Help Celebrate Fred van Hartesveld’s Retirement!

Frederick (Fred) van Hartesveld has been teaching at GRCC since 1984 when he started as an adjunct faculty member.  In his 35 years teaching at the college he has served both as a Professor of English and as the Faculty Association President.  He was once editor of the college’s Collegiate publication, has served on many committees including at the state-wide level, and as a trustee on the GRCC Foundation Board participated in fund-raising and millage campaigns.

“GRCC has been personal throughout my life.  When I was a kid, my dad would talk about the undefeated JC football team he played on and how the attack on Pearl Harbor canceled classes.  Sixty years later, the last time I saw my dad alive was over coffee at the Quiet Café.”  Fred even met his future bride at GRCC, getting to know her during breaks between classes.

Since his time as a student and extending into his career, Fred enjoyed many life-long relationships and reminisces about helping and being helped by colleagues through many difficult times and attending so many colleagues’ funerals over the years.  “For most of my life, GRCC’s future was my future,” he says.

In retirement, Fred has many things that he’d like to do and is sure “there will be things both surprising and spontaneous!”   Already, he has been keeping active- training for and racing in track events such as the 100 meter sprint.  He has been cultivating blackberries behind his house, continuing to volunteer by distributing food to needy families, spending time with his wife, friends, family, and drinking “better coffee, more slowly, more often.”  His love of food is evident in his description of his development from being an “enthusiastic aggressive eater to an enthusiastic leisurely eater” and adds: “First, never let it be said of me that I let a meeting get in the way of any food at the meeting.  Second, like the Holy Grail is the search for the Holy Grail, the agenda for any meeting is less important than the relationships, the manner and the moods that move the agenda.”

Please join us for Fred’s retirement party Thursday October 3, 2019 from 2:00 – 5:00 pm in the White Hall Reading Room.

Enjoy retirement, Fred!

New PAF Form

Human Resources has worked with Graphics to update the Position Authorization Form (PAF). The new PAF is available on the Human Resources webpage. If you have copies of the old PAF in your records, please discard and begin using the updated form.

Applying the Quality Matters Rubric Training

GRCC Faculty: Join us for a face-to-face Applying the Quality Matters Rubric Training facilitated by Meg Lockard.

Friday, September 17, 2019 from 8:30 am – 3:30 pm

303 Sneden Hall

You can complete in one-day what it takes 2 weeks to do online! (With free lunch!)

 

Description: Is your online/hybrid course design clear to learners and easy to navigate? Do your assessments actually measure your learning outcomes? Are your learning activities designed to promote learner interaction and engagement? If you teach online/hybrid courses and you’re looking to improve your courses for the sake of student access, success, and retention, then this workshop is for you. The APPQMR workshop will introduce you to the nationally-recognized Quality Matters course-design principles, which you can then apply to your own distance courses. Not only will this workshop provide you with concrete steps for course-design improvement but it will also qualify you to take additional workshops through QM, become a QM course reviewer, and even facilitate future workshops here at GRCC or online.

 

The APPQMR workshop is a 6-hour commitment (lunch provided) that will result in an official QM certification, an improved understanding of the current research regarding course design, and, ultimately, happier and more successful students!

 

Space is limited! Register today at http://www.grcc.edu/ctereg. Contact DLIT (dlit@grcc.edu) with any questions.

GRCC In the News, 9-11-19

GRCC now charging admission for basketball, volleyball games for scholarships

Sept. 10, 2019; MLive

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Grand Rapids Community College is now charging admission to volleyball and basketball games to raise funds for additional athletic scholarships.

How quitting helped Jordyn Gates become a Miss Volleyball finalist

Sept. 11, 2019; MLive

Grand Rapids Christian senior setter Jordyn Gates committed to play volleyball at the University of Arkansas when she was 14 years old.

… Gates will be the third daughter in her family to play college volleyball. Her oldest sister Taylor played at Grand Rapids Community College, and Maddy is now playing at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne. Her brother Brent Gates Jr. played hockey at the University of Minnesota and her brother Brady, 10, is pursuing baseball.

Condolences to friends, family of Robert Riekse

We extend our condolences to the friends, family and former colleagues of Robert Riekse, who worked as a professor, dean, registrar and admissions director at GRCC.

Grant Opportunity: National Science Foundation, Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is accepting applications for the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) competition.

The IUSE: EHR is an education program that seeks to promote novel, creative, and transformative approaches to generating and using new knowledge about STEM teaching and learning to improve STEM education for undergraduate students. The grant supports projects that seek to bring recent advances in STEM knowledge into undergraduate education, that adapt, improve, and incorporate evidence-based practices into STEM teaching and learning, and that lay the groundwork for institutional improvement in STEM education.

This competition offers two tracks:

Track 1: Engaged Student Learning

The Engaged Student Learning track focuses on design, development, and research projects that involve the creation, exploration, or implementation of tools, resources, and models. Projects must show high potential to increase student engagement and learning in STEM. Projects may focus directly on students or indirectly serve students through faculty professional development or research on teaching and learning.

Track 2: Institutional and Community Transformation

The Institutional and Community Transformation track funds innovative work applying evidence-based practices that improve undergraduate STEM education and research on the organizational change processes involved in implementing evidence-based practices. The emphasis of this track is on systemic change that may be measured at the departmental, institutional, or multi-institutional level, or across communities of STEM educators and/or educational researchers.

Each Track has several levels of funding ($150,000 – $2 million) and various deadlines starting in December 2019. For more information, please contact Kim Squiers in the GRCC Grants Department at extension 2577 or kimsquiers@grcc.edu.

The GRCC Grants Department offers grant writing services and can assist faculty and staff navigate the entire grant submission process.

International Guitar Series starts Sept. 26

This year’s International Guitar Series kicks off Sept. 26 with a performance by the Grand Rapids Guitar Duo, featuring Professor Brian Morris and adjunct Jonathan Marshall. Tickets are available online.