'From Bored Rebel to Proud Nerd: My Journey Through Germanna'

GCC graduate and tutor Jessica Perez delivered the following speech, "From Bored Rebel to Proud Nerd: My Journey Through Germanna," to an auditorium filled with faculty and staff today at the Daniel Technology Center. It earned her a standing ovation.

Jessica Perez

Every Germanna student has a story. My story began when I was in the ninth grade when my math teacher imparted some advice to my mother during a meeting: "Mrs. Leonard, sometimes parents have to face the fact that their child is not very smart." The child she was speaking about was me and for the duration of my time in high school, I viewed its walls as a prison, and I became an expert at breaking out. And, if I was stuck behind the prison walls, I was determined to make the time interesting for my fellow students and teachers. 

On the day that all the seniors in my class were picking up their caps and gowns, my principal called me into the office to inform me that I would not be able to attend graduation unless I served thirty-three detentions in three days. She then went on to tell me that the reason why colleges were very selective was to ensure that they would not allow students like me. Though, in her defense, I think she was still mad at me for buying dead fish and hiding them all over the school as a prank. To be honest, her words didn't really affect me because I knew that I was not going to go to college; I was not smart enough and, even if I was, I did not have any money to pay for it. So, I left her office laughing because my time in prison was coming to an end. Freedom was upon me.

After high school, I began to work retail. As my high school boyfriend, later my husband, worked his way to an M.B.A., I worked my way through the ranks of retail management. In 2003, my husband landed a job with the government, and we moved from Ohio to Virginia. I soon began working as a manager at the Barnes and Noble in Springfield. And, I loved my job. I was surrounded by books, coffee, and great people. The hours, however, were exhausting. Anytime I would seem to be particularly exhausted, my husband would bring up the idea of going back to school. For many years, I placated him when he brought it up. I feigned my consideration of the subject because in the back of my mind, I still heard my ninth grade math teacher: "Mrs. Leonard, sometimes parents have to face the fact that their child is not very smart." I faced that fact, I did not need to prove it.

One day, my husband won. I must have been extremely tired because next thing I knew, we were filling out an application on the Germanna website and figuring out where and when I would be taking the COMPASS test. 

While driving to take the test, I was surprised at how close the Locust Grove Campus was to my house in Lake of the Woods. It's funny how you can live somewhere and have no idea what is around you. Of course, this is also the feeling I had as I took the test. It is still a bit of a haze for me, but I do remember that afterward, I met with a counselor who seemed extremely pleased with my test scores. She informed me that I tested into English 111 and Math 03. When I asked her what Math 03 was, she explained that it was a developmental math, but that I scored really high for someone who had been out of school for more than a decade. Of course, all I heard was "developmental math," and again, the words of my ninth grade math teacher began to play in my mind:" Sometimes Mrs. Leonard, parents have to face the fact that their child is not very smart."

Ann Lyons, Jessica Perez, Diane Critchfield

A couple of days later, I spoke to my advisor, Diane Critchfield. She wanted to arrange a meeting to help me register for classes. By this time, however, I knew that this whole college thing was a mistake, but I was going to try it to make my husband happy. So, I decided that when I went to meet Ms. Critchfield, I would be honest with her. She seemed amused. In fact, her response to my little disclaimer was to sign me up for her English 111 class. 

That first summer of school was amazing. I found myself enjoying learning again. Not only that, but I no longer viewed school like a prison. Every person I encountered throughout the day was so nice and helpful. Every morning the person behind the cashier window wished me a good morning, and Security always waved good-bye as I drove away. When I needed help with Blackboard, the people in the ACC happily walked me through the steps. When I needed help finding online journals for a research paper, the librarians patiently assisted me. Even those who I had never spoken to would smile at me as I walked down the hallway. I began to look forward to going to school. Not just for the classes, but also for the environment. Needless to say, I did not fail my first semester at Germanna, and I began to venture out and take classes at the Fredericksburg Campus and Daniel Center where I had similar experiences.

However, this did not completely convince me that I had the ability to succeed. I viewed each new semester as a new opportunity to fail. Especially because there was a math class involved. But, at the end of my first year, I received an Academic Award for English, and at the ceremony is when I met Ann Lyons for the first time. She asked me to come by the Locust Grove Tutoring office the following Tuesday to talk to her about becoming a tutor.

