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New provost has plenty in mind

PHCC's Giannet sees economic growth through education.

By TOM MARSHALL
Published October 30, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - In the fall of 1986, a new high school graduate wandered onto the main campus of Pasco-Hernando Community College with an idea of becoming a psychologist.

Twenty years and four college degrees later - including a doctorate in psychology - the graduate is settling into the job of provost on PHCC's Brooksville campus.

Appointed to the post in July, 38-year-old Stan Giannet is a company man.

He has worked at the college since 1991 as an adjunct and later as a full-time professor of psychology. In 2000 he was named dean of arts and letters.

"I have witnessed, firsthand, his loyalty to PHCC, his service to students, faculty and his desire to place our institution in a most favorable light," president Katherine Johnson wrote in an e-mail. "I have complete confidence in his abilities and feel certain that he will become extremely involved in Hernando County, and make sure that the North Campus of PHCC is an involved and engaged partner in many activities."

He succeeded Burton H. Harres Jr., who became the college's vice president for instruction and provost on the New Port Richey campus.

If Hernando has an educator-in-chief, it's Giannet. And his goal for the campus is suitably large: to drive the county's economy and populace forward, one mind at a time.

Call it a psychologist's view of economic development: to grow the county, grow the minds.

Many minds

When I was young, I wanted to be a doctor," Giannet said recently, recalling his upbringing in New Jersey.

He was fascinated by the brain and the heart, the literal and spiritual seats of human existence.

"But I didn't like the cardiology element, because I thought it was too invasive," he said. "There went the heart. So I said I wanted to be a psychologist."

One day in high school, his mother asked him to come to the nursing home where she consulted. Perhaps he could play guitar for some of the residents?

"I only knew healthy aging," he recalled. "I was immediately overwhelmed. I recall very vividly going in there as a little guy with a guitar."

It was a "hard room" filled with dementia cases, and the staff didn't seem particularly involved or caring.

"I prayed, and I asked, 'What can I do to bring life to these souls?' " he said. "I started to play, (and) it was as if life was breathed into them. That moved them. I thought, for the entire day, that was the only stimulation they got."

That experience formed the basis for his psychology career; he still lectures widely on Alzheimer's disease and aging, and serves as an affiliated faculty member at the University of South Florida.

But these days he meets with minds of all ages, and marvels at the variety.

"In one class you will have a student who's 15 or 16 (enrolled for college credit), and right next to him will be an elderly couple, a retired executive," he said. "The diversity you see at our college is incredible."

Walking and talking

Take a stroll around campus with Giannet, and see the provost-psychologist's mind at work.

"I like to walk around and talk and interact informally with my staff," he explains. "I believe in over-communication."

In the 40-some yards between his office and the classroom building, he pauses to admire a new sidewalk material, chats about new patient simulators in the nursing department, looks ahead to a planned Shakespeare in the Park event, and fondly recalls his Pizza with the Provost moments with students.

In a given week, Giannet finds time for evening Kiwanis and morning breakfasts with the chamber of commerce, lunches with business leaders and visits to schools. He talks like a salesman who believes in the product, lives the product.

"Community service, that's a major part of our mission," he urges. "Community is our middle name."

Educationally, the college balances three goals: developmental or remedial education for basic skills, degree-oriented course work and work force training.

Giannet spends a lot of time with business leaders to meet the latter goal, and he's excited about new initiatives to develop certificate or degree programs in manufacturing.

"We want to go beyond the tourist economy and service industries," he said, wearing his economic development hat, "to make the county very enticing to families and industries that are looking to expand."

To match the county's growth, Giannet is helping to manage an ambitious building plan at PHCC.

By 2008, the college hopes to break ground on a $43-million, 91,000-square-foot complex to replace the existing Spring Hill center on Spring Hill Drive, more than doubling enrollment in that corner of Hernando County.

On the North Campus, there is a $6.2-million plan to turn the gymnasium into classrooms and an auditorium. And the college eventually hopes to build a $54.2-million Wesley Chapel center.

At the end of his stroll across the campus, Giannet passes a knot of students.

"Congratulations on the Phi Theta Kappa," he calls out to one.

"Thanks," said the startled award recipient. "You're the provost, right?"

Yes, Giannet tells her, clearly pleased by the exchange. Another connection made.

"I want to be accessible," he said.

Tom Marshall can be reached at tmarshall@sptimes.com or (352) 848-1431.

[Last modified October 30, 2006, 00:11:06]