Dr. Williams Publishes New Article in Charleston Style and Design Magazine

Check out the new article, "The Fan Master," in Charleston Style and Design Magazine by Dr. Susan Millar Williams, who teaches English at the Palmer Campus. Way to represent, Dr. Williams! If you like this article, be sure to check out her blog posts about local history on this blog: 

• Eastside History Series: Charleston’s Back Yard by Dr. Susan Millar Williams
• East Side History Series: The East Side and the Railroads
• Eastside History Series: Cigar Boxes
• Eastside History Series: 2 Amherst St.- The Belser House (also known as Presqu'le)
• East Side History Series: Faber-Ward House 631 East Bay
• East Side History Series: Michele Moore’s East Side Roots - 89 Drake Street and 21 Cooper Street
• Eastside History Series: Denmark Vesey and the African Church
• East Side History Series: Bischoff’s Square
• East Side History Series: Vardrell’s Creek
• East Side History Series: Made Ground
• East Side History Series: Hampstead
• Eastside History Series: Rope Walk - North Side of Line Street from Meeting to Aiken
• Eastside History Series: The East Side (Hampstead) in 1872
• Eastside History Series: 729 East Bay Street
• Eastside History Series: 1 Cooper Street
• Celebrating our East Side Community: 44 America Street
• Celebrating Our East Side Community: 66 Hanover Street
• Lowcounty Digital Initiative Features Online Exhibit on The Cotton Factory (before it was the Cigar Factory)

Biology Students Enjoyed a Lab Curriculum Update in Spring 2018

Micropipette Lab Materials

by Dr. Maureen Whitehurst and Ms. Michelle Lee, Biology Instructors. 

It is wonderful when it all comes together! Palmer General Biology (BIO 101) and Microbiology (BIO 225) students enjoyed a significant laboratory curriculum upgrade during the Spring 2018 semester. A Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) device was acquired via mini-grant funding from the TTC Foundation.

Adding samples to an electrophoresis gel

This device amplifies a small quantity of DNA and allows students to visualize the results. It is up-to-date technology and we are proud to incorporate this new lab into our curriculum. Students learned how to dispense tiny quantities of chemicals (microliter amounts, 1000^th of a milliliter), how to add samples to an electrophoresis gel, how operate the PCR machine, and finally interpret data.

Loading the gel electrophoresis

Palmer teamwork allowed this example of student success. Earlier mini-grant success provided the iPad tablet to control the PCR machine and allows students photograph their results and send the results to their email accounts. This was possible because IT has installed WiFi in the PL 160 biology laboratory, funded by Foundation Capitol improvement dollars.

The Lab Manager, Connie Bryant organized all the logistics and readied the supplies for our students. Faculty modified the manufacturer’s protocols to suit our needs. Overall, it was a great Palmer team effort!

Rolling Through the Ages: Women and Surfing by Dr. Katharine Purcell

Film and Media Arts Faculty Member Receives MLK Humanitarian Award

New Downtown Palmer Faculty Member: Michelle Lee

Michelle earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology degree from the University of Georgia and moved to Charleston in 1998 to begin her Masters of Science in Marine Biology degree from the College of Charleston.  Michelle began teaching as an adjunct at the downtown Palmer Campus during graduate school and continued to do so over the course of the next several years. After graduate school, she worked as a Research Assistant for CofC and MUSC, with studies focused in the reproductive biology and immunology of sea turtle and dolphin species, respectively.  During this time, she realized that teaching was her passion in life, so she entered the SC alternative certification program and earned her teaching certificate.  

After teaching Biology, Marine Biology, and Environmental Science for ten years at James Island Charter High, Michelle was thrilled to be offered a full-time faculty position at TTC in 2015.  She teaches Anatomy & Physiology and Introductory Biology and was offered an office transfer from Main to Palmer Campus last semester.  When she’s not teaching, Michelle treasures spending time with her boyfriend, Steven, and cattle dog, Lupe. They enjoy stand-up paddleboarding, cooking vegan delights, crocheting, gardening, participating in community service events, and supporting the live music scene in Charleston.

One of Ours by Susan Williams, Ph. D.

Chris Forhan, who once taught creative writing here at Trident Technical College, is now on the faculty at Butler University in Indianapolis. Chris was on the committee that hired me, twenty years ago, and he left the college soon afterward. He went on to work in the non-residential creative writing program at Warren Wilson College, and he was the first person I ever knew who taught writing online. At the time I thought he was crazy to take on that challenge—it seemed like such a labor-intensive and impersonal way to help people learn to write. (Now, I believe that although it certainly is labor-intensive, it’s also the best way to teach creative writing).

Chris went on to earn an MFA, publish three books of poetry (Forgive Us Our Happiness; The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars; and Black Leapt In), and win several major literary awards.  He married the poet Alessandra Lynch, and they have two children.

