professor of History Matt Jennings from Middle Georgia State University presented on the impact of diseases brought over to the Americas by Europeans. His presentation was titled, “What Disease Did (And What it Didn’t): New Perspectives on the Entry of Europe into the Americas.”

GHC Professor of History Jayme Feagin lead discussions on Influenza epidemics with a presentation titled, “The Great Flu and the Great War: The Global Impact of Disease in the Early 20th Century.”

Feagin’s history class also provided infographics on topics related to the history of wellness in the Atlanta/Northwest Georgia.

Additionally, Student Life hosted a free flu shot clinic for students in conjunction with the event.

The Major Ridge Home, which is located in Rome, was transformed into a museum in 1971. Today, the Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home is open to the public as a historic site and presents interpretive exhibits (permanent and temporary), educational programs and special events that pertain to the Ridge family and Cherokee history and culture.

Georgia Highlands College, the Bartow History Museum and Reinhardt University have teamed up to host two free workshops on creating a family tree called “Family History Night.”

Both workshops will be held at GHC’s Cartersville location from 7PM to 9PM on October 23^rd and October 30^th. The event is free and open to the public.

Reinhardt University Professor Pam Wilson will offer a brief tutorial on how to use geni.com to build a collaborative family tree and how to use ancestry.com and other resource databases to find historical documents.

Attendees will also learn how to create their very own family tree.

Additionally, the Bartow History Museum will be on site to review any notes about family history, any old photos, letters, artifacts or documents and assist with documenting these items for a family tree.

For more information on the event, please contact GHC Associate Professor Sean Callahan: scallaha@highlands.edu

Geni is an online tool for creating a family tree. Using the basic free service at geni.com, users add and invite their close relatives to join their family tree. All Geni users can share photos, videos, and documents with their families. Geni’s Pro subscription service allows users to find matching trees and merge those into the single world family tree, which currently contains over 100 million living users and their ancestors.

Ancestry.com uses sophisticated engineering and technology harnesses family history and consumer genomics, combining billions of rich historical records, millions of family trees, and samples from over 10 million people in the AncestryDNA database to provide people with deeply meaningful insights about who they are and where they come from.

IF YOU GO

WHO: GHC
WHAT: Family History Night
WHEN: Oct 23, 30 – 7PM-9PM
WHERE: 5441 GA-20, Cartersville, GA 30121

Just over 300 people celebrated as Georgia Highlands College cut the ribbon for its new academic building in Cartersville this week.

The 52,000-square foot building will be focused on STEAM-based (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) areas of study and will have a full slate of classes starting January 2019.

The building adds an art studio, computer labs, science labs and several classrooms to GHC’s site in Cartersville.

“We always get excited about a new building, but the most important thing is what happens inside. And what will be happening inside that building is quality instruction from faculty to our students. That’s what ultimately makes the difference in our communities with respect to economic development and workforce, and that’s where our focus is. The investment is in the students,” said University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley.

GHC pursued funding for the building and was approved under the fiscal year 2017 state budget which was approved by Legislature and signed by Governor Deal.

“We would like to especially thank our legislators for all they do to support GHC, the USG and education in the state,” said Vice President for Advancement Mary Transue, who also serves in GHC’s Government Relations role. “Without their tireless support and dedication, this venture would not have been possible.”

GHC received a total $22.5 million in state funding to advance the project: $2.2 for design, $17.7 for construction and $2.6 for equipment.

The new academic building was designed by the EYP Architecture and Engineering Firm (formerly Stanley Beaman & Sears) and was constructed by Juneau.

“The addition of this new academic building will include spaces for laboratories, classrooms, a lecture hall, study rooms and more,” President Don Green said. “This increases GHC’s ability to directly impact and support the community workforce through STEAM-based degrees, and it allows GHC to better serve as the University System of Georgia’s primary access institution in the region.”

Green added that the building will also contribute to raising GHC’s nearly $150 million economic impact in Northwest Georgia. GHC has five locations across Northwest Georgia in Rome, Cartersville, Marietta, Dallas and Douglasville. He stated that the building also strengthens and broadens GHC’s ability to maintain a strong relationship with K-12 school systems across Northwest Georgia.

