Academic Showcase 2016

The

ACADEMIC SHOWCASE Highlights of Academic Achievements 2015–16

1 | Academic Showcase 2015-16

Academic Showcase Highlights of Academic Achievements 2015-16

Academic excellence founded on student and faculty scholarship Piedmont College faculty continue to contribute scholarship to their professional fields; and students collaborate with their professors to produce scholarly papers, poster presentations, performances, and works of art. Capitalizing on the scholarship of teaching and learning as espoused by Ernest Boyer, our faculty infuse their academic expertise directly into their classrooms. The results emerge from every corner of the college and are shared across the country.

Without question, our academic community has much for which to be proud, and this publication highlights some of the many scholarly achievements of our faculty and students. Our professors are recognized by their peers, and a growing number of our students are achieving scholarly excellence prior to their entrance into their chosen professional careers and advanced academic endeavors. Please join me in recognizing the academic accomplishments of these faculty and students at Piedmont College.

Perry R. Rettig, Ph.D. Vice President for Academic Affairs

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Dr. Lisa Hodgens Professor of English With retirement around the corner, Dr. Lisa Hodgens is not slowing down; in fact, she is finishing up yet another major project— working with Dr. Margaret Rose Gladney as co-editor of A Lillian Smith Reader, a compendium of the Georgia civil rights pioneer’s works.

The project, which began about three years ago, brings Hodgens’ 28-year career as a professor of literature full circle. “Dr. Gladney is the leading Lillian Smith scholar and was teaching at the University of Alabama when I was a graduate student there,” she said. “I’m sure she did not know who I was, but I knew of her and her work on Lillian Smith.”

Hodgens said that as a professor of Southern literature, she had long been familiar with Smith’s 1944 novel, Strange Fruit, but even before that she was familiar with Smith’s writing. “My family felt aligned with her civil rights stance, and my mother talked about Smith’s nonfiction writings when I was growing up,” she said. “[Smith] intrigued me because she lived in north Georgia and was courageous enough to write about race in such a controversial time. I always wondered what it would be like to meet her.

When Piedmont College became affiliated with the Lillian Smith Center in Clayton, even though “Miss Lil’ was dead, I felt I was meeting her.”

A Lillian Smith Reader will be published this fall by UGA Press, and a special “Lillian Smith Day” is planned at Piedmont, Sept.

30, to introduce the book and celebrate Smith’s life and work.

Hodgens said that working on the book has revealed many things she did not know about the Clayton, Georgia, author, who was a student at Piedmont College in 1915–16.

“I did not realize how world famous she was during her lifetime,” Hodgens said. “She was a friend of Martin Luther King and Eleanor Roosevelt. She taught at a mission school in China, where she met Madame Chiang Kaishek, who also attended Piedmont

around 1910. I often wonder if they talked about their time in Demorest.” Smith served on international committees, including the India Emergency Famine Committee with Pearl S. Buck and Albert Einstein, Hodgens said. “And she was frequently on radio and television talk shows at the time, discussing world situations, including segregation in the United States.”

“Our book invites readers to journey through a sampling of her writing organized chronologically from the 1930s to 1960s.”

Hodgens said. “It can be used in the classroom, but it is intended for the general reader.”

Co-editing A Lillian Smith Reader caps a long list of accomplishments for Hodgens, who joined the college in 1988. Originally from Albertville, Alabama—“The Heart of Sand Mountain,” she says. “I still think of it as home”— Hodgens earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Samford University before a four-year stint teaching English at Homewood High School near Birmingham.

She followed that with a “miserable” year at IBM, working in management training. “I’d sit at my desk, secretly reading The Hobbit,” she admitted. So she returned to school at the University of Alabama and in 1987 earned a Ph.D. in American Literature.

While working on her degree, Hodgens was a teaching assistant at the University of Alabama, then an instructor at the University of Georgia. It was at UGA that she saw an advertisement for a position as an English professor at Piedmont College.

She met with then-Dean Carlton Adams, who told her that at a small college like Piedmont, “You can make a difference.”

“Teaching at large universities can seem a little impersonal,” Hodgens said. So she took a chance on Piedmont and now, 28 years later as she prepares to retire, looks back on it and sums it up in three words— “I’ve loved it,” she said.

