Georgia’s 2010 professor of the year, Christy Price, intended to be a marriage and family therapist but fell into a classroom setting while working with college students as a counselor, she said.
“Once you start teaching, the students are so wonderful to work with; they’re so excited,” said Price, now entering her 19th year as a professor at Dalton State College in Dalton, Ga.
The Illinois native said her students enjoy her classes as much as she enjoys teaching them.
“I commonly get students saying, ‘I hate to miss your class,’ and ‘Can I bring my boyfriend to your class? We enjoy your class so much,'” she said, laughing.
“I’m having such a great experience teaching, mainly because of how responsive and wonderful the students are,” she said.
Price was named professor of the year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, according to a Dalton State news release.
She is one of 38 state winners and among 300 professors across the nation nominated for the award.
“We are very proud of Christy’s accomplishments both in the classroom and with respect to her research into best practices for teaching millennial students,” Dalton State President John Schwenn said in the release.
“She continues to go above and beyond in her dedication to her students and to furthering her own professional development,” Schwenn said.
Price believes her work researching “the modern learner and this generation of students” helped lead to the award. Students respond to learning “that is active, not passive,” she said.
She has netted other awards over the last few years, including being named a top 10 “Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate” by the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. She won the University System of Georgia Board of Regents’ Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Dalton State College Foundation’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
Dalton State officials said Price has worked on the college’s Retention, Progression and Graduation initiative and led faculty development workshops in Georgia and elsewhere.
Price said she shares ideas with her fellow professors on how to unite tech-savvy students and high-tech teaching.
“I use a variety of methods and engage students with techniques such as brief, digitized video clips, application exercises, case studies, group activities, demonstrations, role plays, computer simulations, online review games and utilization of a classroom response system,” she said.
“It’s always nice to be recognized for trying so hard,” she said. “However, I feel like the recognition should be more about the institution, my colleagues and my students. It should be something that we celebrate together.”