Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

Annual Report 2006-2007

Section 1. Thanks to the combined efforts of the faculty, staff and students, the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences grew and successfully addressed the academic and departmental strategic plans. In the past years we have continued to add majors and minors, currently serving 265 students. Once again we lead the College of Agriculture in numbers of undergraduate student majors, and are second in the college in extramural funding. All of the faculty contributed to writing grants, working on patents, publishing, and/or making national presentations. We continue to be a campus leader in student assessment and were featured in the UW Assessment Newsletter for our faculty’s work on ePortfolios. The Early Care and Education Center successfully operated in the black for the second year, has waitlists for infant and toddler care, and wired three more rooms for video feed to the observation room. Cent$ible Nutrition, Dining with Diabetes, WIN Wyoming, and AgriAbilities had very successful outcomes that brought national and international notice.

Section 2. Academic Planning Implementation:

Academic Plan II: Action Item 22: (coordinate programs in childhood development, youth and family life).

o The department of Family & Consumer Sciences and the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education have continued to work together to implement the birth-five teaching endorsement in conjunction with the community colleges. Two articulation meetings were held during the year where faculty shared their syllabi and common assessments. Kay Persichitte trained the group on recording the common assessments on the College of Education’s CIED system.

o Michelle Buchanan chaired a meeting with representatives from Head Start, the Head Start Collaboration project, the Department of Education, the Department of Work Force Services, faculty from the community colleges, Karen Williams and Dianne Barden from the Department of Family & Consumer Sciences to look at articulating the CDA across the state and assisting with funding education and training through the Quality Child Care Bill.

o Karen Williams chaired the Early Childhood Leadership Institute in July, 2006. Kyle Kostelecky taught the course associated with it. The keynote speaker was Janet Gonzalez-Mena. Michelle Buchanan, Peggy Cooney, Trish Johnson and a graduate student conducted follow-up research on implementation of family involvement following the Institute funded through a College of Education grant from the Ellbogen Foundation. The Early Care and Education Center was selected as one of scholarship programs, and did a Hopes and Dreams project. Families in the program were interviewed and photographed, with the resulting pieces now hanging in the Center.

o The interdisciplinary masters program in early childhood education has had an increase in majors. The Academic Standards Committee approved a new brochure, and information was put on all eight departmental webpages.

Progress on the FCS Departmental Strategic Plan are as follows. The rest of the Action Items have already been completed and addressed in previous annual reports.

· Action Item 2: Staff, equip and open the new Early Care and Education Center. We are nearing the end of our second year of operation. Three additional rooms were equipped for video observation this year. The fence has been moved to allow for a soccer area for the children, a covered bridge/storage shed is currently under construction on the bicycle riding path, sandboxes have been installed, a tire swing was relocated from Hitchcock House, and toddler equipment has been installed. At the end of the first year of operation, the center was significantly in the black and was able to pay back $12,000 to the College of Agriculture.

· Action Item 4: Explore University-wide interest in the creation of an Institute for Children, Youth and Families. It was determined that there was not sufficient interest on campus or in the state agencies. Instead, part of the start-up package for Mona Schatz, Director of the Division of Social Work, is to create a center focusing on Child Welfare (the Department of Family Services’ preferred area). We will be working with Social Work on that endeavor.

· Action Item 5: Develop a five-year recruitment plan. Increase student majors by 25% by 2009. We continue to exceed this goal. From September 2003 to May 2007 we have increased majors from 143 to 205. We now serve a total of 265 students who have majors, minors, and dual majors in our department.

· Action Item 6: Increase extramural funding for research and creative endeavor. From June 1, 2006 through May 31, 2007 extramural funding is at $2,171,910. This is an increase of $152,342 over the 2005-2006 academic year.

