Faculty Outreach
At the Baton Rouge Center for the Visual & Performing Arts (BRCVPA) elementary school, Helene Afeman served as a volunteer/event director for Field Day and organized student volunteers for the BRCVPA walk to collect shoes and supplies for Mayfair Elementary, a hurricane evacuee school. Afeman also volunteered for the Red Cross education system for evacuees. In January of 2006, Afeman was invited to conduct an elementary physical education in-service for Ascension Parish teachers.
Afeman was also a team leader, fundraiser, and event participant for the American Heart Association Department for Heart Walk. Serving as a committee member for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Afeman was the Baton Rouge-area race day site coordinator.
Nina Asher was invited to participate, one of five team members, in a five-day Association of American Colleges and Universities Institute on General Education held in Newport, Rhode Island, in May 2005. Asher contributed to revising the goals of LSU's General Education curriculum. Asher also co-created and co-taught "Gender, Race, & Nation" (WGS 2900), an interdisciplinary Women's and Gender Studies course now approved as a General Education course at LSU (2004-05).
Pamela Blanchard is quite active in environmental and coastal science education. Blanchard developed a teacher workshop for C. C. and Sue Lockwood about the MarshMission project with Rhea Gary. This two-day teacher professional development workshop called MarshMission: Cruising through the Bayou, helped teachers incorporate standards-based activities into their classes to teach students about the importance of Louisiana's disappearing wetlands (June 2005). The concept of the workshop came, in part, from famed photographer C. C. Lockwood and artist Rhea Gary's book Marsh Mission, which illustrated their year-long experience of living in the marsh to call attention to Louisiana's coastal land loss situation. Lockwood and Gary were also featured in a photo and art exhibit at the LSU Museum of Art in downtown Baton Rouge.
Blanchard also conducted seven Barataria Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) JASON Expedition Training Workshops in Thibodaux, Louisiana. These professional development workshops introduced middle school teachers to the JASON curriculum and resources on coastal Louisiana (August 2004).
Blanchard served as book discussion leader for Fast Food Nation and Mountains Beyond Mountains as part of the 2004 and 2005 Academic Convocation. She also served as a judge in the Louisiana Science and Engineering Fair (2005, Middle School Earth Science and Environmental Science section) and at the Doyle Elementary Science Fair in Livingston Parish (2004, Upper Elementary and Middle School project judge).
In 2004, Blanchard led efforts to establish and host the first gathering of the Louisiana Wetland Education Coalition (LaWEC). She assisted with the development of the LaWEC Web site, created and currently manages the LaWEC listserve, and edits the LaWEC electronic monthly newsletter.
Also in 2004, the Ecology Society of America invited Blanchard to be a guest panel speaker at their fall field trip entitled Strategies for Ecology Education at the National Wetlands Research Center in Lafayette. She was an invited stakeholder at the National Biological Infrastructure Stakeholder Workshop, also held at the National Wetlands Research Center.
Blanchard provided a sand exhibit and had secondary science education majors assist with presentation at Ocean Commotion, an event she started in 1998 for the LA Sea Grant College Program to celebrate the International Year of the Ocean. Ocean Commotion is geared towards K-8 graders and brings approximately 2,000 students to the LSU campus every year. Blanchard also participates in Spooky Science Friday at Highland Elementary School in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Blanchard exhibited at the Louisiana Environmental Education Symposium and used the symposium as a venue to recruit graduate students. She has also participated in numerous campus community events such as the STEP through STEM Retreat (May 2004), the spring 2004 graduation ceremony, the College's Honors and Awards Convocation (April 2004), and was co-organizer of the Women's and Gender Studies Spring Retreat (March 2004).
David Brown, a visiting professor, has worked with the Bowie/Miller County Literacy Council in Texarkana, Texas. Brown is a trainer of literacy tutors.
