Dr. Janet Gullickson Celebrates Students on Her Night
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The student stories that dominated the first part of Friday night’s recognition of its retiring president, told over video, were a testimony to the life-changing work of arguably the most-influential educator in our region.
Dr. Janet Gullickson is retiring after 50 years in education and eight years as the head of Germanna Community College. As she prepares to leave, she turns over leadership of a school that today:
Is the largest provider of career credentials in the commonwealth of Virginia
Is the largest public nursing program in Virginia
Is recognized as an Opportunity Institution — the only community college in Virginia with that recognition, and one of just 16% of all colleges and universities to be so recognized
Has realized a 13% increase in credit enrollment
Has increased retention 5%
Has raised its graduation rate to 6% above the state average
Has grown enrollment of people of color to 50% of the student population
Of all these accomplishments, it’s the last on this list that Gullickson is most proud of. Appearing on the New Dominion Podcast in April, she noted that when she arrived at Germanna, Black and brown students were just 17% of the population.
Other significant achievements were noted by the lineup of speakers who came to celebrate Gullickson’s career.
Dr. David Doré, the current chancellor of the Virginia Community College system, celebrated that she accomplished all she has with students who frequently have many challenges confronting them.
In the Virginia community college system, 89% of students are recognized as ALICE — Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. Simply stated, these are people who work but don’t have enough money to cover their basic expenses.
And yet, at Germanna, these challenged students succeed. Thanks in no small part to Germanna Cares, a program that supplies clothing, food, rental assistance, and other critical services for students in need.
That program was referred to time and again in the students’ presentations celebrating Gullickson.
Alexus is completing the nursing program, and has turned to Germanna Cares for emergency services.
Stephen, who spent six years in the Department of Corrections is preparing for a career as an electrician. Germanna Cares connected him with workshops, FailSafe (a reentry program for those returning to society following time in prison).
Michael started at Germanna and has risen through the accounting ranks. Today, he’s funding scholarships at the school that gave him his start, and helped him graduate college debt free.
And finally, Lima, an Afghani refugee denied an education by the Taliban who overcame and is now working toward a career in the hard sciences.
While Gullickson is physically leaving, her presence will always be felt.
The final recognition of the evening was an appropriate one for a selfless servant-leader who even on her night made sure it was the students that she and everyone at Germanna serves who were in the spotlight.
The college announced a new fund — the Dr. Janet Gullickson Student Empowerment Fund — to ensure that students tomorrow, and deep into the future, have the resources they need to reach their goals.
Dr. Gullickson has much to look back upon and celebrate.
To last night’s well-earned accolades, I would like to add one more. That in a time when education from preschool to Harvard in under withering attack, Janet has perhaps created in Fredericksburg a model for what education at its best should be. And that was education as defined by one of America’s greatest sociologists — W.E.B. DuBois:
“The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, and adjustment which forms the secret of civilisation.”
If this is, indeed, the goal of education, Dr. Janet Gullickson has certainly achieved it at Germanna.
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