Mary Holley, language arts instructor at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Jefferson Davis Campus in Gulfport, received the Vickers Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Two Year College English Association of Mississippi (TYCAM) conference held Sept. 25 at Hinds Community College in Raymond. The Vickers Award is given annually to an outstanding English instructor who currently teaches in one of Mississippi's community/junior colleges.
Holley, who has taught at the college for 34 years, has served as a member of the Learning Resource Council, which makes recommendations for all of the libraries and learning labs of the college, and as an active member of the Jefferson Davis Campus Faculty Association. She also teaches the Honors world literature classes.
She said she appreciates the award, especially because of the recognition of her peers at Gulf Coast. “I feel honored because I was nominated for this award by the best, brightest, most talented people,” she said. “They are the ones who inspire me. I am thankful and blessed to work with such a supportive team.”
Holley said the greatest reward is doing the job she loves. “I enjoy being in the classroom (whether physical or virtual) and observing the progress of my students,” she said. “Nothing can be more rewarding than having students show enthusiasm and understanding about a literary work or excitement about an improvement in their writing skills. It is wonderful to help someone gain self-confidence or to find a direction in life.”
Holley teaches two online courses each semester; all of her traditional classes are Web enhanced. “I enjoy the flexibility online classes afford the students, the technological advances incorporated within the Desire2Learn (D2L) platform, and the ease of organizing, communicating and tracking the students’ progress through the online venue,” she said. “I also appreciate the advantages for my students. Technology can really make a difference for students who work full time or have other complications in their lives that make traditional classes difficult. After Hurricane Katrina, online classes really helped many of our dislocated students continue with their coursework, even though they could not live here in South Mississippi and attend on-campus classes.”
She added that technology has reinvented the college in many ways over the years. “There have been remarkable advances in the past 30 years: computers for each faculty member, computer labs for our language arts classes, a new grading system within D2L that helps reduce the turnaround time to return essays to students, plagiarism detectors to ensure students do their own work, and a digital markup system that gives instructors the ability to edit and grade papers online, making it easier for students to have the critical feedback they need to build writing skills.”
Holley lives (with her husband, Joe, of 27 years) on a small farm in rural Harrison County. While she has not published her works, Holley is an avid poet. She sees writing as a way to reflect and deal with often difficult emotions. She encourages her students to do the same.
“I hope students leave my classroom with an appreciation for literature and writing and for the relevance of both to their lives and society,” she said. “I hope they gain the necessary writing skills to succeed in their continued academic pursuits or in their professional or career choices. Most of all, I hope they learn to enjoy both literature and writing on a personal level.”