During her time at Piedmont, Hodgens has taught just about every literature course

offered—undergrad and grad— including American, World, British, and Irish literature. She designed a new course, Nature Writing, which she twice taught at the Lillian E. Smith Center, and helped redesign many of the existing English offerings. As computers began to impact higher education in the late 1980s, she developed the college’s first computerassisted freshman composition course.

Hodgens was the founding sponsor of Piedmont’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society; and she has collected two of the awards the college confers, Outstanding Advisor and Vulcan Teaching Excellence.

She was co-editor of the Habersham Review literary magazine for eight years and is a poet. “Uweyv Nvya,” (Cherokee for ‘river stone’), published in Flycatcher Journal in 2012, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Travel study has also been an important part of Hodgens’ time at Piedmont. In 1998 she helped organize one of the first travel study trips to England and has led trips to England and Scotland and six study trips to Ireland. “You can’t know your own culture until you explore another one,” she said.

“In Ireland we usually spend one week in the city of Dublin, then move west toward Galway, spending our last three days on Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands off Ireland’s west coast. The trips usually combine Irish literature and mythology with Celtic spirituality,” she said.

At the end of the current semester, Hodgens is moving to Richmond, Virginia, to be near her daughter, Elise, son-in-law Todd, and new grandson, Theo. She plans to write more poems and compose music. Leaving Piedmont will be hard, she admits. “Elise was four when we came here; she grew up on this campus, went to UGA, then came back here to graduate.”

“I am ready to make this change,” Hodgens says, “but if I miss teaching, one of the six colleges near Richmond may need me!”

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Rossignol doubles down Senior’s research examines chromium pollution

E

arning a double major means that sometimes you have to be in two places at once, as senior Elaine Rossignol discovered

recently.

A biology and environmental science major, Rossignol conducted two capstone research projects, both of which were accepted for poster exhibitions at the conventions of two scientific professional organizations—held on the same weekend.

Her biology project, which looked at the effect of chromium pollutants on a type of freshwater crustacean called Daphnia, was presented to the Association of Southeastern Biologists meeting in Concord, N.C., March 31–April 1.

She also presented the results of her studies into how different types of soil can mitigate chromium pollution to the Geological Society of America, meeting that weekend 116 miles away in Columbia, S.C. But that wasn’t even the worst problem Rossignol had as the semester wound down and she got ready for graduation April 30. She also had to decide which graduate program she was going to pick after being accepted at three large research universities.

“I applied to five master’s programs and was accepted at three, and so far I’ve not heard back from the other two,” Rossignol said. The choices so far include the University of Illinois at Chicago, Boston University, and George Washington University.

Originally from Charleston, S.C., Rossignol graduated from Bishop England High School, where she was an AP scholar, National Merit Commended Scholar, and a South Carolina High School League Academic All-American. At Piedmont she is a member of Sigma Alpha Pi National Society of Leadership and Success, and the Biology Club.

Rossignol played lacrosse for a club team in high school, and it was sports that led her to visit Piedmont, where she played varsity lacrosse her freshman and sophomore years. “I also loved the mountains, so it was a good fit,” she said.

Her interest in chromium pollution began after reading about a major coal ash spill in Eden, N.C. Coal ash is the residue produced by coal-fired electric generating plants, and in February 2014 some 40,000 tons of coal ash and 27 million gallons of contaminated water flowed into the Dan River near Eden as a result of a Duke Energy spill.

Just a few years earlier, researchers had determined that hexavalent chromium, known as chromium-6, a known carcinogen, is found in relatively large quantities in coal ash. (Chromium-6 from a different source was at the center of a 1993 California spill made famous by the movie “Erin Brockovich.”)

Rossignol said her biology project was not meant to determine the carcinogenic effect of chromium but rather its effect on freshwater animals, such as Daphnia,

also known as water fleas, which are an important food source for other aquatic animals. With her faculty advisor, Dr. Deb Dooley, she prepared samples of water with varying amounts of chromium-6, each with the same number of Daphnia present. Then, over a 72 hour period, she counted the living and dead Daphnia in each of the samples. A statistical analysis revealed that concentrations of chromium-6 that matched those found in the Dan River were fatal to the Daphnia.

Her project for environmental science also involved chromium-6 pollution to determine how much of the heavy metal passes through various soil types.