Teresa Buchanan spent much of the fall 2005 semester examining the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on teachers and children. She also assisted in the hurricane relief efforts with other early childhood teacher education faculty members. Carol Aghayan and Joan Benedict of the School of Human Ecology worked with Buchanan and the PK-3 students inside the shelters to provide child care, host evacuees and aide workers in their homes, and deliver supplies to people in need. Buchanan asked all students in her sophomore class to volunteer for one hour at any local area shelter, the Capital Area United Way "Command Center," or the "Parent University Open Houses" organized by the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce. To prepare students for what they may encounter in the shelters and aide centers, the early childhood faculty asked ELRC faculty member Laura Hensley Choate to talk with the PK-3 students about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Buchanan also used the ELRC faculty's presentation in her sophomore class. Buchanan helped Carol Aghayan and others develop a manuscript detailing the "Project Katrina" teaching that occurred in the LSU preschool after the hurricanes. That manuscript is currently in press and will be published in the online peer-reviewed journal, Early Childhood Research and Practice.
Buchanan received NSF funding to investigate and collect information about teachers' responses to the hurricanes. A second objective of the project is to investigate how differential teacher responses are related to child learning and behavior outcomes. This research will lead to the development and dissemination of ideas about effective teaching strategies and curriculum for early childhood classrooms in places impacted by cultural crises and upheavals related to natural disasters.
Beginning in 2005, Russ Carson has worked as a pre-service teacher mentor of course-related field placement for seven pre-service teachers, impacting more than 100 students in elementary and high schools. That number includes students in grades K-3 at LSU's Laboratory School and the Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts, as well as the seventh grade at McKinley Middle School.
In December 2004, Ray Castle was invited to provide medical coverage for the U.S. Women's Bobsled Team during their World Cup Tour competition. Castle traveled with the team for two weeks during competitions in Austria and Italy, working 15-hour days and supervising the medical care of eight athletes and three coaches.
Castle served as accreditation consultant for the graduate entry-level athletic training education program at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He provided analysis, review, and recommendations for program improvement from July 2005 until the program's initial Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (AAHEP) accreditation site visit in October 2005.
In April 2005, Castle served as a consultant for McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on its potential to initiate an undergraduate or graduate athletic training education program.
In addition to serving as interim chair for the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Earl Cheek worked with Bibb County in the Georgia School District as a Title I reading consultant. Cheek is well-known for his efforts in addressing literacy and is a member of the International Reading Association, the National Reading Conference, and the College Reading Association.
After the hurricanes of 2005, Laura Hensley Choate quickly began working with caregiver groups to offer support and training in dealing with the storms' massive emotional and physical displacement. Based on her expertise in group counseling, Choate provided a training presentation for EBR I-CARE counselors in September 2005. These counselors were responsible for leading support groups for displaced students in the East Baton Rouge Parish public schools. That same month, Choate met with PK-3 student teachers in the School of Human Ecology, presenting coping skills and strategies for working with children who are survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
In addition to her post-hurricane work, Choate works closely with area schools through presentations for adolescent girls on risk reduction and prevention and positive body image. Choate provided a presentation entitled "Risk Reduction Program for Mothers and Daughters" for sixth through eighth-grade girls and their mothers at McKinley Middle School (April 2005). Choate also provided "Sexual Assault Prevention" for 10th through 12th graders at St. Joseph's Academy (March 2005) and to college freshmen at Southern University (September 2004). In three separate presentations about building and promoting positive body image, Choate spoke to grades ranging from six to 11th at St. Joseph's Academy and The Dunham School (2004-05).
Choate also provides consultation to the Rape Crisis Center through her involvement in the training of volunteers and by developing outreach presentations.
Bill Doll is a consultant for the Yokohama International School. He recently had several books translated into Chinese and continues his efforts in establishing strong ties with curriculum theorists in China.
After Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, Denise Egea-Kuehne served as a member of the Katrina Disaster Rapid Assessment Team (September 2005), organized by the International Rescue Committee Inc. The group is an international aid organization focusing on emergency relief, protection of human rights, and resettlement services among other things. The project was funded by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and included training and surveying of Baton Rouge area shelters.
Egea-Kuehne actively promotes students' work. To illustrate her presentation on "Language, Culture, and Technology in the Foreign/Second/Additional Language Class" at the 2004 Louisiana Foreign Language Teachers Association (LFLTA) annual conference, Egea-Kuehne invited students to present the units they had created in one of her courses. Monique Aucoin, a Holmes intern, presented her unit on Cajun culture, and Terrie Schroth, a doctoral candidate, presented the unit she created on Spanish markets. Egea-Kuehne also invited David Ross (M.S. 2004) to submit a paper Ad-liberal Education: Improvisation and Open Curricula that was accepted and presented at the 12th International Literacy and Education Research Network Conference on Learning held at the University of Granada, Spain (July 2005). Egea-Kuehne encouraged graduate student Sean Buckreis to submit Questioning with Derrida: Need and Responsibility – his final paper from her course – to the annual conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. In April 2005, Buckreis read his paper before the society at the University of Oxford, England.
