Don't fall behind. Germanna Tutoring Services will help you race ahead.

Many new Germanna students are getting a jump start on their college education by enrolling in classes this summer. It’s important to be aware of the abundance of free academic support services available. Since most summer classes proceed at an accelerated pace, students should seek tutoring assistance through our Tutoring Services at the first sign that they need additional instructional assistance.

Students can schedule appointments for individual tutoring appointments by calling or visiting the Locust Grove or Fredericksburg Tutoring Centers or by submitting an appointment request directly from the Tutoring website. Students at the Daniel and Stafford Centers may call our offices to schedule tutoring sessions via Blackboard Collaborate. Walk-in assistance is also available in our Writing and Math Center at the Fredericksburg and Locust Grove campuses. Please refer to the Tutoring Services Web page for specific hours.

If students are unable to visit the Locust Grove or Fredericksburg Tutoring Centers, they may be interested in participating in online tutoring sessions through Smarthinking. Enrolled students have already been pre-registered for Smarthinking, so they may participate in “live” tutoring sessions or submit their writing assignments for review to the essay center.

As students prepare for placement tests, write research papers, or complete homework assignments, please let them know that there are many helpful handouts available to them from the Tutoring Centers or from the tutoring website. Students can also access over 4,000 Khan Academy videos from the tutoring Web page in subjects ranging from algebra and statistics to economics and physics.

Fredericksburg Area Campus Tutoring Center (540) 891-3017

Locust Grove Campus Tutoring Center  (540) 423-9148

Tutoring appointments may be made here.

--Ann S. Lyons

Coordinator of Tutoring Services

 

Germanna's new Student Veterans Support Counselor knows what it's like to serve in Afghanistan, and he understands the difficulties veterans face in making the transition from active duty to civilian and college life

Germanna Community College's new Student Veterans Support Counselor understands what it's like to be deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. 
He understands what it's like to make the transition from active duty to civilian life.

He understands the emotional turmoil many veterans face in making that kind of transition.
And he understands veterans' frustration in dealing with the red tape that too often tangles their efforts to get the benefits they've earned.
Robert M. Dixon, a Westminster, Md. native who lives in Stafford County, had a 22-year career in the U.S. Army, serving during the Gulf War as part of Operation Desert Storm and as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He retired as a lieutenant colonel.  He said that during his Army career and two years as a civilian working at Quantico he developed a respect for other branches of the service including the Marines, Navy and Air Force.
His last assignment was serving on the Army’s Suicide Prevention Task Force.
“One of my duties there was to serve on an interdisciplinary team to try to identify [reasons for] the spike in suicides in active duty and reserve members as well as to come up with some integrated approaches as to how we might reduce those numbers,” Dixon said.
Dixon said the NIH, the CDC and the Department of Defense have been studying the increased rate of suicides among active duty military personnel and veterans.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has set up a crisis line for vets in urgent need of mental health care at 1/800/273-8255, press 1. 
  Reports say it’s harder to track the total number of veteran suicides than those of active duty military members, but there is concern that the number may be climbing. And some fear the worst years may lie ahead as the U.S. draws down its forces in Afghanistan.
“I think the evidence is still out,” Dixon said. “Some people say it’s easy because people are deploying and coming back with a lot of issues.  I’m not sure it’s that simple, because we were noticing spikes in people who have never deployed as well. So I’m not sure it’s just a problem limited to veterans who have been deployed to combat.”
“Some of the issues that precipitate some of that revolve around health problems, family problems—things the general public has a difficult time dealing with as well,” Dixon said. “But there is a disproportionate rise in suicides in our veteran population.”
He said one of the difficulties the military faces in dealing with the problem is reluctance on the part of many in the military to seek help for mental health problems like depression, anxiety and PTSD.
“When you’re dealing with the veteran’s population, there’s a certain stigma attached,” Dixon said.
“No one wants to be seen as having mental health issues. But the reality is that if people would just reach out for help when they think they need it, there are a lot of resources available and it really helps to alleviate some of the underlying things pushing people to think about that.”
Germanna and the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board  recently signed an agreement   to ease and expand student access to mental health services for all its students, including veterans.