She prepared a variety of soil columns and then passed a known solution of chromium through them. Using the lab’s atomic spectrophotometer, she could then measure the chromium remaining in the leachate.

Rossignol said that she knew early on that she wanted to study science, and in the summer of 2014 she interned with Dr. James Pinkney, a phytoplankton ecologist at the University of South Carolina to study algal growth in marine estuaries.

“That was an awesome experience,” she said.

Whichever master’s program she selects, Rossignol said she plans to change directions to study forensic science. “It nothing like what I’ve done so far,” she said. “I’m really excited!”

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Academic Showcase Student Scholars

Undergraduate research prepares students for the next level Original research by students at the undergraduate level is

With the benefit of small classes, Piedmont professors

an important part of the liberal arts program at Piedmont

mentor students and take an active role in assisting them

College, and many or our major programs encourage

with their research and with presentations at a variety

students to conduct research to delve deeper into their

of scholarly conferences. Participation in undergraduate

chosen subject. These independent research programs

research helps students learn how to work collaboratively

provide opportunities for our undergraduates that are

and increases their readiness for the next level of higher

usually found only in master-level programs.

education if they so choose.

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Students

J. Sumner Gantz MBA Student, Ball Ground, Ga.

Laura Briggs Senior Psychology Major (graduated December 2015), Athens, Ga. Presented “Evaluating Effectiveness of a Sexual Assault Prevention Seminar: The Role of Presenter and Audience Gender,” Southeastern Psychological Association Conference, New Orleans, La., April 2016. (Dr. Megan Hoffman)

Kristina Coggins Senior Biology Major, Tallapoosa, Ga.

Stephen Owensby Senior Biology Major, Cornelia, Ga. Presented “A Test of Ecological Character Displacement in Two Parapatrically Distributed, Cryptic Species of Two-lined Salamanders (Eurycea cirrigera and E. wilderae),” Association of Southeastern Biologists, Concord, N.C., April 2016. (Dr. Carlos Camp)

Emily Corson Senior Sociology Major, Tampa, Fla. Presented “The Effect of Gender Stereotyping in Male Athletes,” Southern Sociological Society conference, Atlanta, Ga., March 2016. (Dr. Mary Edmond)

Chastin Dobbs Senior Psychology Major (graduated December 2015), Danielsville, Ga. Presented “Attitudes Towards Age of Sexual Consent” and “Attitudes Concerning Age of Sexual Consent: Examining Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Generational Differences,” Southeastern Psychological Association Annual Meeting, April 2016. (Dr. Cynthia Vance)

Jordin Ellingson Senior Biology Major, Cornelia, Ga.

Dr. Susanna Warnock Professor of Business Presented “Playing the Completion Rate Game: The Impact of ‘Soft’ Gamification on Completion Rates,” Council of American Survey Research Organizations Digital Research Conference, Austin, Texas, March 30.

Sarah Gesualdo Senior English Major, Dacula, Ga. Essay “The Shed” won first place in the Creative Nonfiction category of the Southern Literary Festival Competition and is included in the Festival Anthology, Murfreesboro, Tenn., March 2016. (Dr. Tim O’Keefe)

Morganne Gregory Senior Biology Major, Grayson, Ga. Conducted National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates on tardigrades in Kansas and Florida with Dr. William Miller of Baker University; poster presentation at California Academy of Sciences, Summer 2016. (Dr. Rob Wainberg)

Jenna Hoffman Senior Biology & Environmental Science Major, Dawsonville,Ga. Presented “The Extraction Land Cover Data for 13 Northeast Georgia Watersheds by Students in a Project-based GIS Course,” Geological Society of America, Columbia, S.C., March 2016. (Dr. Deb Dooley)

Tyler Kinner Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Secondary Broadfield Science, Lawrenceville, Ga. Published “Majority Carrier Type Control of Cobalt Iron Sulfide (CoxFe1-xS2) Pyrite Nanocrystals,” The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, February 2016.

