VOL. 22, NO. 1 The student publication of Washtenaw Community College
A NATIONAL PACEMAKER AWARD NEWSPAPER ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2015 www.washtenawvoice.com
WHAT ’S HAPPENING NEXT MONTH AT WCC
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What do you wish someone would have told you upon starting at WCC? “All of the different helps here are amazing. The student center, tutoring, financial aid, there are so many resources to help you along the way. When I started here, I just went to classes, not knowing about the resources at hand. This school is top of the line. The teachers are amazing. They actually care about you and want you to succeed. Stay focused and don’t get discouraged. If you feel that you’re slipping, talk to your teachers and go to tutoring, they’re there to help and get you back on track.” Karen Scott, 37, Pittsfield Township, Nursing
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WCC hires new Vice President for Instruction By TAYLOR ROBINSON
Editor
A self-described “lifelong learner,” Washtenaw Community College’s new Vice President for Instruction Michael Nealon says he’s been going to school every day since pre-school and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “I think that’s what really keeps us growing as individuals, growing within the communities in which we live, and growing within a broader perspective of what I think our cultural experience is just as human beings,” Nealon said. His passion for learning blossomed primarily through music. Member of a professional boys choir in New York at age eight, Nealon was recording albums just two years later. At age 11, young Nealon sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera in their Central Park productions. As a student, he wanted to “unlock” the mysteries of music’s history. Nealon started with obtaining his bachelor’s in humanities and music history from St. Michael’s College in Vermont and worked his way toward a doctorate in musicology from Northwestern. His educational journey not only provided the facts he longed for but also paved his career path. Although Nealon was the only child out of six in his family to not attend a community college, Lansing Community
College is where he held his teacher can have,” Nealon said. first full-time teaching posi- “And it’s the greatest blessing tion beginning in 1998. community college students can give, just by being the diverse, inquisitive, learning, loving people that they are.” During his many years at LCC, Nealon was not only a professor, but also a chair, a dean, and an associate vice president for student learning. President of LCC Brent Knight is in his eighth year of presidency and this will be his first year not working with Nealon. “I think highly of Dr. “I experienced at LCC, a Nealon,” Knight said. “He’s very transformation,” Nealon said. accomplished, works hard and “Not only in my experience, but works well with faculty and in an experience that I knew students.” was transforming the lives of Coming to a new college the students that I got to share offers the opportunity to not moments with every day.” only create a new working relaPrior to teaching at LCC, tionship with WCC’s President Nealon was an adjunct instruc- Rose Bellanca but also the stutor at three universities. While dents, faculty, staff, and comNealon enjoyed teaching at the munity. At WCC’s July 28 board university level, he didn’t feel of trustee meeting, Nealon was as though he was impacting his introduced and so began anothstudents quite as much as he er educational journey. could for students who were “His commitment to stujust starting out or looking to dents and student success, his fine-tune their skills. experience in a large academic “Meeting with students organization and his ability to who realize for the first time maintain strong working relawere having adult conversa- tionships,” all contributed to tion and their whole life was his joining of WCC, according opening up and you saw noth- to Bellanca. ing but raw potential, it’s some WCC has been without a of the most exciting moments a vice president for instruction
for two years while Bill Abernethy stood in as interim VPI. Bellanca commented that searching for a replacement has not been an easy process and also a long process. After receiving a warm welcome, Nealon addressed the board and its meeting’s attendees. “I am very, very impressed by everything I’ve seen,” Nealon said. “This is probably the most exciting time to be in higher education and to be part of reimagining what teaching and learning is all about in America. Congratulations on all of the awards. We all see you as a leader in the state and it’s wonderful to be joining such an exciting and distinguished team.” A vice president for instruction, in Nealon’s eyes, is someone who creates and maintains an environment that encompasses all the characteristics for the most useful learning possible for students and that nothing less would be a disservice to those students. “It was really in my interest to join a team that understands what the challenges are that face community colleges in America today who are willing to meet those head on and who will always have at the center of what they do, student success,” Nealon said. “That’s what I think WCC already represents and that’s what I’d like to be able to maintain, nurture, and grow to an even more exciting tomorrow.
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