Highlights of Academic Achievements 2014-15
ACA DEMIC SH OWCA SE
Academic Showcase
Highlights of Academic Achievements 2014-15
Scholarship is the backbone of higher education
Academic scholarship is central to the vitality of a liberal arts education, and Piedmont College has earned a reputation for academic excellence exhibited through the work of its faculty and students. Numerous faculty members write books and professional journal articles; present papers at regional, national, and international conferences; perform and share their works of art and music; and serve on prestigious boards and committees. Each year, more students join their faculty mentors in collaborative research and present their work at state and national venues of scholars. Likewise, student-athletes continue to excel both in the classroom and on the field or the court.
Please join me in congratulating our faculty and student scholars. A great deal of their work happens quietly and without much notoriety. Yet, this work is the backbone of all institutions of higher learning. Piedmont College has much for which it should be proud. Our heritage is strong and continues on a trajectory of exceptional standing among our national peers.
Perry R. Rettig, Ph.D. Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dr. Mary Bond Edmond
Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Mary Edmond only thought she wanted to be a lawyer, until a fascination with research and the intricacies of public health lured her into the camp of the sociologists.
As a pre-law student in college, Edmond recalls that as part of one course, she shadowed a lawyer for a day. “I quickly realized that field did not capture my imagination like sociology did,” she said. Now in her second year as an associate professor of sociology at Piedmont, she said she was drawn to the major because of the way that sociological research can “uncover hidden meaning in life’s day-today experiences.”
Edmond grew up in Norcross and attended home school from the second grade until she was a junior in high school. “Then I graduated from a tiny private high school with just 13 seniors,” she said. She enrolled in Perimeter College, originally to study English, and while there discovered that she liked tutoring in the Learning Center. “I also enjoyed getting to know students who came from all over the world,” she said. “One of my best friends today is from Ecuador.”
Edmond transferred to the Georgia Institute of Technology, not to study engineering but rather history, with an eye toward law school. “My experience at Georgia Tech was different from most students,” she said with a laugh. “There weren’t many history majors, so I had small classes, 15 or so students, and lots of one-on-one contact with the professors.”
It was in one of the required courses that she “fell in love” with sociology, and while she did earn a BS degree in History, Technology and Society from Tech, she
was soon off to the University of Georgia in Athens, earning an MA in Sociology in 2009 and then a PhD in 2013.
At UGA, Edmond was particularly interested in the sociology of health—the ways that socioeconomic status and other cultural factors affect individual health. While there, she worked at the Institute for Behavioral Research, serving as a research assistant on a long-term project called the National Treatment Center Study. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the UGA study examines public and private addiction treatment in the U.S., and Edmond continues her work at the IBR today as a consulting researcher.
Some of Edmond’s recent research is connected with the National Treatment Center Study, including a recent paper on the use of the drug Naltrexone to treat substance abuse across the U.S. The study looked at differences in the use of the drug across public and private treatment centers. The results were published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs in January 2015.
Edmond divides her time at both the Demorest and Athens campuses, teaching courses including Police and Society, Feminist Theory, Juvenile Justice, Gender and Sexuality, Criminal Law and Delinquency, and Senior Seminars. She believes her background in sociology research helps her to explain the academic aspects of the subject to students.
“I think it impacts students in a real, dayto-day way,” she said. “It helps to take the sociology concepts out of the textbook and apply them to real-world situations. That is especially helpful for sociology majors who may love the discipline but are not
sure what they will do with their degree. In the fields of research, they can work for public health institutions, in the criminal justice system, or with agencies such as the United States Census.”
Sociology majors at Piedmont complete their studies with a Senior Seminar that requires them to conduct original research. Just as in the real world, the students must present the idea for their project to the college’s Institutional Review Board, which monitors the ethical nature of research on campus. “Ethics in research is very important,” Edmond said, “Students need to learn the proper steps, and that process is pretty intense.”
Edmond said she is pleased with the level of research conducted by Piedmont students. One student, Jessica Lowell, is currently involved in a metastudy of the scholarly research concerning drug court effectiveness. A number of studies over the last 10 years have produced conflicting conclusions about the efficacy of drug courts, Edmond said. Lowell’s project is to critically analyze those studies to see if it is possible to determine why the studies produce such disparate results.