Presented “The Effects of Alcohol and Caffeine on Prenatal Drosophila melanogaster,” Association of Southeastern Biologists, Concord, N.C., April 2016. (Dr. Rob Wainberg) Academic Showcase 2015-16 | 7

Hayley Major Senior English Major, Dacula, Ga. Presented “Where is Dracula? An Examination of the Evolution of the Literary Degenerate,” Popular Culture Association, Wilmington, N.C., October 2015. (Dr. Hugh Davis)

Joshua McGowan Senior Art Major, Baldwin, Ga. Best in Show, Piedmont College Art Department Fall 2015 Exhibition.

Elaine Rossignol Senior Biology & Environmental Science Major, Moncks Corner, S.C. Presented “Survivability of Daphnia magna in Aqueous Hexavalent Chromium,” Association of Southeastern Biologists, Concord, N.C., April 2016.

Presented “Remediation and Toxicity of Aqueous Chromium,” Geological Society of America, Columbia S.C., March 2016. (Dr. Deb Dooley)

Frazier Smith Senior Arts Administration Major, St. Marys, Ga.

Harley Palmer Sophomore English Major, Toccoa, Ga. Presented “The Fall of the House of Haggard: Edgar Allan Poe and The Last Unicorn,” Popular Culture Association, Wilmington, N.C., October 2015. (Dr. Hugh Davis)

Honorable Mention in the Georgia Music Teachers/Music Teachers National Association composition competition (Dr. Phillip Hayner)

Brittany Stancil Junior English Major, Toccoa, Ga.

Arielle Parker-Trout Senior English Major, Tallulah Falls, Ga. Essay “Truth” won third place in the Creative Nonfiction category of the Southern Literary Festival Competition and is included in the Festival anthology, Murfreesboro, Tenn., March 2016. (Dr. Tim O’Keefe)

Presented “Nevermore: Shattering the Misrepresentation of Edgar Allan Poe in Media Portrayals,” Popular Culture Association, Wilmington, N.C., October 2015. (Dr. Hugh Davis)

Keller Street Senior Psychology Major, Roswell, Ga.

Rudradatt (Randy) Persaud Senior Chemistry Major, Monroe, Ga. Presented his National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates project, “Application of Chromium(III) as a Supercharging Agent in Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI TOF MS): A Study of Small Peptides,” at the Southeastern Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Memphis, Tenn. (Dr. Elaine Bailey)

Timothy Pierce-Tomlin Senior Psychology Major (graduated December 2015), Winterville, Ga. Presented “Studying the Effects of Survival Scenarios on Narcissism Levels” Southeastern Psychological Association Conference, New Orleans, La., April 2016, (Dr. Megan Hoffman)

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Presented “Do Rhesus Monkeys Use Long-Term Memory to Solve Matching-Tasks?” Southeastern Psychological Association Conference, New Orleans, La., April 2016. (Dr. Megan Hoffman)

Alex Thomlinson Junior Music Major, Dahlonega, Ga. First Place, Georgia Music Educators Association State Competition in composition with Ave Maria for a capella choir.

Honorable Mention in the Georgia Music Teachers/Music Teachers National Association Composition Competition (Dr. Phillip Hayner)

Jackie Wertan Senior English Major, Toccoa, Ga. Presented “Wuthering Heights: A Modern Interpretation,” Popular Culture Association, Wilmington, N.C., October 2015.

(Dr. Hugh Davis)

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Academic Showcase Faculty Scholars

Faculty scholarship develops great teachers While the primary focus for Piedmont College faculty

who plan to continue their education at the graduate

is on teaching, the college strongly supports scholarly

level, where they will be called on to present their

engagement to ensure the best quality educational

own original research, particularly benefit from these

experience for undergraduate and graduate students.

experiences.

Whether they are involved in the Arts & Sciences, Business, Education, or Nursing & Health Sciences,

These forms of scholarship and service not only keep

faculty members share research and their own expertise

Piedmont professors informed on developments

through publications, performances, and exhibits at

within their disciplines and improve their ability to

conferences and symposia held around the country.

teach the subject matter, but they also demonstrate to students the way that scholarship is advanced through

In many cases, faculty work directly with students as

interaction with academic peers.

co-authors, helping students learn how scholarship outside the classroom is conducted. Undergraduates

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Faculty

Dr. Barbara Benson Professor of Education

Xhenet Aliu Athens Librarian and Instruction Coordinator Presented a reading of her debut fiction collection, “Domesticated Wild Things,” High Point University Phoenix Reading Series, High Point, N.C., February 2016.

