News and Updates from President Michelle Schutt

Hello, GCC Community,

On the heels of the incredibly successful Arts Night, let me begin today with gratitude for all who played a part in the evening’s success.

Jen, Joan, Kelly and the entire Art Department, congratulations on another amazing showing in and around the gallery. Your skills as instructors are clearly on display though the work of our students. Tom and the cast and crew of Angels and America, congrats on delivering an incredibly moving part 2 of this riveting theatrical work.

To Margery and the Community Chorus, thank you for adding your beautiful voices to the theatre, in celebration of the arts. Kudos to Matthew’s students who shared their musical talents throughout the evening.

Thank you to Geraldine and the Genuine Foods team, Shannon, the Library staff, the Foundation team, and the Facilities team for your support of the Art’s Night President’s Reception.

And finally, of course, thank you to our students, for sharing their talents with us every day. We wouldn’t be here without them!

As a reminder, as we continue our work on engagement with the Gallup Q12 tool, next Monday from 12:00-1:30 in the Dining Commons, all are invited and encourage to attend a keynote by Gallup Learning and Development Consultant, Amatoga Jérémie.

Managers are going to be participating in a follow up with Amatoga from 2:00-4:00, where we will be offered the tools and strategies needed to take action on Gallup Q12 engagement results and drive positive change within individual departments.

Ice Cream Emergency will be back on campus next Wednesday, May 1st from 12:00-2:00. Please join for a sweet treat.

Finally, please mark your calendars and plan on attending part or all of the events taking place on May 25th. From 9:00-10:00 will be the nursing pinning ceremony. Commencement will take place from 12:00-1:30 followed by GCC Day from 1:30-5:30.

After GCC



A recent report by the University Analytics and Institutional Research department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows the School/College of Major chosen by GCC students who transferred to UMASS in the 2023-24 academic year.

23 students enrolled in the College of Natural Sciences

9 enrolled in the Isenberg School of Management

9 enrolled in other programs (typically undeclared/University Without Walls)

8 enrolled in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts

7 enrolled in the College of Engineering

4 enrolled in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

3 enrolled in the College of Information and Computer Sciences

2 enrolled in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences

Summer and fall registrations started out like greased lightning this year! We don’t count our chickens before they are hatched, but we are excited to see that students are making the decision to register now before all that happens late in the spring and into the summer. Thanks to all who help make GCC the best choice for students to elevate and change their family trees!!

As we move forward with Gallup, the College has invested in professional development for this initiative based on the feedback given to HR from the initial rollout last Fall.

Amatoga Jérémie is a bilingual Learning and Development Consultant at Gallup. Amatoga will explain why employee engagement is vital to success and how it directly impacts the College. She will challenge each of you to see every employee — their unique way of making things happen, building relationships, making decisions and advocacy — as the solution to problem-solving.

In-person attendance is strongly encouraged. Your participation will contribute to meaningful insights that will benefit our entire community.

We look forward to seeing you on April 29 at noon in the Dining Commons.

Suicide Prevention Protocol

Contributed by the Behavioral Intervention Team

As the Behavioral Intervention Team finalizes a more robust document which outlines detailed steps for suicide prevention, we thought to share some basics with the campus community.

1. If someone is having thoughts of killing oneself with a plan and intent to carry it out, call Public Safety immediately at Ext. 1111 from an on-campus phone or 413.775.1111 or 911 from any other phone. Then contact the Interim Dean for Enrollment Management (tannerp@gcc.mass.edu) and the Wellness Center at (413) 775-1332.

1. If a student is having thoughts or feelings about engaging in suicidal behavior, or has engaged in suicidal behavior while enrolled or recently joining the GCC community, contact the Interim Dean for Enrollment Management (tannerp@gcc.mass.edu or (413) 775-1870). If unavailable, contact the Provost (jordanc@gcc.mass.edu or (413) 775-1471).

There are additional protocols that are enacted by the Behavioral Intervention Team and others when information like this is shared. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to anyone on the Behavioral Intervention Team.

Dr. McKeage Presents at ANNY 2024

Contributed by Dr. Kim McKeage, Associate Director for Learning Outcomes Assessment

The Assessment Network of New York (ANNY) held their annual conference in Syracuse on April 15th and 16th. Dr. Kim McKeage presented two very well-received sessions there. The first session (Monday) was on Neurodiversity and Assessment, a topic she has presented at GCC as part of our faculty development workshops. This updated version reports on a growing partnership between Assessment and Disability Services, with Colleen Caffery, and also included examples of Universal Design implementations from our Medical Terminology class and the Nahman-Watson Library.

On Tuesday, Kim represented the national group Grand Challenges in Assessment, specifically the Data Visualization team, to discuss the group’s work and share an example of outstanding visualizations from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Partners on that work included Dr. Amy Svirsky from Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute and Dr. Jason Suby from West Point. Both sessions were enthusiastically received and generated much discussion.