“It is an important study and in the process of being well done,” Edmond said. “Projects like Jessica’s would be perfect contenders for presentation at the Southern Sociological Society’s annual conference. Dr. Steven Jacobs and I are currently discussing taking students for next year’s meeting. ”
‘True Grit’
Senior’s study examines perseverance
John Wayne as Marshal ‘Rooster’ Cogburn famously had it, but exactly what do people mean by “grit”?
It is no surprise that people we perceive as having “grit” tend to succeed in life, and the idea that tenacity is as important to success as intelligence dates back to Aristotle. Psychologists Dr. William James and Sir Francis Galton in the 1800s also wrote about the importance of perseverance. “Men the world over possess amounts of resource, which only exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use,” James wrote in 1907.
But it was only recently that psychologist (and MacArthur Fellow) Dr. Angela Duckworth of The University of Pennsylvania began to pin down stick-toitiveness as a personality trait. Duckworth developed a series of studies that sought to measure a person’s “Grit Score,” as she called it, in ways that could be correlated to their actual performance in a variety of fields.
Maryrose Burns, a senior business major from Clarksburg, W. Va., said she first heard about Grit Scores during a quantitative analysis class. The idea that grit could be measured intrigued her, and last year she conducted a study of 80 Piedmont College student-athletes to see if grit correlated to wins on the playing field. She used Duckworth’s questionnaire, which consists of 17 ranked questions such as, “I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one.”
As it turned out, the women’s softball team earned the overall highest grit score, which did not surprise Burns, who plays right field for the team, which finished in first place at the end of last year’s regular season. That is when the
term “grit” earned new meaning for the team in the conference tournament. The Piedmont women, after suffering a loss in the opening round, had to fight their way back up through the “losers’ bracket” to reach the finals. In fact, they had to win three sudden death games in a row on the same day to finally claim the USA South Conference title.
“That was a special thing to be a part of,” Burns said, in what may be the understatement of the year.
That first study led Burns and one of her business professors, Dr. Ed Taylor, to propose a new study this year of all Piedmont freshmen to see if there is a correlation between grit scores and overall academic success in college. “Our hypothesis was that high grit scores correlate with high grade-point averages,” she said.
While college advisors take into account a student’s SAT scores when registering for classes, Burns said the grit score may be just as important. “Maybe you don’t want to pile on three biology lab classes in the first semester,” she said. More seriously, she said that by taking grit scores into account, advisors can be more proactive in working with students to match their interests with their “grit.” That should lead to better student success.
Burns’ own grit score must be out of the park. In addition to playing softball, she is vice president of programs for the Piedmont chapter of the American Marketing Association, a member of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a representative on the Student Athletic Academic Commission, and a member of the Delta Mu Delta business honor society. “I like to have lots of coals in the fire,” she said. And Burns has done all of
this while earning a spot on the Dean’s List every semester.
“My focus since getting into college was business in the finance area,” said Burns, who will graduate in May with a degree in business administration and concentration in finance. And after graduation, she already has a job lined up in the Tampa, Fla., office of Van Eck Global, a New York-based investment management firm. “I wanted to be sure to secure a job before graduation,” Burns said. “So I set aside an hour every day to work on applications, and it worked out.”
Burns is not sure exactly when she will start work with Van Eck. That will depend on whether the Lady Lions softball team advances through the conference tournament and on into the national NCAA tourney in May.
With a little luck—and grit—she won’t be reporting to Tampa until June 1.
Academic Showcase
Student Scholars
Undergraduate research builds teamwork
Original research by students at the undergraduate level is an important part of the liberal arts program at Piedmont College. With the benefit of small classes, professors are able to mentor students conducting research and take an active role in assisting them with presentations at a variety of scholarly conferences. Many Piedmont major programs encourage students to conduct research and delve deeper into their chosen subject. These independent research programs provide opportunities for our undergraduates that are often found only in master-level programs. Undergraduate research provides many other benefits,
allowing students to better understand how studies they may encounter in the classroom were conducted and why they were designed in a particular manner. Research conducted with a professor or with a team of students also helps students learn how to work collaboratively. Modern research is inherently interdisciplinary in nature, and gaining firsthand experience in teamwork is an important part of each student’s undergraduate education, particularly as it will apply to their future experiences in graduate school or in the workplace.
Student Scholars
Abby Atkinson
Senior Environmental Science Major, Comer, Ga.
Presented “Modeling Basin Discharge Response to Changes in Impervious Surfaces Using GIS and Historical Data” at the Geological Society of America – Southeastern Section, Chattanooga, Tenn., March 2015. (Dr. Deb Dooley)
Mitchell Auger
Junior Music Major, Alpharetta, Ga.