”This agreement will help our counseling staff provide better crisis intervention and referral service to students in need of mental health assessment and treatment.  I’m looking forward to working closely with RACSB staff to develop a plan to address mental health crises and provide access to the RACSB Emergency Services Program,” said Pam Frederick, Germanna Dean of Student Development.
Dixon said we can all help in addressing the situation.
“I’m convinced at the end of the day that the best prevention against suicide is looking out for each other and checking on each other and knowing each other. So many cases are such that people went into isolation mode and didn’t want to talk, which is normally associated with general depression.”
Dixon said active duty military personnel and veterans find talking about mental health issues: “ hard to do because it’s counter-culture to the military. Nobody wants to be seen as the weak link. But the reality is that if you’re suffering with this in silence, no matter what you do, it causes problems.”
Of his new job at Germanna, Dixon said: “ I’m grateful to have the opportunity to help the young men and women who have given so much already. For me, it really is personally about giving back. I also feel education is so important to setting our veterans up for the rest of their lives—it’s the difference between just getting by and having a good life.”
Dixon said it’s impossible to say exactly how many veterans are students at Germanna, because only those receiving VA benefits are identified as such.
“A segment of the population uses the GI Bill and we can track them,” Dixon said. “Others don’t and some veterans don’t want to be identified as veterans. They don’t want accolades. They’ve put that part of their lives away and don’t want to discuss it.”
He said that over the next few years he’d like to “build a mutually supportive network of veterans and family members. We have a significant number of family members of veterans using GI Bill benefits.”
Dixon said the major concern for most students who are veterans is “the timely delivery of benefits that they count on not only for tuition, but for housing.”  Many also have anxiety about returning to the classroom environment again after the military.   He believes his experience as a veteran using VA benefits has provided him with a background that can benefit student veterans experiencing problems with benefits and access to veteran resources to help them with their transition back to civilian life.

Questions regarding eligibility for education benefits or VA policies and procedures may also be directed to the Department of Veterans Affairs at 1-888-442-4551 or http://www.gibill.va.gov.

GCC Student Veterans Support Counselor Robert Dixon may be reached at Germanna at 540-891-3023 or rdixon@germanna.edu.

For more information, go to:

http://www.germanna.edu/Students/Financial_Aid/Veteran_Affairs/va-information.asp

State board sets 2013-2014 community college tuition

NEWS RELEASE

RICHMOND — The State Board for Community Colleges established the 2013-2014 in-state tuition and mandatory fees rate at $130 per credit hour at its regular May meeting. Beginning this fall in-state students will pay an additional $5.50 per credit hour, which means the cost of a typical three-hour class will increase by $16.50 and the cost of a full-time load of classes for the year will increase by $165....

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Jeffrey Kraus

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Relations

(804) 592-6767

jkraus@vccs.edu

For Immediate Release
May 16, 2013

Hiring Additional Full-Time Instructors,
Offering More STEM-H* Programs
Drive State Board Tuition Policy for 2013-2014

*Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Health Science

RICHMOND — The State Board for Community Colleges established the 2013-2014 in-state tuition and mandatory fees rate at $130 per credit hour at its regular May meeting. Beginning this fall in-state students will pay an additional $5.50 per credit hour, which means the cost of a typical three-hour class will increase by $16.50 and the cost of a full-time load of classes for the year will increase by $165.

The approved 4.4 percent increase will allow Virginia’s Community Colleges to expand science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and health science (STEM-H) programs. It will increase the percentage of courses taught by full-time faculty from 45 percent to 47.5 percent – a level not seen throughout the VCCS since 2005. The increase will also fund the colleges’ portion of employee salary increases and higher health insurance costs.

“This tuition decision balances our priorities of access and quality. It permits Virginia’s Community Colleges to advance its long-held goal of hiring more full-time faculty members and offering more science and technology programs, which are expensive to offer, while adhering to our public promise of affordability,” said Hank W. Chao, chair of the State Board for Community Colleges.

