Latest Faculty Accomplishments
News
GRANTS (Awarded in November)
Dr. Keri S. Bethune (Assistant Professor, Educational Foundations and Exceptionalities) and Dr. Brianna S. Quinn (Affiliate, Educational Programs) received $30,000 from the Virginia Department of Education to maintain and implement a statewide program to meet the initial and continuing education needs for teachers of students with visual impairments in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Regan M. Byrne (Executive Director, Forbes Center for the Performing Arts) received $4,400 from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation to book Parallel Exit to perform and conduct a workshop with students.
Dr. Kyle G. Gipson (Assistant Professor, Engineering) received $5,000 from the American Iron and Steel Institute to enhance student exposure to ferrous metallurgy by developing and implementing new modules for two courses as well as technical electives to function as a “metals track” within the materials science minor.
Kimberlee Hartzler-Weakley (Director of Children and Youth, Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services) received $76,500 from the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority to promote health careers and access to primary care for medically underserved populations through community-academic partnerships. Hartzler-Weakley also received $7,425 from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to provide support for Blue Cross Blue Shield’s initiative to educate the local Hispanic population about the Affordable Care Act, and she received $50,500 from The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation to provide families of children with disabilities with an opportunity to take a break from the demands of constant care-giving.
Abram T. Kaufman (Administrator, Facilities Management) and Dale L. Chestnut (Stormwater Coordinator, Facilities Management) received $200,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to enhance a regional green infrastructure asset by stabilizing and reconnecting a degraded stream with function-based stream restoration, including floodplain wetland treatment cells.
Dr. Joshua M. Linder (Assistant Professor, Anthropology and Sociology) received $24,925 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to improve the responsible conservation authority’s capacity to monitor the status of endangered wildlife and the level of threat from bushmeat hunting at a broader landscape level.
Dr. Jonathan J. Miles (Professor, Integrated Science and Technology) received $53,327 from the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy to continue providing education, outreach and research at the Center for Wind Energy.
Dr. Eric J. Pyle (Professor, Geology and Environmental Science) received $13,629 from the U.S. Department of Education to coordinate STEM coursework and to develop, deploy and communicate the results of STEM secondary content course and elementary institute science concept needs assessments among the teachers participating in the project.
Gary S. Race (Grant Administrator, Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services) received $392,839 from the Virginia Department of Health to offer motivational interviewing for home visiting staff with families with children in out-of-home placement or at risk of out-of-home placement due to substance abuse.
Dr. Nicholas J. Swartz (Associate Professor, Political Science) received $5,563 from the Shenandoah Valley Airport for development of a strategic plan for the airport to maximize both efficiency and effectiveness.
Dr. Jacqueline A. Williams (Professor, Kinesiology) received $45,000 from the Virginia Department of Education to provide funding for a high-quality health and physical education content teaching summer institute.
Shaun B. Wright (Assistant Professor, Media Arts and Design) received $1,000 from the Arts Council of the Valley for the 4th Annual Reel Change Documentary Film Festival to educate and engage audiences while celebrating the documentary medium as a tool for advocacy, activism and social change.
HONORS
Carolyn F. Schubert (Health Science and Nursing Librarian, Libraries and Educational Technologies) was awarded a $500 stipend from IGI Global to attend the 2014 Charleston Conference, held Nov. 6-9 to focus on issues in book and serial acquisition. She was selected for this honor due to her outstanding achievements in the field of Library Information Science.
PRESENTATIONS
Dr. Eric R. Guinivan (Assistant Professor, Music) and Dr. David Stringham (Assistant Professor, Music) contributed to a panel presentation, "Perspectives on Teaching Composition in Schools," at the Virginia Music Educators Association Professional Development Conference on Nov. 21 in Norfolk, Va.
Katie Harman (Graduate Student, Occupational Therapy), Amanda Miller (Graduate Student, Occupational Therapy), Christina Cornick (Graduate Student, Occupational Therapy), Ashlee Walsh, Hannah Whittaker (Graduate Student, Occupational Therapy) and Danielle Boyd (Graduate Student, Occupational Therapy) presented a two-hour workshop titled “The Benefits of Therapeutic Gardening in Occupational Therapy” at the North Carolina Occupational Therapy Association Conference in October.
Alec McKenzie (Graduate Student, Kinesiology) and Paul Robertson (Graduate Student, Kinesiology) presented “Effects of Protein Supplementation during Intensified Cycling Training on Cardiorespiratory Adaptations and Body Weight and Effects of Protein Supplementation during 10 Days of Intensified Cycling Training on Indices of Muscle Disruption and Performance” at the American College of Sports Medicine Integrative Physiology of Exercise conference in Miami in October.
Dr. Ann-Janine Morey (Professor, English; Associate Vice Provost, Cross Disciplinary Studies and Diversity Engagement) has been invited by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to participate in the 2015 Virginia Festival of the Book, scheduled for March 18-22 in Charlottesville, Va. There she will present her latest book, “Picturing Dogs, Seeing Ourselves: Vintage American Photographs,” and participate in a book signing and author reception.
