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VSU Accolades
Featured
Dr. Robert Bauer Appointed to Brain & Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission
For nearly three months, Valdosta State University’s Dr. Robert Bauer has worked to enhance the lives of those with traumatic injuries as a member of Georgia’s Brain & Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission.
Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Bauer to the commission on July 21 and charged him with helping to create “a Georgia where people with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries are valued, have equal opportunity and real choices.” Of the 16 members on the commission, 10 are governor appointees.
When asked what it means to him to serve, Bauer referenced the commission’s mission statement, asking that it serve as his response and describing it as both comprehensive and eloquent in its succinctness: “The mission of the Brain & Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission is to enhance the lives of Georgians with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries. Read more >
Awards and Honors
Dr. Ruth H. Stonestreet Appointed to National Speech, Language, Hearing Board
Valdosta State University’s Dr. Ruth H. Stonestreet recently returned from a four-day meeting at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) national office in Washington, D.C. The Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders professor serves the association as a member of its Financial Planning Board.
Stonestreet was appointed to a three-year term on the ASHA’s Financial Planning Board on Jan. 1, 2011. Her duties include reviewing the association’s annual budget and the relationship between its Strategic Pathway and its annual budgetary allocations; reviewing the association’s financial status and structure by studying alternate proposals of fiscal management; and making recommendations to the association’s Board of Directors concerning policies, programs and activities consistent with the fiscal responsibilities of the association. Read more>
Theatre Professor Captures National Award and the Hearts of her Students
Theatre and Dance Professor Jacque Wheeler received the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award. Wheeler and nine other inspirational educators were recognized on Sondheim's birthday, March 22, for their extraordinary impact on the lives of students by expanding horizons, challenging deeper understanding, and encouraging achievement. Read more>
Dunn Named FDD Academic Fellow for 2010-11
VSU History Professor Dr. John Dunn was selected Dunn as an Academic Fellow for 2010-11 by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a non-partisan policy institute headquartered in Washington, D.C. He will travel to Israel at the beginning of June for an intensive course about terrorism and, more specifically, democracy’s role in defeating the worldwide terrorist threat. Going to Israel will equip him with background and context to provide his students with a balance of perspective when he addresses conflicts in the Middle East.
The fellows will be in seminars from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., listening to Israeli government officials, police officers, historians and political scientists share their views about Israel’s approach to the “war on terror.” Dunn, who has taught at VSU for the past decade, said he plans to spend his one free day walking well-preserved ruins in the city of Akko (pronounced Acre) -- the site of a famous Egyptian siege in 1831, which is the focus of a conference paper he plans to present in 2011. Clifford May, president of FDD, said educating professors who directly influence the minds of the future is the best way to share various mindsets and approaches to quelling turmoil in this fragile region. Read more>
Grants
Mark Williams, Office of Alcohol & Other Drug Education, received $7,060 young adult program grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. This federal pass-through funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation will be used to provide educational programming to increase awareness of, and compliance with, DUI and underage drinking laws within the VSU and Valdosta communities.
Dr. Denise T. Reid and Dr. Sandra Trowell, Department of Mathematics & Computer Science, received a $1,655 grant from the National Science Foundation/Association of Women in Mathematics to support the 2012 Sonia Kovalevsky Day at VSU. The annual event, which will occur in April 2012 and is the 17th SK Day to be held on the VSU campus. Approximately 85 female high school students will attend and participate in workshops, talks, and problem-solving competitions, with the purpose of encouraging them to continue their study of mathematics.
Dr. Mark Blackmore, Department of Biology, received $65,740 continuation funding from the Lowndes County Board of Health for the project titled West Nile Research for Fiscal Year 2011-2012. Blackmore and his research team sample adult mosquito populations in Valdosta and Lowndes County, determine genus and species of mosquitos collected, and coordinate testing of the samples to determine if the West Nile virus is present.
Jacque Wheeler,Communication Arts Department (theater) received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Arts Education in American Communities program. Peach State Summer Theatre (PSST!), which is housed at VSU, will partner with the Dewar Collage of Education, the Boys and Girls Club, and the South Georgia Regional Library to promote the importance of reading and reading readiness. This will be accomplished through production of the musical, Go, Dog, Go, which is based on a popular children’s book; provision of book copies to area children; and development of a website and lesson plans for their summer reading program. Children attending the musical will have the opportunity to interact with cast members, who will focus their conversations on the importance of reading. Go, Dog, Go performances will occur in early to mid-summer.
Dr. Brian Ring, Department of Biology, received a $6,000 conference award from the National Institutes of Health – Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHHD). The grant will provide travel support for presenters at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SCIB) Mangrove Killifish: Exemplar of Integrative Biology Symposium to be held in Charleston, South Carolina, in January 2012. The mangrove killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) is an emerging model organism for biomedical fields ranging from reproductive and developmental genetics to behavior.
