VGCC instructor Michael Palmer honored for career in education
Dr. Michael H. Palmer, a part-time English instructor at Vance-Granville Community College and a resident of Durham, was recently inducted into the Caldwell County Schools Hall of Honor. He was one of four new inductees into the Hall of Honor recognized at a ceremony in Granite Falls, N.C. on April 1. Each year, the Hall of Honor celebrates graduates of Caldwell County or Lenoir City Schools who have made significant contributions to their professions or communities.
Palmer (pictured above) was lauded for his 57-year academic career, which in his words, has included everything “from grade school to grad school.” He was presented a plaque, replicas of which will hang in the Caldwell County Schools central office in Lenoir and at Collettsville School, where Palmer graduated as valedictorian in 1951.
Palmer earned an associate’s degree at Charlotte College and continued his education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and minors in History and French. Later, he received a master’s degree from Appalachian State University in English/American Literature and earned a Ph.D. from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in Twentieth-Century American and British Fiction and Drama and a minor in higher education. His professional career has been dedicated to teaching and a lifelong love of learning. Palmer has served as a professor or instructor at the high school, junior college and university levels, including stints at Gardner-Webb University, Campbell University, Pfeiffer University, North Carolina Wesleyan College, Wake Technical Community College and Nash Community College. He also has more than 12 years of administrative experience, including as Chair of the Department of English at Louisburg College.
Dr. Palmer currently teaches English at VGCC’s South Campus in Granville County. He first taught for VGCC in the early 1990s and has been an instructor on a regular basis for the past 14 years. Palmer has previously taught classes for the college’s prison education program and at the Main and Franklin County campuses, in addition to South Campus.
Palmer has been awarded four Fulbright Scholarships from the U.S. State Department, two of which he accepted, traveling to study in India in 1985 and then in Mexico in 1991. He has also held two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, one of which was a 12-month post-doctoral research fellowship in the Department of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the other a fellowship to study African-American literature. He has published over 100 academic papers, some at international conferences.
