In honor of Black History Month, Associate Professor of History Amy French has created a series of short videos on site at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History to review the exhibit Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues! on loan from the Smithsonian.
In this clip, Amy gives an overview of the Pleibol! exhibit: youtu.be/6IfyHV4LFYs
Segregation kept many people of color from playing Big League baseball as Amy shows us here: youtu.be/tW29l6N49TM
Amy adds, “The exhibit will continue throughout March, so I encourage you to head on down.”
Here is the Castle’s FB page where the CEO of the museum has been conducting interviews with important people in the field: www.facebook.com/thecastlemuseum
Dr. French is also the Coordinator of Delta College’s Humanities Learning Center, sharing what Delta faculty are doing in their classrooms, what they are reading, what they are creating, what they are watching, and much more. To get the most recent releases of her interviews with faculty as well as links to other cultural events in the area, follow the HLC Facebook page: www.facebook.com/humanitieslearningcenteratdeltacollege
Teaching in a pandemic has posed countless challenges, but the Delta College Faculty have met these with ingenuity and resourcefulness, even for the most hands-on courses. This is evident in the Electrician and Mechatronics programs, which Associate Professor of Engineering Diane Lobsiger says are primarily being taught in a synchronous format.
“The instructors teach their classes during their normally scheduled times using Virtual Classroom. The students then do their labs individually at home, with guidance from their instructor, using the components that Delta purchased for them [details below]. This has been a team effort to ensure student success throughout the pandemic. Electrical Technology Instructor Matt Bartolowits, Skilled Trades & Mathematics Instructor Jim Krukowski, and Learning Resource Manager Becki Bushong helped in picking out the components that were purchased. Electrical Lab Technician Thomas Eddy and Manager of Library Programs and Services Michele Pratt set up kits in the library to hand out the supplies to the students. They also allow the students to return the kits to the library at the end of the semester, and they repair any damaged equipment.
“Mechanical Tech & Design Professor Matt Eyre was instrumental in selecting and acquiring the Automation Studio simulation software used in several of our courses. Purchasing ordered all of the components for us in a timely manner, so we could continue teaching our classes without any interruptions. Our adjunct instructors have been amazing as they have transformed their classes to online instruction, so our students can continue to progress towards completion of their programs.
“Becki Bushong offered a significant amount of her time in helping to get the adjunct instructors acclimated to online instruction. The support from the administration has been outstanding. Our programs never would have been able to continue through the pandemic without the support of the purchase of this equipment. Most of all, our students have been terrific. The students have adjusted to taking their classes online, and although we would prefer to meet face to face, there is still an abundance of learning taking place. I am very proud of our students!”
And DCFAis proud of this fantastic group effort to keep our students’ academic goals on track!
Delta purchased the following components that allowed the Electrician and Mechatronics programs to continue through the pandemic:
Dr. Niester-Mika has her students select a habit they want to change, then each creates a 30-Day Life Challenge to implement this personal change. “I wanted students to experience this win, this sense of self-efficacy, this ability to control one’s behaviors or their environments, or to address what would be a negative mindset that they came into college with, like, ‘I’m a bad test taker.’ That’s something they believe about themselves, and if they continue to believe that about themselves, that’s going to hinder their academic performance.”
As a result of this approach, Dr. Niester-Mika opened whole new communication pathways with her students and found higher success rates: “less students were dropping, they were finishing with higher grades.” Dr. Niester-Mika assessed these findings with data research to find that this theme-based approach had a powerful and positive impact on her student personal as well academic success.
Associate Professor of English Lauren Smith and her college composition students have created the Michigan Pandemic Story website.
“Students from Delta College in the Great Lakes Bay region of Michigan have gathered information from residents about their experiences with COVID-19. Their task has been to interview Michiganders from all walks of life to tell their pandemic stories online. They are endeavoring to create a living history of this region during this unprecedented time. All the stories told here are with the permission of the participants.”
In a recent interview with Humanities Center Director and Professor of History Amy French, Lauren shared that this “Pandemic Storybook” is similar to the Pandemic Influenza Storybook the CDC created to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the flu pandemic of 1918, helping students to understand both the unique nature of this experience as well as its connections to history.
In the interview, Lauren explains: “The project became for us to create a hyper-local version of the CDC pandemic storybook for Covid-19. My goal as instructor was to try to always, first of all, help my students become better writers and thinkers, but also then to offer a service to our community in a way that we could. That meant for us collecting oral history that related to Covid in this moment.”
Visitors to MyPandemicStory can click on county names to see the stories gathered from residents there or select their reading by the name of the person interviewed and their county.
David Rose speaks with Delta College Art Faculty Shrerri Archer, Sanford Buchalter, and Andrew Rieder in this local news feature story: Artists Thrive at Delta College.
In honor of Black History Month, Associate Professor of History Amy French has created a series of short videos on site at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History to review the exhibit Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues! on loan from the Smithsonian.
mydcfa.org 