Category: Academics

In Spring 2020, Springer – International Publisher Science, Technology, Medicine released “Advances in Artificial Systems for Medicine and Education III”, co-edited by Halmos assistant dean and professor Matthew He, Ph.D.

This book discusses the latest advances in the development of artificial intelligence systems and their applications in various fields, from medicine and technology to education. It comprises papers presented at the Third International Conference of Artificial Intelligence, Medical Engineering, Education (AIMEE2019), held at the Mechanical Engineering Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, on 1–3 October 2019. Covering topics such as mathematics and biomathematics; medical approaches; and technological and educational approaches, it is intended for the growing number of specialists and students in this field, as well as other readers interested in discovering where artificial intelligence systems can be applied in the future.

Whitney Lehmann, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Writing and Communication in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), has written a book, The Public Relations Writer’s Handbook, published by Routledge.

“I have taught Public Relations Writing since 2013 during my time as a doctoral student at the University of Miami. While I love the text that I previously used for the course, it was published in 2009,” Lehmann said. She wanted to create an updated work for PR students, practitioners, and educators that covered digital/social media. She indicated that her journalism experience was valuable in learning how to write as a PR practitioner and how to best pitch stories to the media.

“Learning the fundamentals of journalistic writing, in my opinion, is key to understanding and succeeding at writing for public relations,” she said.

Lehmann’s book is divided by topic, with the media relations section covering how to create press releases, pitch stories, and create media kits. The storytelling section covers news and feature writing, interviewing and creating bio sketches. A digital media section outlines writing for emails, the internet, and social media. The remaining sections cover business/executive communications and writing for events.

Lehmann plans to use the book in her fall Public Relations Writing class, and said the book is under consideration for use at the University of Miami’s School of Communication, where she earned an M.A. in Journalism and a Ph.D. in Communication.

“I think it would be so cool to have my alma mater adopt the book,” Lehmann said.

Although social media is constantly evolving, Lehmann emphasized the importance of constructing content with a conversational tone that engages the needs/wants of the audience. Social media will be the focus of her next book, Let’s Get Social: Social Media Writing and Strategy. She was a finalist for the 2018 Communicator of the Year by the Public Relations Society of America Greater Fort Lauderdale Chapter. In 2019, the chapter named the Department of Writing and Communication as its Department of the Year for Lehmann’s work establishing and advising the NSU chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. She teaches courses such as Mass Media, Public Relations Campaigns, and Social Media Theory and Practice.

For more information about her book, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/The-Public-Relations-Writers-Handbook/Lehmann/p/book/9780815365280

This April, students in the honors seminar course Genetics and Genealogy presented their family history narratives in a virtual Class Symposium. As part of this course, students shared inspiring stories of survival, migrations, family traditions, and perseverance. Each student learned something new about their families and where they come from and how they have evolve.

The class research was twofold: students completed genetics studies showing their ancestral markers and also completed a genealogical research project to uncover historical records and other documents. These projects allow students to have a personal connection with historical events. Genetics and Genealogy is unique in that it is taught collaboratively from both a humanities and science perspective by professors James Doan, Ph.D. from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Emily Schmitt Lavin, Ph.D. from Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography.

In addition to these faculty members, the students collaborated with the Alvin Sherman Library to access genealogy resources. This was done with the help of Nora Quinlan, Director of Reference and Instruction. She created a genealogy library guide.

This course is offered through the Honors College under Dean, Don Rosenblum along with a variety of other unique course offerings: https://honors.nova.edu/honors/courses.html

Since the completion of the course, several of the  students have contributed their work to the NSU Works Genealogy Reports Site located at https://nsuworks.nova.edu/genealogy-reports/.

Would you like to learn to play the guitar or improve your playing? NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) offers Beginning Guitar MUSC 1300 throughout the year and recently students provided a Virtual Guitar Orchestra “Concert in the Time of COVID Quarantine.”  Led by adjunct professor Tarra Guerra, M.M., the students in the class learn music notation and rhythms, strumming patterns and to perform major, minor, and seventh chords. The goal is for the class to be enjoyable, and for the members of the class to form a supportive network for each other’s efforts. Each week there are informal opportunities to play both solo and group (ensemble) performances and there are two public class concerts.

