I had an opportunity to welcome new faculty today and I told them that giving the obligatory “Welcome” before the main event was one of my designated roles in life it seems.
I guess it was because I could not sing solo and I didn’t have other discernible talents that I was always selected to give the “Welcome Address” when visiting choirs and other groups came to our church. I made the welcome something special. I made banners that said “WELCOME” with glitter and hung the banners across the pulpit, and I put a lot of thought and practice into what I planned to say. The visitors seemed to appreciate the effort.
When I welcomed new faculty at Montgomery College recently, I did not hang a banner, but I did ask something of them. I told them about when I first worked at a community college as a counseling faculty member. There was a bridge or walk across from the Student Services building and the building where classes were taught. Back then when faculty smoked cigarettes, some of them would take a smoke break on the bridge; others would come out between classes to grab a few rays. I made a habit of walking across the bridge to go from one building to the next just so I could run into academic faculty.
It was on that bridge between buildings that academic or classroom faculty and I discussed students who were obviously talented and bright, but their writing seemed to tell another story. Particularly disturbing was their inability to spell. We did research and discovered that there was something called dyslexia. This discovery led to a collaboration to get support for students who had learning disabilities.
It was on this bridge that academic faculty talked with counseling faculty about the veterans who could benefit from having someone to talk with, but who were reluctant to come to the Counseling Office. This led to the creation of a peer counseling program where some of the peer counselors were veterans. They were able to have the initial conversations with veterans and get to a point in their relationship where they could refer the veterans to the professional counselors.
A lot of work was done on that bridge between buildings for Student Services and Academic Affairs, and a lot of friendships were forged.
I asked the new faculty to see it as their responsibility to build a bridge between academic faculty and counseling faculty in Student Services in order to reduce barriers to student success.
Gwen Dungy 