Three honored as TCTC’s Educators of the Year

Three faculty/staff members have been honored as Tri-County Technical College’s (TCTC) Educators of the Year and will be recognized at the South Carolina Technical Education Association (SCTEA) meeting in February. Sarah Shumpert is the College’s outstanding administrator; Marianne Yohannan is the outstanding instructor; and, Margaret Burdette is the outstanding staff nominee. SCTEA is a professional association of technical education personnel and others interested in post-secondary technical education. The group will be recognized at the SCTEA awards luncheon Friday, Feb. 17. The SCTEA conference is scheduled for Feb. 16-18 at the Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort. Since 2000, Shumpert has served as director of instructional support and later expanded to director of curriculum and instructional support in 2015. She oversees all functions of the curriculum and instructional support department, including planning, budgeting, assessing department outcomes and supervising staff. She also oversees professional development and training activities related to curriculum and instructional development processes and tools. She works as part of an instructional design team with faculty to design, develop and deliver outcomes-based curricula. She also serves as the “High Impact EDGE” Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) project director, providing overall leadership and supervision for this five-year initiative designed to enhance student learning by embedding High Impact Educational Practices into curricula across the College. This past year she successfully led a 40-member team of faculty and staff to develop the “High Impact EDGE” QEP, a required component of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on College (SACSCOC) Reaffirmation of Accreditation. From 2011-2015 Shumpert led the U.S. Department of Education Title III grant project, Learning through Community and Connections (LC2). She provided overall project leadership for the $2 million, five-year competitive grant. Shumpert joined the College in 1997 as an Information Literacy Librarian. She is a member of a number of committees and organizations, including the Society for College and University Planning and ToP Network (national facilitators association). At Tri-County she serves on the President’s Advisory Council. Shumpert is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, where she earned a bachelor of media arts degree, a master’s in library and information science and a certificate of graduate study in higher education leadership. She is a Worldwide Instructional Design System (WIDS) certified trainer, an Appreciative Inquiry Certified Facilitator (AICF) a DACUM Occupational Analysis Facilitator and a Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitator. She was a nominee for the A. Wade Martin Innovator of the Year Award in 2011. She and her two children live in Anderson. In the role of coordinator of SACS compliance and assessment, Burdette audits the College’s adherence to Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on College (SACSCOC) accreditation standards. She also develops College processes designed to maintain compliance with SACSCOC accreditation standards. Over the past year, she, with the assistance of a large number of individuals across the College, wrote the College’s Compliance Report for its accrediting agency SACSCOC. The report is a required step in the process of reaffirming the College’s accreditation. Following a three day visit in October by an on-site reaffirmation committee, the College received no recommendations regarding compliance and no recommendations for the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The on-site report will be sent to the SACSCOC Board of Trustees, and an official vote will occur in June 2017. Over the last several years, Burdette managed the conversion of the College’s curriculum to performance-based methodology using principles and software developed by Worldwide Instructional Design System (WIDS) and developed a new curriculum approval process within WIDS. From 2006-2008 she was director of organizational and professional development and academic projects and was in charge of strategic planning, faculty/staff development, accreditation and the College’s committee structure, as well as policies and procedures. Burdette joined the College in 1999, and served as director of professional and institutional development until 2006. While in that position she was honored with the Presidential Medallion for Staff Excellence in 2004. She was among the faculty/staff members in 2002 who were selected as Tri-County nominees for the SCTEA outstanding educators of the year. She holds a B. S. in accounting from Auburn University. In 2004 she earned a graduate certificate in higher education leadership from the University of South Carolina and has completed education graduate courses at Clemson University, She and her husband, Norman, have two adult daughters and live in Seneca. Yohannan has been a biology instructor in the science department for the last 10 years. In addition to teaching, last fall she became the College’s High Impact Practices fellow. In this role, she coordinates and continuously improves professional development related to teaching High Impact Practices (HIPs). She is a member of the HIPs Advisory Team. Her responsibilities include reviewing HIPs plans designed by faculty, providing feedback to HIPs designers, and serving as High-Impact Practices expert by keeping up with the latest best practices. She serves on the Implementation Team and will provide support and feedback to ensure that the College’s Quality Enhancement Plan activities are implemented to provide success. She also works with the College’s human resources office to continuously improve a course for new employees, to organize new adjunct orientations and to ensure faculty development needs are met during Professional Development Day sessions. As an instructor in the Arts and Sciences Division, Yohannan makes student learning and achievement a priority through her commitment to student success and accessibility to students both in and out of the classroom. In addition to her biology classes, she played a significant role in the Learning Excellence Initiative which focuses on the first-year student experience. Part of this initiative involves the creation of linked learning communities and the Freshman Seminar class. Yohannan was one of the faculty members who provided input into the development of the course and participated in training to facilitate this course. She had led at least one section of the course each fall semester from 2007-2011. Yohannan was honored in 2016 with the highest award presented to the faculty. She received the Presidential Medallion for Instructional Excellence at the College’s spring commencement. She also was selected as nominee for the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) Faculty Excellence Award. Prior to joining Tri-County in 2006, Yohannan was a summer teaching program instructor for the Guangdong Teachers College of Foreign Language and Arts in Guangzhou, China, and worked as a researcher at MUSC for five years. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in biology from Erskine College. She earned an M.S. in biological sciences in 2004 from the Medical University of South Carolina. She received the Summer Training Program Teaching Award in 2004 and received the Second Place Master’s Graduate Student Oral Presentation award at MUSC’s Student Research Day in 2003. In 2001 she received the Graduate Student Poster Presentation award at the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center First Annual Research Retreat. Yohannan and her husband, Jayamon, live in Anderson. They have two children.