We had a nice conversation about what it means to be a tutor and how I would tutor writing. But then, Ann dropped a bomb on me, she asked me how I felt about tutoring math. And, I must add that only Ann Lyons would think my reaction was a positive in terms of hiring me because I turned white. I swear that the very idea caused my stomach to drop. She hired me on the spot.

Now, at this point, I have talked a lot about people who believed in me, but when did I begin to believe in myself? That has an interesting answer. 

As I was taking my own math classes, I also began tutoring people who were taking math classes that I had already taken. For some reason, maybe because it was not my math anymore, concepts that seemed very difficult to me began to make a lot of sense. Soon, I was able to explain a math concept in several different ways. This coincided with my own math classes seeming to be easier to me. I actually enjoyed my Math 152 class with Mr. Nickens so much that I took his Math 240 class that I did not need. Others began to notice this change before I did. It was not until I took a trip with Dr. Sam to Richmond that I realized what happened.

I was invited to go down to the State Assembly, along with many other students, to represent Germanna students. Because I lived out in Locust Grove, Dr. Sam offered to pick me up at the Locust Grove Campus. I thought that we were meeting everyone else at the Fredericksburg Campus, and it was not until we were passed the 126 mile marker on I-95 that I realized that I was wrong; we were on our way to Richmond, just me and Dr. Sam. But, Dr. Sam was very engaging. We talked about a variety of subjects until we landed on tutoring. He asked me what subject I liked to tutor the most, and the answer came out of my mouth before I could even think about what I was saying: math. 

That was the moment that my old ninth grade math teacher's words left my brain altogether. Those words had haunted me for almost twenty years, but at that moment, a simple answer to a simple question banned them from my mind forever. 

You see, all of you make up the experience that students have here at Germanna. Each of you play a part on a student's journey to better themselves. Some of the students that come here were not great students in high school. Some had horrible experiences with a teacher who did not believe in them. Some students have not been to school in many years and lack confidence in themselves and what they can bring to the classroom. I was all of these students. And I would like to thank all of you for the smiles you gave me in the hallway, the words of encouragement in the classroom, and for believing in me when I was not ready to believe in myself. Because whether or not I personally met you along my own journey, you were part of it, and I thank you for making Germanna Community College the place where people like me can come and realize our potential. Thank you.

Jessica Perez went on to become a Virginia All American Scholar and graduated summa cum laude from Germanna.

 

Germanna history Prof. Rich Gossweiler honored for 45 years of service

History Prof. Rich Gossweiler was recognized for 45 years of service during today's Learning Day at the Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper. 

Dr. Rich Gossweiler honored by Germanna President David A. Sam

Dr. Sarah Somerville was recognized for 30 years of service; Rick Brehm and Asst. Prof. Delois McCormick were recognized for 25 years; Valerie Miller and Assoc. Prof. Phyllis Smith for 20 years; Chief Craig Branch, Dean Pam Frederick, Assoc. Prof. Frances Lea, Prof. Karen Mittura, Sandra Monroe, Asst. Prof. Mike Shirazi and Beverly Unkle for 15 years; Assoc. Prof. Sherlyn A. Farrish-Barner, Susan Brown, Assoc. Dean Paula Gentry, Dean Shashuna Gray, Melba Morrozoff, Nancy Noel, Ron Williams and Assoc. Prof. Samantha Wilson for 10 years and Rosie Henderson, Michael Hurley, Kelly Rudnik and Dr. Jeanne Wesley for five years.

Tutor's determination to make it as writer a great example for students

Chris Williams stays pretty busy when he isn’t working as a tutor in Germanna Community College’s Writing Center.

 The Germanna graduate writes about politics, history, culture, race and music for the Huffington Post, the Guardian, The Atlantic, Ebony and Wax Poetics. 

 When he’s not tutoring or writing, he’s usually working social media to further his writing career.

Williams, a 32-year-old Spotsylvania County native and Courtland High School graduate, grew up in the Massaponax area. He earned his associate’s degree at Germanna, his bachelor’s degree at Virginia Commonwealth University and spent a month at the University of the West Indies in Barbados studying history as an ambassador for VCU.

 “It’s been fun,” he said about his first semester at Germanna’s Writing Center.  “I really enjoy the people I work with.” He said Tutoring Services Coordinator Ann Lyons made him feel comfortable immediately. Of working with GCC students, he said: “I’m learning from them as well. It’s been a wonderful experience. I feel blessed.”

