Category: SharkBytes

CAHSS Alum Selected as the Director of Believe Greater Dalton Education Partnerships

Stephani Womack, M.S., 2014 graduate of the master’s program in College Student Affairs in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), is the Director of Believe Greater Dalton Educational Partnerships, in Dalton, GA. In this position, Womack builds bridges across the school systems and strengthens partnerships with higher education. This provides students with opportunities for success at every step along their educational journey. Believe Greater Dalton is a five-year strategic plan focusing on strategies to improve the community.

Prior to this appointment, Womack held several positions at Dalton State College, including Assistant Director of Career and Professional Development, Assistant Director of Orientation, and Coordinator of Orientation and Leadership. In addition to her master’s degree from NSU, Womack earned a B.S. from Michigan State University.

Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Median – Randy S, Katz, D.O

Randy S, Katz, D.O, (’99), FACEP, serves as chairman of emergency medicine at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, and actively lectures on a variety of topics in emergency medicine. He is also the medical director for the City of Hollywood Fire Rescue and Beach Safety.

Having practiced emergency medicine in Broward County for the past 15 years, Katz has been instrumental in improving the delivery of cardiac arrest care, stroke care, and disaster preparedness in South Florida. Additionally, he has served as a clinical professor for multiple institutions, including Florida Atlantic University School of Medicine and NSU’s Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Katz holds appointed leadership positions in numerous organizations, including the Broward County Trauma Quality Improvement Committee, Memorial Regional Hospital Medical Executive Committee, Broward Stroke Council, Florida Association of EMS Medical Directors, and American College of Emergency Medicine EMS subcommittee. He has published many peer reviewed articles.

Active in the community, Katz has served on the board of The 3G Project, a charitable Organization dedicated to providing a lifeline to teenagers in the foster care system in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an active member of the EMS community.

KPCOM Faculty Members Provides Milestone Lecture

Alison C. Bested, M.D., FRCPC, director of student research development and chair of integrative medicine at the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine, piloted a milestone achievement on August 19 when she presented the inaugural lecture on myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) to osteopathic medical students. According to Bested, only 15 percent of patients are diagnosed and treated for ME/CFS, mainly because ME/CFS is a newly recognized disease that isn’t taught in most medical school curricula.

“Providing lectures to medical students will spread information about ME/CFS in the medical community. It will give patients a better opportunity to receive the correct ME/CFS diagnosis, begin treatment sooner, and have better long-term outcomes using the clinical diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS,” Bested said. “It will also support diagnosed patients in the community by empowering knowledgeable physicians to provide supportive symptomatic care to severely ill and bedridden ME/CFS patients.

CAHSS Alum is Director of Orientation Programs at Purdue University

Craig Johnson, M.S.Craig Johnson, M.S., 2015 graduate of the College Student Affairs master’s program in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) currently serves as the Director of Orientation Programs at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. As Director, he oversees the development and execution of online and on-campus welcome programs for incoming undergraduate students. For the fall of 2018, orientation programs at Purdue University welcomed over 8,600 students, the largest in Purdue’s 150-year history.

Outside of Purdue, he is an active member of the Association for Orientation, Transition and Retention in Higher Education (NODA) at the national and regional levels. In 2018, Johnson was recognized as the NODA Outstanding New Professional for Region VII (Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and the province of Ontario), and next spring, he will serve as host for NODA’s 2020 Region VII Conference held at Purdue.  Johnson also serves as a member of the Leadership Operations Projects Team (LOPT) for the Barbershop Harmony Society, a music organization with 22,000 members across North America and affiliated men’s and women’s organizations in more than a dozen countries. As a member of the LOPT, he works closely with a group of Leadership Facilitators who help active BHS chapters align organizational goals to their program and community impacts through a series of active facilitation practices.  Inside and outside of work, conflict analysis and facilitation strategies are critical to the success of his teams and others. “I often reflect back on strategies learned in my time at NSU, and see myself opening doors for others into the conflict, mediation, and facilitation communities.”   Prior to earning his M.S. from NSU, Johnson earned a B.A.A. in Organizational Communication from Central Michigan University. He has been at Purdue University since July 2015.

Halmos Alumna Featured by Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative

At the beginning of August 2019, Halmos M.S. alumna Nina Pruzinsky and her research were featured by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). As a master’s student in marine biology, Ms. Pruzinsky examined the abundance, distribution, and morphological characteristics of larval and juvenile tunas (family Scombridae) and identified primary drivers of their distribution to help fill this gap and inform future management and conservation efforts.

The research took place in the research laboratory of Halmos faculty member Tracey Sutton, Ph.D. who leads the DEEPEND Consortium, which is assessing how the Deepwater Horizon oil spill may have damaged the Gulf of Mexico’s little-explored deep-sea ecosystems.

GoMRI’s mission is to investigate the impacts of the oil, dispersed oil, and dispersant on the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico and affected coastal States in a broad context of improving fundamental understanding of the dynamics of such events and their environmental stresses and public health implications.