· Action Item 9: Participate in the development of a multidisciplinary nutrition program with Pharmacy, Kinesiology and Health and Animal Sciences by 2009. Mary Hardin-Jones in Communication Disorders, Mark Byra in Kinesiology and Health, and Karen Williams in Family and Consumer Sciences have developed a plan for an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Integrated Health Sciences. The plan was presented to Deans Roth, Galey and Kelly in May 2007. Interested faculty in Family & Consumer Sciences, Veterinary Sciences, Animal Sciences, Kinesiology and Health, Communication Disorders, Pharmacy, Social Work and Nursing will meet in June to give feedback on the document. It will go to the Graduate School Council in fall 2007 for approval with a target of enrolling students for fall 2008.

· Action Item 10: Successfully complete reaccreditation of the dietetics program. Thanks to the hard work of Dr. Rhoda Schantz, the didactic program in dietetics hosted an accreditation site visit in November 2006 following the self study. An initial report has been received, items addressed, and the program will receive the final report from the Commission on Accreditation for Dietetics Education (CADE) in July 2007.

· Action Item 13: Increase scholarly productivity, including creative endeavor and the scholarship of teaching and learning. (See information in Sections 4 & 5.)

· Action Item 14: Strengthen international linkages through student and faculty exchanges and international research: minimum one student exchange per year and one application for international research or travel grant per year. This year we did not have any students or faculty doing an international exchange. However, Dr. Sonya Meyer did take twenty individuals on a fashion study tour to Paris, London, and Scotland in May 2007. She received funding for this endeavor through a Beyond the Classroom grant from the College of Agriculture. Dr. Virginia Vincenti has continued to work with international colleagues on her research.

· Action Item 15: Advocate to address at-risk family issues of resilience, behavioral health, child care, parenting and other important family challenges within Cooperative Extension. (See Section 5.)

· Action Item 16: Expand programming to help Wyoming children, youth and adults achieve healthy weights. (See Section 5.)

· Action Item 17: Continue to expand the Cent$ible Nutrition program. (See Section 5.)

Section 3. Teaching Activities: Faculty in the department met two hours per month to address teaching issues, with additional teaching items brought up at the all-department meetings each month. All faculty participated in course and curriculum work.

Faculty and graduate students in Family and Consumer Sciences were honored in 2006-2007.

• Dr. Kari Morgan – Mortar Board Top Prof
• Dr. Donna Brown – nominated for the College of Agriculture Outstanding Educator
• Dr. Enette Larson-Meyer – 2006 American Dietetics Association Vegetarian Nutrition Award of Excellence in Service and Leadership
• Suzy Pelican was awarded the Western Regional Team Award – Program Excellence through Research Award by the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.
• Amy Copeland Kelly – NACTA Graduate Student Teaching Award of Merit

Department of Family and Consumer Sciences faculty continued to be involved in key departmental committees focusing on teaching and curriculum: Graduate Student Recruitment and Retention, ePortfolio Curriculum Committee, and program unit curriculum committees. (See Section 9 for more details.)

Dr. Karen Williams continued to participate in early childhood education articulation meetings with colleagues in the College of Agriculture and the seven community colleges.

Once again all faculty were observed by the department head using a pre-observation conference, observation, and post-observation debriefing with a formal letter provided as part of our commitment to teaching and learning. Faculty also took advantage of observations by Dr. Jim Wangberg in the College of Agriculture, Jane Nelson in the ECTL, and attended CTL workshops. Faculty have continued to publish and conduct research in the scholarship of teaching and learning, receiving grants from the ECTL and the Outreach School to further their work.

Section 4. Research and/or Creative Activities: The department has continued to strengthen its research and creative endeavor activities.

