Monthly Memo - April 9, 2007

from the Desk of Dean Robert O. Kelley
69th Edition

A Message from Dean Kelley

In recognition of their record of achievement and demonstrated potential to help lead Wyoming in the decades to come, the 2007 class of 40 Under Forty has been announced by the Casper Star-Tribune. It was very gratifying to see Kamme L. Jeffries, Roland C. Maldonado, Michael Miller, and Deidre Ashley among those so honored. Kamme received her dental hygiene degree in 1990 before going to the University of Nebraska to complete her degree in dentistry. She and her husband, Carl, now have a prosperous and community-oriented dental practice in Thermopolis. Kamme, a native of Burns, also finds time to promote Thermopolis's annual Pageant Days 5K and looks forward to pursuing forensic identification so she can volunteer to identify bodies in major natural disasters. Roland, who received his nursing degree in 1992, now serves as administrator of the State of Wyoming's Prison Health Operations. He credits his success to his business philosophy of "hiring bright and capable people and then letting them do their jobs." He enjoys the constant change involved in his challenging work. Michael is an assistant professor at the Casper Family Medicine Residency Center who grew up in a "medical family." He is not only a dedicated family physician but has also traveled extensively to promote and improve Third World medicine. In appreciation of his outstanding service, Michael was recently hired by the government of Kazakhstan as a consultant to help the country develop a family medicine program. Deidre is working on her master's degree in social work as she directs Community Entry Services in Jackson. Deidre, a "big fan of giving back to and being productive in her community," works diligently to make sure her staff advocates for their clients, many of whom are disabled.

News from the Divisions
Pharmacy
To acknowledge the School of Pharmacy's 60th anniversary this year, it's a pleasure to recognize the following Pharm.D. students who earned a 4.00 GPA for fall semester 2006 and a place on the President's honor roll: Christopher Perkins from Casper; Krista Tafoya and Shelli Woods from Cheyenne; Kimberly Bruha from Ft. Collins, Colorado; Heidie Hanzlik and Nicholas Schofield from Gillette; Katherine Bradley, Trevor Goff, Joleen Stratton, and Sara Yennie from Green River; Erambo Ayokosok, Erin Boss, Kyle Kelly, Jessica Latourelle, Andrew Paxton, Lindsay Sheaffer, and Nancy Taylor from Laramie; David Walker from Leavenworth, Kansas; Kyle Zanto from Lewiston, Montana; John Walter from Lingle; Tamara Magck from Littleton, Colorado; Mitchell Daley from Oak Lawn, Illinois; Misty Shandera from Pine Bluffs; Jade Enevoldsen from Potter, Nebraska; Alyssa Barbour from Rapid City, South Dakota; Melanie Daley and Marcie Woodbury from Rock Springs; David Dixon and Matthew Meyer from Sheridan; Kristine Pippitt from Sidney, Nebraska; Lynn Hickox from Torrington; and Aislinn McBeth from Wray, Colorado..


Social Work
The division, along with Virginia Commonwealth University; Rutgers University; the universities of Connecticut, Minnesota, Tennessee, Florida International, and Southern Illinois at Carbondale; and the State University of New York at Albany, sponsored the Council on Social Work Education hosted by Boston College. Over 150 social work educators and practitioners attended the council to focus extensively on the creation of Best Practices for International Social Work. A follow-up conference will be planned for 2008.
Jocelyn Bare from Cheyenne was one of seven UW students who went to Biloxi, Mississippi, over semester break to help victims of Hurricane Katrina rebuild and return to their homes. The students, who were sponsored by St. Paul's Newman Center, were rewarded by "feeling part of something bigger and knowing that with all of [them] doing [their] part, big differences were being made in the lives of others." Katrina's Aftermath along the Gulf Coast.

