VGCC’s 2012 award winners included, from left, Staff Member of the Year Brian Clemmons and Faculty Member of the Year Wendy Frandsen. (VGCC photo)
At Vance-Granville Community College’s fall convocation on Aug. 17, President Stelfanie Williams presented the college’s annual awards to a pair of outstanding VGCC employees. Collectively, the honors are known as the Glen Raven Excellence in Teaching and Leadership Awards. Glen Raven, Inc., the manufacturer with a site in Norlina, is a longtime supporter of VGCC. In addition to sponsoring the annual stipends to recognize excellence among VGCC instructors and staff members, Glen Raven has endowed several scholarships for students.
Brian Clemmons of Durham, VGCC’s assistant director of financial aid, was named Staff Member of the Year for 2012, while English instructor Wendy Frandsen of Clarksville, Va. was chosen as the Faculty Member of the Year. Frandsen and Clemmons are now eligible to be considered for the N.C. Community College System’s statewide R.J. Reynolds Excellence in Teaching and BB&T Staff Person of the Year awards, respectively.
Brian Clemmons has served as assistant director of financial aid at VGCC since 2007, following several years working in the financial services sector. He earned a bachelor’s in Public Policy Studies at Duke University and a master’s in Public Administration at North Carolina Central University. Clemmons received the VGCC President’s Leadership Award in 2011. He oversaw VGCC’s implementation of the federal direct student loan program in 2011-2012. Clemmons has also been a co-advisor for the college’s Male Mentoring Program and has chaired the Financial Resources and Physical Resources Subcommittee as part of the college’s preparation for reaffirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. He is a member of the North Carolina Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and serves on the association’s Legislative Advisory Committee. VGCC Vice President of Student Affairs Gene Purvis said that Clemmons is “committed to assisting students with financial aid and finding ways to help them gather the resources to attend college,” often offering “creative solutions to their issues.” Clemmons “approaches his work as a calling or mission as he attempts to assist students not only with their financial aid, but also with their personal growth as a student and person,” Purvis added.
Wendy J. Frandsen has spent her entire 25-year professional teaching career at VGCC. She earned a B.A. in College Scholars with an emphasis in Poetry and an M.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from the University of Tennessee prior to joining the faculty in 1987. In addition to teaching English and humanities courses, she initiated and served as the first head of the college’s Developmental Studies program (1991-2006), a post in which she coordinated developmental English, reading and mathematics and established the Academic Skills Center. Frandsen then served as Program Head for English from 2006-2012, when she chose to return to full-time teaching. She co-created the “Southern Culture” course, one of the N.C. community college system’s most rigorous and popular humanities offerings, and co-wrote the award-winning textbook based on that course. Frandsen also wrote another textbook currently used at VGCC, “Speaking Southern, Writing English: A Grammar Handbook.” Frandsen is known for using a variety of techniques to reach all students in both her online and traditional face-to-face classes. “Through the depth of thought Wendy puts into her instructional planning, students know that the instructor cares enough about them to create an informative, interesting classroom where they are treated and assessed fairly,” said her colleague, VGCC math department head Dana Jenkins. Frandsen received the VGCC College Transfer Chairman’s Award for excellence in instruction in 1996 and in 2002, and has made presentations to state and national educational conferences. Outside of VGCC, Frandsen has been a tutor and mentor with the Durham County Literacy Program, the Vance County Schools KEYS program and the Granville County Friends of Youth.