His reporting experience includes covering Capitol Hill and the White House in 2011 as a freelancer for the National Newspaper Publishing Association. 

Williams said he got his start working for two years as a freelancer without getting paid. He was writing mostly for startup publications to show what he could do.

 “The media is changing so much,” he said. “A lot of publications are really tight on money.”

He said freelancing is an arduous process. 

“The key is the pitch,” he said. Even after an idea is approved, the freelancer generally must then produce a piece the editor likes before seeing any money.

 Williams spends much of his time developing contacts via social media.

 He said Facebook and, to a greater extent, Twitter, “changed the trajectory of my writing career.” Social media, he said, has provided him access to people he otherwise would not meet.

Poynter.org has six tips for landing freelance journalism gigs:

Never stop building a network of contacts.

Research publications--and their editors.

Pitch ideas other reporters are missing.

Pitch several ideas at a time.

Create an online portfolio.

Share the wealth by hooking others up with jobs.

Girl Scouts helped point Germanna 'Women of Distinction' in right direction

Two current Germanna Community College leaders and a former GCC professor were honored at the Commonwealth of Virginia Girl Scouts Women of Distinction Awards Thursday night at the University of Mary Washington’s Jepson Center.

Dr. LaZalia Richardson, who retired from teaching English at Germanna a year and a half ago after a stroke, talked about the joy of teaching students at all levels “to read and to write and to develop their cognitive skills.”

Dr. LaZalia Richardson and husband Xavier Richardson

She noted that her daughter Christina has become a teacher and often texts her excitedly: “’Mom! She got it! He got it! They got it!’ She understands that she grows taller metaphorically each time she reaches down and teaches a child.”

Dr. Patti Lisk, Germanna’s Dean of Nursing and Health Technologies, said Girl Scouting pointed her in the right direction career-wise, even though she hated camping out.

She said that after spending a week camping out as a Girl Scout, “I can remember going home, soaking in the tub and wondering why did people camp? I learned that vacation for me is not camping.  Vacation for me is a resort with sheets and fine food.”

GCC Dean of Nursing & HealthTechnologies Patti Lisk

 Dr. Lisk recalled that her Nancy Nurse Doll helped her earn a Girls Scout First Aid badge.  “The Nancy Nurse Doll had a button in its stomach and you would push it and she’d say ‘”My tummy hurts,’ or cough. The job of the child was to make the doll feel better. Then the doll would say ‘I feel better now.’ “

 Now, she said, she works with high tech human simulators in Germanna’s Virtual Hospital  that mimic human illnesses and respond to treatment by either getting well or “dying,” depending on the knowledge of the students.

“The Girl Scouts started to prepare me for my adult life and helped me recognize things I would be good at and things I wouldn’t,” Dr. Lisk said.

Germanna VP for Workforce Development Jeanne Wesley

Dr. Jeanne Wesley, Germanna’s vice president for workforce development and community relations, noted that three women from college were being honored last night and that a past honoree, former GCC Dean of Nursing Jane Ingalls, was in the audience.

“You can see that Germanna Community College can handle strong women,” she joked. “And we need to be strong because of what we do.

“We send students from this area to the top universities in the nation, including some in Virginia,” Dr. Wesley said.

“We train technicians… we provide apprenticeships.. . We change lives. We break cycles of poverty and we’re very proud of it.”

  Dr. Wesley joked that the Girl Scouts helped her find her career path when “I sold truckloads of cookies.”

 She also had a camping story.

   “We were camping somewhere in the middle of the night, and we began to hear howls, screams, and then out tents started flapping.

“And the Boy Scouts who were doing it, “she said as the crowd laughed, had lived up to their credo by being prepared to wreak havoc on the Girl Scouts. “But the experience only made us stronger.”

Since 2000, Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia has honored women “for their stellar accomplishments, tireless endeavors, and selfless service to the Greater Fredericksburg community.”

2013 Women of Distinction honorees pose for a group shot.

Paris in June: Germanna trip open to all

Chambord Kalesi

 

Germanna Community College is offering a comprehensive June trip to Paris and the Loire Valley . The trip is open to alumni and other members of the community as well as students.