Egea-Kuehne is director of The French Education Project, which hosts interns from French Universities. With the support of the Lions Club of France, and through an agreement with the University of Nancy in France, several French graduate students came to the French Education Project for an eight-week internship as part of their degree requirements. In spring 2004, Mathilde Scebalt and Thibaut Granmougin reconceptualized and developed the embryonic French Immersion Web site and started a FLE (Francais Langue Etrangere) site. In spring 2005, two new interns, Adrien Rubben and Ludovic Badin, from the Department of Electronics Engineering's Institut Universitaire de Technologie (IUT) of Nancy-Brabois joined the French Education Project for eight weeks. Through a grant from the Board of Regents Distance Education Initiative and additional support from the French Cultural Services in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., Rubben and Badin worked with technician R'my P'lissier to establish a National Online Resource Center for French and French Immersion (visit http://frenchimmersionusa.org).
On May 13, 2005, France and Louisiana State University signed an official Memorandum of Understanding, declaring LSU a national resource center. Carolyn Hargrave, vice president of Academic Affairs for the LSU System, and Chantal Manes, director of the Department of Educational Cooperation at the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C., signed the Memorandum of Understanding, making LSU one of five national centers dedicated to the teaching of French language, culture, and literature. The Embassy of France in the United States identified LSU, Rutgers University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, and Yale University as National Resource Centers. Each center has a specific mission, and LSU's will be focused on teaching French as a second language and French immersion programs. The center is part of the French Education Project housed in the LSU Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education.
The French-Louisiana Accords were revised and signed on September 9, 2004, in Baton Rouge by Warren Perrin, pr'sident du CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana), Louisiane; Daniel Vitry, directeur g'n'ral aux Relations Internationales et ^ la Coop'ration, Ministere de l'fducation Nationale, de l'Enseignement Sup'rieur et de la Recherche, France; Linda Johnson, member of the BESE (Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education), Louisiane; and Xavier North, directeur de la Coop'ration Culturelle et du Francais, Ministere des Affaires ftrangeres, France. The present program of cooperation applies to the years 2005 and 2006. The next session will take place in Paris, France, during the last trimester of 2006. The present accords were signed in duplicate at the Louisiana Department of Education in Baton Rouge on September 9, 2004.
Kristin Gansle consulted and provided program evaluation for the LINCS Program. LINCS, or Learning Intensive Networking Communities for Success, is a professional development program for teachers in Louisiana. Gansle also worked with the Louisiana Department of Education and Louisiana Systemic Initiatives Program.
Rebecca Ellis Gardner has worked with the LA Blueprint for Increasing Physical Activity in Adults over the Age of 50 since 2005. Gardner also has participated in the 2005 health fairs at Living Word Church and the Leo S. Butler Community Center.
Susan Gardner is currently working with LSU's Graduate School and Budget & Planning to conduct an institution-wide assessment of doctoral student retention and success.
Gary Gintner collaborated with faculty members David Spruill and Laura Hensley Choate in September 2005, immediately following Hurricane Katrina, to create a presentation offering tips on dealing with the aftermath of the storm. In addition to posting it online, Gintner, Spruill, and Choate presented the two-hour workshop titled "Coping with Katrina" to more than 70 LSU faculty, student teachers, supervisors, and community members. Gintner and Spruill then presented "Coping with Katrina" to more than 85 employees in the office of Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Catherine Kimball.
Sponsored by the Campus Coalition for Change and presented at Pennington Biomedical Center, Gintner and Choate conducted "Screening, Advising and Referral of Student Problem Drinkers,"a three-hour workshop for student affairs administrators and staff (February 2004).
Gary Gintner is faculty sponsor for the McNair Program. In November 2004, Ginter presented tips for successful graduate admission to approximately 40 McNair students.
