Over the fall semester, Catawba College faculty members had papers published or accepted for publication, attended professional conferences and made presentations, and enjoyed achievements outside the college. Details of their accomplishments follow. Dr. Alison Atwater, Assistant Professor of Nursin...
Over the fall semester, Catawba College faculty members had papers published or accepted for publication, attended professional conferences and made presentations, and enjoyed achievements outside the college. Details of their accomplishments follow.
Dr. Alison Atwater, Assistant Professor of Nursing, and Simulation Lab Coordinator, and Dr. Valerie Rakes, Chair and Associate Professor of Nursing
Drs. Atwater (left) and Rakes (right) made a presentation titled “Redesigning Simulation Debriefing Practices of a Pre-licensure Baccalaureate Nursing Program” at the North Carolina Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) Symposium on November 15th.
A summary of the presentation is as follows: Nursing faculty, through simulation with debriefing, have the opportunity to positively influence new graduate nurses’ clinical reasoning (CR). Debriefing following simulation is a time that the student can reflect on the simulated event, deciding what went well, what can be different, what was overseen, their personal performance and other items that are applicable to the scenario. Using a theory-based debriefing model, such as, the Integrated Reflective Debriefing Guide for Promoting Clinical Judgement (IRDG-CJ) is recommended to provide quality, effective simulation and debriefing activities. To ensure simulation and debriefing experiences for nursing students are effective with student growth, it is recommended to use multiple tools, to compliment the theory-based debriefing model. Using the Laster Clinical Judgement Rubric (LCJR) for student assessment, the Atwater Clinical Reasoning Map for Students (ACRMS) for student engagement, and completing debriefing facilitator evaluation with the Debriefing Assessment for Simulation in Healthcare-Rater Version (DASH-RV), the tools were found to be an effective practice for this performance improvement project. The project involved implementing these tools for a rural, moderate nursing program. Using the three tools, faculty participants (N=4) obtained the benchmark set for debriefing evaluation regardless of experience level. Future work is required to note the effectiveness of the ACRMS and CR growth of nursing students.
Ms. Amanda Bosch, Assistant Professor of Education and Digital Pedagogy and Scholarship Librarian
Professor Bosch and her students from Introduction to Teaching and Educational Technology presented Makerspace activities using Little Bits Electrical circuit kits for patron at the Rowan Public Library on November 19th. The patrons created art spinners, used electrical circuits to create working fans, alarms, and lights during the workshop.
She also visited Salisbury High School on November 5th to partner with students there to produce an Augmented Reality (AR) interactive poster to use to pitch their original idea for a video game. The students, working in blended learning groups and participating in an Inclusion English class, used the project to master “hard content” from the standard course of study, as well as “soft skills” required for contemporary learners to be successful in today’s rapidly changing, technology driven, corporate world. The final posters will be showcased in January at a Project Based Learning, community showcase event, and will also be displayed in the Catawba College library for parents and students to view.
Dr. Sheila Brownlow, Chair and Professor of Psychology
Dr. Brownlow was named to the Editorial Board of the journal, “Social Behavior Research and Practice.”
Dr. Aaron Butler, Assistant Professor of English
On September 29th through 30th, Dr. Butler traveled with four students from his Shakespeare and Tudor Drama class to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va., to attend productions at the Blackfriars Playhouse, a re-creation of a Shakespeare-era indoor theatre. He and the students attended performances of Shakespeare’s plays, “As You Like It,” and “King Richard III,” as well as an adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, “Emma.” Students making the trip included Julia Peach, Vanna Christian, Tyler Grant, and Collin Weatherman.
Professor Erin Dougherty, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts
This fall, Professor Dougherty presented and had students participate in a Stage Makeup workshop with high school students at Northwest Cabarrus High School in Cabarrus County, N.C.
Dr. Gary Freeze, Professor of History and American Cultural Studies
At the invitation of the Davidson College Classics Department, Dr. Freeze made a September presentation titled “Hoplites of Above-Ground Tombs: Confederate Monuments in the Piedmont Region” at the first meeting of the fall 2018 term of the Charlotte chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America. His presentation reviewed the motives, methods, and measures taken originally to erect the sentinel statues on courthouse lawns and church cemeteries, from the perspective of these being future objects of archaeological research.
Also in September, at the invitation of the Friends of the Alamance Battlefield, Dr. Freeze made a presentation at Elon University on Religion and the Regulators. His talk, titled “Regulators, Covenanters, and the Path to the Hornet’s Nest,” was a summary of recent work on the idea of the long-term effects of the Regulator Movement, a taxpayer revolt in the late colonial period of North Carolina history.
