{"id":506518,"date":"2026-07-30T16:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/?page_id=506518"},"modified":"2026-08-28T09:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T13:12:20","slug":"our-name","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/about\/our-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Name"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Phyllis Nahman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The GCC board of trustees, with the recommendation of president Bob Pura and others in the GCC community, unanimously voted to name the GCC library in their honor in October 2012.<\/p>\n

Phyllis Nahman taught at GCC as an adjunct faculty member for several years before becoming a full-time English faculty member in\u00a0 the early 1970\u2019s. Her passion for teaching and learning, her nurturing attitude towards students, and her conviction in the power of the written word are characteristic of Phyllis\u2019 positive and profound impact on the GCC community. Phyllis introduced English literature to decades of students, opening up new worlds and introducing challenging ideas. She helped her students to find their own voices and prepared them for success inside and outside the classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Phyllis made many other contributions to the college including serving on numerous committees, chairing the English department, and creating new curricula for English and women\u2019s studies. Libraries, both academic and public, have been a central part of Phyllis\u2019s life. While at GCC she was instrumental in building the children\u2019s literature collection of the library.<\/p>\n

Though she retired in 2002, Phyllis remains connected to the college through events and the scholarship that bears her name.<\/p>\n

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Gretchen Watson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gretchen Watson joined the GCC English faculty in the fall of 1985 A true believer that an informed citizen is an educated citizen, Gretchen embraced this philosophy with a passion that quickly singled her out to students as a teacher whose class you needed to take. Gretchen\u2019s classroom, with her rapid fire cadence and expertise on a wide ranging variety of topics, guaranteed a lively and inspiring discourse between her and the students. Gretchen was an active and well-known member of the GCC community, participating on a variety of college committees including college governance and institutional reorganization. One of the pioneers in online learning at GCC, Gretchen was a motivating force and was always available to help her colleagues integrate technology into their teaching. Gretchen absorbed information like a sponge and her many interests led her to being a GCC Library regular and her enthusiasm for research and knowledge was infectious. She was one of the first faculty members to engage librarians in conversations about information literacy, leading the English Department to embed information literacy into their coursework and mission statement. Her travels and teaching experiences abroad\u00a0 strengthened her commitment to expose her students to the wider world and to explore different viewpoints, socially, culturally, and politically.<\/p>\n

The community suffered a great loss with the sudden passing of Gretchen S. Watson in October 2006. She is remembered for her passion, her zeal for life, sense of humor, and strong belief in the power of knowledge and the potential of her students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GCC board of trustees, with the recommendation of president Bob Pura and others in the GCC community, unanimously voted to name the GCC library in their honor in October 2012. Phyllis Nahman taught at GCC as an adjunct faculty member for several years before becoming a full-time English faculty member in\u00a0 the early 1970\u2019s. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4127,"featured_media":0,"parent":507178,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-506518","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-27 23:59:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"pp_notify_user","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/506518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506518"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/506518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507172,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/506518\/revisions\/507172"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/507178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}