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October 4, 2024
A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
by Brynn Boyer
by Brynn Boyer
Since August, UMW faculty members have received more than $350,000 in external grant funding.
Patricia Reynolds, assistant professor in the College of Education, received $174,787.20 from the Virginia Department of Education to deliver graduate level courses in differentiated instruction across the curriculum for English language learners. The grant provides tuition support for teachers who enroll in the courses, covers the costs of textbooks, and also covers all costs related to offering the classes at two off-campus locations (in Norfolk and Stafford County). The award covers both the fall and spring semester offerings of the course in 2012-2013. This is now nine times that UMW has received a grant from the VDOE to provide the differentiated instruction courses.
David Toth, assistant professor of computer science, has received two awards from XSEDE, an online distributed virtual organization. Toth is collaborating with faculty at Merrimack College on two separate projects: “Identifying Inhibitors that Prevent the Complexation of HIV-1 Tat•P-TEFb thus Blocking HIV Replication” and “Identifying Inhibitors of the Fungal Virulence Factor Cbp1.” The projected value of the computing time for the first project is $34,500, and the value for the second project is $114,278.
Norah Hooper, professor in the College of Education, received $30,858 from the Virginia Department of Education to develop a “Traineeship for Education of Special Education Personnel for Regions 3 and 4.” This is the third such grant award for her. The grant provides support for a minimum of 12 teachers who hold provisional licenses in Special Education: General Curriculum to complete all or part of the coursework and field experiences required for full licensure. Participants will receive tuition support and will be connected with fully licensed mentors in their schools. The mentors will receive stipends and training in effective mentoring techniques.
Lynn Lewis, professor of biology, is supervising her student Ryan Green’s research on “A Study of Chloroquine’s Antiretroviral Characteristics.” The Virginia Academy of Science made a $500 award in support of this undergraduate research project.
For more information on external grant activity this semester, read the most recent issue of the provost’s newsletter.
by Brynn Boyer
The Office of the Provost recently announced the faculty members who have been selected for sabbatical leaves and Jepson Fellowships for the 2013-2014 academic year. Eleven faculty members were awarded sabbatical leaves for all or part of the 2013-2014 academic year to pursue a research or other professional development project. Two other faculty members received sabbatical awards that have been deferred to the 2014-2015 academic year. Finally, another three faculty members will spend the next academic year as Jepson Fellows with a half-time teaching load while they pursue a research project that has particular and direct application to their teaching.
The Board of Visitors approved the sabbatical awards at the November meeting.
2013-2014 sabbatical recipients and project statements:
Elizabeth Larus and Emile Lester, both from the Department of Political Science and International Affairs, are recommended for sabbaticals that have been deferred to the 2014-2015 academic year. Larus’ project, “U.S. Reengagement in the Western Pacific: Implications for Security in the Asia-Pacific,” and Lester’s project, “Liberalism and Leadership: What Qualifies As a Successful Liberal Presidency?” are both full-year projects.
Jepson Fellows and titles of their projects for 2013-2014 are:
by Brynn Boyer
John P. Broome, assistant professor in curriculum & instruction and director of secondary education and preK-12 education in the College of Education, was spotlighted in the latest edition of Keying In, a publication of the National Business Education Association (NBEA). This publication showcased how and why professors from around the country used the “flipped classroom” (or reverse teaching) model in their instruction.
For Broome, the answer was more than incorporating engaging technology. It was to address his enabling of students to not complete their course readings. In his opinion, the more educators summarize readings (instead of clarify), fewer students read and more fake and “do college.”
Excerpt from the article:
“John Broome flipped his classroom to solve a problem. But Broome’s issue was ideology, not logistics—class time was consumed with summarizing course readings. This left little time for content application, but more importantly, few opportunities for guiding students’ critical thinking abilities. He felt his courses were missing their potential.
‘Those who do the work do the learning. Summarizing content for them takes the thinking away from them,’ he says. ‘Too many educators might be enabling this.’
Broome compiled a list of resources students could use to prep for class: readings and videos from education associations, professional learning communities, and other universities. Before class, students took online quizzes to assess what they’d learned.
Class time was freed up for applying new knowledge while Broome provided guidance, initiated reflective discussions, and aided students. The less he talked, the more he got to know his students and the more he was able to provide personalized instruction and feedback. ‘My students were very receptive to more individual attention and help with activities,’ he says. ‘It made my classes more personable and productive.’
And because Broome refused to enable students, they began taking more responsibility for content and more risks with it, in a safe learning environment.
‘Not all students learn best at the same time. [By flipping the classroom] learning new content isn’t constrained to an artificial class time,’ he says. ‘Students can approach learning when their brains are available to process new information. It provides them with ownership of learning when [the time] is best for them.’
This year Broome received a grant from his university to begin making his own videos and other digital resources. ‘This takes a lot of time and dedication,’ he says, ‘but this way my students get the most out of my courses.’”
Dr. Broome is currently in the second UMW Online Learning Initiative cohort and learning new software and skills to continue to “flip” his education courses.
by Brynn Boyer
Bob Greene and Margaret Mi of the College of Business wrote a manuscript, “Systems Model for Teaching the Human Resource Management Process,” which was accepted for presentation at the Society of Business Research conference in Nashville, Tenn. Margaret Mi presented the paper which will appear in the conference proceedings. The manuscript has been submitted to the Journal of Human Resource Education for publication.
by Brynn Boyer
Yuan-Jen Chiang, professor of mathematics, has a research article “f-biharmonic Maps between Riemannian Manifolds” published in the Journal of Geometry and Symmetry in Physics. The article was presented at the 14th International Conference in Geometry, Integrability and Quantization organized by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Varna.
by Brynn Boyer
Allison Seay, faculty member in the English department at the University of Mary Washington, has been named a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in poetry for 2013. The $25,000 award will allow Seay, a 2002 graduate of Mary Washington, to work on a second collection of poetry. Her first book of poetry, “To See the Queen,” is scheduled for publication in March 2013.
Seay was one of 40 poets chosen from more than 1,100 applicants. The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded creative writing fellowships since 1967, providing writers the time and freedom to pursue their work.
For more information on Seay’s award, read the full news release from Nov. 3o.
by Brynn Boyer
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the university’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, is coauthor of a refereed journal article entitled, “Event-Driven Environmental News in the US and Canada,” published in the current issue of Electronic Media and Politics. The article grew out of a research project that originated during Dr. Farnsworth’s time as a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar at McGill University in Montreal.
by Brynn Boyer
For the second time in three years, Leigh Frackelton, professor in the College of Business, was recognized as a “Super CPA” Educator by the Virginia Society of CPAs (VSCPA). Every year, Virginia Business Magazine partners with the VSCPA to highlight Virginia’s top CPAs for their important contributions to the profession and the Commonwealth. An official ballot is sent to all Virginia CPAs asking them to identify the names of peers they consider to be the best at their craft, and again, Leigh Frackelton was one of nine educators selected.
by Brynn Boyer