As part of the Kinesiology 2540 service-learning class, Wanda Hargroder planned and implemented a program for the Baton Rouge Lamar YMCA, which included a day of activities for children with special needs. More than 20 children attended the program on which Hargroder collaborated with the YMCA, the local Association for Retarded Citizen, McMains Center, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Hargroder also serves as a consultant for a two-week summer swim program in July that offers swimming lessons on the LSU campus to persons with disabilities.
Hargroder served as president of the Baton Rouge Association for Retarded Citizens, which was recognized for 50 years of community service. In May of 2004, Hargroder organized and coordinated two events marking the celebration of the 50th anniversary. Attended by nearly 200 community members, one event was a picnic on the grounds of Magnolia Mound Plantation. The second event was a banquet a Boudreaux's with guest speakers Nick Saban and from the movie Radio, the real-life James Robert Kennedy (nicknamed "Radio") and Coach Jones.
For the last two years, Hargroder has been invited to speak at "This is LSU," an event held in connection with Spring Testing, which plays host to outstanding academic students. Hargroder spoke as a representative of faculty and their expectations of college students.
Hargroder also coordinates the internships for human movement majors, a program that places LSU students in community clinics, hospitals, and medical environments where they intern with someone in a specialized field of medicine such as a physician, dentist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, or physician's assistant. This internship is open each semester to 20 students and requires approximately 80-100 hours of contact with students and professionals.
In 2004, Hargroder traveled to New Orleans, sometimes twice a week, to work in the LSU Medical School laboratory studying human anatomy dissection in preparation for the development of the Department of Kinesiology's lab.
Louis Harrison, Jr. represented the LSU Department of Kinesiology at Students Teaching and Reaching (STAR) held at Northwestern State University. In 2005, Harrison presented a talk at the Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church annual health fair entitled The role of physical activity in bone and joint health in the African American community. Harrison has also been a consultant for the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
Petra Munro Hendry is an active member of the Community University Partnership (CUP), engaged in several ongoing projects involving the revitalization and oral histories of residents and neighborhoods in Baton Rouge. As part of Plan Baton Rouge, Hendry was hired as the consultant to evaluate the historic and cultural assets of Old South Baton Rouge for RKG Associates, an economic planning and real estate development consulting firm. Hendry and Geography & Anthropology Professor Jay Edwards provided a 174-page report entitled Assessing Sites of Historic and Cultural Significance in Old South Baton Rouge.
Hendry presented Bringing Alive the History of Old South Baton Rouge in August 2005, as part of the Plan Baton Rouge Old South Baton Rouge Revitalization Community Meeting. Hendry and Edwards also co-presented a public lecture at The Foundation for Historical Louisiana entitled "Architectural Gems of Old South Baton Rouge" (September 2005).
In addition to her community service activities, Hendry has served on the committees of several outstanding graduate students. She was minor professor for Laura Azzarito, who received the 2004 Josephine A. Roberts LSU Alumni Association Distinguished Award in Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Hendry was also committee chair for Nicole Bowen's thesis entitled Stepping out of her place: A new look at women's roles during selected wars in U.S. History, which won the 2005 LSU Women's and Gender Studies Award for Outstanding Master's Thesis.
Roy Hill is the instructor for the course "Golf: for Business and Life" (Kinesiology 1125). The course is taught by Professional Golf Association (PGA) Professionals. Students receive expert golf instruction, which enables them to develop practical skills to use golf as a business tool for the professional world. The course also instills in students the importance of golf as a vehicle for pleasurable, lifelong physical activity.
David Toms, 2002 Ryder Cup team member and LSU alumnus, funded the course. Kinesiology department member Randall Heine serves as program coordinator with Roy Hill and Class A Golf Professional Chris Burkstaller in instruction.
Through a $45,000 grant from the Louisiana Department of Education, Kathy Hill will impact 150 teachers statewide through training on the use of Fitnessgram, a health-related measure of physical fitness that will give researchers baseline data on the health and fitness of Louisiana children in grades 3-12. Hill will organize three teacher training programs throughout the year with a goal of training at least one teacher from each parish. This project will impact the entire state and eventually every physical education teacher in the state.
Under the direction of Hill, the Louisiana Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance provided teaching supplies to teachers in Louisiana that lost all their equipment, tapes, and other instructional materials as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In cooperation with the American Heart Association, Hill also collected jump ropes, physical education equipment, and more than 10 boxes of text books to distribute to teachers, new schools, schools with increased enrollment, and schools that were destroyed.