Guerra teaches Guitar at CAHSS and runs Suzuki Strings South Florida. She is a member of the Guitar Foundation of America, the Miami Classical Guitar Society, the Florida Guitar Foundation, the Suzuki Associations of the Americas and of South Florida, Morning Musicale, and the Florida Federation of Music Teachers. Guerra has performed original rock in New York City and Seattle, original country in Nashville, Celtic and modern folk in New Zealand and Ireland, Bluegrass in North Carolina and Florida, been a professional one-person band, and is a published songwriter with several solo albums.

The course, Beginning Guitar is offered in the fall in two sections: MUSC 1300 CRN 21772 and MUSC 1300 CRN 21846 both taught by Guerra.

To enjoy the virtual concert, please see: https://youtu.be/7Ak7AZ5-Vvo

 

This spring, undergraduates Brian Kim, Rohan Muchintala, Owayne Haughton, and their faculty advisors Santanu De, Ph.D. and Arthur Sikora, Ph.D. had their abstract “Novel assessment strategies for biochemistry courses using the research-based Biochemistry Authentic Student Inquiry Lab (BASIL) model” accepted by the South Florida Section American Chemical Society’s Chemical Sciences Symposium, 2020 organized by Larkin University, Miami, FL. Unfortunately, the symposium was cancelled due to COVID-19 shutdown.

Their abstract is as follows:

Recently, many academic units have started implementing Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) to increase student research opportunities. CUREs offer the key advantage of course integration that enables all students to participate in a research project, irrespective of economic or time constraints. A major obstacle hindering further expansion of CUREs centers around the design of assessments. Designing more effective content and assessment tools for this growing group of courses presents unique challenges. New adopters often struggle with important pedagogical decisions while shifting from traditional cookbook biochemistry labs featuring predetermined answers to ones that focus on student-driven discovery demonstrating the scientific method. Nova Southeastern University recently implemented a CURE-based laboratory course using the discovery-based BASIL (Biochemistry Authentic Student Inquiry Lab) model. Students hypothesize and test functions of enzymes with no known function, through wet-lab and computational approaches. Using established Anticipated Learning Outcomes (ALOs) established for BASIL, specific assessment questions were created. Likert scale analysis was employed to analyze responses from students enrolled in the biochemistry course to determine mastery of the ALOs. Identification of deficiencies in understanding permits targeted intervention using lab procedure changes and assessment optimization. The complex nature of ALOs frequently demand diverse assessment design. While assessment tools were tailored according to the varied ALO statements, interesting patterns were observed. Student responses indicated notable improvement in comprehension of bioinformatic concepts by the semester’s end. Several ALOs were detected as areas requiring improvement. This allowed for better designs of experimentation, questionnaire and explanation. Understanding the fundamental problems students face when first entering research will help attract more talented students from diverse backgrounds to vital chemistry/biochemistry courses. This preliminary study can expose undergraduate students to the experience of participation in a research project, guide the transition of ALOs to VLOs (Verified Learning Outcomes), and lead to novel assessment strategies towards standardized adoption of CUREs across educational institutions and curricula, potentially transforming the way chemical sciences are taught. The BASIL project is funded by NSF IUSE 1503811 and 1709170.

 

 

This spring, undergraduates Brian Kim, Rohan Muchintala, Owayne Haughton, and their faculty advisors Santanu De, Ph.D. and Arthur Sikora, Ph.D. had their abstract accepted by the Biennal Conference on Chemical Education, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. Unfortunately, the symposium was cancelled due to COVID-19 shutdown. The title of their abstract is “Design of research-based assessment strategies for a biochemistry CURE using published learning outcomes”.

The Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE) is a national meeting sponsored by the Division of Chemical Education (DivCHED) of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The conference is designed for those who teach chemistry at all levels: K-12, secondary school science teachers, undergraduate students, graduate students and post-secondary chemistry faculty.

The conference provides chemistry educators with opportunities for interacting with colleagues at all levels in formal and informal settings. Instructors who are new to chemistry education and those who have years of teaching experience will find this conference to be an excellent source of materials, techniques and chemistry content.

The course, HIST 4700, Genocide in the 20^th 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