Teachers of the Year named

March 30, 2006

Long-time Professor Peter Morrison was named the 2006-2007 Full-Time Teacher of the Year. Morrison, who started with the South Orange County Community College District in 1977 at Saddleback College, has been with Irvine Valley for over 20 years. He currently serves as an English Composition Instructor.
During his tenure, Morrison has chaired the Department of Humanities and Languages, founded the college literary journal, The Ear, and continues to conduct poetry workshops for students. He is popular with students and is highly regarded among both students and colleagues for his subject knowledge and for his “unwavering commitment” to academic excellence. Morrison was nominated for “his meticulous guidance and great inspiration…a dedicated teacher students can be proud of.”
With the award, Morrison is acknowledged for the influence he has had on many of his students’ lives, while as students at the college, and later after they have graduated. One student who nominated Morrison remarked that critical thinking is the skill she learned best from him.
“I have learned how to learn, how to take an intimidating concept and unpack it into its constituent parts, dispelling a paralyzing fear in the process,” she said.
Morrison has a bachelor’s degree from Pomona College, a master’s degree from the University of Sussex, UK, and a doctorate from the University of California, Irvine.
Adjunct philosophy instructor James Granitto has been chosen as the 2006-2007 Part-Time Teacher of the Year. Granitto has taught at the college since 1999.
Granitto was nominated by his students for inspiring them to move beyond the familiar and for seeing in his students their “intrinsic values and qualities that will add to the learning process.” His students note that he is extremely well liked for his ability to make a “difficult and arcane subject” more accessible.
Granitto is acknowledged for instilling in his students the confidence to pursue their educational goals, by treating his students with “great dignity and respect.”
Granitto received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine, and a master’s degree from California State University, Long Beach. He teaches courses on introductory philosophy, logic, epistemology, ethics, and world religions. Ninety-three year-old Eva Garnet has been named the 2006-2007 Part-Time Emeritus Teacher of the Year. This is the first time an Emeritus instructor has been honored.
Garnet is a Senior Chair Exercise and Dance instructor, and has taught modern dance, Middle Eastern dance, and therapeutic exercise at Juilliard School of Music and Dance, and the Connecticut College Summer School of Dance.
Garnet has been with the college since 1991, teaching dance and senior calisthenics concurrently at both Irvine Valley and Saddleback. With nearly 75 years of performing, teaching, directing and choreography experience, she is well known in Orange County for promoting mental and physical fitness through dance and exercise.
She is the founder of the Geriatric-Calisthenics (G-C) chair exercise system, a past director of the Southern California Emeritus Dance Company, and the author of Movement is Life, first published in 1982. Garnet is enormously popular among her students and received her nomination for her spirit, enthusiasm, and her knowledge about exercise physiology.
Said one student, “we admire her for her ability to motivate us: The aged, the ill, the disabled, and even the lazy."