Category: Health Care

During the Winter/Summer 2020 semesters, NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) faculty and graduate students and Writing and Communication Center (WCC) consultants partnered with House of Hope and Stepping Stones to launch the “Stepping Stones: Women Empowerment Series” outreach program. House of Hope’s mission is to help men and women in need of treatment for substance abuse get the assistance they require to be successful in the community.

The four-part series was created to aid in improving individuals’ personal and professional lives by introducing different forms of literacy practices in effort to best support the recovery process. The outreach was led by WCC faculty coordinator Kelly Conncannon (CAHSS School of Communication, Media and the Arts associate professor); Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media graduate students and WCC graduate assistant coordinators, Nicole Chavannes and Sabrina Louissaint; and WCC undergraduate consultants, Mikayla Ruiz (Human Development and Family Studies), Joy Oni (Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences Speech, Language, and Communication), and Patricia Linoz (College of Psychology).

The series began in January 2020 and the January and February workshops took place on site at the Stepping Stones rehabilitation facility in Wilton Manors, FL. With in-person meetings halted due to COVID-19, the outreach continued virtually through Zoom during the latter half of the winter. April and May workshops ran through the virtual platform and allowed the participants and facilitators to still engage and create an impact with the content they provided.

“This experience has been empowering and meaningful. The impact has been reciprocal, because not only have we worked to inspire and support the women, but they have also taught us a lot, simply through their growth and perseverance. I am immensely grateful to be a part of this group of women supporting other women,” said Louissaint.

The workshops covered the following topics:

January 29th, 2020: Find your “Why” –Setting Professional and Personal Goals

Reflective Writing and Mindset

Reflection is itself an active thinking process—you have to be in the moment to be able to reflect well. Participants will discuss the importance of a reflective mindset, learn tips for reflective writing, and have the opportunity to create personal and professional goals relying on visual literacies

February 26th, 2020: Embody Love

Participants learned to use literacies and mindfulness to improve wellness, drawing on the Embody Love Movement (https://www.embodylovemovement.org/), which  is intended to empower girls and women to celebrate their inner beauty. The mission of the workshop was to use writing, reading, speaking and movement to build self-approval and cultivate compassion for themselves and others

April 29th, 2020: Mindfulness and Mindset

Participants learned about different ways to journal, as a therapeutic outlet that encourages reflection. The importance of knowing how to channel your energy, whether it be through the use of writing, or protecting your energy, and making this into their daily practice. Participants also engaged in freewriting.

May 27, 2020: Moving forward

Participants had the opportunity to workshop their resume/CVs and other professional documents. In conjunction with House of Hopes missions to help individuals maintain stable employment, participants learned how to identify and articulate their skills, strengths, and experiences. The facilitators discussed the difference between hard and soft skills, and what professional development means

To view the NSU Current’s article “We are in the business of second chances:” NSU’s partnership with House of Hope,” spotlighting the project:

https://nsucurrent.nova.edu/2020/02/25/we-are-in-the-business-of-second-chances-nsus-partnership-with-house-of-hope/

 

 

 

 

 

Three faculty coordinators and eleven graduate and undergraduate student consultants from NSU’s Writing and Communication Center (WCC) presented on nine panels at the 2020 Southeastern Writing Center Association (SWCA) conference. The conference was hosted by University of Alabama-Birmingham in Birmingham, AL, Feb. 20-22. The 2020 SWCA Conference was attended by over 200 participants and featured 63 presentations from over 50 institutions.

From the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, the following individuals presented at the conference:

• School of Communication, Media, and the Arts (and WCC faculty coordinators), Kelly Concannon (Associate Professor), Eric Mason (Associate Professor), and Janine Morris (Assistant Professor)
• Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (CRDM) graduate students (and WCC graduate assistant coordinators), Monique Cole, Ricky Finch, Jordan Guido, Sabrina Louissaint, Danielle Pierce, ‘Aolani Robinson, Carlos Rodriguez Rosa
• CRDM graduate student (and WCC consultant), Angelica Zadak,
• Human Development and Family Studies undergraduate student (and WCC consultant), Mikayla Ruiz.

 

From the Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences, B.S. in Speech-Language and Communications undergraduate student (and WCC consultant), Joy Oni presented.

From the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography, Biology undergraduate student (and WCC consultant), Melissa Vas-Ayez presented.