Presented “Keep Calm and edTPA: An Introduction to edTPA for Teacher Candidates,” Annual Conference of the Southeastern Regional Association of Teacher Educators (SRATE), Jekyll Island, Ga, October 2015. Dr. Benson is currently serving as President of the SRATE. Presented “Turn Up the Learning: Motivational Techniques in Higher Education,” Annual Conference of the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), Chicago, February, 2016.

Dr. Stephanie Almagno Associate Dean and Professor of English Published “Other Duties as Assigned: An English Professor Survives Her First Year as Chair of Math/Physics,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Advice and Views section, 2016.

“Rubrics: Undervalued Teaching Tool,” Magna Publications, 2016.

Dr. Carlos Camp (and Wooten) Professor of Biology Published “Hidden in Plain Sight: Cryptic Diversity in the Plethodontidae,” American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists’ Copeia, 2016.

“Detection of an Enigmatic Plethodontid Salamander using Environmental DNA” Copeia, 2016.

Jennifer Arbitter Associate Professor of Mass Communications Presented “When (or if) to Cut the Cord: Moving College Television Online,” College Broadcasters Inc. National Student Electronic Media Convention, Minneapolis, Minn., October 2015.

Dr. Elaine Bailey

Dr. Carlos Camp et al.

“A Test of Scent-trailing as a Contributing Factor in the Climbing Behavior of the Redback Salamander (Plethodon cinereus),” Amphibia-Reptilia, 2016.

Presented “Genetic Divergence in Populations of Slimy Salamander (Plethodon glutinosus species complex) in the Coastal Plain of the Southeastern U.S.,” Association of Southeastern Biologists, Chattanooga, Tenn., April 2015.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Presented “Using POGIL to Engage Students in the Classroom” and “Multidisciplinary Student Engagement Techniques: Lessons Learned from the Governors’ Teaching Fellowship,” Best Practices for Promoting Engaged Student Learning: USG Teaching and Learning Conference, April 2015.

Elizabeth Baugus-Wellmeier et al.

Assistant Professor of Nursing Published “Achieving and Sustaining Zero: Preventing Surgical Site Infections After Isolated Coronary Artery Bypass With Saphenous Vein Harvest Site Through Implementation of a StaffDriven Quality Improvement Process,” Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, September 2015.

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Dr. Stephen Carlson Senior Fellow in Business Presented “Measuring Leader Integrity: Producing a Short Perceived Leader Integrity Scale” and “International Business; Does Travel-Study Produce Academic Results?” Proceedings of the Business Studies Academy, Allied Academics International conference, New Orleans, La., April 2015.

Dr. Hugh Davis Associate Professor of English

Dr. Lisa Hodgens, co-editor with Dr. Margaret Rose Gladney

Edited and published The Works of James Agee, Volume 3: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, (University of Tennessee Press, 2015).

Nominated for the Robert Penn Warren-Cleanth Brooks Award for Outstanding Literary Criticism and the C. Hugh Holman Award, which is given annually to the best work of scholarship in the field of Southern literature.

Professor of English

Presented “Curse of the Lesbian Vampire Novel: Val Lewton and Carmilla” at the Popular Culture Association, Wilmington, N.C., October 2015.

Dr. Tim Menzel

Dr. Mary Edmond Associate Professor of Sociology Published “Insurance Receipt and Readiness for Health Care Reform Opportunities: A survey of Treatment Providers for Substance Use Disorders,” Southern Sociological Society Conference, Atlanta, Ga., April 2016.

Dr. Mary Edmond et al.

Published “Counselor Training and Attitudes Toward Pharmacotherapies for Opioid Use Disorder,” Substance Abuse, available online (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26168816), 2015.

“Rural Substance Use Treatment Centers in the United States: An Assessment of Treatment Quality by Location,” The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 41(5), 449-457, 2015.

“Treatment Strategy Profiles in Substance Use Disorder Treatment Programs: A Latent Class Analysis,” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 153, 109-115, 2015.

Published A Lillian Smith Reader, short stories, lectures, essays, op-ed pieces, interviews, and excerpts from Lillian Smith’s longer fiction and nonfiction, UGA Press, Summer 2016.