Second place among junior men at the Georgia National Association of Teachers of Singing auditions in Atlanta, November 2014. (Dr. Andrea Price)
Mary Beck
MBA, Bethlehem, Ga.
Dilyn Maclean
MBA, Cornelia, Ga.
Presented “The Little School Marketing Assessment Plan,” to the administration of an independent private elementary school in Clarkesville, Ga., as part of a class project in “Principles of Marketing.” The study, which examined the school’s current branding and marketing efforts, was presented concurrent with a report made by the 16 undergraduate members of the class, December 2014. (Dr. Stephen C. Carlson)
Emily
Benfield
Senior Biology Major, Clarkesville, Ga.
Rajvee Vajani
Senior Biology Major, Monroe, Ga.
Presented “Morphological Variation Between the Larvae of Two Cryptic Salamander Species (genus Eurycea) at Their Zone of Contact” at the Association of Southeastern Biologists Annual Conference, Chattanooga, Tenn., April 2015. (Dr. Carlos Camp)
Austin P. Brick
Senior Business Major, Winter Park, Fla.
Nicholas J. Green
Senior Business Major, Acworth, Ga.
Dr. John M. Misner
Executive Vice President; Dean, Walker School of Business “Proto-type Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) Model for Southern First Bancshares, Inc., Greenville, SC.” April 2015.
Presented “Economic Indicators and Loan Losses: Phase 1 Study for Southern First Bancshares, Inc., Greenville, S.C.” to senior management of Southern First, February 2015.
Maryrose Burns
Senior Business Major, Clarksburg, W.Va.
Dr. Edward Taylor
Professor of Business and Associate Dean, Walker School of Business
Prepared “Grit and Higher Education Retention Rates,” a study of the personality trait “grit” as it correlates to academic success among Piedmont College freshmen, April 2015.
Riley Carter
Senior Business Major, Demorest, Ga.
Leilani Healy
Senior Business Major, Sharpsburg, Ga.
Prepared a “Market Analysis and Business Expansion Study for Three Sisters Vineyard” in Dahlonega, Ga., July 2014. (Dr. Edward Taylor and Dr. John M. Misner)
Emily Clance
Senior Mass Communications Major, Suwanee, Ga.
Presented “Interpretations of Hitchcock’s Women” at the Popular Culture in the South Annual Convention in New Orleans, La., October 2014. (Dr. Hugh Davis)
Rusty Crumley
Senior History Major, Demorest, Ga.
Second Place International Public Debate Association (IPDA) Sweepstakes Award, Valdosta State University Fall 2014 Blazer Classic Debate Tournament, October 2014. (Dr. Janice Moss)
Katie Faith
Senior Environmental Science Major, Simpsonville, S.C.
Presented “Adsorption of Aqueous Copper and Zinc by Various Clay Substrates Using a Modified Column Method” at the Geological Society of America – Southeastern Section, Chattanooga, Tenn., March 2015. (Dr. Deb Dooley)
Augusta Gailey
Senior History Major, Gainesville, Ga.
Second Place IPDA Sweepstakes Award, Valdosta State University Fall 2014 Blazer Classic Debate Tournament, October 2014. (Dr. Janice Moss)
Chris Goershel
Senior Business Major, Kennesaw, Ga.
Sumner
Gantz
Senior Business Major, Ball Ground, Ga.
Prepared “Strategic Marketing for Piedmont College Athletics,” focusing on increasing the visibility, participation and attendance at Piedmont athletic events, November 2014. (Dr. John M. Misner)
Megan Holder
Senior Music Major, Alpharetta, Ga.
Semifinalist among junior women at the Southeast Regional National Association of Teachers of Singing musical theatre auditions in Auburn, Ala., March 2015. (Dr. Jonathan Pilkington)
Thomas Looney
Freshman Biology Major, Demorest, Ga.
Second Place IPDA Sweepstakes Award, Valdosta State University Fall 2014 Blazer Classic Debate Tournament, October 2014. (Dr. Janice Moss)
Tyler Marcinko
Senior Business Major, Demorest, Ga.
Max
Oberkofler
Senior Mathematics Major, Marietta, Ga.
“Advanced Lineup Analytics,” structured statistical analysis with strategic data analytics of game performance statistics and tendencies of the Piedmont College men’s basketball team, February 2015. (Dr. John M. Misner and Dr. Edward Taylor)
Hayley Major
Senior English Major, Dacula, Ga.