What's Up with Digital & Portable Chalk Boards?

By Maureen Whitehurst, Ph. D.

You may have noticed Biological Sciences faculty pulling an unusual-looking suitcase around the halls of Palmer Campus, such as when Maureen Whitehurst brings the iPad Rolling cart to Palmer classroom 108. This rolling cart contains iPads used for Microbiology and Anatomy classes. To allow use of iPads in classrooms, WiFi improvements were required. Dr. Lou worked with TTC IT to improve Wi-Fi in this classroom and also in Palmer lab 160. Now an entire class of about 24 students can access the internet simultaneously using college supplied devices.

Dean of Palmer Campus Speaks to Graduates of Project HOPE

Dr. Lou Robinson, graduation speaker. Photo provided 

Trident Technical College commits itself to helping students get an education. No matter what path is behind them, students can get a fresh start with us. This was the message of Dr. Lou Robinson, Dean of the Palmer Campus, to the graduates of Project HOPE on Friday, June 24, 2016.  

Project HOPE is a Health Profession Opportunity Grant (HPOG) funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The project goal is to provide education and training to low-income individuals for occupations in healthcare that pay well. 

Palmer Faculty Member Featured in Documentary

Our own Dr. Susan Millar Williams was featured in a recent PBS special on Pulitzer Prize Winners in South Carolina. Watch her talk about her biography of Pulitzer Prize winning author Julia Peterkin. Dr. Williams teaches creative writing courses for TTC, and is a faculty member of our Certificate in Professional Writing program.

Lowcounty Digital Initiative Features Online Exhibit on The Cotton Factory (before it was the Cigar Factory)

The online exhibition, Charleston's Cotton Factory, 1880-1990, traces the history of the cotton factory in Charleston, South Carolina, from 1880 to 1900, and examines how mill workers—black and white, male and female—struggled for better working conditions in the contentious political, social, and economic contexts of the late nineteenth century. The author of the exhibition is none other than Palmer's own Dr. Susan Millar Williams.

Dr. Williams explains: “This exhibit started as a series of posters Phoebe Williams and I developed for Eastside Day 2013. In researching the early history of the Cigar Factory, I discovered both LDHI’s groundbreaking online exhibit about the famous strike that sparked the birth of “We Shall Overcome” and traces of another, earlier, story about the origins of the building, one that put Charleston at the epicenter of a major controversy over the role of African Americans in the textile industry.  Just as the posters were about to go up, I discovered that Booker T. Washington had visited the factory, and that discovery led me to another year of research. 

By working with the Avery Research Center and the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, I was able to share this important piece of Eastside history with the world. Now that the factory building has been renovated and reopened, I hope that visitors will want to know more about the people who once worked there.”

“Sounds of the Cigar Factory” Going to Piccolo Spoleto

Photo by Susan Millar Williams

by Susan Millar Williams

“Sounds of the Cigar Factory,” which premiered as part of Eastside Day 2015 at the Palmer Campus and which stars many of our students, faculty, and staff, will be presented as part of Piccolo Spoleto at 5 p.m. Sunday, May 29, at the Footlights Players Theatre, 20 Queen Street. Tickets go on sale Monday, May 2, through the Piccolo Spoleto Website piccolospoleto.com and at the box office.

“Sounds of the Cigar Factory is a staged reading that dramatizes selections from Michele Moore’s recently published novel The Cigar Factory: A Novel of Charleston.  Michele spent countless hours at Palmer last fall casting, rehearsing, and directing the performance, becoming a kind of honorary “Palmeranian” and writer-in-residence. The results are stunning, bringing to life in images, speech, and song the story of black and white factory workers in Charleston who originated the international civil rights anthem of protest and promise, "We Shall Overcome."    

Cast members Ronald Daise and Cecelia Fields performed on Sunday, May1 at Kiawah Island for a standing-room-only Piccolo Preview on Kiawah Island that drew almost 500 people.

Tickets will no doubt sell out quickly, so make sure to order yours early.

Dr. Susan Millar Williams to Appear in Documentary about South Carolina Pulitzer Prize Winners

Dr. Susan Millar Williams, a Palmer faculty member, is heading to Columbia this week to film an episode in the forthcoming documentary, “From the Jazz Age to the Digital Age: Pulitzer Prize Winners in South Carolina.” There will be three, 30-minute programs. The first will feature South Carolina’s living Pulitzer Prize commenters and columnists. The second 30-minute program will feature four of South Carolina’s living Pulitzer Prize winning reporters. The third program will examine the significance and lasting impact of the late Julia Peterkin, South Carolina’s only recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in literature. Williams is the author of the biography A Devil and a Good Woman, Too: The Lives of Julia Peterkin.