• The department has received $2,171,910 in external contracts and grants to date, continuing to place us second in the College of Agriculture in extramural funding behind Molecular Biology. In addition to a significant increase in grant writing and creative endeavor submissions, Dr. Rhoda Schantz and Dr. Shane Broughton received notification that their provisional patent application for the a technology “Margarine Having a High Steric Acid Content” was filed and accepted. It will use Shea Nut Butter to produce a product with heart health/lower cholesterol implications. In addition, Dr. Broughton’s Asthma Diagnostic Tool patent has been licensed.
• Faculty published four articles, had ten additional articles accepted for publication, published one book, had four book chapters accepted for publication, published three abstracts and had an additional abstract accepted for publication, and published eleven refereed bulletins and other work. In addition, the Dr. Sonya Meyer and Dr. Donna Brown had a total seven creative endeavor juried submissions including garments and fashion dolls, two of which won national awards. Dr. Donna Brown was the invited designer for an international traveling fashion show with the International Quilter’s Association/Bernina. Dr. Brown and Dr. Meyer took a group of students to Reno, Nevada to put on an invited fashion show of creations they and the students created. The fashion show was produced and studied by Amy Copeland Kelly as her Plan B masters thesis.
• The faculty gave three international presentations (two of which were invited), fifteen national juried presentations,(six of which were invited), seven regional presentations (three of which were invited), and nine state presentations (two of which were invited).

Section 5. Service, Extension and Outreach Activities: The faculty in Family and Consumer Sciences contributed in many ways to key college, university, state and national organizations. While this list is not meant to be exhaustive, some examples include:

• Bruce Cameron served as chair of the University Course and Curriculum Committee and has been asked to serve another term.
• Mark Bittner served on the board of the National Coalition for Campus Children’s Programs and chaired its Policy Committee.
• Michael Liebman served on the UW READ Committee and the Graduate School Council.
• Donna Brown served as the outside member of the College of Arts and Sciences Tenure and Promotion Committee, and served as a grant reader for the USDA Higher Education Challenge grants program.
• Suzy Pelican is Chair-elect of the Weight Realities Division of the Society for Nutrition Education.
• Virginia Vincenti served as the chair of the Taskforce for Program Advancement, and was a key member of the AAFCS History and Archives Committee.
• Karen Williams chairs the University’s ePortfolio Platform Selection Committee.
• The following faculty reviewed manuscripts or served on editorial boards for refereed journals: Rhoda Schantz, Michael Liebman, Kari Morgan, Virginia Vincenti, Kari Morgan, Karen Williams, Kyle Kostelecky, and Sonya Meyer.

In addition, there were major contributions to Extension programs resulting in important impacts:

· Randy Weigel hired a coordinator of the AgriAbility project and they began marketing and delivery of services. Wyoming AgrAbility served eight clients during their first reporting period of funding. Of those eight cases, three are on-going pending funding assistance. Four on-site assessments have been requested and completed. Three of the eight cases were requests for information resulting in referrals to Wyoming Services for Independent Living (WSIL) or supplemental information. Clients are currently being served in seven of Wyoming 23 counties. As part of National Make a Difference Day, Wyoming AgrAbility teamed with six members of the UW Collegiate 4-H club to help a client with tasks around her property including finishing a lean-to for her horses, changing a well filter and finishing a cover over a kennel.

· Rhoda Schantz received a USDA/CSREES grant “Applying HACCP to Small Rural Food Processors through Interagency Cooperation.” Becce Birdlsey was hired as the coordinator and work on this important food safety project is proceeding.

• Suzy Pelican and Fred Vanden Heede were invited to Leeds, England as keynote speakers and to share information on the WIN the Rockies project at the first Health@Every Size conference in the United Kingdom. In addition,

o Wyoming Food Safety Coalition team members trained 1,967 food handlers in the following workshops:
Basic–277; Intermediate–355; Advanced–179; ServSafe–316; and Day Care–840. In-house trainings reached 399 individuals. Consumer programs and displays reached 640 and 356 individuals, respectively.

• The Steps to a New You program continued to promote health at any size by encouraging portion size awareness, healthy food choices, and physical activity. Based on preliminary results from 160 research study volunteers, the program has helped participants make significant improvements in many lifestyle habits, such as eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking less soda pop, ordering fewer super-sized portions, adding more physical activity including strength training to daily routines, increasing enjoyment of physical activity, and developing more positive self-concepts around body size and personal worth.
• Dining with Diabetes Based on preliminary results from 39 participants, the program is helping to significantly improve people’s knowledge and attitudes in several different areas, including a better understanding of using the Plate Method for portioning food, sources of trans fat and carbohydrates, eating the same foods as the rest of the family, and increasing physical activity.