This chart depicts the fall semester credit hours taught by full-time VCCS faculty members from 2002 through 2012 and includes the goal for 2013.

KEEPING A PUBLIC PROMISE

The board’s tuition decision is in accord with Achieve 2015, the VCCS six-year strategic plan that calls for keeping community college tuition and fee rates at one-half or less than that of the comparable rates at Virginia’s four-year universities.

Currently, tuition and mandatory fees at Virginia’s Community Colleges are just over one-third (37.6 percent) of the average of comparable tuition and fees charged by Virginia’s public four-year institutions.

TUITION DIFFERENTIALS

The State Board also agreed to increase the tuition differential rate for Northern Virginia Community College by $2.00 per credit hour. Even with the differential, NVCC’s tuition remains the lowest among comparable colleges in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Further, the board approved an increase of $1.00 per credit hour to the tuition differential rate for J. Sargeant Reynolds, Tidewater, Thomas Nelson and Virginia Western community colleges. Tidewater Community College will offset that tuition differential with a $1.00 decrease in its student activity fee. The tuition differential will help the included colleges attract and retain instructors in more competitive urban and suburban labor markets.

OUT-OF-STATE TUITION

The State Board increased the tuition rate for out-of-state students by $5.50 per credit hour to a total of $324.60 per credit hour. Out-of-state students make up approximately five percent of the total enrollment of Virginia’s Community Colleges.

About Virginia’s Community Colleges: Created more than 40 years ago, the VCCS is comprised of 23 community colleges located on 40 campuses across the commonwealth. Together, Virginia’s Community Colleges serve more than 405,000 students a year. For more information, please visit myfuture.vccs.edu.

NIH internship brings Germanna student a step closer to childhood dream

 Germanna Community College student Ulisses Santamaria, the son of immigrants from El Salvador, has always wanted to be a doctor—so much so that as a child he became his own first patient.

Ulisses Santamaria to research how the retina processes images

  “I’ve always had a thing for medicine,” he says. “Even as a kid, if I was kind of my own doctor. If I had cuts or bruises, I’d fix them myself. I was pulling my own teeth out when they were ready. I pulled out the last [baby tooth] when I was 9 years old.

 “I wanted to be a clinical surgeon. But I’ve always thought it was interesting what goes into the research that goes into developing tools used in surgery.”

 He has worked as a volunteer at the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, mostly in the emergency room.

Now the 18-year-old Spotsylvania County native has become one of the early success stories for Germanna Community College’s new Experiential Learning internship program. Through the program Ulisses has landed an internship at the National Institute for Health.

 He will be mentored by Dr. Alon Poleg-Polsky in research involving the structure and function of the retina at the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke in Bethesda. The work will involve investigation into how the retina performs preliminary image processing and transmits visual information to the brain.

His father immigrated from El Salvador in 1989 to escape a civil war there.  His mother followed a year later.

“For my mom, it was a better opportunity to work over here and send money back home,” he said. “At the same time,there was a war going on in El Salvador.  Instead of going into the civil war, they told him it would be better to come to the United States to avoid that.”

  Ulisses is the first member of his immediate family to go to college. His father works as a home renovator.

  Ulisses is the first member of his immediate family to go to college.

He credits Gary Brightbill, an 8^th grade science teacher at Battlefield Middle School who was honored as one of Spotsylvania County’s best teachers for 2013, for piquing his interest in science. “He set off the spark,” Ulisses says. Faculty members at Germanna have fanned that spark into a flame, he says.

“I always planned to come to Germanna from the moment I began my freshman year at Courtland. “It’s less expensive than four-year schools and I’ve had good teachers here.  Dr. Trudy Witt, for biology, is one of my favorites.  Prof. Mike Shirazi in math—that man is great. And [Prof. Shawn Shields-Maxwell] is a pretty awesome chemistry teacher.”

Prof. Trudy Witt

 Prof. Witt said: "Ulisses is an excellent student ...  His love of life and enthusiasm for science is contagious. He was a pleasure to have in class."

