Monthly Memo -Feb. 1, 2008

Poster Presenters - Child Speech/Phonology Lab members Erika Anderson of Laramie (left; Megan Koeteman of Scottsbluff, Nebraska; Krisztina Zajdo, assistant professor; and Shaylyn Todd of Cheyenne.

Cheney Fellowship - Mona Schatz, Lea Terwilliger Grubbs and Diane Kempson from the Department of Social Work congratulate master's in social work student Joe Marrazzo on his acceptance to study abroad at the University of Cork in Ireland.

Monthly Memo from the Desk of Dean Robert O. Kelley

78th Edition

February 1, 2008

A Message from Dean Kelley
The College of Health Sciences consistently and successfully works to accomplish its mission to promote excellence in health and human services through university teaching, research, and service, with special emphasis on rural populations. As you read the following memo, I feel sure you will agree that we have begun 2008 with renewed energy and achievement.
News from the Divisions

Wyoming INstitute for Disabilities (WIND)
As part of its collaboration with the Wyoming Department of Health Hospital Preparedness Coordinator and staff from the Office of Homeland Security, WIND recently established a contract with Marc Rudkin of Cheyenne to spearhead a project involving emergency planning for people with disabilities. Rudkin, a former nurse, has been involved with fire and emergency services for almost 30 years and is active with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the United States Forest Service in the helicopter management of wildfires. In addition, Rudkin is a former deputy chief of a large rural volunteer fire service. The project focus is to provide training and technical assistance for people with disabilities in creating personal emergency plans. Providers of services to people with disabilities for developing emergency plans will also be involved, as will emergency managers to ensure emergency plans to include provisions for people with all categories and types of disabilities. Furthermore, the project will assist emergency managers in contacting people with disabilities to help coordinate local plans and inclusion of plans for people with disabilities in all hospitals throughout the state. For questions about involving people with disabilities in developing, planning, or coordinating local emergency plans, please contact Rudkin (307-287-0440) or WIND's Dave Schaad (307-766-2095).

Pharmacy
Carol Kobulnicky, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Administration, received a 2007-08 Kaiser Ethics Project Grant to fund "A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching Ethics across the Pharmacy Curriculum." Carol and her three co-principal investigators—Kem Krueger, Associate Professor of Pharmacoeconomics and Health Outcomes Research; Janelle Krueger, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Director, Experiential Education Program; and Michelle Hilaire, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice—began implementing changes within course curricula in January.

Ji Li, Assistant Professor of Biochemical Physiology and Pharmacology, was invited by the Chengdu Institute of Biology in Sichuan Province of the People's Republic of China to speak about his work on stress signaling pathways. While in China, Ji also met with the president of Yunnan Spirin Biotech Company, LTD, to discuss details about collaboration projects in the development of natural products extracted from Chinese herb medicines.

As a result of the efforts of Glaucia Teixeira, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics, the School of Pharmacy received seven pallets of IV fluids worth approximately $8,000 from the VA Nebraska Western Iowa Health Care System. According to Glaucia, the school is also scheduled to receive almost $4,400 worth of drugs, fluids, and sterile supplies from Hospira, Inc. in early February. These donations are welcomed by school faculty who offer students the hands-on opportunity to prepare sterile products.

Communication Disorders
"The Impact of Early Intervention on Speech and Lexical Development for Toddlers with Cleft Palate: A Retrospective Look at Outcome," by Mary Hardin-Jones, Division Director, was published in the January issue of Language, Speech, Hearing Services in Schools.

Students in the Child Speech/Phonology Lab, taught by Krisztina Zajd, Assistant Professor, have been exploring how mothers help their children acquire vowels. Results of the analysis of speech samples from two- to four-year-old children and their mothers suggest that caregivers modify the acoustic properties of their vowels as they talk to children with increasingly mature vowel production skills, thereby "scaffolding" the children's speech development. As the result of their studies, the students produced the poster "Teaching Vowels to Young Children: Phonetic Modeling in Hungarian-speaking Dyads," which was presented by Kristina at the 2007 Annual Convention of the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association recently held in Boston. (Seen here in the division lab are Erika Anderson from Laramie; Megan Koeteman from Scottsbluff, Nebraska; Zajd; and Shaylyn Todd from Cheyenne.)

Stacey Powell, a speech-language and hearing sciences student from Laramie, won a second EPSCoR Undergraduate Research Fellowship to continue her study of speech timing properties in children's speech. Stacey, under the mentorship of Krisztina Zajd, has been working on uncovering how children acquire the highly sophisticated skills needed to manipulate the duration of speech sound produced while acquiring language-specific speech production patterns.

Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing (SON)
On Wednesday, April 16th, the SON will sponsor the Hospice Foundation of America's Fifteenth Annual Living with Grief Teleconference "Living with Grief: Children and Adolescents." The program will be moderated by Frank Sesno, Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University and Special Correspondent with CNN. Details about time and location will be made available soon. The Nightingale Center for Nursing Scholarship has released the following schedule for its Spring 2008 Luncheon Series:

• February 27th : Penelope Caldwell, Assistant Lecturer of Nursing—"An International Program for Nursing Students"
• March 26th: Mona Schatz, Director of the Division of Social Work, and Vicki Murdock, Assistant Professor of Social Work—"Listening to the Needs and Wants of the ‘Boomers' as They Age"
• April 23rd: Ann Marie Hart, Assistant Professor of Nursing, and Kari Morgan, Assistant Professor of Family & Consumer Science—"Wyoming Families' Values Regarding Respiratory Infections: Results from a Statewide Telephone Survey"

The presentations, to be given between 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. in CHS 232, are open to the UW community and local public who are invited to bring their own lunches.