Dr. Gretchen Bielmyer, Department of Biology, was awarded an analytical service agreement with Nova Southeastern University. She will be analyzing heavy metal concentrations in a variety of sponge samples provided by Nova. This activity represents a developing collaboration with researchers at several different universities.
Dr. Bob Gannon, Department of Biology, received continued funding for FY2012 for the project entitled Evaluation of Servier Compounds for Efficacy in Modulating Hamster Circadian Activity Rhythms in the amount of $75,785. This project, funded by Institut de Recherches Servier of Suresnes, France, is now in its fifth year and is providing valuable data for drug development.
Dr. Tom Manning, Department of Chemistry, and Dr. James Nienow, Department of Biology, received a one-year $15,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the project titled Application of Green Technology in the Production of Pharmaceuticals. This National Student Design Competition for Stainability Focusing on People, Prosperity, and the Planet (P3) award implements the principles of green chemistry and will support student research and travel to the 2012 Stainability Expo in Washington, DC.
Dr. David Bechler, Department of Biology, received a two-year federally funded award ($81,568) from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division, for a research project titled The Status of the Blackbanded Sunfish and Other Select Species in the State of Georgia. Bechler and a graduate research assistant will assess the status and vegetated aquatic habitat structures of this endangered species and five other species of concern.
Dr. J. Mitchell Lockhart, Department of Biology, received a research award from the U.S. Department of Defense, Army Corps of Engineers for the project titled Gopher Tortoise Management Support at Moody AFB, Georgia. Gopher tortoises, which live on land and dig burrows in sandy soils, are a federally protected species. This five-year, $78,434 project involves continued collection and analysis of demographic information to facilitate better management of the gopher tortoise populations and habitat on Moody Air Force Base.
Brian Day, Department of Communication Arts, received funding ($4,200) for continued operation of Metro Valdosta Channel 17 in Fiscal Year 2012. Channel 17 is the local government access channel that brings news of local and regional meetings and activities to the general public.
Dr. Dorothy Dye, Division of Social Work/My Friends House Alzheimer’s Day Care (ADC) Center, and Dr. Marty Giddings, Division of Social Work, received funding ($64,002) for continued operation of the Center in Fiscal Year 2012. Funds received from the South Georgia Regional Commission, Area Agency on Aging, will allow provision of 5,000 hours of adult day care services for approximately 30 individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia in the Valdosta/Lowndes and Brooks County area. The ADC Center also provides hands-on training opportunities for MSW students.
James Holland, College of Nursing, received a STEPS doctoral scholarship from Georgia State University. Holland’s dissertation is titled Factors which Influence Adult Asthma Self-Management and involves collection of data on as asthma knowledge, health literacy, social support, asthma self-efficacy, asthma self-management, medication adherence, asthma control, sleep quality, and quality of life.
Publications
Professor's Book on Radio in the Movies Published
What began as a presentation about radio in film at a conference has led VSU Associate Professor Dr. Laurence Etling to have his first book published. Radio in the Movies: A History and Filmography, 1926-2010 was recently published by McFarland & Company, Inc., a leading publisher of non-fiction and academic books.
A former disc jockey for more than 15 years, Etling became interested in movies that featured radio stations and DJs a few years ago. His curiosity led him to research how many movies actually included radio for more than a year. Read more>
Dr. Susan Wehling published "Post script" about the community practicum program ten years later and also enjoyed the first and only reprint of an earlier article "Service-Learning and Foreign Language Acquisition: Working with the Migrant Community," in Dimension 2011 of the Southern Council of Language Teachers, ed. by Carol Wilkerson and Peter Swanson. Wehling said, "Our community practicum outreach program is a national model and currently in vogue as the second language acquisition field delves into the development of cultural competency."
Dr. David Buehrer, professor of English, recently published an article titled "Garcia Marquez's 'Partial Magic': One Hundred Years of Solitude in Nabokov's Wonderland" in the anthology Critical Insights on One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Carcia Marquez, Ed. Ilan Stavans. Pasadena, CA: Salem P, 2011. 144-68.
VSU student Lacey Taylor, authored an essay titled, “It’s Not Just a Bike,” which was chosen for publication by textbook publisher Bedford-St. Martin’s Press for the ninth edition of The Bedford Guide for College Writers. The essay will appear as a sample student essay in the chapter titled, “Proposing a Solution.” Taylor’s essay was written during fall 2008 as an assignment for her ENGL 1101 class. Her instructor, Roy Pace, asked students to propose a solution to a problem students faced. Her essay suggests ways to protect bicycles on campus. Impressed by her essay, Pace suggested Taylor, who is a third-year student majoring in Mass Media, submit the article for publication.
Dr. Len Weld, department head for accounting and finance, published an article titled, “The Battle over the Current Deduction of Takeover Defense Expenses Continues,” in the April edition of Taxes – The Tax Magazine.
The Journal of Real Estate Literature will publish an article, titled "A Review of Service Quality Research in Real Estate," which was authored by Dr. Tim Reisenwitz, marketing professor, and Dr. Vicky Seiler, John Hopkins University.