Jeff Gallant, Program Director for Affordable Learning Georgia
Jeff has been with ALG since 2014 when it was a pilot program. He regularly consults with new open education programs and presents on program management, strategic planning, grant programs, data collection, and reporting. He has been a mentor in the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program since its inception in 2017, a mentoring faculty member of the AAC&U Institute on OER since its inception in 2021, and a co-author of The OER Starter Kit for Program Managers.
Nakita Afaha, Program Manager for Affordable Learning Georgia
Nakita Afaha joined ALG in May 2023. She holds a master's degree in adult education, a bachelor's degree in business education, and an education specialist degree in instructional technology. Her experience includes managing online student success initiatives at the University of West Georgia, designing OER and library resource-based courses with USG eCampus, and coordinating online programs at Georgia State University. Her expertise in student success continues to evolve, as she now manages open education initiatives for ALG.
Dr. Steve Blankenship, Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College
Dr. Sean Callahan, Chair, School of Social Sciences and Education at Georgia Highlands College
Sean is a life-long educator with a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, with an emphasis Gifted and Creative Education, from the University of Georgia. He currently serves as Professor of Psychology, Chair for the School of Social Sciences and Education and Chair of the Diversity Committee.
Sharryse Henderson, Professor of Biology at Georgia Highlands College
Sharryse is a professor of Biology and the current Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) Faculty Champion for Georgia Highlands College. Since 2016, she has collaborated with fellow GHC faculty to complete 16 ALG Transformation and Continuous Improvement Grants. She served not only as a Project Lead but also as a content expert and research specialist in developing a wide variety of open educational resources for biology, chemistry, and physical education. When not teaching and preparing for her classes, Sharryse spends much of her spare time hosting and volunteering for community outreach projects devoted to enhancing STEM education in and around Northwest Georgia.
Dr. Bronson Long, Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College
Bronson holds a Ph.D. in Modern European History (2007) from Indiana University-Bloomington. He teaches World Civilization, American History, and Economic History classes both face to face and online at GHC and with eCore. Bronson first began using OERs in 2018. Since then, he only uses OERs in his classes and strongly believes in the potential of OERs to improve the quality of classroom instruction and to reduce barriers to learning for students. Bronson lives in Rome, Georgia with his wife and two daughters. He enjoys reading, hiking, and running.
Dr. 
Tamara Powell, Professor of English at Kennesaw State University
Tamara is a professor of English at Kennesaw State University. Her Phd is from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and her dissertation focused on African American Literature. While at Louisiana Tech University, she wrote grants to establish and support the Graduate Certificate in Technical Communication, which she directed from 2005-2009 when she moved to Kennesaw State University to direct the Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences Office of Digital Education until 2022. Dr. Powell is passionate about OERs, having seen first hand the difference textbook prices can make in the realm of student success. She is co-author, along with Dr. Tiffani Tijerina, of Open Technical Communication, an OER funded by a 2015 ALG grant. Recent publications include “Free is Good: Designing and Implementing a Composition 1 Template Course with Help from an Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) Grant" in Pedagogy Opened: Innovative Theory and Practice; and “Pivot, Pivot! Kennesaw’s Distance Learning Journey” in From Grassroots to the Highly Orchestrated: Online Leaders Share Their Stories of the Evolving Online Landscape in Higher Ed. When she is not teaching or researching, you can find her in her garden or with her three rescue dogs, Cassie, Trudy, and Oliver.
Bonnie J. (B.J.) Robinson, Director of the University of North Georgia Press; University of North Georgia
Bonnie J. (B.J.) Robinson, PhD (University of Virginia), serves as Director of the University of North Georgia Press, an affiliate of the Association of University Presses. In collaboration with Affordable Learning Georgia and eCore, she has overseen the publication of 32 peer-reviewed open textbooks, with three more in progress. She has presented widely on open textbooks and OER and secured numerous OER/OA publishing grants, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Start-Up. Her research interests include innovative pedagogy, editing as scholarly practice, and the Aesthetic and Fine Press Movements.
Susanna Smith, Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at Georgia Highlands College
Susanna has been at GHC since 2011, first as a Reference and Instruction Librarian and now as the Acquisitions Librarian. She received her Masters in Instructional Design in 2018, and started working with CETL as well, facilitating faculty workshops on a wide variety of topics. She got involved with ALG in 2016 and since then has been on grant teams (both ALG and beyond), participated in grant reviews, and currently serves as the Library Champion for GHC. When she’s not scrapbooking or watching movies with her cats, she and her husband enjoy hiking and renovating their 1870s home.
Dr. Paula Stover, DIrector of Nursing (retired) at Georgia Highlands College
Dr. Barbara G. Tucker, Chair of the Department of Communication, Performing Arts, and Foreign Language & Professor of Communication at Dalton State College
Barbara currently serves as Chair of the Department of Communication, Performing Arts, and Foreign Language at Dalton State College, where she has been a faculty member since 2004. Previously she worked in the Technical College System of Georgia, at a community college in Tennessee, and at a private college. She lives in Dalton and has one son and a granddaughter. She holds an Ed.D. From the University of Georgia, an M.A. In Rhetoric and Public Address from Ohio University, and an M.A. in English from the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. During her time at Dalton she has led two QEP committees and the Teaching and Learning Center, as well as working in Academic Affairs as Assistant Vice President.