MCCB News

Heather Wesp, President

Hello – My name is Heather Wesp and I am the current President of MCCB. I teach introductory biology, college biology, and A&PI at Montcalm Community College. I’ve been active in MCCB since roughly 2003 and this is my second term as President. I look forward to serving you, especially in these challenging and unpredictable times we find ourselves in.

The Governing Board met, via Zoom, on Friday, September 11th to catch up and discuss how MCCB could support biology education (and the educators!) in the 2020-2021 school year.

We are excited to announce that once every 1-2 months, we will be hosting short Zoom sessions on Friday afternoons. The first session is Friday, October 23rd from 3 to 4 pm and will be facilitated by myself and Trish Strohfeldt (Mid-Michigan). This will be a session where participants can share success stories and teaching challenges from the last 7 months as well as share preferences for future session topics. We also look forward to catching up with current members or meeting new faces!

To participate, please click on the October Zoom Registration link and complete the short form. We aren’t limiting participation to current members this time but future sessions will be.

If you haven’t renewed your MCCB membership for the current year, please Click Here.

We continue to work on other projects as well:

• Reviewing committee descriptions and increasing participation
• Addition of a new committee, tentatively titled “Equity in STEM”
• Increasing our social media presence, starting with a more active Facebook page

I hope to see you at the October session but feel free to reach out to me about how MCCB can remain active and relevant – my e-mail is hwesp@montcalm.edu.

Sincerely,

Heather

MCCB provides a state-wide forum for sharing instructional techniques and up-to-date information for teaching college-level biology. The organization fosters communication, friendship, and unity among the biologists of the twenty-nine community colleges in the State of Michigan. Our logo reflects the location of those 29 colleges. Two state-wide conferences are held annually.

Founded in the early 1980’s, MCCB began as an offshoot of COSIP (the College Science Improvement Program).  Two COSIP groups were originally created in Michigan: a southern group of colleges (associated with the University of Michigan/Dearborn and directed by Dr. Hertzler) and a northern group of colleges (associated with Central Michigan University and directed by Dr. Carl Scheel). The initial meeting to form a statewide organization of community colleges took place at Delta College in 1981. The first slate of officers was elected at that time, with Eldon Enger as President and Janet Dettloff as Vice-President
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