For more information:http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/grad-student-pruzinsky-uses-morphological-patterns-to-id-young-tuna-for-population-assessments/

Experts Share Knowledge about Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease

In early August, experts from around the Caribbean region met at the Eco-Discovery Centre in Key West to share information on an emerging and unprecedented threat to Caribbean coral reefs posed by a coral disease first documented in Florida and now being reported at sites across the region.

Since 2014, the Florida Reef Tract has been severely impacted by a newly documented coral disease which scientists are calling “Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease” (SCTLD) because it affects only hard stony corals and is characterized by the rapid loss of live coral tissue. The disease has rapidly spread across coral reefs from Palm Beach to the lower Florida Keys and in the last year has been reported elsewhere in the Caribbean, including in Mexico, Jamaica, Sint Maarten, the Dominican Republic, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Belize. Scientists from NOAA and the state of Florida, sanctuary managers and academic partners, including Halmos College researchers Brian Walker, Ph.D. and Karen Neely, Ph.D, have been working to document the outbreak, identify causes and contributing factors, and develop treatments and interventions

The meeting is an initiative of the MPAConnect Network which comprises marine protected area managers in 10 Caribbean countries and territories, working in partnership with the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, with funding from NOAA CRCP and the NFWF Coral Reef Conservation Fund.

CAHSS Faculty was the Plenary Speaker at United Kingdom Association for Solution Focused Practice

Anne Rambo, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Family Therapy (DFT) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) was the plenary speaker at the United Kingdom Association for Solution Focused Practice held in Bath. Rambo’s presentation addressed social justice and solution focused therapy. She also presented a workshop on working with anger. While in the UK, Rambo presented a one-day workshop entitled, “Solution Focused Therapy and Family Therapy- Looking both ways,” for the Cornwall and Plymouth Family Therapy Branch.

Rambo also directs DFT’s master’s and graduate certificate programs and has extensive experience working with at-risk children and families. She has written three books for professionals, and one for parents, as well as numerous book chapters and articles and presents internationally on social justice and family therapy.

Alumni Spotlight: College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences – Michelle Cromwell, M.S.

Michelle Cromwell, M.S. (’01), Ph.D. (’08), is an associate vice president for inclusive excellence and the chief diversity officer at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts. As a member of the college’s President’s Cabinet, Cromwell counsels the president and administrative council on matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Previously at Regis College, Cromwell was an associate professor of politics and social justice, as well as director of the Honors Program from 2010 to 2016. She has also served as the chief diversity officer at The School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. Describing herself as a pracademic, Cromwell says she is a scholar-practitioner who has “one foot in the academe and the other in the community, as a practitioner.”

She was the cofounding executive director at the Massachusetts Peacemaking and Talking Circle Initiative, a nonprofit organization designed to foster conversations about discrimination and racism in schools, nonprofits, and organizations. In addition, Cromwell serves as an independent consultant working with nonprofits, higher-education institutions, corporations, and government entities with an emphasis on conflict resolution, crisis management, and diversity and inclusion.

At Nova Southeastern University, Cromwell earned an M.S. in Dispute Resolution and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution specializing in ethnic conflicts. She earned a B.S. degree in social work at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago in 1998.

Alpha Lambda Rho Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha housed in CAHSS Receives a Best Chapter Award for 2018-2019

Pi Sigma Alpha

The Alpha Lambda Rho chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, housed in the Department of History and Political Science in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) received a Best Chapter Award for 2018-2019 by the national office of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society. It was one of only six chapters nationwide to receive this award.  NSU’s chapter focuses on recognizing and cultivating creative student leaders through both scholarship and service. In addition to being recognized for academic excellence and obtaining the right to wear honor regalia, the chapter received a 2018 Chapter Activity Grant of $675.

Outgoing chapter president Tal Lubarsky stated, “This truly would not have been possible without the department’s help. A special thank you goes to Dr. Edwards, who worked tirelessly to ensure that we were a successful chapter. His enthusiasm and innovative ideas were largely a reason that we were so successful. I can’t wait to see this chapter develop and grow!”

Chapter advisor and DHPS faculty member Ransford F. Edwards Jr., Ph.D., applauded Lubarsky. “Tal has been instrumental in not only founding our chapter, but also in managing its growth and reflects in our chapter. And it reflects well on our University.”  He added the award honors the “enthusiastic, creative, and tireless work of all the student members.”  The incoming chapter president is Daniel Ordaz.

Every summer, Sean Twombly, the Executive Director of Pi Sigma Alpha, spends hours reading Annual Reports from chapters across the country. Twombly states that, “While time consuming, it is always rewarding to see the amazing work chapters are engaged in through the course of the year. I am delighted…that the Alpha Lambda Rho Chapter has been chosen to receive one of Pi Sigma Alpha’s Best Chapter Awards for 2018-2019. These awards are intended to recognize local chapters that are particularly active in their departments and universities and exhibit high levels of energy and creativity in furthering the goals of the honor society.”

For more information, please contact Edwards at 954-262-8205, or via email at redwards@nova.edu

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