Tag: Fischler College of Education & School of Criminal Justice

Education Professor Earns Recognition from Guinness World Records

Professor Hui Huang Fang Su

Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice Professor Hui Huang Fang Su has earned a new accolade: recognition from Guinness World Records.

Su was recently named as one of Chapter 23’s Positive Change Makers in the World 2023.

The chapter focuses on 23 influential people from various fields who are making a difference in the world. Su, one of two people selected from the United States, was recognized for her contributions to the field of education.

Learning of the accolade, Su said she was shocked but honored. She traveled to London for a ceremony, where she accepted the award and got to speak at the House of Parliament.

Su was recognized for her work as the creator of Project MIND: Math is Not Difficult, which helps eliminate the fear of math and make learning fun and more accessible.

While in London, Su met professors from other universities, one of the advisers to King Charles II and British politician Bob Blackman.

Posted 02/05/24

Fischler Grad is First Black Woman to Serve in School’s Faculty Senate

Latonya Peterson, Ed.D.

Latonya Peterson, Ed.D., a Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice graduate, is the first black woman to serve in the faculty senate at Baker University.

She was recently elected for a second term to the two-year position. Peterson learned she made history shortly after she had been elected for her first term.

She said she received an email that said, “Thanks for making history” and when she inquired about it, she learned she was the first black woman in that role.

“It means a lot because it means I’m breaking barriers,” Peterson said.

The overall senate is made up of nine members, but Peterson is the only minority. There also only two other women serving as well.

Members of the faculty senate have a host of duties, including making recommendations regarding admissions criteria, degree requirements, new majors and more, serving as the policy body for programs and courses through the School of Professional and Graduate Studies and much more.

Peterson said her last term went well and the senate was able to accomplish a lot. One area they looked at was recruitment and making it easier for students to transfer to the school.

“We did vote on making it easier to transfer, you know, making sure we accept certain transfer credits, because the students have done the work and it shouldn’t be that hard for them to transfer,” she said.

Peterson said she hopes to build upon her previous success during this next term.

Peterson graduated from NSU with her M.S. in Criminal Justice, and her Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership. In addition to serving on the Faculty Senate at Baker University, she also teaches there as an adjunct professor with the Criminal Justice Program and the Master of Business Administration Program. Peterson is also a full-time Criminal Justice professor at American InterContinental University.

Congratulations Latonya Peterson! Fins up to you for making history!

Posted 01/14/24

Education Alum Named Finalist for STEAM Educator of Year

A Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice graduate has been named a finalist for STEAM Educator of the Year for Women in Technology.

Marquita Blades

Marquita Blades graduated from NSU with her doctorate in Instructional Leadership. After working as a teacher for 16 years, she began her own education consulting business. She also teaches classes at NSU as an adjunct professor.

However, Blades said that it wasn’t until she left the K-12 classroom that she finally began to win awards for her work, and most recently, her dedication to education earned her a nomination as STEAM Educator of the Year.

“It felt a little bit unbelievable,” Blades said. “It really felt like that after 20-plus years in the game, I am finally getting my just-rewards, and finally having my dedication validated in the broader community, and it’s not just within the education community, it’s in the broader STEM community.”

Blades was nominated by a friend and colleague for the recognition.

“She said, Well, I think that you’ll be a great fit for this, I think you’d have a good chance of being recognized.’”

The colleague’s hunch proved to be correct, as Blades made it to the final round, something that she has heard is unheard of for a first-time nominee.

The event was held in October in Atlanta, and the overall award was given to Dr. Hannah Oldham. However, the acknowledgment has propelled Dr. Blades to continue working in the field and to amplify her voice.

“When I got recognized by the Women in Technology, it just empowered me to become more vocal about the technology work that I am doing,” she said.

Blades works as a consultant training teachers on various aspects of STEM education. She also conducts a seminar called the 50 Best Tech Tools and Strategies for Increasing Science Engagement. She also recently developed and launched an AI tools for a science teachers training.

“I’ve been working to advocate for the presence of K through 12 science educators to become more vocal and more seen in the legislative community, but this — being recognized in this way by the Women in Technology — it has given me a bigger platform and a bigger voice to do more of that.”

Congratulations Marquita Blades on all your hard work!