Janice Hinson was the principal investigator on the grant titled The ConnectED.OnlineLouisiana Project, a federally-funded initiative to provide underserved students with computers and Internet services at home. Working with William Silvia, Jr. of the LSU System Office, Hinson's ConnectED (short for Connecting Education) Project focuses on increasing interactions between school and home by creating online communities involving students, teachers, and parents. The goal is to increase student achievement by extending learning beyond the school day and enabling parents to participate actively from home in their children's education. Currently, 1,020 children in Assumption, Lafourche, and St. James Parish schools are participating. Research focuses on effective ways to integrate Web-based resources into curricula and the impact connectivity is having on student achievement, information literacy skills, and parental involvement.
As part of a service-learning project, Jan Hondzinski oversees the setup and organization of two, one-hour outreach activities relating to the function of the nervous system. These activities involve 13-16 classes in four local schools each semester as part of the undergraduate class Kinesiology 3517. The class serves about 40 undergraduates and 250 fourth and sixth grade children per semester.
The Eagle-Tribune newspaper consulted with Jan Hondzinski to put the research of David Burke of Harvard Medical School in context for the article Discovering Ôqi,' written by Julie Kirkwood, which appeared in the June 28, 2004, issue of the Eagle-Tribune.
Since 1998, Lisa Johnson has participated in the ongoing advocacy efforts of the Louisiana Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (LAHPERD) at the Legislative Fitness Day. At this day-long event, she supervises her students as they communicate health and wellness information and conduct basic fitness assessments for the legislators at the State Capitol. Johnson has also aided the American Heart Association (AHA) by serving as a company leader in the AHA Walk.
In addition to her health and wellness advocacy and fundraising activities, Johnson is instrumental in several programs on the LSU campus. Johnson has participated in the annual LSU Wellness Fair by supervising kinesiology students as they conduct exercise demonstrations and fitness assessments for more than 100 students, faculty, and staff that visit the Kinesiology booth each year.
Johnson also serves on the Board of Directors for the Southside YMCA in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (2004-present). She was co-chair of the Meeting Room Monitoring Committee for the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPERD) National Convention held in New Orleans in 2004. For the LAHPERD, Johnson has been vice president of the General Division and served on the Board of Directors. Johnson was made honorary member for the Louisiana Association of Exercise Physiologists.
As coordinator of the fitness studies concentration, Johnson serves as the supervisor of the internship program for that area. The internship requires the student to have a minimum of 210 hours of field experience in a clinical, corporate, commercial, or community fitness/wellness setting. Each semester approximately 10 interns are placed at facilities around the city, state, and country. As instructor of kinesiology course "Exercise Testing and Prescription" (KIN 3535), Johnson organizes and supervises 10-15 students per semester involved in service learning opportunities within the community. Students work with approximately 20-25 older, African American adults assisting with group and individual exercise sessions at the "Sensational Seniors" exercise program at the Leo Butler Community Center. Since 2001, students have assisted with personal training and group exercise programs at the St. James Place Kinesiology Lab, working one-on-one with older and at-risk adults. Currently, more than 200 clients are enrolled in the programs at that facility.
In spring 2005, Johnson conducted a research project investigating built environment, obesity, and physical activity at LSU. She surveyed fall 2004 entering freshmen via an online questionnaire. Johnson plans on conducting follow-up studies to assess the influence of the on-campus and off-campus environment on physical activity behavior and risk for obesity. Some of her initial findings will be presented at the AAPHERD National Convention in April 2006, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 2005, David Kirshner co-authored Evaluation study: The laboratory component of Calculus II at Washington University, an external evaluation report prepared for Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
In the grant titled Jump Start for Health, Rebecca Gardner, Maria Kosma, and Melinda Solmon collected data to identify physical activity determinants among approximately 450 adolescents at several schools within the Baton Rouge area.
In another project called Development and pilot testing of a body mass index-for-age percentile report card, Georgianna Tuuri (LSU School of Human Ecology), Kinesiology professors Maria Kosma and Melinda Solmon, Jianhua Chen (Computer Science), and Robert Laird (LSU School of Human Ecology) designed and pilot tested a computer software tool capable of generating body mass index-for-age percentile health reports for children. The project generated 689 reports from one elementary school and one middle school in Baton Rouge. After examining their child's BMI-for-age report, 112 parents responded to five questions. Copyright for the computer software tool has been secured to LSU through the U.S. Copyright Office. The investigators are presently negotiating the sale of the software to a company in Chicago.