Additionally, on September 25, Dr. Freeze made a presentation titled “When Claremont Was Like Mayberry” at a sesquicentennial event for the town of Claremont, N.C. in Catawba County. His presentation concerned the general history of the urban development of the small towns of Catawba County in the postwar period and was connected to a book signing event for the third volume of his “The Catawbans” trilogy.
Dr. Jamie Henthorn, Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center
Dr. Henthorn contributed a chapter titled “Bioshock’s Little Sisters and a Legacy of Posthuman Agency” to a book called “Beyond the Sea: Navigating Bioshock” that was published November 1.
Dr. Henthorn’s chapter uses the video game, Bioshock, to map the use of female bodies for promoting and producing new technology. While Bioshock’s ADAM, a gene-altering compound, is fictional, the game relies on and references historical uses of women’s and girls’ bodies for experimentation, often without consent. In the dystopian reality of the game, city leaders adapt girls’ bodies to produce the lucrative ADAM. The girls are removed from natural cycles of development and reproduction so that they might instead work as living factories. Their childlike innocence is used to mollify concerns about dangerous scientific practices. However, the girls resist in little way these practices, and it is their continued childlike behaviors, despite a wealth of genetic and behavioral conditioning, that give them agency and help them appeal to those in power for release from their situation.
This chapter concludes with an examination of the issues of creating a game critical of capitalism that is also a AAA game. Ultimately, the characters and the player are forced to make a meaning within spaces that afford few choices. This kind of critique also forces one to play through and utilize existing power structures the game is being critical of.
Dr. Erin Howard, Assistant Professor of Biology
Dr. Howard had an article titled “microRNA Regulation in Estrogen Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer and Endocrine Therapy” published on September 11th in “Biological Procedures Online.”
Here is an abstract of the article: “As de novo and acquired resistance to standard first line endocrine therapies is a growing clinical challenge for estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer patients, understanding the mechanisms of resistance is critical to develop novel therapeutic strategies to prevent therapeutic resistance and improve patient outcomes. The widespread post-transcriptional regulatory role that microRNAs (miRNAs) can have on various oncogenic pathways has been well-documented. In particular, several miRNAs are reported to suppress ER? expression via direct binding with the 3’ UTR of ESR1 mRNA, which can confer resistance to estrogen/ER?-targeted therapies. In turn, estrogen/ER? activation can modulate miRNA expression, which may contribute to ER+ breast carcinogenesis. Given the reported oncogenic and tumor suppressor functions of miRNAs in ER+ breast cancer, the targeted regulation of specific miRNAs is emerging as a promising strategy to treat ER+ breast cancer and significantly improve patient responsiveness to endocrine therapies. In this review, we highlight the major miRNA-ER regulatory mechanisms in context with ER+ breast carcinogenesis, as well as the critical miRNAs that contribute to endocrine therapy resistance or sensitivity. Collectively, this comprehensive review of the current literature sheds light on the clinical applications and challenges associated with miRNA regulatory mechanisms and novel miRNA targets that may have translational value as potential therapeutics for the treatment of ER+ breast cancer.
Dr. Sarah Jackson, Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication
Dr. Jackson attended the National Communication Association Annual Conference and on November 7th, chaired a panel discussing “Violent Plays: Performing Ethics, Rights, and Freedoms.” The panel examined the ways in which "violence moves" across bodies in revolt in order to challenge, otherwise simplified, framings of politics and movement. Violence is performed. Slowly. Its institutional, structural, globalized, and technological impact is felt in our bodies. In the context of political expression, violence can be performed as protest and symbolic confrontation. Drawing from historical studies and autoethnographic accounts, the panelists question the politics of nonviolent strategies advocated within neoliberal movements. Recent Antifa debates, as well as the historical debates addressing the whitewashing of Civil Rights struggles in the U.S., are contextualized to assess political reach of abstract and social violence. Beyond underscoring performative and institutional nature of violence, the proposed panel exemplifies performance art as a medium that confronts the apathy of seeing violence. The panel thus aims to draw connections between aesthetic, cultural, and political performance of violence, and the critiques of representation, spectatorship, and ethics embedded in this pervasively compelling and problematic relationship.
Dr. Jackson also attended the annual mid-year legislative assembly meeting for the Southern States Communication Association at the National Communication Association conference. She serves as the Chair of the Performance Studies Division of the Southern States Communication Association and represented her division at this legislative meeting.
