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f e l l o w s about marian gibney

Marian Gibney received a BA in Psychology from Queens College of the City University of New York and an MA in Psychology from Fordham University in New York. Her doctorate with a specialization in Higher Education Administration is from Nova Southeastern University in Florida. Areas of specialization in psychology included experimental psychology and teaching of psychology. While serving a one-year internship at Mount Sinai Medical Center, she participated in several studies involving the action of L-Dopa in Parkinson's patients. Her doctoral study centered on information literacy in community college teaching.

Marian has been employed by Maricopa Community College District at Phoenix College since 1976. During this time she has taught many different psychology courses, including Introduction to Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Leadership, Statistics, and Research Methods. Her interest in use of computers in teaching and learning is long-standing. In 1986, with a colleague she co-authored a set of computer-aided-tutorials for Introduction to Psychology. Student response to these was extremely positive and the tutorials are still in use in the department.

More recently, she has written and taught two completely, web-based courses, Developmental Psychology and Introduction to Statistics. After several semesters, these courses are well received and also provide a "testing ground" for some web-based learning strategies. By fall of 1999, Marian will also have finished initial development of an on-line Introduction to Psychology course using WebCT as the platform.

As a faculty member, Marian has served on numerous committees and projects. Among them are the Curriculum Committee, Instructional Technology Committee, Ocotillo Committee, Staffing and Budget committees and the Professional Growth Committee. She has served on numerous district committees as well. As member and later chair of the Curriculum Appropriateness Task Force, she helped with the development and implementation of college-wide program evaluation.

Marian has also served the faculty of Phoenix College in leadership positions on the Faculty Senate. She has served several years as Senator and as President of the Faculty Association in 1991.

From 1989-1998, Marian was reassigned to work as Acting Director of Research for Phoenix College. In this capacity, she conducted institutional research related to college demographics, student retention and success, college master planning and budgeting, and program evaluation. She also served as Assessment Coordinator and chair of the college-wide, student outcomes assessment committee. During this time she also conducted joint research with ASU related to success of transferring students. Aspects of this research were presented at various conferences including AIR (Association of Institutional Researchers) and NCA (North Central Association) annual meeting.

In addition to her work with teaching and learning at the community college level, Marian is affiliated with the Programs for Higher Education of Nova Southeastern University. For approximately 10 years she has served as the coordinator of the International Cluster for this program. This involves administrative and mentoring, and teaching activities for doctoral level students in post-secondary education. This is an exciting activity since it brings her into contact with professionals from all over the world. It provides opportunity to broaden horizons about teaching and learning outside the US and outside of the community college. It also affords the opportunity to participate in doctoral level research.

All of these activities allow her to return to her basic interests-- how do we encourage students to think critically in their disciplines? How do we help students develop skills for life-long learning that is so necessary for success in their life and careers? What can we do in our classes to encourage information literacy skills that take on increasing importance as the Internet and web-based information proliferates?

Marian Gibney, who lives in Phoenix, AZ, is married and the mother of two adult sons.

f e l l o w s about marian gibney