President's Message:
Dr. Olin H. Joynton, ACC President

Educational jargon comes and goes, but one of the most enduring terms in the community college field over the past twenty years is “learner-centered environments.”  Popularized by work on the “learning college” by Dr. Terry O’Banion, former executive director of the League for Innovation in Community Colleges, the term conveys a shift of attention to learning and the needs of the learner.  This concept reinforces the distinctive niche of community colleges in the higher education world.  It’s a niche that attracts people who welcome students in rather than shut the door in order to crank out another publication, people who derive more joy from seeing a student meet a high educational standard than from seeing themselves rise to international academic stardom.  It’s an ethic of service to students, exemplified by one faculty member’s reply to a student stopping by and asking, “Am I interrupting?”  She responded, “No, this paperwork I was doing is the interruption!”

As generations roll on, it turns out to be quite a challenge to stay responsive to the needs of today’s learners.  It’s a different world from the one inhabited by those of us who grew up in the '50s and '60s. Getting inside the heads of today’s learners requires empathy and imagination. Understanding the environments that are effective for learning requires no small amount of research and analysis of data.  For example, is group work more effective that listening to a lecture?  How should the interplay between theory and “hands-on” be structured?  How necessary are glitzy media productions in order to capture the minds of those raised on TV and video games?  How many students should be in a room to optimize learning – subject by subject?  What about the effect of temperature, lighting, color, sound quality, and furniture?  How do learning partners establish a climate of trust are so that solving hard problems and wrestling with provocative issues unifies, rather than divides, the class?

The answers to these questions all have implications for the physical facilities where learning is staged. As the Pathways to the Future Campaign nears completion, these answers will be critical for those at Alpena Community College responsible for translating the community’s generosity into the campaign’s specific learner-centered environments — arts facilities, computer labs, and science labs. One of the most important factors in my coming to Alpena was the ample evidence of community support for the college, and there’s no better example than the Pathways Campaign to demonstrate the community’s commitment to the college’s success.

Dr. Olin H. Joynton
ACC President

For more information on supporting the Pathways campaign, contact Penny Boldrey, executive director of the Alpena Community College Foundation, at (989) 358-7297.

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