PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

GGC’S PROGRAMS Synchronize with regional economic needs and opportunities

Soon after Georgia Gwinnett was founded in 2005, we partnered with local business and community Dr. Stas Preczewski

leaders to ensure that the college’s degree programs were synchronized with area needs.

This enabled us to strategically select the first majors that would be available to students when we opened in 2006, and set the course for which majors would be developed over the next several years. Some majors require more lengthy planning with outside organizations, such as education and nursing. And some require specific instructional facilities, so they had to be planned in coordination with campus construction projects and enrollment growth.

All along, our priority has been to align GGC’s degree programs with employer needs and career opportunities in the Gwinnett area and surrounding region. This ensures that the college will meet critical needs for trained professionals while providing maximum employment opportunities and career options for our students.

However, needs and opportunities change over time.

In response to those needs, GGC has changed concentrations within several existing majors and added minors to allow students to customize their education to individual career interests. One example is the addition of a digital media concentration within the information technology major, which aligns with tremendous growth in areas such as the electronic gaming industry.

This year, we added two new bachelor’s degree programs created specifically to address high-growth arenas within the local economy.

The bachelor of science in human development and aging services will prepare students for a broad range of careers that have arisen out of changing demographics within American society. The bachelor of arts in cinema and media arts production will allow students to take advantage of Georgia’s growing film and television entertainment industry (see related story, page 14). In their first semester alone, the new degree programs enrolled 50 and 169 majors, respectfully.

As Georgia Gwinnett continues to mature, it will continue adapting its programs as significant needs and opportunities arise. This supports the college’s mission to produce engaged graduates who are prepared to anticipate and respond effectively to an uncertain and changing world.

Go Grizzlies!

Stas Preczewski

The GGC nursing program conducted a joint trauma training exercise with the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine during the 2017 fall semester. Here, Mary Beerman, GGC instructor of nursing, gestures toward EKG lead placement on a volunteer patient, as Terri Fortier, ’17, nursing, a PCOM student, and Cameron Williams, ’17, nursing, observe.