Posted 01/14/24

Several Fischler Professors Named Dooley Trust Recipients

The Robert E. Dooley Trust NSU Center for Autism Endowment Fund was set up to help fund and support NSU programs that benefit individuals with autism, and several professors at the Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice have been named as recipients of the award.

Among the recipients of the award are Maribel Del Rio-Roberts and Timothy Scala, along with a project involving Dana Scott Mills.

Mills will serve as the methodologist/statistics person on a project titled “Measuring rehabilitation health services access and use among emerging adults on the autism spectrum: A pilot study.”

The study aims to “develop and test a questionnaire for the measurement of rehabilitation access and utilization among emerging adults with autism spectrum disorder.”

Overall, the goal is to understand the challenges young people with autism spectrum disorder face, and how rehabilitation services can help improve their health and quality of life.

Scala and Del Rio-Roberts also received funding for a project titled, “A Training Program to Support Faculty & Staff Working with Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Higher Education.

Both Del Rio-Roberts and Scala are serving as PIs for the project. The aim of this program is to provide comprehensive training to “selected NSU staff who may encounter a student with ASD, so they can more effectively provide support.”

The program also aims to provide training to faculty and public safety officers as well. The training will be provided through psychoeducation and Mursion simulation activities.

Del Rio-Roberts also received the award for a project supporting Access Plus. The effort, titled “Supporting a Comprehensive College Support Program for Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

Access Plus is a program at NSU that offers various supporting services to students with autism spectrum disorder throughout their college career. Funds from the Dooley Trust are now being used to support and cover the fees associated with the program.

Congratulations to all!

Posted 01/10/24

Teachers of Tomorrow Conference Planned for Jan. 13

The NSU Teachers of Tomorrow Conference – presented in collaboration with the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice, the Fischler Academy Pre-Professional Committee, the BEDI Advisory Council, the Alan B. Levan Center for Innovation, and the Alvin Sherman Library – will be held Saturday, Jan. 13, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Alan B. Levan Center.

The conference is designed to empower future and current educators to learn about equity in technology and education and is open to future educators, school leaders, faculty of higher education, entrepreneurs, professionals in the education sector, and the NSU community.

Top tier speakers including Tanya Avrith, Monica Burns, Holly Clark, Greg Griffith, Joan McGettigan, Ken Shelton, Victoria Thompson, and Jen Williams will lead discussions and workshops on how to harness the power of technology in the classroom. They will talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and other exciting new tech solutions designed to enhance the teaching experience equitably. There will also be special workshops on various topics including Microsoft Certification 1, UN Sustainable Development Goals, Techequity: DEIJ in Education, AI and Education, Book Creator and AI, Infusing Tech in ESE, UDL, and AI in your Classroom.

Participation is free and registration is now open! To view the conference schedule and library guide created for this event, please click here. To register for the conference, please click here.

Posted 01/03/24

NSU Receives Approval by Top University Accrediting Body

Dr. Belle Wheelan, President of SACSCOC with NSU President and CEO George L. Hanbury II

Nova Southeastern University received notification from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) that our Fifth-Year Interim Report has been successfully accepted with no additional reporting requested.

SACSCOC is the body for the accreditation of degree-granting higher education institutions in the Southern states. It serves as the common denominator of shared values and practices primarily among the diverse institutions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Latin America and certain other international sites approved by the SACSCOC Board of Trustees that award associate, baccalaureate, master’s, or doctoral degrees.

The Commission also accepts applications for membership from domestic institutions in the other 39 states, as well as international institutions of higher education around the world.

Congratulations to all for this recognition of NSU as a preeminent university of quality and distinction!

Posted 12/05/23

FY2025 PRG and QOL Grant Cycles Now Open

The FY 2025 President’s Research Grant (PRG), formerly the Presidents Faculty Research Development Grant (PFRDG), and Quality of Life (QOL) grant cycles are now open! This year the application process will take place on Cayuse Sponsored Projects, NSU’s new grant management system. Applications are due via Cayuse no later than January 22, 2024, 5:00 p.m.. More information, as well as application instructions, can be found on the PRG and QOL websites, linked below. Through these programs, eligible faculty may apply for internal grants of up to $15,000 in support of a variety of research and scholarly activities. PRG and QOL are tremendous opportunities to obtain support for research and scholarship at NSU, and to build faculty research capacity that can be leveraged toward external funding pursuits.