Dr. Renee Just, Assistant Professor of Business & Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Experiential Development (CEED)
Dr. Just made a November 2nd presentation at the North Carolina Entrepreneurship Educators Conference titled “Entrepreneurship Integration: Finding the Nooks & Crannies.” Her presentation focused on the need for finding ways to collaborate and integrate the mind-set that is Entrepreneurship into our communities and campuses.
She made a September 11th presentation, “What is an Entrepreneur?” at the Idea Center of Rowan County. She explored the concept of an entrepreneur, the history, traits and behaviors and also discussed what an “intrepreneur” is.
In early June, Dr. Just also made a presentation at the aforementioned Idea Center regarding Entrepreneurial Marketing titled “Why do Brands Matter? Let’s Explore a Marketing Plan…”
Dr. Jennifer Klebaur, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Dr. Klebaur was the guest speaker for a November 5th Lunch and Learn Seminar at J.T. Williams Secondary Montessori School in Charlotte. She spoke to middle and high school students about what it is like to be a psychology professor, the educational requirements needed for a particular field, how psychology might fit in with career plans, and she fielded questions from students.
She also participated in a November 15th Commuter Connect event held on the Catawba campus. The event focused on campus resources available to commuter students.
Dr. Scott Morton, Assistant Professor of Communication
Dr. Morton made an October 6th paper presentation titled “The Siren of Radio Pyongyang: An Examination of American Print Coverage of the Korean War’s Seoul City Sue” at the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) conference. Seoul City Sue was an American-born radio propagandist for the North Koreans during the Korean War. Morton’s paper examined American print media coverage of this mysterious woman, who broadcasted during the summer of 1950 and then vanished without a trace; she is still remembered as the most recognized propagandist of the war.
Dr. Salvatore Musumeci, Chair and Associate Professor of History and Classics
Dr. Musumeci attendee the National Collegiate Honors Council annual conference in Boston, Mass., from Nov. 3-11. He co-facilitated a City as Text Master Class “Uncovering Boston;” was one of 15 faculty to help facilitate the City as Text signature event that over 740 students from across the United States participated in; facilitated a student session on “Students in Honors: Talking Effectively about You, Your Major, and Honors;” moderated and presented on a panel that discussed “City as Text/Place as Text Faculty Institutes: What They Are, What They Do, and How They Benefit You, Your Students, and Your Institutions;” participated on a panel titled "Enabling Honors: Efficiently and Effectively Scaling High-Impact Practices;" judged student posters in Arts & Humanities, served in the consultant center for the following topics: "Honors Seminar, Curriculum Development, and Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression Learning Outcome;," mentored a first-time conference attendee from Chattanooga State Community College, and attended two committee meetings.
Dr. Victor Romano, Assistant Professor of Sport & Health Sciences & Director of Exercise Science Bachelor’s Degree Program
In September, Dr. Romano learned he had a feasibility study titled, “Using chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) self-assessment in collegiate swimmers in determining overtraining,” accepted for publication in the “International Journal of Sport & Society.” A Catawba exercise science student co-authored the study with Dr. Romano.
Here is an abstract of the study: For an athlete to achieve peak performance, a balance between rest and training must be fine-tuned to promote the desired performance. This creates an important correlation between swimming and fatigue because the slightest imbalance can cause an athlete to touch one one-hundredth of a second behind another. A group of 19 Division II collegiate swimmers were tested for resting blood pressure, resting heart rate, resting blood lactate levels, and two different chronic fatigues syndrome self-assessments (Fatigue Severity Scale and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Questionnaire). Biometric data showed no correlation to muscular fatigue as assessed by an overhead squat analysis or muscular endurance assessments. However, both self-reported assessments used showed a strong correlation (p < .05) in measured fatigue indicators in collegiate swimmers. Both self-reported assessments showed a strong statistical correlation for the conclusion that these assessments can be used for quick assessment of fatigue in competitive swimmers.
Dr. Kerstin Rudolph, Assistant Professor of English
Dr. Rudolph presented a paper at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Conference on November 2nd. The paper was titled “Baby Africa: Nursing and Activism in Louise May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches and Subsequent Writings.”
