Post by Kirt Shineman, Residential Faculty and FEP Faculty Developer and Resource Person
January, then February comes dropping from the moon mist sky all around the Glendale Community College campus. I am reminded of the seasons. Not spring, summer, winter, and fall, but the work seasons we, as professors, traverse. Teaching is an avocation of time I associate with orchards through their seasons. We begin our working profession breaking through the topsoil and springing forth with a blossoming promise of teaching students. We grow and root ourselves in our careers. We blossom into our lives boldly from graduate school or the business world into the classroom planting new seeds in students’ minds for them to grow in their fields of interest.
As professors, we grow through the seasons of our careers, our fruits are our students, and the thing we teach itself always escapes on the breeze. We must stop every so often and take in the other trees in the orchard with us to celebrate and recognize the collective exceptionalism of our faculty.
As a professor in the fall season of his teaching career, I am fortunate to serve the faculty as the resource person for the faculty evaluation plan. In this role, I am privileged to come across many outstanding professors at Glendale Community College. Each semester I work with the CTLE to find ways to flourish as a teacher and assist others with their educational development. As the FEP Resource Person, in conjunction with the CTLE, once a month, I shall cast a small but essential light on select GCC faculty to feature exceptional teaching.In this blog series of faculty highlights, you’ll meet exceptional teachers. Like a basket gift of educational goodies, each blog will profile a few harvested tidbits from their repertoire. You’ll be introduced to some faculty and their work you may not be familiar with. We rarely get to work together and celebrate our successes as we work in our classes.
This blog series is a slight pause in the month to look at our remarkable faculty’s achievements and distinguished work. You will see their significant contributions to our college and disciplines through their creative endeavors and scholarly work. GCC Faculty Highlights are extraordinary examples of what it means to be an educator-scholar in the community college tradition.
