Associate Vice President of Instruction Finalist Meet & Greet: Deana St. Peter (20210119-00003)

Candidate Bio: With nearly 20 years at GTCC, Deana St. Peter has dedicated her career to understanding and addressing the challenges GTCC students face, while collaborating with others at the college to help students achieve their personal and professional goals. A graduate of Mississippi State University (MA, English 1995), Ms. St. Peter taught high school before moving to Jackson, MS, to serve as the administrator for the Hinds Community College Writing Center from 1997-2000. In 2000, she returned to Mississippi State University as a lecturer, before starting her GTCC journey as an English Instructor in 2001. As a faculty member, she served on many college committees and held several officer positions on the Faculty Association. She also developed and edited online courses for the North Carolina Virtual Learning Community and worked in eLearning to deliver training and peer review online courses. She received the Excellence in Teaching Award twice, and was the 2005 GTCC nominee for the North Carolina Community College System Excellence in Teaching Award. Based on her excellent teaching record and her knowledge of and experience with online learning, Ms. St. Peter was appointed in 2007 to oversee the start-up of GTCC’s first totally online program, the AA in General Studies, which involved building partnerships with student service offices across campus to develop and implement application, registration, orientation, advising, and other processes for eDegree students. She earned a President’s Award for these achievements. In 2009, she was selected to be GTCC’s inaugural full-time eDegree Program Coordinator, and in this role, she collaborated with faculty, department chairs, and division chairs to develop, market, and deliver 14 degree, 2 diploma, and 7 certificate programs. Following her time in eLearning, Ms. St. Peter ran the college Writing Center, expanding writing tutoring from one tutor at a desk in the AT Open Lab to over 20 professional and student tutors who fully staffed Writing Centers on each GTCC campus. When tutoring was restructured in 2015, Ms. St. Peter returned to the English Department, where she was elected by her peers to chair the newly-created Humanities, Philosophy, and Religion Department in 2016 before serving as first the Interim Director and then the Director of the Center for Academic Engagement (CAE). Encompassing both academic and non-academic supports, the CAE houses tutoring services, ACA college student success courses, the Titan Hub computer lab, and Titan Link, which provides wrap-around social service supports to GTCC students. The CAE flourished under her leadership: services have seen a 49% increase in the hours of student use; tutoring use has increased 18%, Titan Link has been #1 in the state for disbursement of Finish Line Grants, and the number of ACA courses offered by the college has more than doubled. Ms. St. Peter's understanding of and commitment to GTCC is clear; in her twentieth year with the college, she continues to leverage her leadership skills and wide-ranging relationships to support student success and change student lives.

Lai'Anna D Martin

2/5/2021 6:30:00 PM