An abstract of the paper is as follows: In Hospital Sketches (1863), Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle, a self-proclaimed “woman’s rights woman,” does not shy away from extending her zeal for gender activism into the realm of race equality. As a scene towards the end of the narrative shows, Trib enjoys shocking a Southern woman by cuddling an African American toddler, with one hand stirring “gruel for sick America” while “the other hugged baby Africa.” The prominent illustration of this scene in the later edition of Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories (1869) reinforces the importance of white womanhood to the cause of abolition that Alcott advocates through her sharp-witted nurse. The same compassion Trib uses to heal soldiers also radiates to those recently freed African Americans in need of guidance, thereby propelling middle-class white women like Alcott into principal positions as sentimental activists of race and gender rights. I want to take this scene, as well as the accompanying illustration, as a starting point to think through the ways in which Alcott’s experiences as a war nurse shaped her outlook on race activism. As such, Alcott’s alter-ego in Hospital Sketches provides us with a useful ideological underpinning for the direction she would subsequently take as an author, as well as for tracing how her white, female characters tackle their complex positions as allies to marginalized groups. I want to pay special attention to the power dynamic between white and black women. In Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories, the illustration of Trib and baby Africa, which shows a black woman in the background, suggests that cross-racial relationships between white and black women provided a productive, if often fraught, subject for Alcott to test out the intersections between race and gender within the framework of sentimental activism – hallmark qualities that define her nursing as well. This dynamic becomes especially clear in Alcott’s 1873 novel Work, which spends large amounts of time establishing the sentimental relationship between the protagonist, Christie, and her black mentor, Hepsey, as balanced, or at least as an even switch of hierarchical positioning between the two women.
Dr. Buster Smith, Chair and Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Smith attended the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and organized a panel discussion on teaching the sociology of religion. In addition, he convened a section on Divine Perceptions. These gatherings included speakers from Clemson, East Tennessee State University, LSU, Arizona State, Penn State, UC-Berkley, and the College of Idaho.
Dr. Pamela Thompson, Associate Professor of Information Systems
Dr. Thompson was one of nine individuals, out of 55 who applied, invited to make a presentation on September 27th at the SAS Deep Learning Symposium held at SAS World Headquarters in Cary, N.C. Her presentation, titled “Developing a Recommender System for Shark Presence along East Coast Beaches,” was made during the multiday symposium that focused on deep learning, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies that are transforming a diverse set of scientific, engineering and business domains. The symposium had an educational component that featured invited workshops focusing on how researchers are using machine learning technologies in the Triangle and beyond, in particular at institutions such as UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, N.C. State, and Catawba College.
Dr. J. Michael Wilson, Chair and Professor of Modern Foreign Languages
Dr. Wilson made an October 20th presentation titled “While you were sleeping, the Real Academic changed the rule” at the Fall Conference of the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina. His presentation concerned a recent change in Spanish grammar “rules” pertaining to the use of “hubiese” forms in the result clause of contrary-to-fact conditional sentences.
Ms. Sandra Yamane, MSN, MS, RN, Assistant Professor of Nursing
Professor Yamane will have an article titled “Uncovering cyberincivility among nurses and nursing students on Twitter: A data mining study” published in the January 15, 2019 edition of the “International Journal of Nursing Studies.”
An abstract background for the article is as follows: Although misuse of social networking sites, particularly Twitter, has occurred, little is known about the prevalence, content, and characteristics of uncivil tweets posted by nurses and nursing students. Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of tweets posted by nurses and nursing students on Twitter with a focus on cyberincivility. Method: A cross-sectional, data-mining study was held from February through April 2017. Using a data-mining tool, we extracted quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of 163 self-identified nurses and nursing students on Twitter. The analysis of 8934 tweets was performed by a combination of SAS 9.4 for descriptive and inferential statistics including logistic regression and NVivo 11 to derive descriptive patterns of unstructured textual data. Findings: We categorized 413 tweets (4.62%, n?=?8934) as uncivil. Of these, 240 (58%) were related to nursing and the other 173 (42%) to personal life. Of the 163 unique users, 60 (36.8%) generated those 413 uncivil posts, tweeting inappropriately at least once over a period of six weeks. Most uncivil tweets contained profanity (n?=?135, 32.7%), sexually explicit or suggestive material (n?=?37, 9.0%), name-calling (n?=?14, 3.4%), and discriminatory remarks against minorities (n?=?9, 2.2%). Other uncivil content included product promotion, demeaning comments toward patients, aggression toward health professionals, and HIPAA violations. Conclusion Nurses and nursing students share uncivil tweets that could tarnish the image of the profession and violate codes of ethics. Individual, interpersonal, and institutional efforts should be made to foster a culture of cybercivility.
She also had an article titled “Microlearning in Health Professions Education: A scoping review protocol” published November 27th in the “Joanna Briggs Institute Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports.” The article answered the question: How is microlearning defined and designed as an educational strategy in health professions education? What outcomes associated with microlearning have been measured in health professions students?