In Physical activity and personality, Rebecca Gardner and Maria Kosma have completed the prospective design for data collection, aiming to predict current and future physical activity behavior among nearly 90 individuals within a worksite setting.
Leading the project titled Psychosocial mediators of physical activity behavior change among adults with physical disabilities, Kosma is working with Rebecca Ellis Gardner (LSU Kinesiology), Bradley Cardinal (Oregon State University, Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences), and Jeffrey McCubbin (Oregon State University, Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences). The group has already completed the nationwide, multi-site data collection of a six-month prospective study to predict current and future physical activity behavior based on psychosocial factors among nearly 200 adults with physical disabilities, such as spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis.
From the summer of 2004 through the spring of 2005, Dennis Landin traveled on a weekly basis to the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans to work in the gross anatomy laboratories with the allied health students and first-year medical students. Landin gained firsthand experience in the operations and management of a human cadaver lab in preparation for the facility housed in room 44G of the Long Fieldhouse of the Department of Kinesiology.
Byron Launey extended his outreach activities to Evangeline Parish. He conducted three parent meetings on the subject of parenting skills at elementary schools. Launey also conducted a three-part series of in-service teacher workshops for approximately 60 teachers at two Evangeline Parish schools on teaching critical thinking skills to middle and high school students.
Launey designed, conducted, and analyzed a process study program evaluation for Sunrise Tourette Forum. This organization is a closed Internet forum providing support and education for members who have Tourette's Syndrome or other neurological disorders (ADHD, OCD, etc.), those whose family members suffer from such disabilities, and teachers with students who have been diagnosed with these disabilities. The program evaluation is an annual requirement for grant funding.
Over the last two years, Amelia Lee has served as a consultant for more than 140 faculty and students at various universities, including Grambling State University in Louisiana; Howard University in Washington, D.C.; Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa; and San Jose State University in California.
Li Li has worked with the Baton Rouge Peripheral Neuropathy Support Group for the last two years, attending all of their bi-monthly meetings and lecturing for two of the sessions. In those meetings, Li discussed peripheral neuropathy and its influence on gait and balance with members of the group.
Yiping Lou was the principal investigator of the Educational Technology Scholar project, funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents. The project focused on creating an evidence-based technology integration model, in which pre-service and in-service mentor teachers collaborate to systematically design, implement, and evaluate technology-enhanced instruction that improve student learning of difficult scientific concepts. The model consisted of two major components: teachers as designers and teachers as researchers. During summer 2004, LSU College of Education students and 14 in-service science teachers from seven local schools participated in a two-week summer institute where they learned to use a variety of technology resources and developed ways to integrate technology and reading/language arts in science teaching. Each participant was provided with a laptop for use in the summer institute and throughout the academic year. During the academic year, mentor and student teachers collaborated in implementing and evaluating the technology-enhanced science activities they designed. Results of the project showed positive impacts on both the teachers' skills in designing, implementing, and evaluating technology-enhanced instruction and their students' motivation and learning.
Li has also conducted a research project with support from the group during the summer of 2004. The research project involved five kinesiology faculties and focused on the impact of exercise on the well being of the patients. Accumulated contact hours are more than 150. Approximately 100 individuals were impacted.
S. Kim MacGregor incorporates service to the University through instructional experiences in "Qualitative Methods in Education Research" (ELRC 7243). Through a partnership with the Center for Institutional Assessment and Evaluation, students enrolled in the course are provided with opportunities to achieve course goals through qualitative research activities conducted in coordination with projects under the auspices of the center. Through this partnership, MacGregor provided her evaluation and assessment expertise and mentored her students in conducting focus group interviews relevant to program assessment activities initiated by the center during the spring 2004, spring 2005, and fall 2005 semesters. Students also conduct follow-up analysis, interpretation, prepare written reports, and make presentations to university officials. Through MacGregor's participation, the Center for Evaluation and Assessment was able to support their quantitative assessment data with qualitative data from interviews and observations in three projects, including Herget Residential College Program for Freshmen, Assessing Retention of First and Second Year Students, and Service Learning and Civic Engagement in Undergraduate and Graduate Courses.
