By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
AUG. 13, 2019 | Georgia Gwinnett College’s (GGC) third president, Dr. Jann Joseph, is dynamic and not bashful in her support of students, their achievement, and in particularly wanting her students to be even more successful over time. She came to GGC on July 1, after serving as executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, and then as interim chancellor of Indiana University – South Bend.
After six weeks on the job now, she has found “No place so open and unapologetic to the idea of caring for students from different circumstances.” Her plans for GGC are to “Look deeply into underperforming students, and deliberately go about means to help them. We want to scale them up here at the college,” she says with energy. “These students come here to invest in their future, and we want to help them as much as we can.”
While some GGC students leave college before graduation “near the national average,” she is not happy with that level of accomplishment. “Some leave GGC too early. What happened to cause them to leave? We must be more concentrated in our effort to retain students. We want to make them more successful over time.”
The new GGC president also wants students to “attend classes first, and take a full load, so that they can graduate as early as they can and be on the best road for their lives. The support and compassion of the college that I have seen here is second to none. We want to help our students invest in their future.”
Joseph
In her short time in Gwinnett, Dr. Joseph has felt welcomed. “It is a nurturing and supportive campus. I see GGC caring for people with an expressed experience and purpose. There is good access by the staff to students.”
Dr. Joseph is a native of Trinidad, West Indies. She came to the United States in 1992 to join her husband (of 36 years of marriage, who died last year), when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin. She graduated from the University of the West Indies with both a bachelor’s and master’s degree. Her doctorate is from Wisconsin in curriculum and instruction in science education.
She tells a story of how her mother always wanted a clean house before inviting people in. At GGC, she says, “We have a clean house, the right space, all modern and the utmost best for successful students. We want to invite more in.”
She remembers it was her mother in law who wanted “to be mindful of what can be accomplished if you set goals for the future. We want to be measured favorably by others. And we will set measurable goals.”
Dr. Joseph has three children, and four grandchildren. A son accompanied her on her initial visit to Gwinnett. He is in Information Technology, and was planning to move to the Austin, Texas area. However, he was impressed with the job opportunities he found in Metro Atlanta, and has moved his family here. Dr. Jann says: “They live eight minutes from me in Lawrenceville,” and that includes his wife, a teacher at Dyer Elementary, and three of her grandchildren.
The new GGC wants a campus that is excellent, creative and works to serve its students and the community “We want it to be a happy campus and faculty, who have joy in their work. We will work to provide that support to achieve those goals.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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