Author: Christie Williams

CAHSS Faculty Receives College Music Society Fellow Award

Jessica Muñiz-Collado, M.F.A., faculty in the Department of Performing and Visual Arts (DPVA) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) is a recipient of the College Music Society Fellow Award. This award is given to university music faculty members who plan or have begun developing curricula related to music products, production, administration, management and/or marketing. In addition to innovation, they demonstrate interest in expanding their knowledge about the music industry. Muñiz-Collado was one of fifteen fellows selected for this award.

Fellows had the opportunity to travel to Nashville, TN. There they networked with other music industry professionals associated with the Grand Ole Opry, Gibson Guitars, and the Nashville Symphony. The Fellows were recognized at the American Eagle Awards (sponsored by the National Music Council) along with Grammy-winning artists George Clinton, George Winston, and Grammy-nominated artist John Rich.

CAHSS Alumna is TED Talks Presenter on Conflict Resolution

Dorothy Walker speaks at TED@WellsFargo, February 5, 2020, at the Knight Theater in Charlotte, NC. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

 

Dorothy Walker, Ph.D., 2015 doctoral graduate of the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies (DCRS) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) gave a TED Talks presentation entitled, “Three Ways to Resolve a Conflict.” Walker is a certified Project Manager at Wells Fargo, as well as a mediator and facilitator.

In addition to her doctoral degree, Walker also received her B.S. in Business Administration from NSU. She earned an M.S. in Telecommunications from the University of Denver and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from The George Washington University.

To access her TED Talk, please go to https://youtu.be/r4xPwhcnS-Q

CAHSS History Class Hosts Zoom Session with the Syrian Emergency Task Force

The course, HIST 4700, Genocide in the 20th Century and Beyond, offered by the Department of History and Political Science (DHPS) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) ended the term with a Zoom meeting with the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF).  After visiting Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, and sites such as Auschwitz and Srebrenica, and meeting with survivors of the Bosnian genocide, one last step was to talk with a survivor of the current catastrophe in Syria. Connecting with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, students in HIST 4700 were honored with a 2-hour Zoom session featuring Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of SETF, and Natalie Larrison, the director of outreach.  They run a host of programs including supporting an orphanage and providing humanitarian aid and support for people in Syria.

As part of the session, Omar Aslhogre, a survivor of torture in Assad’s prisons, spoke to the class describing his experiences, and how he survived. Arrested seven times by the time he was 17, his final arrest resulted in a brutal stay of three years in various Syrian Prisons, including the notorious Sedanya Prison. He told the story of the “University of Whispers.”  He finally escaped after his mother paid a bribe. Upon his release, Aslhogre weighed barely 75 pounds. Aslhogre has also testified before Congress and along with Moustafa, has been instrumental in getting the Caesar Bill passed by Congress and signed by the President.

Gary Gershman, J.D., Ph.D., professor in the DHPS and course instructor, arranged the Zoom session. He has a working relationship with the SETF. Gershman was one of two recipients of the 2017 Curt C. and Else Silberman Faculty Seminar Follow-Up Grant for the United States

For more information about the Syrian Emergency Task Force, please see their website at: https://www.syriantaskforce.org/.  For more information about the course, please contact Gershman at ggershma@nova.edu

Education Alum Authors Horror Novel

Brian Rick, graduate of the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice authored the horror novel, “I Am Martin.”

Brian wrote his first novel at age 12 and drew more than 120 comic books throughout his teen years. At 14, while dealing with the typical teenage angst that afflicted so many of his generation, Brian created a character, an antihero named Martin. Additionally, he is the author of “Leaving Home,” a Science-Fiction short story set in the not too distant future. He later shared the story with the Vice-President of the United States. In 2016, while living close to numerous current and former Marines, Brian published “Some of Dad’s Stories,” a 43-chapter anthology about his father’s experiences in war and peace. “Some of Dad’s Stories” is now available at Barnes&Noble.Com.

