VGCC Names 25-Year Veteran Its 2003 Instructor Of The Year
Vance-Granville Community College has selected an English instructor known by her students to make classes exciting and challenging and respected by her peers as a willing volunteer as its Instructor of the Year for 2003.
Crystal W. Brantley, a Warren County native who lives in Norlina, will represent Vance-Granville in the N.C. Community College System Excellence in Teaching Award competition with instructors from the other 58 schools in the system. A winner will be named, and all the nominees will be honored at a banquet later this year.
Martha Bergeron, VGCC English program head, nominated Brantley for the honor and spoke of her energy and creativity and her ability to reach students and help them be successful. “Crystal’s forte is taking a difficult subject area and breaking it down into digestible chunks for the students by creating exercises and group activities … instead of just teaching the skills straight from the text,” Bergeron wrote.
Brantley’s annual evaluations from students are always among the highest on the faculty, Bergeron reported. A couple of student letters of support for Brantley’s nomination as Instructor of the Year indicate the admiration they have for her. One student, Cynthia Powell, said that Brantley’s instructions are “clear and concise.”
Powell said, “She (Brantley) challenges me to do my best, and I believe that if she could be my instructor and mentor for a few years I think I would be proficient enough to write a book.”
Another student, Sarah Miller, said Brantley awoke in her the long dormant skill of analyzing literature and, “This skill has provided me with a greater enjoyment of literature and greater faith in my own cognitive abilities.” Miller added that Brantley encouraged her to take risks and rewarded her when those risks became successes. This risk-taking has spilled over into other classes to make Miller a more successful student overall, she said.
In addition to her teaching talents, Bergeron praised Brantley for volunteering consistently to help the English program at Vance-Granville Community College.
Crystal Brantley earned a Bachelor of Arts in History and English from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Master’s in Education from North Carolina State University. She has 25 years teaching experience, the last 10 at Vance-Granville Community College after teaching in the Warren and Vance county public schools.
She and her husband, Tommy, live in Norlina. They have two sons, Phillip, who attends Guilford College, and Matt, a student at Ferrum College, and a daughter, Blair, who attends Warren County Middle School.