Cheri Ober, Germanna’s internship program coordinator, says Ulissis has been working his way through college by delivering pizzas. This summer the paid NIH internship will give him the chance to earn money doing work related to his career goal for the first time, she says.

To learn more about Germanna’s internship program, email Ober at cober@germanna.edu or go to http://www.germanna.edu/Students/Experiential_Learning_Center/for_students/

 

 

 

Germanna Community College Board to meet at 5 p.m. May 16 at Locust Grove Campus

 

The public is invited to attend the upcoming meeting of the Germanna Community College Board on Thursday, May 16, 2013, at 5 p.m.  The meeting will take place in Room 100 at the college’s Locust Grove Campus at 2130 Germanna Highway in Orange County. A sign-up sheet will be made available 30 minutes prior to the beginning of the meeting for those interested in addressing the board.

 Germanna Community College is a two-year, public institution of higher education, serving a total headcount of about 14,000 in the counties of Caroline, Culpeper, King George, Madison, Orange, Spotsylvania, Stafford and the city of Fredericksburg.

When she was a first grader, Haleigh Funk helped her dad beat cancer, and he helped her learn about compassion and courage . That set her on a path to a nursing career that continues with a walk in Germanna's Spring Commencement

Haleigh Funk

Her father’s battle with cancer started Haleigh Funk on her way to becoming a nurse.
“My dad had cancer when I was in the first grade,” Funk said. “And he let me inject shots into his stomach. Since then, everybody has said I ought to be a nurse.”
Funk’s father, 47-year-old  Brian Funk, recovered and is doing well. But Haleigh Funk didn’t forget the experience.
At 18, she completed  Germanna Community College’s  Practical Nursing program at Eastern View High School in Culpeper and became an LPN.
At 19, she graduated from Germanna’s Registered Nursing program on Thursday, May 8 at the Fredericksburg Expo Center.  A total of 562 students were to receive 981 associate’s degrees and certificates.
 “The sky  is the limit for this talented young woman,” Germanna  Dean of Nursing and Health Technologies Mary Gilkey said.
 “It’s definitely been a journey, and there’s been a lot of hard work,” Haleigh Funk said. But it’s been rewarding.”
 She hopes to work at Culpeper Regional Hospital, plans to eventually get her bachelor’s degree and would like to specialize in geriatric nurse.

2013 Spring Commencement keynote speaker Virginia Van Valzah: From learning disabilities to an "addiction to learning"

Virginia Van Valzah

Virginia Van Valzah has turned a learning disability into what she calls an “addiction to learning.”

The determined 26-year-old has battled ADHD and dyslexia since she was a child. When she enrolled at Germanna Community College, she applied advice from one of her teachers at James Monroe High School to break courses down into easily digestible chunks and spend a lot of time in the Tutoring Center.

 “Class sizes at Germanna are small enough that you get that one-on-one attention you need to thrive,” she says.

After earning her associate’s degree at Germanna in 2006, she went on to a bachelor’s in administrative justice at George Mason University in 2008 and a post bachelor’s certificate and master’s in criminal justice at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011. Using flash cards to study, she compiled a 3.7 grade point average at VCU.

She’s now a court security deputy for the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office and a training officer.  This summer, she will begin teaching criminology at Germanna as an adjunct faculty member.

 “I’m addicted to learning and I’m trying to pass on my addiction to other people,” she says.

  As a training officer, she‘s already helped students one-on-one who might have struggled without that attention.

 “People do things differently and they learn differently,” she says. “I want to be the person who understands a learning disability. They could be the best at the job. They don’t know how to do it unless you help them, but they could be the best.”

 She grew up in Spotsylvania, Stafford and Fredericksburg. She currently lives in downtown Fredericksburg.

 Her mother, Cathy Van Valzah, has been a history teacher for over 25 years at Brooke Point High School in Stafford. Her father, Stuart Van Valzah, is an accountant who owns his own business. 

She said she has known she wanted to work in law enforcement since she was 7 years old. “When other girls were playing with dolls, I was playing cops and robbers,” she said. “I’ve always been kind of a tomboy.”