The Herget Residential College houses more than 400 students and incorporates activities of academic peer mentors, faculty, and resident advisors. The evaluation findings were used by the Office of Residential Life to determine the value of and to make improvements to the various programs implemented as part of the Residential College.
Initiated by the University Council for Assessment, the retention project focused on developing an understanding of the reasons a large number of students leave the University by the end of their sophomore year. Coordinated by the Center for Community Engagement, Learning, & Leadership (CCELL), the evaluation findings from the Service Learning program are utilized by the center director to provide feedback to participating faculty and to further knowledge about the implementation of service learning. CCELL is responsible for facilitating and supporting the implementation of service learning in more than 20 courses that touches hundreds of students and community partners.
Thomasine Haskins Mencer has collaborated for the past four years with Margaret Stewart (need organization) on "BC Gathering," a meeting of former Holmes elementary interns to provide on-going support for our graduates and an avenue for new teacher research. In 2003, Mencer began a second, separate, support group of former Holmes interns who are currently second-year teachers. This group meets several times during the school year to continue the sense of community, collaboration, and assistance that benefited these former interns during their Holmes internship.
Roland Mitchell has worked as a consultant for Central State University in Ohio's national Family and Community Violence Prevention Program. Mitchell has also consulted as a qualitative evaluation specialist for the Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
In his efforts as director of the University Laboratory School and interim chair of ELRC, Wade Smith collaborates frequently with the East Baton Rouge Parish School System. He is lead researcher for several projects, including "Studies of Teacher/Administrator Intent to Remain Employed" and "Convergent Validity of iLEAP and ACT Explore Test for 8th Grade Students."
Smith has conducted workshops on student and teacher motivation for Catholic High School and Polk Elementary in the East Baton Rouge School system.
Solmon has worked with the LSU Agricultural Center and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana on the Louisiana Smart Bodies Project to get the Smart Bodies Program in local schools. While Solmon's involvement has been primarily focused on getting the program set up for the evaluation component of the program, she has been instrumental in efforts to involve East Baton Rouge Parish School System schools in the program.
Solmon also served as volunteer coordinator for the 2004 International Heritage Festival, hosted by the Baton Rouge Center for World Affairs. This one-day event spotlights delegations from countries around the world, including information booths and live performances representative of their cultures on three stages. Solmon coordinated the recruiting, organization, and scheduling of more than 300 volunteers who were needed to make the event a success.
David Spruill spearheaded the signing of a formal partnership with the Zachary Community Schools. Spruill and Zachary Schools Superintendent H. Warren Drake, Jr. formed a collaborative effort to offer monthly training of school administrators and counselors, training and use of MEASURE, and a new instrument for school counselor evaluation.
Along with fellow faculty members Gary Gintner and Laura Hensley Choate, Spruill conducted workshops on coping with Katrina/Rita for church communities, new student teachers, LSU faculty, and justices and staff members of the Louisiana Supreme Court. These materials were made available online. Spruill was also invited to review the State Department of Education materials on responding to Katrina in the schools, and initiated a Louisiana school counselor educator task force to improve school counselor training programs in the state.
As an LSU College of Education representative, Dianne Taylor served on the principal internship program committee established by the East Baton Rouge Parish Public School System. Over two and a half days, the committee interviewed 30 applicants, asking questions from a protocol, ranking the candidates subsequent to the interviews, and determining those to whom an invitation would be extended to participate in the principal internship program. Other East Baton Rouge Parish School System administrative staff members of this committee were Associate Superintendent of Human Resources Elizabeth "Liz" Duran-Swinford, Gypsye Bryan (NCBLA, director of Instruction), and Millie Williams (director of Personnel Services).
Charles Teddlie serves as an unpaid consultant for several projects. Teddlie annually serves as an unpaid proposal reviewer for two foreign research organizations, the Australian Research Council (Large Research Grant Program) and the University of Leuven (Belgium) Research Fund. Teddlie is also an unpaid external consultant to the University of Cyprus on a project entitled "Development of a New System for Evaluating School and Teacher Effectiveness in Cyprus," advising Professor Leonidas Kyriakides and his colleagues on issues such as developing a new career path for teachers in Cyprus. Teddlie visited Nicosia, Cyprus, in November 2005 to meet with Kyriakides and the other consultants.
