Welcome to the new website of the Association of Faculties for the Advancement of Community College Teaching (AFACCT). On behalf of the AFACCT Board of Directors, I extend my greetings to you. For the full time faculty, I hope you are able to take some time to refresh and re-invigorate during the summer before the fall semester begins. I would also like to welcome the new faculty and adjunct faculty to the AFACCT college community.
AFACCT offers the perfect forum for sharing your expertise and ideas with other faculty, as well as networking with colleagues. For those of you who are new to community college teaching, AFACCT was founded in 1983 and provides professional development for community college faculty through a two-day statewide conference held just before the start of the spring semester each year. This past January, the 29th Annual AFACCT Conference, titled “Learning for Life and Critical Thinking in the Web 3.0 Era”, was held at Cecil College. Over 80 presenters provided their expertise and ideas to 280 attendees, exploring how critical thinking may become an inherent part of our lives. Thursday’s keynote speaker, Dr. Dee Kanejiya, founder and CEO of Cognii, Inc. a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) based educational technologies, provided a thought-provoking perspective on how artificial intelligence might be applied within the community college program as well as how AI could improve the quality and affordability of education. Friday’s keynote speaker was Wes Anthony, the Director of the Kellogg Institute of the National Center for Developmental Education of Appalachian State University. Wes used his extensive knowledge of developmental education to share a variety of strategies and methods for increasing student succeed in the Web 3.0 era. Finally, the 29th conference was host to three statewide organizations: the winter meeting of the Maryland Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges (MMATYC), a planning meeting for the Maryland Collegiate STEM Conference and the January session of the Maryland Council of Community College Academic Officers (M4CAO) meeting.
The 2020 conference, to be held at the Catonsville campus of the Community College of Baltimore County on January 9 and 10, will be the 30th conference hosted by AFACCT. The 2020 conference will focus on the theme “Global Learning: Reflecting on the Past, Looking into the Future”. The concept of global learning was first presented by AFACCT in 2011 during the 21st conference. We are returning to this theme to explore what we have learned from the past and how we may apply it so as to enable our students to succeed in the global economic venue. The call for proposals has been in the hands of your representative(s) and also can be found on the AFACCT website. While the conference theme focuses on global education, we welcome peer presentations on any topic advancing community college teaching. Information concerning the upcoming conference’s keynote speakers will be provided later. Discipline groups are, again, encouraged to hold their meeting during the conference. This year’s proposal deadline is Monday, September 30, 2019. So mark your calendars to attend the AFACCT 30th Annual Conference at the Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville Campus.
Finally, I would like to honor our esteemed representative from Prince Georges Community College, Dr. Michele Dickson. Michele diligently worked for AFACCT for many years on our annual conference, headed several subcommittees, and was the Secretary of AFACCT for four years. She has retired from Prince Georges Community College after approximately sixteen years of service. Michele, we will greatly miss you and your contributions to AFACCT.
George Mateja
AFACCT Coordinator