For more information about how to apply and program guidelines, visit the PRG program website here and the QOL website here. For questions, please contact PRG@nova.edu or QOL@nova.edu.

Posted 12/10/23

Education Professor Publishing New Edition of Textbook

Simonson

Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice Professor Michael Simonson, Ph.D., is publishing a new edition of the textbook “Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education.

This will be the eighth edition of the book. Simonson published the first version of the textbook after recognizing there was a future for distance learning back in 1999. When he tried searching for a textbook that could be used at the university level, he came up empty-handed, so he decided to write one himself.

“I put together a team of three in addition to myself and we collaboratively wrote the first edition of Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education,” Simonson said.

Simonson said the book is a best seller in the field.

“It has been in existence in one edition or another for [over 20] years … It’s a book that will give people the background they need, an understanding of what distance education is, what the research and theories are, and then practical information so they can be effective educators at a distance.”

This latest edition of the book focuses on applied research while balancing the theories of teaching and learning that relate to using technology to reach students at a distance.

Simonson said he worked with the Alvin Sherman Library here at NSU to get the edition ready for publishing.

“I had a reference librarian who helped with the references, helped me make sure my citations were done correctly, and she was right there virtually by my side,” he said. “Her name is Melissa Johnson and she was excellent in helping me.”

The book is set to be released next year.

Congratulations on all your heard work Professor Simonson!

Posted 11/26/23

Fischler Alum Named Teacher of Year for S.C. School District

Haley Taylor

Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice graduate Haley Taylor has recently been named Teacher of the Year for the Florence One School District in South Carolina.

Taylor graduated from NSU with her Ed.S. in Instructional Leadership and has been teaching in South Carolina for 12 years. In Florence, she was selected among 26 other schools in the district and named Teacher of the Year. The principal for her school was also named Principal of the Year.

“It was pretty fun leading up to it, just the excitement, just the energy of it, because it’s a long process. And it’s a pretty prestigious process here in Florence 1, and so it was it was a great experience,” she said.

Taylor is no stranger to accolades for her hard work. She has been named Teacher of the Year on the school level three times. However, this is her first time earning the title on the district level. The next step is the Teacher of the Year contest on the state level. For that process, she has met with the winners of other South Carolina school districts to discuss issues impacting education in their respective districts.

In addition to working as a teacher, Taylor works as a mentor/coach. One of the issues she said she’s noticed in her time was that teacher retention within the first five years was low. She is now considering ways to help teachers feel supported.

“Everybody probably agrees that you deserve more pay, but we thought about how we can better support these teachers, what do they need outside of financial sources to get them to stay to make them feel good and make them feel supported.”

Taylor said the degree she got from NSU helped prepare her to be a coach for other teachers.

“[The degree] was a perfect segue for being an in-class leader to now being able to step in and mentor and help younger teachers coming in.”

Congratulations Haley! Fins up to you!

Posted 11/05/23

Two-time NSU Alum Publishes Children’s Book

Anysh Girdhari

A two-time graduate from NSU is now a published children’s book author.

Anysh Girdhari is a graduate from both the Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice with her M.H.S. in Child Protection and from the Huizenga College of Business with her M.S. in Business Administration. In her day job, she works as a counselor, but she recently shifted gears a bit and wrote a book titled “Adventures at Grandma Bahamas.”

The story is based on the life of Girdhari’s own son, Chatoen, and describes how he would spend summers with his grandmother (Girdhari’s mother) in the Bahamas and learn different life skills.

Girdhari said she was inspired to write the book while working in psychiatric hospitals and how when doing evaluations, she noticed deficits in nutrition and exercise. She hopes to use the story to teach people about the benefits of living well.

“We hear that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but we need to go more intrinsic and really apply it and add good habits,” she said. “People see therapists for habits, habit building, habit stacking, and not only just building but also eliminating as well.”

Girdhari also wanted to create more representation for children of color.

“We don’t really see much representation of black and brown,” she said. “And there’s so much out here to attract young women or young girls, and there’s not much for our boys.”

There are currently two other books in the works that will follow Chatoen in Italy and a third that will take place in Florida. Girdhari also said she is considering animating the book, and even shifting her focus to media and producing programs that spread awareness about mental health.

“That’s my thing,” she said. “I just love helping people to understand and communicate in a clearer way.”

Girdhari is aiming to complete the other two books by spring 2024.

Posted 10/08/11

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