Green also extended thanks to all GHC’s new corporate and foundation partners: Premier Partner Georgia Power; Executive Partners Bond, James Bond, Inc., Century Bank of Georgia, Community Criminal Justice Foundation and Juneau Construction Company; Visionary Partner McWhorter Capital Partners; Leader Partners Steve Moore with Mystique Consulting Services, Inc. and Synovus Bank; Champion Partners City of Cartersville and Excel Graphic Services; and Innovator Partners Cartersville-Bartow Chamber of Commerce, Mark Weaver with Excel Graphic Services, and Randy Quick, Rome City Commission, Ward Two.

The new Corporate and Foundation Partnership program through the GHC Foundation creates strong partnerships and works to make education a priority in Northwest Georgia while providing support to students and programs at the college with the goal of encouraging economic development and building stronger communities.

PICTURE: (L-R) Vice President for Finance & Administration Jeff Davis; Vice President for Academic Affairs Dana Nichols; Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Jones; Cartersville Campus Dean Leslie Johnson; President Don Green; USG Chancellor Steve Wrigley; Vice President for Advancement and Government Relations Mary Transue; Student Government President Danielle Griesemer; and Director of Plant Operations Phillip Kimsey.

Georgia Highlands College will be hosting local author Roger Johns at the Douglasville location on October 30^th at 3:30PM. Johns will be speaking about leisure reading, creative writing and his newest book “River of Secrets.”

The event is free and open to the public.

Johns will be covering topics on what leisure reading is and why it’s a great way to take a break, as well as creative writing, the writing process and the mystery genre.

GHC Librarian Karin Bennedsen is looking forward to bringing the author in to speak. She hopes to bring more authors to GHC in the future.

“I wanted to start having authors speak,” she said. “And, since he was local, I thought he might be a good person to ask.”

Johns responded right away and said he was excited to be “back on campus.”

He is a former corporate lawyer and retired college professor with law degrees from Louisiana State University and Boston University.

During his nearly two decades as a professor, he served on the editorial staffs of several academic publications and he won numerous awards and recognitions for his teaching and his scholarly writing.

Johns was born and raised in Louisiana. He and his wife Julie now live in Georgia.

“River of Secrets” is his second novel.

“River of Secrets” follows Baton Rouge Police Detective Wallace Hartman after a controversial politician is murdered in cold blood, as Wallace struggles to find the killer amid conspiracies and corruption.

Johns will stay after the event to sign copies of his book.

To learn more about Roger Johns or to purchase copies of his book: rogerjohnsbooks.com

Even after his retirement in 2015 as professor of physical education, Ken Weatherman still climbs the 4,000-foot elevation of Appalachian Ski Mountain in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, for the annual ski and snowboard trip started decades ago at Georgia Highlands College.

This is the trip’s 40^th consecutive year – and Ken’s, too.

“I have gone with the students every year,” Ken said. “When we began the program, we had another instructor, and we co-taught the program for the first six years. I have taken the helm individually for the past 34 years. I retired in 2015, but I have continued to do this program as an adjunct professor.”

The trip gives students a way to earn academic credit in the physical education category, while learning skills Ken says stick with you for a lifetime.

“It’s a great program that allows students to enjoy skiing or snowboarding throughout their future lives. I will soon enter the eighth decade of my life, and I still enjoy skiing. The lifetime implications of these two winter sports activities have a lasting benefit to students’ future lives.”

Ken explained the trip kicks off with three two-hour workshops during December each year. Students take an exam based on the workshop and required textbook readings. Additionally, students take exams on the trip and must go through a skills evaluation after some training and practice on the slopes.

While on the trip, students are given lessons from experts at the French Swiss Ski College.

Ken explained that the benefits – other than obtaining a lifelong skill – are the affordable cost (due to group rates) and an accelerated spring course, which gives students a chance to earn credit for PHED 1420 within a few weeks between workshops, the trip and training with the French Swiss Ski College.

The trip includes multiple sessions with instruction from professionals, equipment and stay. The trip is also available to non-credit participants on a continuing education basis.

To learn more about the trip, please contact Ken Weatherman: kweather@highlands.edu

The deadline to register is December 4th.

PICTURE: A group picture of GHC students at Appalachian Ski Mountain in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, from one of the trips over the past 40 years.