Khamilah Nixon, 19, Georgia Gwinnett College student
“It was a struggle to not interact face-to-face with professors or get support from other students without a real classroom,” said Nixon. “But to overcome that, I found this app that GGC set up.”
One day during her first year, Nixon had internet problems and missed the beginning of her online calculus class. Yet GGC students could log into CircleIn, an app where students built virtual, peer-to-peer study spaces. Nixon's classmate posted lecture notes there, so once her wifi was up and running, she caught up.
Soon, the tutoring tool helped her form a support network, even without a brick-and-mortar campus.
“I helped one of my classmates in a programming class,” said Nixon about CircleIn as a connector. “We went back-and-forth in the app over chats to figure out what went wrong with his code. It was very meaningful to work together like that.”
GGC’s partnership with CircleIn to support students like Nixon came about after months of the College gathering data on student study habits. In January 2020, Dr. Michelle Rosemond joined GGC as vice president for student engagement and success. When COVID-19 hit about two months into her role, Rosemond and her team worked with GGC’s president, Dr. Jann L. Joseph, to use data to keep students in school.
“The key was measuring students, qualitatively and quantitatively, at all points in the pandemic,” said Rosemond. “We needed to understand, quantify, and benchmark what their experiences were in the classroom and outside of the classroom.”
Dr. Michelle Rosemond, vice president for student engagement and success at Georgia Gwinnett College