The division, a regular participant in helping support the many social needs of Wyoming communities, recently created a new working relationship with UW's College of Law to provide consultation for third-year law students working in the legal services program. The division has also entered a five-year commitment to work with Wyoming's Children's Justice Project, a project under the auspices of the Wyoming Supreme Court and the Wyoming Attorney General's Office designed to improve the practice competence of professionals who represent and work with families and children in the state's court systems.
Mona Schatz, Division Director, has brought together an interdisciplinary team of investigators to work with the City of Casper and Central Wyoming Senior Services to study the emerging needs of Baby Boomers who will soon be reaching their retirement years. Members of the group include Deborah Fleming, Clinical Professor; Victoria Murdock, Assistant Professor of Social Work; Rex Gantenbein, Director of the Center for Rural Health Research and Education; and Milton Green, Extension Educator of UW's Cooperative Extension office. The team is enthusiastic about investigating issues such as social, recreational, and medical and health needs of Casper "boomers" and their engagement with the city's social, political, and economic life.

James Hruby from Cheyenne recently completed a clinical placement at Community Action of Laramie County that offers a wide range of services to local people living in poverty. James gained invaluable skills in community advocacy, group work shops, case management, and collaboration with other agencies, expertise he will use when he begins practice after graduating in May. According to James, "The greatest challenge for me in my placement was seeing how stereotypes of the poor keep them from getting the help they need in order to succeed. During my placement, I also had to confront my own biases and the biases of others in order to serve the clients I worked with. Along with facing my preconceptions, I was challenged to ask questions rather than assume a passive stance."

Virginia J. Sutter, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Fresno Native American Center, Inc., will be this year's keynote speaker for the Association of Student Social Workers' spring banquet to be held on April 15th at 5 p. m. in the West Union Ballroom. Dr. Sutter, an author and enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Indian Nation (NAIN), will focus on her own activism and advocacy for economic and social justice for disenfranchised, marginalized, and dispossessed peoples and groups. Following her address, she will autograph copies of her book, Tell Me, Grandmother: Traditions, Stories, and Cultures of Arapaho People, the biography of Goes-in-Lodge, a traditional Arapaho woman of the 19th century and the first wife of Sharpnose, the last reigning chief of the NAIN. While she is on campus, Dr. Sutter will also speak to UW's student chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants.

The division actively observed National Social Work Month in March by hosting a special faculty appreciation breakfast, participating in UW's Discovery Days, cosponsoring a conference on International Social Work Best Practices, planning and hosting the Shepard Symposium for Social Justice, and sponsoring the 6th Annual Jackalope Loop that benefits Laramie's Downtown Clinic. The division also honored Gary Parker, a social worker at the Wyoming State Mental Hospital, as this year's Social Work 2007 Field Instructor at a reception that also recognized the division's faculty and alumni and the many field instructors who serve as mentors and teachers.

Center for Rural Health Research and Education (CRHRE)
Community Action Partnership

Rex also had the opportunity to discuss Wyoming's issues in health information security and privacy at the March meeting of the American Health Information Community (AHIC) in San Jose, California. AHIC is a federal advisory body chartered in 2005 to make recommendations to the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services about how to accelerate the development and adoption of health information technology. Wyoming was one of three states participating in the AHIC project asked to present at this meeting. Access to materials, including video, from the meeting is available at http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/community/meetings/m20070313.html.

In recent weeks, the CRHRE received two new grants. The National Library of Medicine funded a two-year planning grant to develop the Western Regional Biomedical Collaboratory, a research alliance of several Western universities intended to support the sharing of research and education in the biomedical sciences. This project is an outgrowth of the Lariat project previously funded by the National Institutes of Health to create high-speed network connections among the participating universities. Joe Zhou will be the technical specialist on this project and will be assisted by Britnee Brost, who will take the role of project coordinator. Britnee will also coordinate a one-year planning grant funded by the Office of Rural Health Policy for the Southeast Wyoming Telehealth Network to support coordination and development of telehealth activities such as continuing education, consultation, and remote delivery of health care among six hospitals in the southeast corner of the state. In this project, the CRHRE will partner with Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, which has already purchased Internet videoconferencing systems for the participating hospitals.