He attributes his father as being the greatest influence in his life as well as his former Imaginative Writing professor and best-selling author, James Lee Burke. Brian also considers Stephen King, Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone) and Michael Crichton to be his mentors.

Brian earned an M.S. from the Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice  in 1999. He and his wife, Angel, live in Lakeland, FL with their two dogs: Brandy and Sam.

KPCOM Takes Action in COVID-19 Aid

The KPCOM OMS-I Class Board and SGA Executive at the Fort Lauderdale/Davie and Tampa Bay Regional campuses raised more than $16,000 to purchase FDA-approved personal protective equipment (PPE) for Florida hospitals in need. They also purchased supplies to make about 100 care packages for the families of health care workers affected by COVID-19. The care packages which were delivered to a local hospital, consisted of pasta, pasta sauce, popcorn, cough drops, tissues, playing cards, coffee, and thank-you cards.

“As soon as quarantine really began, we were all very eager to help out in any way we could,” said OMS-II Charles Bisbee, SGA president-elect. “I think as students in the field of medicine, we have an understanding of the hard work and tenacity that is required of the frontline health care providers in the fight against COVID-19.”

Part of what also made the project such a success was the involvement of students outside of the D.O. program. By including NSU’s Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine, along with various clubs and organizations, the original goals of raising funds and creating care packages were quickly surpassed. Social media efforts with fun Tik Tok videos further boosted morale while raising awareness.

“Our KPCOM, alongside our M.D. school, collectively raised more than $16,000 in our initiative to help provide PPE for health care providers, provide COVID-19-affected patients the funds for uncovered expenses, and to help provide care packages for the families of health care providers affected by COVID-19,” said OMS-I Aneil Tawakalzada, class of 2023 president. “This was an incredible accomplishment that truly helped illustrate how willing our student body is to get involved and to help make a difference. Our medical students at NSU are truly remarkable.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education Professor to Host Zoominar on Blended Instruction

 

Michael Simonson, Ph.D.

Michael Simonson, Ph.D.

Michael Simonson, Ph.D., Professor, at NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice will host a short “zoominar” titled, Blending In – Returning to the Classroom by Mini-Blending your Class, via zoom on Wednesday, May 27 12:00 p.m. EST.

This session will explain one of the most popular ways to blend a course, known as MINI-flipping or MINI-blending, which involves identifying single concepts — the building blocks of course content — and recording that content for remote delivery. Face-to-face sessions, whether with the entire class enrollment or in a divided class, is then reserved for discussions and explanations–approaches that work when social distancing is required.

Simonson is a professor in the Instructional Technology and Distance Education program. He has authored four major textbooks dealing with distance education, instructional technology, instructional computing, and instructional media. His two most recent books received first place book awards from the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.  He is also the founding editor of the Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Distance Learning Journal, and Proceedings of Papers presented at the Annual Conventions of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Link to join: https://zoom.us/j/91446394580

 

Initial RDN Cohort Creates Virtual Community Resource Page

 

Because the COVID-19 pandemic has created educational challenges, the first cohort of graduate student dietitians (RDNs) in the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Master of Science in Nutrition program made use of online resources to produce a virtual community resource page.

The initiative began as a response to the suspended practice rotations where RDN students would be doing their first supervised practicum in community and population health in community sites. Rather than just doing readings and modules, faculty members looked at giving students intentional and relevant assignments to provide real-world experiences.

Currently, many health care and community nutrition organizations have utilized virtual options to serve their populations. As a result, creating a project that compiled a community nutrition resource web page made a lot of sense, with the goals of offering a variety of nutrition resources, including fact sheets, recipes, short videos, and links to community partners who provide nutrition services—all while using evidence-based references.

As mentors for the next cohort of students, the inaugural RDN class will provide support and guidance to maintain the web page. All students taking the Foundation of Community Nutrition course each fall, and the RDN students taking the Community and Population Health Practicums course in the winter, will continue to add to the content, as well as update and maintain the web page.

