McClellan heaps praise upon GTCC professors’ motivation in her successful return to college
Published on: May 6, 2025
Cameron McClellan earned her Bachelor of Arts in geology from UNC-Chapel Hill last May. This fall, she begins graduate work at UNC in environmental ecology and energy (E3P).
The cornerstone for her educational success was established at Guilford Technical Community College, where she resumed her education in her late 20s after a long break. There, she discovered an environment with limitless learning opportunities.
“I very recently had this conversation with a friend of mine in their 30s,” McClellan recalled. “GTCC is the best answer (for someone in their 30s). I advocate for community colleges all the time. It’s economic. The classes are smaller. You get to know your instructors. You get to find out what you love. GTCC is outstanding. I loved my time there.”
McClellan attended the Weaver Academy For Performing & Visual Arts and Advanced Technology in Greensboro, and after graduation enrolled at UNC Asheville as a performance piano major. However, after a semester she left school and began working full time. After nearly 10 years, she felt the pull back to the classroom and enrolled at GTCC where she fell in love with learning again.
“My experience as a child was being in a family that cultivated a love of learning, so it wasn’t challenging getting back into that mindset,” said McClellan.
That love of learning, combined with a series of persuasive and impactful GTCC professors helped her reconnect with her first love: science.
“I had four professors who were instrumental in my success,” said McClellan.
One was Tim Martin, McClellan’s geology professor.
“He was such a wonderful professor; he asked such thought-provoking questions. He kept encouraging me. He reminded me how much I love geology. After my first semester back, he encouraged my road trip, me and my dog, on a tour of southwest national parks to see geological forms I had never seen.”
And Steve Desch, McClellan’s astronomy professor.
“Astronomy was difficult for me, but the way Mr. Desch taught clicked with me. I’d often stay after class to ask him ridiculous questions, and he was always excited to answer those questions. I knew since I was a child that I wanted to go to Chapel Hill (UNC), but that I had to have the grades. He was the one who kept saying I wouldn’t have any problem getting in.”
He also nominated McClellan for the North Carolina Community College System Academic Excellence Award representing GTCC, and wrote three letters of recommendation for her.
“That encouragement as an adult student was big for me. He was always encouraging me and advocating for me.”
Zac Goldstein, GTCC English professor and advisor for the college’s literary magazine, made sure McClellan didn’t stray far from her love of the arts as a career in science appeared certain.
“I ended up taking both of his writing classes. I had never been in a class where you were allowed to explore like in his. He was always excited. His classes were very peer focused. We’d get in groups and edit each other’s work.”
Patricia Drummond, visual arts professor, provided McClellan with the opportunity to combine her love of art and science in photography class.
“There was a creative freedom a lot of professors don’t allow you to have that Patricia Drummond allowed me to go with. I was able to combine interest with curiosity and I get a lot out of that.”
McClellan’s next educational step speaks loudly of the impact and influence those four professors and GTCC, had upon her: an interdisciplinary graduate program combining geology and ecology that requires photographic and writing skills.
“I will be geologically profiling bat hibernacula and roost sites in western North Carolina. I’ll be going into caves and abandoned mines. Bats are very cool. They are the only flying mammals, and I knew they were declining in populations, in some cases declining by 99 percent. I’ve missed working in the field, so it’s exciting to get back out.”
As McClellan begins her graduate fieldwork, surveying and photographing bats and their habitats in mines and caves, she credits her time at GTCC and professors like Martin, Desch, Goldstein, and Drummond for helping her make amazing happen.
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