Office of Academic Affairs

Emily Simms, Program Director for Surgical Technology, joined HACC in 2019 as a clinical adjunct. She quickly became an integral part of the Surgical Technology team and was hired on in a part-time capacity as the Clinical Coordinator in mid-2019. In July of 2020, Emily was hired as our new full-time Program Director. Emily received her Associate Degree in Science in our own Surgical Technology program and went on to complete her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology at Millersville University. Emily has experience as a Surgical Technologist, certified through the National Board of Surgical Technology, working at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center prior to taking on her new role at HACC. At the Medical Center, Emily was a preceptor for our own HACC students as well as assisting and training new hires in her field.

Emily has served the program in a variety of roles and currently works with the part-time clinical coordinator and ten clinical sites within the community. Emily has worked hard to ensure students have a location to complete their clinical assignments which has become a larger challenge during the pandemic. Emily notes that her students have adapted well to the changes in our educational environment, stating the students have continued to be able to build a rapport with one another despite the remote learning. She is proud of her students for putting in the extra effort needed to become a cohesive group through the Zoom lens.

Outside of HACC, Emily has been involved with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) for over ten years, serving in several leadership roles. She routinely participates in preparing meals for the Ronald McDonald House in Hershey, preparing goodie bags for the Caitlin’s Smiles Project, and serving at the Women’s Shelter in Harrisburg. Her dedication to service is commendable and impressive. Emily resides in Camp Hill with her husband and one dog and is looking forward to the time when travel becomes easier, so she can enjoy some trips to the beach.

On March 15, the HACC Harrisburg Business Club hosted Mandy Arnold, President & CEO of Gavin, a boutique branding and communications agency, President of Madison & Main Development, and co-owner of The Left Bank Restaurant & Bar. Almost 80 students logged in to hear Mandy speak about entrepreneurship, her experience starting a business in Central PA, and advice she has for anyone looking to open their own business. Gavin also has an excellent internship program for students looking for internships in public relations or graphic design.

Thank you to the co-advisors Erica Fleisher, Assistant Professor Marketing/Management, Richard Cordaro, Assistant Professor Business, and Steve Header for supporting the Business Club with riveting powerful presentations and exposing students to potential career related opportunities.

Andrea Hartranft is currently an associate professor for information science at HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, on the Harrisburg Campus. She started at HACC in 2013 as an adjunct faculty and joined the full-time faculty in 2016. Previously, she worked at HACC’s Lancaster and Lebanon campuses and as a supervisor at Franklin and Marshall (F&M) College in both Martin Library of the Sciences and Shadek-Fackenthal Library. She has several years of experience in academic libraries as well as experience in public libraries having worked at Lititz Public Library for five years. Andrea is the Library Liaison for the engineering, technology and science departments as well as a creator for many of our Lib Guides.

She is also the co-chair of the HACC collegewide Open Educational Resources (OER) Committee since 2018. Andrea created the institutional OER model that supports the work of this twenty-two-member committee and twenty-one faculty projects to adopt, remix, and create OER materials for their courses. Due to her leadership, the expectations for OER under Strategic Commitment 2: Retain Learners and Foster Completion have been surpassed and expanded to support up to 30 faculty projects for 45% of classes using low to no-cost resources! The evolution of OER at HACC was featured by our newsroom and Community College Times. In addition to her publications, she presents on OER at numerous conferences such as the Pennsylvania Library Association conference, the Open Education Conference, and the Association of College and Research Libraries conference in April 2021.

Andrea feeds her soul with reading, listening to audiobooks, and most importantly spending time with her nine-year old daughter. During COVID, she’s enjoying daily walks in the neighborhood and yoga; with her daughter and cat joining in the yoga practice too. She is passionate about working with our HACC students, staff and faculty and learning something new every day. This is evident in her actions and embodiment that, “working as a librarian is a dynamic, and always changing career.”