Volume 35, Issue No. 1

By Sigma Chi Eta Zeta Chapter President Daniel Davis

I had a chance to interview the general studies/transfer Dean at the Jefferson Campus Dr. Yazdi. As a student from the Shelby Campus, I wanted to understand more about the Jefferson Campus.  

In order to get a better picture of the Jefferson campus for students that don’t attend that location, and a better picture of the broader jeff state community for students that do attend that location I asked two questions to which I got very informative responses.

What are some things about the Jefferson Campus you feel students at other locations don't know about that they would be interested to know?

I can only speak for Transfer/General studies. As far as taking courses is concerned, there are some courses like physics that they must come to Jefferson Campus because of the labs. This is true only for in-person courses.

What are some things about the wider Jeff State community you want the students at your location to be aware of?

I feel that may be in other campuses specially Pell City and Clanton, there are more student-student interactions because of the size of these campuses.

Having said these, Covid-19 changed all of it. There seems to be some kind of unification between all of campuses. All the sudden it did not matter where you are taking your courses.  Nonetheless the original idea of multicampus system is still in effect. If it is difficult for public to come to you, you provide access to them. Sooner or later, Covid-19 will be part of the history and we are back in the business of offering in-person delivery options.

By Sigma Chi Eta Zeta Chapter President Daniel Davis

For all those who don’t attend the Clanton campus of Jeff State you may be surprised to know there is a lot to it. I’ve personally never been to the Clanton campus so I wasn’t exactly sure what I would find out about it when I interviewed the Clanton Campus Associate Dean Ashley Kitchens. Dean Kitchens opened my eyes to all I was missing out on by not getting to attend the Clanton campus.  

It is this humble reporter’s opinion that every student should take the time to visit the Clanton campus and see the beauty and the fun for yourself. Here are the highlights Dean Kitchens clued me in on.

1. Location: Clanton is located in the heart of Alabama. The JSCC campus in Clanton is home of the famous "Peach in the Sky" - people usually see this on their way South I-65 heading to the beach. The campus is right down the street from the new Chilton County St. Vincent's Hospital - great for our nursing students! We also celebrated 10 years of being in Clanton in 2018!
2. Family Atmosphere: Enrollment in usual years (non-COVID) is around 600-750 students, and we are all in one building, so all the faculty and students interact on a daily basis (again, pre-COVID). All instructors from different subjects are working side-by-side, so we all know each other's students. Being together in one building creates bonding!
3. Intramural Presence: Before COVID, we had a strong intramural presence. We had volleyball games, pickup basketball games, one year we had 5 flag-football team games, and we have ping pong. Little known AWESOME fact, we took a group of students to Georgia to play in the NCTTA Official Collegiate Games (National Collegiate Table Tennis Association) - one of our students had to face an OLYMPIC ping pong player!!! We had a kickball team one year. We now have D&D club! Many faculty and staff participate along with students in all the activities.

I hope reading this has opened your eyes, as the interview did mine, to how wonderful our school’s Clanton campus is, and has inspired you to learn more about all our school’s locations.

By Sigma Chi Eta Zeta Chapter President Daniel Davis

During an interview, President Brown discussed in detail things he thinks the faculty and student body might not be aware of that they will be excited to hear are likely coming in the Fall.

First the president discusses scholarships.

Education can be bureaucratic, navigating the process for financial aid can be challenging. I want to make it easy as possible for students to navigate the onboarding process. I don’t like bureaucracy. Looking at scholarship program, expand that, we’ll see marked change in how scholarships are run in fall 2021. There will be many more opportunities than Jeff State has ever had.  

The president is very excited to be offering more opportunities to the students by implementing this scholarship redesign, and he shares some of his own personal history as a college student for why finds this scholarship redesign so important.  

Scholarship redesign. I was a senior in high school my mom didn’t understand how things work, my mom just always said you’ve got good grades you’ll get a scholarship. She didn’t know there’s a deadline to apply for scholarships so I never knew about that and didn’t get a scholarship. Some scholarships in the redesign will have a June deadline instead of a march deadline to give more opportunities and I think back to my experience when I think about those kinds of things.

The president also tells us of a new type of classroom environment he’s begun offering which he will ramp up in fall 21.  That is, he is going to be offering more courses with shorter terms. There will be the option for students to have an 8-week term A and an 8-week term B, so they can get more courses completed in a shorter amount of time.

 We want to be accessible for students with different types of schedules. In fall I want to alter the schedule to be as accessible as possible, we might even look at a mix of 5-week terms, 8-week terms, and traditional terms so students can pick and choose which schedule they will like. The ultimate goal is always for the benefit of the student.  

In addition to what is coming, President Brown talked happily about an organization that was gone for a while that the school was recently able to bring back.

 We had a drama department many years ago, when the professor retired it all went away. Lesley Warren, the newest theater instructor to JSCC, wanted to reinstate an opportunity for students to participate. I’m proud of the fact that we were able provide that opportunity after many years of it being gone.

The President ended our discussion with a summation of what we can expect in the fall.

As a whole the fall of 2021 will be back to normal operations, with some improvements we’ve made incorporating technology. We can take lessons learned from the pandemic on how we can incorporate.

By Sigma Chi Eta Zeta Chapter President Daniel Davis

At many colleges and universities there can exist a disconnect between the administration and the students. The administration makes all the decisions and student concerns never really get heard or taken seriously.

I got a chance to have a conversation with our college’s president Dr. Keith Brown, and he explained to me all the ways in which that grim picture does not exist at Jeff State.

He says at Jeff State we have what is called a “Student Leaders President Advisory Committee”, where student leaders in respective organizations actually have a direct dialogue with the president himself. The Advisory Committee which is made up of real students get to have a Zoom call with the president and discuss things with him on a regular basis. And this is not just “Hey Mr President I really love Jeff State” and “Thank you student I’m glad to hear that;” they have real discussions about issues students truly care about.

President Brown gave me a specific example from this current semester. He said, “some of the colleges looked at student schedule for spring semester and shut down spring break, [but] I asked students,  [and] they said they wanted spring break, so I kept it even though other colleges did not.”  

We have an administration that cares about student input here at Jeff State and that is something I’m really happy about as a student.

By Sigma Chi Eta Zeta Chapter President Daniel Davis

I got the opportunity to interview Jeff State President Dr. Keith Brown, and he shared with me his background from when he was a student and how his experiences have shaped his philosophy on education and how he runs the college.  The following is a conversation from Dr. Brown:

My experience as a student was at the Jefferson campus, the only campus at the time. I worked as a part time math tutor, I got to know a lot of the administration philosophy on leading an institution. Being a first-generation student, I didn’t have a framework to know what college was about. While at school, I enjoyed the ability to connect with faculty; the small environment where you can get to know your faculty is important for success. I believe in trying to facilitate small environments as much as possible.  

At Jeff State we have so many students from such different backgrounds:  some want to take advantage of smaller tuition, some are adults wanting a workforce credential, some are traditional students who want the normal college experience.  I want to make the college available for all the different types of students we have. So, we have online classes, and, when not in a pandemic, we have in person classes. I’m very supportive of our programs that help students outside the classroom; for instance, with the speech and debate program, I have seen the confidence that students gain from being a part and it is amazing; you can see their evolution in just a couple years. The student organizations are also very great, and Brian Rockett, as the SGA faculty sponsor, is doing a great job with those.   I am also looking at expanding athletics and opportunities there.