Presented “The Goddess and the Martyr: Hitchcock’s Women and Freud’s Theme of the Three Caskets,” at the Popular Culture in the South Annual Convention in New Orleans, La., October 2014. (Dr. Hugh Davis)
Trey Martin
Senior Secondary History Education Major, Homer, Ga.
2015 recipient of the William and Catherine Kelly Scholarship, awarded by the Georgia Independent Colleges Association. Martin was the winner from among nominees in the 26 GICA member institutions.
Josh McGowan
Sophomore Art Major, Baldwin, Ga.
Second Place IPDA Novice Speaker, Valdosta State University Fall 2014 Blazer Classic Debate Tournament, October 2014.
Second Place IPDA Sweepstakes Award, Valdosta State University Fall 2014 Blazer Classic. (Dr. Janice Moss)
Kaitlin Norman
Senior Biology Major, Martin, Ga.
Presented “A Test of Avoidance of Predator Chemical Cues by Semi-aquatic Salamanders (genus Desmognathus)” at the Association of Southeastern Biologists Annual Conference, Chattanooga, Tenn., April 2015. (Dr. Carlos Camp)
Aaron Phillips
Junior Music Major, Gainesville, Ga.
Third place among sophomore men at the Georgia National Association of Teachers of Singing auditions in Atlanta, November 2014. (Dr. Andrea Price)
Meghan Rhegness
Senior Psychology Major, St. Augustine, Fla.
Dr. Cynthia Vance
Professor of Psychology
Presented “Effects of Dopamine and Norepinephrine on Memory Processing” and “The Effects of Race and Crime Type on Crime Severity Judgments” at the Southeastern Psychological Association Conference, Hilton Head Island, S.C., March 2015.
Audrey Schroyer
MBA, Clarkesville, Ga.
Presented “Marketing Study for the Cornelia and Clarkesville Veterinary Hospitals” to the administration, veterinarians, and staff, July 2014. (Dr. Edward Taylor)
Sarah Smagur
Senior Mass Communications Major, Clarkesville, Ga.
Second Place IPDA Sweepstakes Award, Valdosta State University Fall 2014 Blazer Classic Debate Tournament, October 2014. (Dr. Janice Moss)
Hannah Thomas
Sophomore Art Administration Major, Jefferson, Ga.
Second Place IPDA Sweepstakes Award, Valdosta State University Fall 2014 Blazer Classic Debate Tournament, October 2014. (Dr. Janice Moss)
Sam Thomas
Senior Environmental Science Major, Jefferson, Ga.
Outstanding Senior Debater at the Valdosta State University’s Fall 2014 Blazer Classic IPDA Debate Tournament, October 2014.
Second Place IPDA Sweepstakes Award, Valdosta State University’s Fall 2014 Blazer Classic.
First Place, University of North Georgia IPDA Debate Tournament, September 2014. (Dr. Janice Moss)
Jackie Wertan
Junior English Major, Toccoa, Ga.
Presented “Wouldn’t That Rather Defeat the Purpose? Joan Fontaine as Ingénue in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Robert Stevenson’s Jane Eyre,” at the Popular Culture in the South Annual Convention in New Orleans, La., October 2014. (Dr. Hugh Davis)
Academic Showcase
Faculty Scholars
Faculty scholarship takes many paths
While the primary focus for Piedmont College faculty is on teaching, scholarship in its many forms plays a vital role in the academic life of the college. Faculty members conduct research on a wide variety of topics and then share that information through publications and through presentations to colleagues at conferences and symposia held around the country. In other cases, professors present musical or theatrical performances or exhibit works of art to regional and national audiences. Piedmont faculty also are frequent speakers for public forums, and they serve on a number of professional boards related to higher education.
These forms of scholarship and service not only keep Piedmont professors informed on research within their disciplines, but they also are able to share their expertise and talents with other professionals in their fields. This not only improves their ability to teach the subject matter but also demonstrates to students the way that scholarship is advanced through interaction with academic peers. In many cases, faculty work directly with students as co-authors, helping students to learn how scholarship outside the classroom is conducted. Undergraduates who plan to continue their education at the graduate level, where they will be called on to present their own original research, particularly benefit from these experiences.
Faculty
Dr. Donna Andrews
Professor of Education
Presented “A Teachers Helping Teachers Problem Solving Model” at the Emory University Autism Conference, July 2014.
