Pellissippi State’s top faculty, staff members named for 2004-05

The first-year project: an early success story

Ever wonder if you can actually make a difference in a student’s life?

Annie Gray, assistant professor of English, has already seen early success come from the College’s involvement in the Foundations of Excellence in the First College Year, an effort aimed at helping first-year students succeed.

The Foundations of Excellence project is sponsored by the Policy Center on the First Year of College and supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education. Pellissippi State was selected as one of 10 Founding Institutions to participate in the project, which began August 2005.

As part of the project, Gray and others are planning more ways to support students’ academic experiences. One idea, for example, is to have a student-accessible barter board, where students can communicate about transportation issues, child care and other concerns.

Although barter boards are not yet in place, help was already given to a student this semester.

The student had temporarily lost her transportation to school and didn’t have the means or resources for an alternate.

Another teacher involved in the FOE planning process found out about the situation and told Gray.

“Since we have this focus on first-year experiences and student success, we were on the alert and able to respond,” says Gray.

Gray did a little research and found out what options the student had for transportation. As it turned out, the student was eligible for assistance through a vocational rehabilitation service.

Gray gave the information to the student, who was then empowered to make the calls and arrangements.

This small but significant success story confirmed to Gray and her colleagues that all their planning will make a difference.

“We realized—this is all possible!” said Gray.

"Inside Pellissippi" is a bi-monthly electronic publication produced by the Community Relations Office for the faculty and staff of Pellissippi State Technical Community College, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, P.O. Box 22990, Knoxville, Tennessee 37933-0990. All suggestions and comments should be sent to Julia Wood (jwood@pstcc.edu).

For past issues, visit the Inside Pellissippi Archive.