• This past year, the Cent$ible Nutrition Program hired and trained six county-based educators, one state program manager, and two state project coordinators. In cooperation with Department of Education, a proposal was submitted to the Wyoming State legislature and a bill was introduced to provide supplemental state funds for the 3^rd grade youth curriculum’s expansion to all schools in Wyoming since the grant guidelines restrict programming in schools with fewer than 50% of children enrolled in free- and reduced-lunch. The cookbook, used as the text for adult participants, was printed with a Spanish translation and all adult curriculum handouts were translated to Spanish. Adult program graduates saved an average of $53.00 per month on food purchases. Of the 5,794 youth participants in Grain’ with Marty Moose and Eating Your Way Through Wyoming History, 74% reported increasing their knowledge of the essentials of nutrition.

Section 6. Student Recruitment and Retention Activities and Enrollment Trends:

Undergraduate: The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences has the highest number of majors in the College of Agriculture. We have doubled our enrollment over the past six years. This is thanks to the combined efforts of all faculty. We have attended all Discover Days, hosted all the Family and Consumer Science teachers in state to a day-long meeting, provided student tours to junior high and high school FCS classes, met with prospective students and their parents, met with all transfer students, distributed our annual newsletter that highlights faculty and student projects and accomplishments, held our annual student recognition banquet, provided tours of the Early Care and Education Center to students and teachers in the state, put on the Consumer Issues Conference and the Early Childhood Leadership Institute, and had student fashion shows, historic clothing exhibits, interior design project presentations, and the Coat Couture exhibit open to the public. In addition our student groups have been active on campus and in the community, publishing their accomplishments on our webpage.

Graduate: We currently have 10 Master of Science students. Efforts to increase graduate student enrollment are ongoing. Faculty are being encouraged to write graduate assistantship into their grants, we have donor support for graduate student research in nutrition, our graduate student recruitment and retention committee is working to redo our webpage and develop new recruitment materials, and we continue to market our interdisciplinary Masters degree in Early Childhood Development while working to develop an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Integrated Health Sciences.

Section 7. Development activities and public relations.

A. We have worked closely with Dean Galey and Anne Leonard to identify development funding needs and priorities. A donor recognition section was added to our newsletter as a way to recognize gifts made to the department to honor individuals and to recognize those donors who have donated at the endowment/matching funds level. The department head meets with current and potential donors, writes personal notes for any monetary or equipment donations, writes personal notes in holiday cards, and recent meetings with a donor have resulted in a project to work on child and family issues in energy impacted communities. Anne worked with Chris Spooner on language for a will to benefit the department. We were the recipient of another bequest following an alum’s death. Currently our development dollars are used for such purposes as to assist with summer graduate student stipends, fund student travel to professional meetings, provide support for student banquets and other recognition events, supplement sabbatical leave travel and research, purchase and maintain equipment, and provide tuition reduction for single parents whose children attend the Early Care and Education Center.

B. All of the faculty in our department did an excellent job of publicizing key events for their classes, their advisees’ accomplishments, and their own awards and recognition. This included notifying the Laramie Daily Boomerang or Steve Miller (College of Agriculture publicity contact) of student final presentations in conjunction with the Consumer Issues Conference, the historic clothing displays at the Laramie Plains Museum, the Coat Couture exhibit, Interior Design final presentations, fashion shows, Student Dietetics Association, Phi Upsilon Omicron, and Student AAFCS projects and events, and the annual student recognition banquet. All stories and photos are put out for statewide distribution, posted to our Student News and Faculty News portions of our website, and are highlighted in our annual newsletter. This year our departmental website averaged 1,429 “unique individual access hits” with a total number of page hits for the year of 166,748.