Presented “The Hidden Curriculum of Autism in Vocational Settings” at the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Conference, Savannah, September 2014.
Presented “ASD and Sleep Issues in Children” at the conference of The Society of Otorhinolaryngology and HeadNeck Nurses Ear, Nose & Throat Nursing Foundation in Orlando, Fla., September 2014.
Dr. Elaine Bailey
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Selected as a Governor’s Teaching Fellow for the 2014 Summer Symposium Program in Athens, Ga.
Presented “POGIL: How IBL is Used in Chemistry” at the 17th Annual Legacy of R.L. Moore: Inquiry-based Learning Conference, Denver, Colo., June 2014.
Dr. Jennifer Betz
Assistant Professor of Education and Chair, Department of Secondary Education
Conducted two workshop presentations at the Fall Conference of the Georgia Art Education Association (GAEA): “Lots of Letters: TKES, EDTPA, STE(A)M, NAEA—Let’s Make Sense and Connections of This New Alphabet,” and “New Ideas for Glass in the Classroom.”
Dr. Angela Humphrey Brown
Professor of Education
As a member of the Ethics Assessment Advisory Committee in the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, worked with the PSC and Educational Testing Service (ETS) on the development of the new Georgia Ethics Assessments, implemented in Fall 2014.
Presented “Come Play with Me: Exploring Creative Engagement Strategies for the College Classroom” at the 44th Annual Conference of the International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning in Denver, Colo., October 2014.
Dr. Carlos Camp
Professor of Biology
Presented “A Contradiction in Genes: Phylogeography of the Black Mountain Salamander (Desmognathus welteri Barbour 1950)” at the Association of Southeastern Biologists Annual Conference, Spartanburg, S.C., April 2014; and at the Sixth Conference on the Biology of Plethodontid Salamanders, Tulsa, Okla., May 2014.
Presented “Phylogeography and Ecological Niche Requirements of the Plethodon wehrlei Species Group” at the Conference on the Biology of Plethodontid Salamanders, Tulsa Okla., May 2014.
Dr. Carlos Camp (et al)
Professor of Biology
Published “Role of Temperature in Determining Relative Abundance in Cave Twilight Zones by Two Species of Lungless Salamander (family Plethodontidae)” in the Canadian Journal of Zoology, 2014.
Published “Morphological Differentiation Between the Larval Forms of Two Cryptic Species of Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus)” in Amphibia-Reptilia, 2014.
Dr. Stephen C. Carlson
Director of Undergraduate Programs and Senior Fellow in Business
Presented “International Business: Does Travel-Study Produce Academic Results?” at the Allied Academies Spring International Conference, New Orleans, La., April 2015.
Dr. Clay Crowder
Associate Professor of Education and Chair, Department of Special Education
Co-authored “Identifying Academic Demands that Occasion Problem Behaviors for Students with Behavioral Disorders: Illustrations at the Elementary School Level,” published in Behavior Modification, March 2015.
Dr. Isabelle Crowder
Assistant Professor of Education
Named to the Gifted Education Task Force of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission.
Dr. Hugh Davis
Associate Professor of English
Presented “Dystopian Future as Utopian Past in Jean Renoir’s Sur un Air de Charleston,” at the Popular Culture in the South Annual Convention in New Orleans, La., October 2014.
Dr. Abbey Dondanville
Associate Professor of Athletic Training
Named Associate Editor of the Athletic Training Education Journal, a publication of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, April 2015.
Dr. Mary Edmond (et al)
Associate Professor of Sociology
Published “Adoption of Injectable Naltrexone in U.S. Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program,” in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, January, 2015.
Published “The Use of Art and Music Therapy in Substance Abuse Treatment Programs,” in the Journal of Addictions Nursing, October 2014.
Published “The Effect of Neighborhood Disadvantage, Social Ties, and Genetic Variation on the Antisocial Behavior of African American Women: A Multilevel Analysis,” in Development and Psychopathology, November 2014.
Presented “Alumni Programs: Empirical Parameters of Programs in Substance Abuse Treatment and Characteristics of Adopting Organizations” at the Addiction Health Services Research Conference in Boston, Mass., May 2014.
Dr. Don Gnecco
Professor of Education and Dean, School of Education
Named to the statewide Assessment Advisory Steering Committee of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, which helped to design the new Georgia Assessments for the Certification of Educators (GACE).
