ASU professor chosen for Governor's Teaching Fellows Program

ALBANY, Ga. – Albany State University (ASU) College of Education assistant professor, Erica Decuir, has been selected as a 2017 Governor’s Teaching Fellow for the academic year symposium program. As one of 15 faculty members from institutions of higher education across the state, Decuir was selected after a highly competitive application and selection process.

The Governor's Teaching Fellows Program was established in 1995 by Zell Miller, governor of Georgia from 1991-1999, to provide Georgia's higher education faculty with expanded opportunities for developing important teaching skills. Miller envisioned that this program would address faculty members' pressing need to use emerging technologies and instructional tools that are becoming increasingly important for learning in today's society.

Decuir, who serves in the COE department of teacher education and as the director of the ASU Summer Learning Academy, borrows her teaching philosophy from a high school English teacher who taught her how to relate text to personal experiences. Decuir often promotes the importance of critical thinking and analytical writing in the classroom.

“Those are the two skills that really propelled me through college and also throughout my doctoral program,” Decuir said. “That’s what I hope to promote in my classrooms today. If you can possess those two skills, you can essentially transfer those skills within any field and be successful.”

Decuir will travel to Athens throughout the academic year to attend professional development sessions about teaching best practices and methods to improve teaching and learning in the classroom, among other topics.

The Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program is an outreach program of the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. To improve the quality of instruction in Georgia's colleges and universities, the Governor's Teaching Fellows Program assumes the complex challenge of moving college faculty members to the leading edge of instructional practice. This effort to enhance instruction in public and private higher education statewide is very much in keeping with the University of Georgia's traditional mission as a land-grant institution committed to diversified outreach and public service.

To date, more than 84 different disciplines, professions and teaching areas have been represented by over 600 Fellows from more than 71 public and private institutions statewide.  To learn more about the Institute of Higher Education and the Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program, including information on how to apply, go to http://ihe.uga.edu/outreach/governors-teaching-fellows/.

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