Grand Rounds/Research Day
This year's Grand Rounds/Research is scheduled for Friday, April 27th, in the Family Room on the second floor of the Wyoming Union. Invited speakers are Sally Davis, Ph.D., Professor in the University of New Mexico's Department of Pediatrics and Director of the Prevention Research Center and Allen Bowling, Ph.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Director of the Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center. Dr. Davis will present "Interventions for Preventing Obesity in Children—Lessons Learned&?rdquo; Dr. Bowling will discuss "Multiple Sclerosis: The Basic and Beyond." These two speakers will be joined by Gail Leedy, Associate Professor of Social Work; Derek Smith, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Health; Krisztina Zajd, Assistant Professor of Communication Disorders; and Jayne Jenkins, Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Health. Faculty and students will also exhibit poster presentations of their research projects in the Senate Chambers on the second floor of the Union. Please plan now to attend all or some of the activities and learn what college students and faculty have accomplished.

Communication Disorders
(preprof.hs@uwyo.edu, 307-766-6704, or 307-766-3499).

Have you heard? UW now has a dental contract program! The 2007 legislature enacted the program and offered financial support for up to 10 UW dental students. Contracts are currently being negotiated with Creighton University School of Dentistry and the University of Nebraska College of Dentistry. When students finish dental school, they will owe the state either three years of full-time dental service or the money expended plus interest. For information on the two-fold admission process, please contact the UPAO.

Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing (SON)
The SON's psychiatric nurse practitioner program, in partnership with the Wyoming Department of Health Divisions of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, is pleased to offer an exciting new program—New Concepts in the Assessment and Treatment of Addictions: Neurobiology & Pharmacology. This all-day presentation, with presentations by SON faculty, will be held on Tuesday, April 10th, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Family Room located on the second floor of the Union. Free admission is offered, but participants must register with UW Conference & Institutes (307-766-5641) in advance in order to ensure space availability. Continuing education units (CEUs) will be offered for the nominal fee of $10 to cover the costs of the program. Please contact Kathleen Koltz (307-766-6715 or kkoltz@uwyo.edu) for CEU information and registration.


WWAMI Medical Education Program
More than 104 people attended the annual WWAMI White Coat Ceremony held on Friday, March 23rd. During the program, each student was presented a white coat by his/her Laramie preceptor in recognition of the student's entrance into the medical profession. Students' families and guests joined with faculty and administrators to congratulate the participants. Students will begin their second year of medical school at the University of Washington in fall 2007.


Kinesiology and Health
Division students continue their impressive record of being accepted to the national postgraduate programs of their choice. Kent Loendorf, a senior in the kinesiology and health (K&H) promotion program from Laramie, will attend Eastern Washington University's School of Physical Therapy beginning in fall semester 2007. Colby Harris, a senior in the K&H promotion-athletic training program from Riverton, has been awarded a graduate student assistantship in the athletic training program at Virginia Tech University. Samantha Michelena, from Buffalo who received her bachelor's degree in K&H promotion in 2006, has been accepted to the University of Washington's School of Medicine with a start date of summer/fall 2007. Lindsey Lorello from Gillette, a senior in the K&H promotion-athletic training program, will begin the University of New England's master of science/physical therapy program in summer 2007. Hayes Bean, a senior in the K&H health promotion program from Belle Fourche, South Dakota, will begin his studies in the Physical Therapy Program at the University of South Dakota beginning in summer 2007.

UW's Graduate School awarded Luc Carr and Chris Dorozynski from Laramie $250 each to help defray their expenses to attend the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting. Luc, a doctoral student, and Chris, a master's student, are research assistants in the Integrative Physiology Research Lab of Derek Smith, Assistant Professor.

Mark Byra, Division Head, presented "The Spectrum of Teaching Styles: Research and Scholarship" at the inaugural Spectrum of Teaching and Learning Institute Conference held in Buckeystown, Maryland. Jayne Jenkins, Associate Professor, and her co-writers spoke about "Guidelines for Student Teachers" at the National Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance's National Conference held in Baltimore. Tristan Wallhead, Assistant Professor, was invited to speak at the conference by the National Curriculum and Instruction Academy, delivering "Combating Obesity in K-12 Learners." Tristan also presented a poster—"A Gender Comparison of Student Coaching during a Unit of Sport Education"—at the meeting.

Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007