Dr. Rocky Hardy
Professor of Physics
Presented “Euler-Lagrange Elasticity: Differential Equations for Elasticity without Stress or Strain” at the American Physical Society, Denver, Colo., March 2014.
Published “Euler-Lagrange Elasticity with Dynamics” in the Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics, December 2014.
Dr. Megan Hoffman (et al)
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Published “Metacognition Does Not Imply Self-Reflection, But It Does Imply Function: A Commentary on Kornell’s ‘Where is the “Meta” in Animal Metacognition?’” in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, May 2014.
Dr. Tim Menzel (et al)
Associate Professor of Biology
Presented “Data Collection for the PFPP Landscape Context Study by an Undergraduate Advanced GIS Class” at the members’ meeting of the Ecological Research as Education Network, Rock Island, Ill., June 2014.
Dr. Menzel was named lead scientist of the Landscape Subproject of the Permanent Forest Plot Project for Ecological Research as Education Network (EREN).
Dr. Janice Moss
Professor of Mass Communications
Elected President of the Georgia Parliamentary Debate Association and served as director for the 2015 State Tournament held at Piedmont College in February 2015.
Debate Team won the IPDA Tournament at the University of North Georgia, September 2014.
Dr. Keith Nelms
Professor of Business
Best Paper Award at the 2014 International Conference on Learning and Administration in Higher Education, Nashville, Tenn., for “Technology Knowledge Self-Assessment and Pretest Performance Among Digital Natives.” This paper also will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Learning in Higher Education.
Dr. Kathy O’Keefe
Professor of Education and Chair, Department of Teaching and Learning
Presented “History in My Own Backyard!” at the 46th annual Conference on Children’s Literature at the University of Georgia, March 2015.
Dr. Linda Scott
Dean, R.H. Daniel School of Nursing and Health Sciences
Appointed to the Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) Committee for the Georgia Composite Medical Board to review protocols for Nurse Practitioners with their collaborating physicians.
Dr. Julia Schmitz
Assistant Professor of Biology
Was awarded a grant from the American Society for Microbiology/National Science Foundation for the Biology Scholars Program Assessment Residency in Washington, D.C., March 2014.
Published “Potential Snippet” in Human Anatomy and Physiology Society’s HAPS Education, Winter 2014.
Monika Schulte
Assistant Professor of German
Presented “The Creation of a Children’s Book in the German Language, an Interdisciplinary Approach on Eliminating the Use of Translation Machines” at the Humanities Education and Research Association in San Francisco, Calif., April 2015.
Named Chair of the Testing Committee by the Georgia Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German.
Elected to the founding board of the German American Exchange, a new organization to promote internships in the U.S. by German college students, May 2015.
Dr. Candice Southall
Assistant Professor of Education
Co-authored “What Does Research Say About Social PerspectiveTaking Interventions for Students With HFASD?” published in Exceptional Children, the Journal of the Council for Exceptional Children, January 2015.
Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor
Butman Professor of Religion
Presented the Commencement Address at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va., May 2014; and the Convocation Address at King College in Bristol, Tenn., August 2014. Taylor also appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday television show in November 2014 to discuss her recent book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, a New York Times bestseller and Amazon Top 100 selection.
Dr. Susan Turpin
Associate Professor of Education and Director of Clinical Experiences & Outreach Services
Presented, “Becoming a Teacher Leader” at the 17th annual Impacting Student Learning Conference at Georgia Regents University, March 2015.
Co-authored a new e-book, “Educator Career Coach’s Complete Guide to Getting a Teaching Job,” published by Educator Career Coach, 2015.
Dr. Max White
Professor of Anthropology
Presented “The Wynne Family: Early Settlers in Northeast Georgia” to the Banks County Historical Society and Cornelia Kiwanis Club, May 2014.
Presented “Creek and Cherokee Indians” at Etowah Mounds State Historic Site, March 2014.
Presented “Prehistory and Early History of Nacoochee Valley” at Hardman Farm State Historic Site, November 2014.
Dr. Stephen Whited
Professor of English; Chair, Department of Humanities
Presented “The Piedmont College English Senior Seminar: Outcomes and Assessment Issues” at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference in Atlanta, Ga. Whited also chaired a section on Senior Seminar Program Assessment, November 2014.
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.
Kaitlin Norman (Two-time selection)
Senior Biology Major, Good Hope, Ga. (Volleyball, Sid Feldman)
Kelsey Schaffernoth
Senior Secondary Education Major, Snellville, Ga. (Women’s Soccer, Stephen Andrew)
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.
