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Dr. Philip Smith Must Go!!! Does Georgia Perimeter College Support Minority Faculty?
Actual Letter to President Anthony Tricoli of Georgia Perimeter College

By: Ehimwenma E. Aimiuwu
April 8, 2011
 

 

I am writing to inform you that it is time for Dr. Philip Smith to either leave GPC or be transferred to a different position within GPC.  This is because of the experience I had with him while I was a faculty at GPC and till now he still refuses to change his ways.

This man single-handedly prevented me from working for GPC for years as a faculty until I met Dr. Philpot and Dr. Moon who saw that I was qualified to teach both ATEC (1 credit) and BISM (3 credits).   Dr. Philpot had to write a note on my behalf to Tonya Andrews before I was allowed to teach just one ATEC class.   I soon meet a law graduate who was teaching BISM at one of the GPC faculty conferences and he was surprised that I was not teaching BISM despite my qualifications.  This was how I met Dr. Moon and after much plea from her with Dr. Smith, I was then allowed to teach BISM.  I taught both online and class courses from 2007-2009 (I was a math tutor at GPC Decatur from 2006-2007).

Soon, Dr. Smith and Help Desk began to give me problems (I did not know this at the time).  Instead of having one account, I soon had three and my classes where placed in whatever account every other semester.  One account was even a student account and would even deny me faculty rights in the middle of the semester.  Twice Dr. Hudson (chair at Clarkston) needed information from previous classes; I first had to guess which account it was in before calling help desk to reactivate the account password for entry. This was so frustrating.  
 

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My BISM template was the worst of all.  It had the textbooks and question, but no workbook sections.  No matter the number of time I would ask Help Desk for assistance, they would ignore me.  So I was accused of not doing my job properly, when I was not given the right tools to perform.  An entire semester would go by and students have no workbook section to work on and they bought workbooks for the class.  This made me look ridiculous.  A time came Dr. Hudson had to make a decision on a student without information from me because Help Desk could not reactivate the account for 5 days and about 1 hour of phone conversation back and forth to resolve the problem.  I did send a frustrating e-mail to Help Desk to “wake up from their slumber”, which I regret and apologized for, but this was the moment Dr. Smith was looking for in taking may classes away.  

Now, I look back and can now see that it was Dr. Smith all along and not the innocent Help Desk.  Help Desk probably did as they were told.  If I was the head of faculty (I used to be a manager) and my faculty can not do his or her job because of multiple accounts and inadequate template setup, I would make Help Desk do their job in order to support my staff.  Instead, Dr. Smith got rid of me because he never really wanted me there and why would Help Desk refuse to help a faculty?

Dr. Smith has over stayed his welcome at GPC or at least in his current position.  He is not God to determine the future of potential faculty members who want to have a career in teaching just because he may not like their names on paper or what they may look like.  If GPC is to grow to its fullest potential in terms of attracting the best faculty regardless of race or gender, as well as having a great support system for faculty members, then Dr. Smith must be re-evaluated and investigated to see how many qualified non-white applicants have been rejected or have their productivity affected by Dr. Smith.  He should not be the only one determining who teaches at GPC.  If possible, he should be removed for a more open-minded and dynamic individual that embraces diversity as a business strategy for GPC in the new global, web, and service oriented marketplace.		 Advertise here for
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