In addition to his donated time as a consultant, Teddlie has served as an unpaid external examiner for two PhD theses. One thesis is under the direction of Johan Muller at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The other is under the direction of Viviane Robinson at the University of Aukland, New Zealand.
Teddlie spent more than 15 hours working with Dutch scholar and University of Twente Professor Kim Schildkamp on her successful application for a Fulbright scholarship to study the Louisiana School and District Accountability Program in 2006. Schildkamp will work with individuals from the Louisiana Department of Education in the Division of School Standards, Accountability, and Assistance. Her work involves the comparison of accountability programs in the Netherlands and the United States (Louisiana).
Teddlie's international experience and expertise is utilized by a number of organizations locally, nationally, and globally. Teddlie was a consultant for the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, the Louisiana Department of Social Services, the Louisiana State Department of Education, the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, and the University of Cyprus.
Melissa Thompson serves as an athletic trainer during the football season for The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. From the summer 2004 through the spring 2004 semester, Thompson participated in the LSU Health Sciences Center Cadaver Anatomy Course as part of the instructor training session.
Beth Tope served as a reviewer for Integrated Language Arts, a book by Betty Roe and Elinor Ross due out in 2006. The authors acknowledged Tope's assistance in writing the book. For the last four years, Tope has served as co-adviser to Kappa Delta Epsilon, the education honorary society at LSU. During the past three years, members from the chapter have captured two of the group's 12 prestigious national scholarships and won the national activities award for best meetings and events.
For the past two years, Tope has written the monthly newspaper article for the Greater Baton Rouge LSU Alumni that appears in the Sunday people section of The Advocate. As secretary of The Tiger Gridiron Club, Tope writes and publishes the weekly and monthly newsletters for approximately 500 members of the organization.
James Wandersee designed the 26-station Palms and Palmettos Nature Trail for schools and families to use at LSU's Burden Research Center. Wandersee presented two illustrated lectures on exemplary children's science picture books and the Giverny Award to Louisiana school librarians at Hill Memorial Library. Wanderesee also presented an illustrated lecture to the Lafayette Chapter of the Louisiana Master Gardeners on his visual cognition research about plant blindness.
Michael Welsch contributes numerous hours of his time every week to outreach through his interactions with Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Earl K. Long Hospital, LSU Health Sciences Center, and University Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi.
Amy Westbrook hosts the committee for the Boys and Girls Club Southeast Regional Art Show. As volunteer coordinator for St. James Episcopal Church, Westbrook recruits, trains, and places volunteers at Dufrocq Elementary. She has also written seven funded grants on behalf of the church to benefit Dufrocq Elementary. Westbrook serves as a consultant for the Louisiana Charter Schools Association and for the Louisiana Principal Induction Program.
Emily Wilbert serves on the board of directors for The Foundation for Historical Louisiana. She is also a production and tour participant for Historic Magnolia Cemetery's "Magnolia Memories."
Wilbert has served as judge at social studies fairs held at Westdale Middle and E. J. Gay Middle and volunteered for 25 hours with the American Red Cross during the Katrina disaster.
Elizabeth Willis is director of the LSU Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project, which encourages writing research throughout a 10-parish service area, including school systems surrounding the University and extending as far as St. Charles Parish. Along with LSU Writing Project teacher consultants, Willis organizes and hosts writing institutes, professional development workshops, and retreats that span an academic year with teachers and administrators from the LSU Writing Project's 10-parish region.
Teachers earn Continuing Learning Units (CLUs) or graduate credit while enrolled in the intensive writing programs, which cover a wide range of topics including grant writing, writing in content areas, literacy, LEAP 21, and the state's newly adopted comprehensive curriculum.
Willis has forged long-standing relationships with school administrators, teachers, LSU pre-service graduates students, and school children through her efforts in the LSU Writing Project and the Elementary Holmes program.
Bob Wood has worked with the Baton Rouge Center for the Visual and Performing Arts for the 2004 and 2005 Field Day. Wood is also participating in Physical Activity Intervention Programs for the Leo S Butler Center (since 2004), St. James Place (since 1997), and the Catholic-Presbyeterian Apartments (since 2004). In 2005, Wood joined the Medical Mission Trip to Hanoi, Vietnam.