Kinesiology and Health
Division faculty continue their impressive record of publications. Tristan Wallhead, Assistant Professor, published "Teaching K-12 Students to Combat Obesity" in Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, "A Didactic Analysis of Content Development during the Peer Teaching Tasks of a Sport Education Season" in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, and "Technology Use in a Physical Education Teaching Education Program: Unique Strategies for an Unconventional Subject Area" in Future Focus. "Promoting Health Literacy through the Health Education Assessment Project" by Tami Benham-Deal, Associate Professor, appeared in Journal of School Health, "Aldosterone Antagonism Fails to Attenuate Age-associated Left Ventricular Fibrosis" by D. Paul Thomas, Professor, appeared in Journal of Gerontology, and "Does the Metabolic Rate-flight Speed Relationship Vary among Geometrically Similar Birds of Different Mass?" by Matt Bundle, Assistant Professor, appeared in Journal of Experimental Biology. Brandon Alderman, Assistant Professor, published "Aerobic Exercise Intensity and Time of Stressor Administration Influence Cardiovascular Responses to Psychological Issues" in Psychophysiology and "The Impact of the Testing Environment on Affective Changes Following Acute Resistance Exercise" in Journal of Applied Sport Psychology.

Division faculty also remain active during national and international conferences. Tena Hoyle, Assistant Professor, presented three papers—"Promoting Quality Coordinated School Health Programs as a Means to Reduce Health and Educational Disparities"; "The Pueblo Project: ‘Reculturing' Schools for Health Promotion in Pueblo, Colorado; and "Quality, Effective Professional Development: The Missing Component in Building Capacity for Health-promoting Schools"—at the International Union Health Promotion and Education Conference held in Vancouver, British Columbia. During the Historic Traditions & Future Directions in Research on Teaching and Teacher Education in Physical Education Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jayne Jenkins presented "Peer Coaching—Observation as Knowledge."

Grand Rounds/Research Day
Mark your calendars! The college's Grand Rounds/Research Day will be held on Friday, April 4th. Details will be available soon. In the meantime, faculty members are asked to encourage students to present their senior projects and/or thesis work.

Wyoming Geriatric Education Center (WyGEC)
The WyGEC will present the telehealth series "Geriatric Health Promotion for Health Care Providers" provided by the University of Washington Telehealth Services Network. Sessions include "Developmental Disabilities" on February 5th, "Health Literacy" on February 12th, "Hearing Loss" on February 19th, "Nutrition" on February 26th, "Latino Health" on March 4th, and "Incontinence" on March 11th. For Wyoming site information and registration, please contact Robert Wolverton (bobwyo@uwyo.edu).

Social Work
Sarah Fritz, a senior from Laramie, Kari Skordas, a graduate student from Rawlins, and Joseph Morrazzo, a graduate student from St. Augustine, Florida, received scholarships from the Kay L. Cox Memorial Scholarship Fund. The fund, which was established to help non-traditional social work students and students who would benefit from scholarship funds to support their university education, helps social work student defray tuition and school expenses, including student fees and books. During the interview process, the three provided excellent examples of how they have engaged in various community activities that demonstrate their commitment as future social workers. Joseph will also soon travel to Ireland as the recipient of the first-ever Cheney Fellowship for Study Abroad created by Vice President Cheney and his wife, Lynne. According to Anne Alexander, Director of UW's International Programs, Joseph is a "super star student with the potential to substantially impact social work." During his semester in Ireland, Joseph will study housing issues for individuals in Cork diagnosed with mental illness and homelessness. (Joseph is seen here with Social Work's Mona Schatz, Lea Grubb, and Diane Kempson.)

"Internet and E-mail Utilization by a Nursing Home Resident: A Single Subject Design Exploratory Study for Improved Quality of Life for the Elderly" by James Smith, Associate Professor, will soon be published in the Forum on Public Policy. The article is the result of Jim's invited presentation at the Oxford Round Table held in August at Oxford University in England.

WWAMI
WWAMI faculty are dedicated to teaching medical students. During the 2007-08 academic year, three professors came out of retirement to continue their service to the medical education program. Dr. Rob George, who has taught histology for WWAMI since the program began, came out of retirement last fall to teach it again and to take over a portion of cell physiology. Dr. Bill Jolley is currently teaching parasitology, and Dr. Jim Rose planned and coordinated the nervous system course. We appreciate the knowledge and efforts of our entire faculty and are inspired by the dedication of our long-term and now retired faculty.
Center for Rural Health Research and Education (CRHRE).

The CRHRE recently added two programs to its impressive list of telehealth services. Wyoming's Health Information Resource (WYHIR) (pronounced "wire") is the state's source for information about the private and secure exchange of health information. WYHIR's mission is to ensure the privacy of protected health information by advancing the knowledge of pertinent legal issues, policies, and best practices pertaining to health information exchange in Wyoming and to foster and facilitate a greater understanding of the privacy and security matters surrounding health information. For details, please visit www.wyhir.org.

The Federal Communication Commission awarded almost $800,000 over the next three years to create a high-speed network to link Wyoming hospitals, mental health centers, and substance abuse clinics. With the Wyoming Network of Telehealth (WNT), state agencies under the supervision of the CRHRE will be able to increase their bandwidth or capacity to send data over a network. According to Rex Gantenbein, CRHRE Director, WNT has already helped several state providers begin implementing telemedicine that uses computers and telecommunications to provide health care services from a distance.

Spring Commencement
The college's spring commencement will be held May 10th beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Arena Auditorium. The procession formation will begin at 8:15 in the Multi-purpose Gym (also called the UniWyo Sports Complex). A graduation fair featuring everything needed for commencement including measurement for caps and gowns will be held in the Yellowstone Ballroom of the Wyoming Union on February 21st from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and February 22nd from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. More commencement information may be found HERE.
Please contact your division secretary if you have questions.

Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008