Section 8. Classified and Professional Staffing:

o The Cent$ible Nutrition program completed a classification study for all of the county-based educators. This resulted in a career ladder for employees and addressed market and compression issues, with 32 audit decisions being made.

• Patricia Hyson was hired to fill our vacant Office Assistant Senior position.
• Dianne Barden was hired as a ¾ time, non-extended term Academic Professional to become the Distance Program Advisor/Coordinator for our two degree programs and certificate program. This was funded through an MOU between the Outreach School and the College of Agriculture.
• Turnovers continue for teachers, teaching assistants, teacher’s aides, and dietary aides at the Early Care and Education Center. Most have been due to individuals moving outside of Laramie, taking vacant full time positions in Laramie when only part time positions were available at the center, and having school schedules that did not match the needed consistent hours at our program. Salaries continue to be an issue as well.

Section 9. Diversity: We conducted one faculty search and several academic professional, non-extended term searches this year. In all cases, we used mechanisms for reaching women and minorities. This included using national listserves (such as the Food Stamp Nutrition Educators listserve & CSREES), face-to-face contact at professional meetings, putting minority faculty members on our search committees, and posting our positions on sites that appeal to diverse groups.

We have had success in recruiting minority graduate students and currently have one Native American, one African, and one Chinese student out of a total of ten students. Nine of our active graduate students are women. In fall we will have one male student from Nepal, one male student from Africa, and one female student from Serbia joining our department. Most of our student recruitment has come from students visiting our webpage.

Section 10. Assessment of Student Learning: The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences was featured “In the Spotlight” in the February 2007 issue of the University of Wyoming’s Assessment of Student Learning.

A. Our department’s six competencies with the three identified skill levels for each, and our electronic portfolio student assessment procedures are linked to the website at http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/acadaffairs/assessment/Pages/StudentLearningOutcomes.asp and are also posted under Student Assessment on our departmental webpage at http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/FAMILY/assessment3.asp.

B. At our departmental retreat in August 2006, the faculty invited Jim Wangberg and Erika Prager to join us. They shared comments on our student assessment plan and met with us while we examined our competencies in light of our FCSC 1010 and 4010 courses. The faculty made changes to our FCSC 4010 Professional and Research Perspectives in Family and Consumer Sciences course to emphasize the students’ ePortfolio development. Consequently, the course was revised to be two credit hours with modified course requirements, moving the class to fall delivery. It was approved for these changes through the college and university’s course and curriculum committee. At the retreat, results of our alumni survey and student exit interviews were shared with the faculty. This resulted in the department putting in a proposal to the ECTL Assessment grants in Fall 2007 to conduct an employer survey for all of our program options to be sure that our portfolio competencies and curriculum meet employer expectations. The grant was funded and the survey will go out in July 2007.

The ePortfolio Committee began work to examine courses in the department within the FCS core to see where students could and should legitimately be adding evidence to and receiving feedback on their ePortfolios. The faculty met twice to look at current portfolios from FCSC 1010 and 4010 to see how they would define a quality portfolio. All six competencies were reviewed. Modifications were made to some in draft form. The faculty decided that in 2007-2008 all the competencies and skill levels would be reviewed to more clearly reflect the purpose of each. This will lead to a more in depth course examination.

C.The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences completed a survey of all alums from 1994-2006 through an assessment grant from the ECTL. Results can be found at http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/FAMILY/assessment3.asp under Alumni Survey. Analysis showed that 69.8% had pursued jobs in their field after graduation, 72.2% are currently employed, 85.7% felt that their degree and coursework had prepared them for success in their current positions, 75 % agreed or strongly agreed that understanding the interdisciplinary nature of Family and Consumer Sciences was helpful in their job responsibilities, 77.6% felt prepared to work with diverse populations, 79.4% indicated that their work requires them to communicate with individuals from a variety of cultures and nations, and 79.9% use the internet three or more times per week. Additional feedback was received on aspects of our competencies. Student exit interviews were conducted of graduating seniors as well.