University Times

Joanne Nicoll, associate director, and Carol Washburn, senior instructional designer, at the Center for Instructional Development and Distance Education (CIDDE) received a Greenhouse Exemplary Course Award at the 2007 BbWorld Conference. The award recognizes their online methods of teaching the course, “Allied Health Education.”

The Greenhouse Exemplary Course Award focuses on course design that exemplifies excellence in online teaching and learning. Courses are reviewed by instructional designers and instructional technologists from universities around the world. Only a few courses are recognized annually, and this year just 10 were selected from the 90 courses reviewed for the conference.

“Allied Health Education” is an upper-level online course, delivered via the Blackboard course management system, for students planning to pursue a career in a dental hygiene or other allied health program.

Nicoll originally taught this course in a traditional classroom setting, but later developed it for the online environment with the help of Washburn, who is currently teaching the course.

The course provides the knowledge and skills needed to prepare students for both classroom and clinical teaching. Students learn about components of classroom teaching, such as developing a lesson plan, designing and presenting a lecture and creating test questions. Students will be prepared to implement clinical instruction during the practicum part of this two-course sequence.

Washburn and Nicoll agree, “It is extremely rewarding to be recognized by our peers for following the solid instructional design principles that we value and incorporate into all of our work.”

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Kim Coley, associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics, has been elected as a fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP). Fellowship in ACCP recognizes and rewards the highest levels of excellence in the practice and science of clinical pharmacy. The awarding of fellow status is the highest honor ACCP bestows on its members.

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Ronald J. Zboray, communications professor, and Mary S. Zboray, visiting scholar in communications, were honored this month by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) for winning the Best Journalism and Mass Communication History Book of 2006 Award.

The award-winning book, “Everyday Ideas: Socioliterary Experience Among Antebellum New Englanders,” was published by the University of Tennessee Press in April 2006. The book’s subject spans the late 1820s to the beginning of the Civil War; its central theme is the impact literature had in molding the American Renaissance.

To write “Everyday Ideas,” the Zborays gathered information from more than 4,000 manuscript letters and diaries of factory workers, farmers, clerks, storekeepers, domestics and teachers. The book addresses a wide range of issues from political campaigns and religious controversies to the personal challenges of maintaining ties with separated loved ones.

Seventeen other history books were nominated for this year’s honor.

AEJMC is an international nonprofit, educational association made up of more than 3,500 journalism and mass communication faculty, administrators, students and media professionals.

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Geeta Kothari, lecturer and director of the Writing Center in the English department, has been named fiction editor of the Kenyon Review.

The quarterly literary magazine was first published by Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, in 1939.

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Dorothy J. Hawthorne-Burdine, assistant professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Development at the School of Nursing, will be filling the seat on Senate Council and Faculty Assembly previously held by Judith Kaufmann, formerly of the nursing school, who has left the University.

Under University Senate bylaws, the candidate in the most recent election who received the most votes in a unit without winning a seat is asked to serve out a vacant term in that unit.

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The National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) has presented its First Decade Award to Theresa Colecchia, associate general counsel. The award recognizes university attorneys who have been NACUA members for 10 or fewer years and have made “a significantly innovative contribution, or provided outstanding service, to the association and to the practice of higher education law.”

Colecchia frequently has spoken at NACUA conferences and continuing legal education workshops on issues relating to sponsored research, intellectual property and human subject research. She is the editor of the NACUA compendium, Legal Issues in Sponsored Research Programs: From Contracting to Compliance.

NACUA’s committee on honors called Colecchia the “go-to” person among her colleagues both within and outside of NACUA on the subject of sponsored research.

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The School of Nursing announced a number of faculty awards and honors.

Sandra J. Engberg, chair of health promotion and development, and Mary Beth Happ, acute and tertiary care, each received a 2006-2007 Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Rose Hoffmann, acute and tertiary care, received the 2007 Distinguished Clinical Scholar award for her project, “Incorporating Interdisciplinary Team Collaboration With the School of Nursing.”

Eileen Chasens, faculty member in the Department of Health and Community Systems and coordinator of the accelerated second degree BSN program, received the Sigma Theta Tau Leadership in Nursing Award for Education from Eta Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau.

Elizabeth A. Schlenk, health and community systems, received the Sigma Theta Tau Leadership in Nursing Award for Research from Eta Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau.

Patricia Tuite, acute and tertiary care, received a research award from Sigma Theta Tau, Eta Chapter.

Gail Ratliff Woomer, health and community systems, received the Sigma Theta Tau Leadership in Nursing Award for Fostering Professional Standards from Eta Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau.

Becky A. Sease, health and community systems, is the 2007 Cameos of Caring Nurse Educator Awardee from the Johnstown campus.

Lisa Bernardo was elected to the board of directors of District #6 Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, and was appointed secretary for state benefits and welfare.

Helen K. Burns, associate dean for clinical education and faculty member in health and community systems, was named to the Armstrong County Memorial Hospital board of directors and appointed to the statewide clinical education task force for the Pennsylvania Center for Health Careers.

Willa Doswell, health promotion and development, was one of 50 women from across the state to be awarded the 2006 Role Model Award by the Governor’s Pennsylvania Commission on Women.

She also received a Community Citation of Recognition as one of the 2007 Allegheny County Women of Achievement.

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