“It is a historical and cultural trip with days in Paris and then castles, and then a WWII focus, “ said Maury Brown, an English instructor at the college and one of trip’s organizers. “We will be there for the 70th anniversary of D-Day. We will be on the beaches at Normandy on June 10.

“Part of Germanna’s mission is to offer opportunities for personal enrichment, and those making the trip may discover a new love for history, art, literature, or philosophy along the way.”

There will be an informational meeting about the trip to France at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept.  17 in room 318 of the Dickinson Building at Germanna’s Fredericksburg Area Campus in Spotsylvania. Attendees will learn more about the trip, and where the group will go, why these sites are important, what the cost of the trip covers, and how to sign up. The meeting will last about an hour, Brown said.

She said the tour group will include people of all ages.

“We have many people in their 50s signed up already,” Brown said. “The trip is comprehensive. All transportation costs (flight, bus, metro, etc.) are included as is a full breakfast every day and authentic French dinners. All hotel accommodations are also included, as are all entrance fees to the sites.

Those on the trip will have priority access into the sites, have the planning done for them and have the full time services of a multilingual guide, and two Germanna professors, one English and one history. “The only other money you'll need is spending money; everything else is covered with prices locked in,” Brown said. Those who register by Sept. 30 receive a $100 discount on the cost of the trip.

  Included in the package:

 -A Seine River cruise 

 -Viewing Paris from the Eiffel Tower

 -Shopping in the Latin Quarter Stops at the famous Opera House, Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe, and the Notre Dame and Chartres cathedrals, the Louvre, Versailles, the Chateau de Chenonceau and Chateau de Chambord castles, the Mont St. Michel monastery, the medieval Troglodyte villages and the walled seaport of St. Malo.

-For World War II history buffs, there will be a visit the Arromanches museum, cemetery and beaches.

"You'll get the chance to relive The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Three Musketeers, Les Miserables, and WWII liberation,” Brown said.

For those under age 23 who sign up by Sept. 30, the trip is $3,199 (including all transportation--air, ground, water--, lodging, breakfasts and dinners, entrance fees, guides and educational materials. For those over age 23 who sign up by Sept. 30, the trip is $3,574. After Oct. 1,  the cost goes up $100 for either group.

Registration requires a $99 deposit, then  monthly payments may be made by  check or credit card.

"It boils down to about $300 per day for students and $350 per day for adults," Brown said. "That includes all expenses except spending money, and prices won't fluctuate. Not bad when you look at all we are doing, the cost of round-trip airfare to Europe, etc." Those under age 23 may be in triple or quad lodging  on some nights. Those over 23 will be in single- or double-occupancy lodging for the entire trip.

Lead scientist and engineer at NSWC teaching engineering for Germanna

 By ELLIOTT FABRIZIO, NSWC Dahlgren Division Corporate Communications

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (NNS) -- "You ever notice how old men sit around and talk about how the sky is falling and two or three decades later, there's a new set of old men sitting around talking about how the sky is falling?"

  

 Dr. Walter Sessions (U.S. Navy photo by Elliott Fabrizio/Released)

Dr. Walter Sessions, a lead scientist and engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), moonlights as a professor for Germanna Community College where he educates the next generation of engineers and scientists to ensure his hypothetical question remains true.

"It's nationally known that we have a huge abyss coming when there will hardly be any scientists and engineers," said Sessions.

The desire to fill that abyss with passionate and talented science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals led Sessions to the new electrical engineering program at Germanna.

In August 2013, he began teaching two fall semester classes - Electrical Circuits I and Introduction to Engineering.

As a lead scientist for NSWCDD's Electromagnetics and Sensors Department with an engineering doctorate, he may seem overqualified for entry level instruction, but Sessions says those with the most experience are precisely who should be teaching.

Germanna co-sponsors 'Freedom at the Gates: African Americans in Civil War Virginia'

“Freedom at the Gates: African Americans in Civil War Virginia,” the next lecture in the Madison County Civil War sesquicentennial series, is set for 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 9 at Madison County High School, featuring Prof. Ervin L. Jordan Jr. of the University of Virginia.

Germanna Community College is a co-sponsor of the series, which is open to the public, free of charge.

He notes in his book Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Virginia that as the Civil War began,

 “more African Americans lived in Virginia than in any other state- 490,000 slaves and 59,000 free blacks.”