Associate Professor of Biology

Dr. Deb Dooley Professor of Earth Science

Anthoney Willsea Senior Biology Education Major, Demorest, Published “The Relationship Between Soil Chemistry and the Occurrence of Echinacea laevigata (Boynton and Beadle) Blake in Northeast Georgia,” Natural Areas Journal: 36 (1), 2016.

Dr. Tim Menzel Associate Professor of Biology Presented “Providing a Complete Picture of Competition Between Two Ant Species, Aphaenogaster carolinensis and Nylanderia faisonensis,” Association of Southeastern Biologists Annual Conference, April 2016.

Dr. Keith Nelms Professor of Business

Dr. H.H. Hardy Professor of Physics Presented “Linear Algebra Provides a Basis for Elasticity Without Stress or Strain,” Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Conference on Applied Linear Algebra, Atlanta, Ga., October 2015.

Published “Linear Algebra Provides a Basis for Elasticity Without Stress or Strain,” Soft, Vol. 4 No. 3, September 2015.

Published ‘Technology Knowledge Self-Assessment and Pre-Test Performance Among Digital Natives,” The Journal of Learning in Higher Education, Spring 2015.

Dr. Timothy O’Keefe Assistant Professor of English Published a series of poems called “Quadrilaterals,” in The Offending Adam; Gulf Coast; and Salt Hill, Fall 2015.

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Walter Keel Senior Fellow in Business

Sandra Maughon Fellow in Business Presented “Bringing a Game into an Accounting Class and Engaging the Students in Learning,” Georgia Association of Accounting Educators, Oakwood, Ga., February 2016.

Dr. Perry Rettig Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Education Published Reframing Decision Making in Education, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Md., 2016 Keynote Speaker “Who are We Really Talking About?: How Do We Respond?” Adult Student Recruitment and Retention Conference, Madison, Wis., March 2016.

Margaret Ryder Assistant Professor of Business Presented “Compliance and Enforcement of the United Nations Global Compact,” International Academy of Business and Economics Fall Conference, Las Vegas, Nev., October 2015.

Published in The Journal of International Management Studies, December 2015.

Dr. Julia Schmitz Assistant Professor of Biology Completed the Biology Scholars Program Assessment Residency, Washington, D.C., June 2015.

Published “Microbial Diseases: How to Have Your Students Effectively Create an Informational Pamphlet,” American Society for Microbiology Conference, Austin, Texas, May 2015.

“Functional Organelle,” EDU-Snippets in HAPS Education; Vol 20, Issue 1, December 2015.

Monika Schulte Assistant Professor of German Selected Professor of the Year by the Georgia Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German, State German Convention, Camp Jackson, Ga., February 2016.

Dr. Gerald Sullivan Senior Fellow in Business Presented “Supportive Leadership in Community Banks: A Comparative Analysis of 2005 and 2011,” International Academy of Business and Economics, Orlando, Fla., March 2015.

Published in the International Journal of Business Research.

Dr. Doug Torrance Assistant Professor of Mathematics Presented “Generic Forms of Low Chow Rank,” American Mathematical Society Spring Southeastern Sectional Meetings, Athens, Ga., March 2016.

Dr. Cynthia Vance Professor of Psychology Presented “Newspaper Creation Assignment in the History and Systems Course,” American Psychological Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, August 2015.

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Student-Athletes

Capital One Academic All-America Team Selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), the Academic All-America Awards have honored top student-athletes since 1952.

Abby Smith Senior Nursing Major, Washington, Ga. (Softball, Coach Terry Martin)

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Piedmont College Mission and Core Values

Piedmont College dedicates itself to the transformative power of education through reciprocal learning, the development of compassionate leaders, and the stewardship of our local and global communities.

Our Core Values Inquiry

Piedmont College fosters an environment for learning by engaging in critical and creative dialogue. All members of the college community are challenged to immerse themselves in discovery, analysis, and communication.

Service Piedmont College cultivates a sense of gratitude and duty to humanity by offering opportunities for civic engagement, personal growth, and ethical reasoning in action.

Legacy Piedmont College upholds the intellectual, social, and theological heritage of Congregationalism through excellence in teaching and scholarship and by embracing our diverse society. We further these principles by encouraging empathy, innovative thought, and responsibility towards ourselves and others.

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