Last week, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we asked our students to tell us about their favorite faculty member for a chance to win a prize. 

We had a lot of great entries to pick from, and our winning entry came from student Leslie McCarty, honoring faculty member Dr. Adolfo Gorriaran.

Read Leslie’s winning entry below.

“Since becoming a student in the Master of Public Administration program, I have had other changes in my life. The most recent one was a change in jobs. I went from a position that required very little of my 'outside' time to a position that required almost any and every waking moment that I had available.

There were several days that I contemplated giving up, taking time off and just quitting. I knew this was not the wisest decision to make, yet frustrations from broken laptops, bad Wi-Fi connections, kids, dogs, job, life and, to top it all off, homework deadlines made me seriously consider what planet I had been sitting on when I made the decision to add graduate school to the list.

Over the course of my time at Argosy University, I have had many people support my efforts. Then, I encountered Dr. Adolfo Gorriaran. It was over a year ago, and I emailed him during the first week of class to let him know that I was already feeling overwhelmed and wanted to drop the class. His response was so encouraging and just what I needed to keep going.

I have had the pleasure of taking a few other classes with Dr. G. and I have learned a tremendous amount from his classes, all of which I am able to apply to real world situations. I am grateful that I stuck with the class, and the ones that followed. I have kept all the emails of support and read them when I need a little push.

Any teacher like that deserves to be acknowledged. Thank you Dr. G!”

Celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week, and tell us about one of your favorite faculty members at Argosy University, Online Programs!

From May 6 to 10, 2013, log on to Connections and visit the Student Community department page. In the forum labeled Teacher Appreciation Week 2013, upload your video or written response to the following question:

Albert Einstein once said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” 

Name an instructor at Argosy University, Online Programs that has helped you discover your passion and explain what that has meant to you. Has it changed the way you think about your future or career path? Please be specific in your examples.

One entry per person will be accepted. You may enter online through Argosy University, Online Programs Connections site via the Campus Common. Entries must be inserted into the Student Community department forum labeled Teacher Appreciation Week 2013.

An entry consists of one short essay of at least 150 words but less than 500 words or a video essay no longer than three minutes. Video essays must be less than 100MB and be saved as the following file formats: mov, avi, mpg, mpeg, wmv, mp4, flv.

One entry will be chosen as a winner by a panel of judges. Both the student and the nominated faculty member will each receive a $20 Amazon.com gift code! Plus, we may feature selection from your essays next week on the blog (with your permission, of course). We look forward to hearing from you!

If you are having trouble finding the forum, please contact your Academic Counselor or Technical Support.

Learn more about the faculty at Argosy University, Online Programs.

Watch the 2012 Teacher Appreciation Week video featuring 2012 student entries!

In our last student testimonial blog post, we featured students’ comments on the Online Library. Today, we explore review their thoughts on the Tutoring Center:

The Tutoring Center contains information for writing styles, APA format, software tutorials like Microsoft Word and even tutorials for how to use Turnitin. All those different tutoring options are very helpful when accessing my classroom and completing assignments. I'm glad Argosy has the Tutoring Center; it makes it easy to find help instead of opening multiple windows on my computer to search for citation hints or formatting word to write my papers.—Stephanie Stouffe, BA in Psychology

The Tutoring Center is the most helpful part of taking classes online. You can get help for almost anything there. There are tutorials for Turnitin, MLA, APA, general software, and more. There are live online tutors that can help you through any slump. I have used the Tutoring Center several times when I just did not seem to understand my courses or the resources that I was asked to use. This is the perfect place for this little guy because having the Tutoring Center has proven to be a life saver. Thank you, Argosy University, for taking the time to develop such an in depth tutoring option. –Kim Gentry, BA in Psychology

The Tutoring Center has helped me with APA format. I was rusty on APA format, since I graduated with my bachelor's in 2005. The link for the APA help site helped me tremendously. I also used the Turnitin training tutorial. I am an online student and understanding Turnitin is very important to my success. I appreciate this tutorial. I have not used the online tutoring services, but I am thankful these services are available if I need them in the future.—Kelly Cleveland, MA in Forensic Psychology

I know all too well the benefits of reaching out to the Tutoring Center to ask for help in the past. I can remember back when I had been struggling trying to keep up with my Statistics class and the understanding part of this class and they helped me quite a bit. I hope I don’t ever have to take Statistics again, but if I do, I’m definitely returning to the good people at the Tutoring Center. They make learning easy with the detailed steps to find a solution for any specific problems you may be having. –Tamika FranklinAmos, BA in Psychology

For more testimonials from Argosy University Online Programs students, check out our final blog post in this series, featuring the Technical Support Center. It’s coming up next!