“This has been a great collaborative project for our RDN students, who have exceeded the expectations of faculty members and themselves,” said Melinda Luis, M.S., RDN, LDN, adjunct faculty member and community practicum coordinator.

To view the web page, visit osteopathic.nova.edu/ms-nutrition/community-nutrition-resources.html.

Halmos Researchers Demonstrate How Staghorn Coral Restoration Projects Show Promise in the Florida Keys

A new analysis of reef restoration projects in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary suggests they could play a key role in helping staghorn coral recover after decades of decline. Steven Miller, Ph.D., a research scientist at NSU’s Halmos College; and his former master’s student, Matt Ware, Ph.D. (‘12); worked with their colleagues to present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 6, 2020.

Once widespread in Caribbean reefs, staghorn coral populations have declined by over 90 percent since the 1970s. After the species was listed as Threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiated a recovery plan. A central part of this plan is outplanting, in which corals are cultivated in an offshore nursery before being transplanted to restoration sites.

While outplanting efforts have been in place for many years, only recently has enough time passed to analyze their long-term potential. Now, Ware and colleagues have applied photographic monitoring and scuba diving  to assess 2,419 staghorn coral colonies outplanted to 20 different sites in the Florida Keys between 2007 and 2013 by the Coral Restoration Foundation.

The analysis revealed that survivorship – the percentage of colonies containing living tissue – was high for the first two years after outplanting, but declined in subsequent years. Survivorship among projects based on colony counts was highly variable, between 4% and 89% for seven projects with corals that survived at least five years. The researchers also used statistical modeling to predict future survivorship, finding that 0 to 10 percent of the colonies would survive seven years post-outplanting. This means that large numbers of colonies need to be outplanted to start, so ecologically relevant numbers survive longer-term. Coral growth rates were similar to the wild population.

The authors acknowledge some limitations of their analysis, including low or variable sample sizes among projects and the retrospective nature of their analyses that made it difficult to identify how different habitat types and reef locations affected survivorship

Still, the findings suggest that outplanting could help restore staghorn coral populations by protecting against local extinction and maintaining genetic diversity in the wild. Meanwhile, the same major stressors that have plagued these corals over the last few decades – disease and bleaching, both related to global warming – remain. The new findings support NOAA conclusions that mitigating these stressors is needed to achieve full, long-term recovery.

Citation: Ware M, Garfield EN, Nedimyer K, Levy J, Kaufman L, Precht W, Winters, RS, and Miller, SL. (2020) Survivorship and growth in staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) outplanting projects in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. PLoS ONE 15(5): e0231817. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231817

2020 Osteopathic Medicine Graduates Participate in Virtual Oath Ceremony

It was a full-circle moment for the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine class of 2020 graduates. Four years ago, the class of 2020 students donned their white coats for the first time as they recited their oath of commitment to the osteopathic profession. On May 15, the new graduates took part in a virtual ceremony as they recited the osteopathic oath, with more than 600 participants in attendance via Zoom.

The ceremony began with remarks from George L. Hanbury II, Ph.D., NSU president and chief executive officer, and Elaine M. Wallace, D.O., M.S.4, KPCOM dean. Award recipients and slideshows featuring the graduates and Match Day celebrations also served as highlights, as the graduating class marked another academic accomplishment before entering residency.

NSU University School Students Win Second Place in Year-Long Stock Market Competition

NSU University School is proud to congratulate a team of fifth grade students – Simmy Mangan, Gabi Pintaluga, Isabella Sackaris, and Sadie Zelnick – on winning second place in the South Florida Elementary Division of the year-long Stock Market Game session. Students were given $100,000 to build and manage a diversified portfolio, engaging them in the world of economics, investing, and personal finance, and preparing them for future financial independence. We are proud of our Sharks for their hard work in navigating the global capital markets and achieving this outstanding accomplishment.

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