Elisabeth Pyburn (Graduate Student, Psychological Sciences) presented “A Psychometric Evaluation of the Miami University Diversity Awareness Subscales and International Student Success: An Application of Cluster Analysis to Predict GPA” at the Northeastern Educational Research Association Conference in Trumbull, Conn., in October.
John Sessoms (Graduate Student, Psychology) presented “Predicting Change in Examinee Effort on Low-Stakes Tests” at the Northeastern Educational Research Association conference in Trumbull, Conn., in October.
Mandalyn Swanson (Graduate Student, Psychology) presented “But It Doesn't Count: A Mixed-Methods Investigation of Student Test-Taking Motivation in Low-Stakes Testing” at the Northeastern Educational Research Association conference in Trumbull, Conn., in October.
Dr. Jon M. Thompson (Professor, Health Sciences; Director, Health Services Administration Program) presented “A Profile of Recent Hospital Acquisitions” at the Meeting of the American Public Health Association on Nov. 18 along with his colleagues on the research Dr. Michael J. McCue of Virginia Commonwealth University and Dr. Tae Hyun Kim of Yonsei University. Thompson also moderated a panel session at the meeting titled “Workforce Development, Professional Development and Human Resources Management in Health Administration.”
Jon Henry William (Graduate Student, Art, Design and Art History) presented his ongoing research and practice of the “Old Furnace Artist Residency" at the recent Imagining America Conference in Atlanta in October.
PUBLICATIONS
Dr. Carol A. Hurney (Professor, Biology; Director, Center for Faculty Innovation), Nancy L. Harris (Lecturer, Computer Science), Dr. Samantha C. Bates Prins (Associate Professor, Mathematics and Statistics) and Dr. Susan E. Kruck (Professor, Computer Information Systems and Business Analytics) published the article, “The Impact of a Learner-Centered, Mid-Semester Course Evaluation on Students,” in The Journal of Faculty Development. The article explores the impact of a learner-centered, mid-semester course evaluation process on student perceptions of dimensions of teaching that promote effective learning.
Harkirat S. Mann (Undergraduate Student, Physics and Astronomy), Yosyp Schwab (Undergraduate Student, Physics and Astronomy), Brian N. Lang (Undergraduate Student, Physics and Astronomy) and Dr. Giovanna Scarel (Assistant Professor, Physics and Astronomy) published an article titled “Effective Thermoelectric Power Generation in an Insulated Compartment” in the World Journal of Condensed Matter Physics with Dr. Jarrett L. Lancaster of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina A&T University and Dr. Ronald J. Parise of Parise Research Technologies.
Aaron Noland (Graduate Student, Strategic Leadership) published an article titled “The Relationship among Transformational Teaching and Student Motivation and Learning” with Keith Richards of Eastern Carolina University in the Journal of Effective Teaching.
Christopher J. Rehm (Graduate Student, Strategic Leadership) published an article titled “An evidence based practitioner's model for adolescent leadership development" in the Journal of Leadership Education. The article focuses on the need for future research in leadership development to be made applicable to appropriate stages in development, emphasizing differentiating character education from leadership development.
Dr. Bradley A. Striebig (Professor, Engineering), Dr. Adebayo A. Ogundipe (Assistant Professor, Engineering) and Dr. Maria Papadakis (Professor, Integrated Science and Technology) published a textbook titled “Engineering Applications in Sustainable Design and Development” through Cengage Learning, to be released in 2015.
Dr. Stephen J. Whitmeyer (Associate Professor, Geology and Environmental Science) published the article, “Crowdsourcing Digital Maps Using Citizen Geologists,” in Eos, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. His article concerns the use of crowdsourcing to gather geological data for geological mapmaking.
SERVICE
Jonathan R. Alger (President, Professor) was appointed by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to the GenEdge Alliance, also known as the A.L. Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Board of Trustees. GenEdge Alliance, established in 1992, is a business consulting organization that provides Virginia’s industrial and manufacturing sectors access to expert business solutions, which otherwise are often only accessible to larger companies. The organization helps create and maintain jobs in industry and manufacturing.
Dr. Christopher S. Mayfield (Assistant Professor, Computer Science) was part of a group of educators invited to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to brainstorm ways Google could support the development of new course materials concerning computational thinking for use in K-12 teacher preparation programs. Computational thinking focuses on a set of problem-solving skills and techniques that software engineers use to write programs for applications such as search, email and maps.
Courtney Sanders (Graduate Student, Psychology) was invited to be a Fellow at the 2014 Testing, Evaluation, Assessment and Measurement Institute at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J.
Joyce Vivian (Graduate Student, Nursing) has been selected by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing to serve as a liaison to the Graduate Nursing Student Association.