“Since attending SWCA the past three years, I have been able to network with people I would not have normally met and expanding on those relationships has been a great experience. This conference has exposed me to new writing center research and it has been useful to take what we have learned to strengthen our center,” Ricky Finch.

To learn more about the NSU Writing and Communication Center, visit https://www.nova.edu/wcc/

 

About the Panels

“Changing the Culture: Serving Exceptional Students in the Writing Center” (Joy Oni and Mikayla Ruiz)

This workshop discussed ways writing center consultants can interact with and perceive individuals with exceptional cases, such as autism.

“Digital Wasteland: Rethinking Multimodality in the Writing Center” (‘Aolani Robinson)

The workshop explored strategies for working with writers who bring multimodal assignments, such as PowerPoints and  infographics to the Writing Center for assistance.

“Expanding Inclusive Praxis: Toward an Everyday Queering of the Writing Center” (Jordan Guido and Carlos Rodriguez Rosa)

This workshop focused on how to better include queer identities in our current praxis.

“For the Expanding Ensemble: Create Connections in a Growing Writing Center with Improv” (Angelica Zadak)

This workshop focused on how to build connections within growing writing centers through the use of improv games and techniques.

“Game On: Designing a Digital Badging System for Consultant Training and Professional Growth” (Eric Mason and Ricky Finch)

This poster presentation focused on the idea that writing centers do not simply train consultants to work with student authors. Instead, they guide consultants’ professionalism and success throughout their academic careers and beyond.

“Graduate Students, Mentorship, and the Affective Dimensions of Writing Center Administrative Work” (Janine Morris and Kelly Concannon)

This presentation examined the preliminary results of a study of graduate student administrative mentoring relationships in writing centers.

“Growing a Writing Center via Course-Embedded Consultant Programming, Part I: Connecting to First-Year Composition Courses” (Russell Carpenter Ph.D., Eastern Kentucky University; Danielle Pierce; Ricky Finch)

This (first of a two-part) panel explored how two SWCA-based writing centers have experienced substantial growth through the creation of course-embedded consultant (a.k.a., writing fellows) programming that targets first-year composition courses.

“Growing a Writing Center via Course-Embedded Consultant Programming, Part II: Connecting to First-Year Biology Courses” (Russell Carpenter; Clint Stivers, Eastern Kentucky University; Kelly Concannon; Melissa Vaz-Ayes)

This (second of a two-part) panel explored how two SWCA-based writing centers have experienced substantial growth through the creation of course-embedded consultant (CEC; a.k.a., writing fellows) programming that targets first-year biology courses.

“Linked-In’ to the Writing Center” (Sabrina Louissaint and Monique Cole)

This workshop focused on how writing center administrators and consultants can effectively use LinkedIn to grow their writing centers.

 

Vlad Beljanski, Ph.D., an NSU Cell Therapy Institute scientist in the Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine won a supplement award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Achieving diversity in the biomedical research workforce is critical to the biomedical research advancement as more diverse teams capitalize faster on innovative ideas and distinct perspectives. NIH provides financial support to principal investigators with current NIH funding by providing a salary support for trainees in order to improve the diversity of the research workforce. Therefore, NIH supports recruitment and supports students, postdoctorates, and eligible investigators from groups that have shown to be underrepresented in health-related research. Using this opportunity from NIH, Dr. Beljanski secured funding for a graduating NSU student,  Andres Irausquin, who will work on part of the project entitled “Modulation of therapeutic cells exosome content by autophagy.”

Irausquin recently graduated from NSU with a double major in Biology and Behavioral Neuroscience. He will be working for one year in Dr. Beljanski’s laboratory where he will be learning skills required to become a distinguished medical researcher, possibly in the field of neurology, immunology, or pathology. Irausquin’s long-term goal is to establish his own laboratory in a university or a research hospital as a medical researcher, discovering and applying new treatments and cures for previously untreatable or incurable genetic, infectious, autoimmune, or neurodegenerative diseases. In Dr. Beljanski’s laboratory, Irausquin will have the opportunity to gain experience and insight in the fields of molecular medicine and immunology. Moreover, he will also be able to observe how laboratories are managed and maintained. This experience will help Irausquin become more competitive when applying to medical schools and will broaden his future career opportunities.