2019 Summer Bridge faculty and staff notes

The 2019 Summer Bridge is scheduled to be dropped in mailboxes the week of July 22. Due to space requirements in the print edition, the extended list of faculty and staff notes is posted here:

Sheila Crook-Lockwood, assistant professor of nursing; Rebecca Schmidt, assistant professor of biology; Melinda Heinz, assistant professor of psychology; and Thomas Jordan, assistant professor of English were awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor.

Kurtis Koll, Fort Sill Center adjunct instructor, presented a paper at the 28th Annual Oklahoma Clean Lakes and Watershed Association Conference, held April 3-4, 2019, in Stillwater, OK. The presentation was titled “Blue Thumb: What’s in the Dash, 1992-2019.”

Katherine McCarville, professor of geosciences, who was elected to serve the Iowa Academy of Science (IAS) as President Elect a year prior, was installed as President at the 131st IAS Annual Meeting and 87th Iowa Junior Academy of Science (IJAS) Science Symposium on April 26-27, 2019, at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

Melle Starsen, associate professor of communication studies, had a research paper accepted by the 10th Academic International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities at the Institute of Research, Learning and Development at Sharon College, Oxford University, United Kingdom. The presentation, “Relatively Speaking: Incest in British Murder Mysteries– Television Programs and Fiction,” will be given during the conference scheduled for August 12-14, 2019.

Christa Steffens, assistant professor and director of nursing, presented “Faculty 4.0: Professional Development Needs for Transitioning and Current Online Faculty” to the Iowa League for Nursing in April 2019.

Adrianne Finlay, associate professor of English, has accepted a contract for her second young adult novel with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers, with publication expected in early 2020.

Julie Hinders, assistant professor of health services administration, and Melinda Heinz, associate professor of psychology, received a UIU grant for a cross-disciplinary research project titled “Promoting and attracting students to careers in aging services.” (2019).

Hinders successfully defended her Ph.D. in health services with a concentration in public policy from Walden University entitled “Unmet Support Needs of Informal Caregivers of Older Adults.” (January 2019).

Meghan Jordan, assistant professor of English, had an abstract accepted, “Spaces of Little Dorrit; or, The Global Marshalsea,” for the proposed edited collection, British WorkingClass Literature: Intersections of Space and Class [working title], ed. Simon Lee, to be published by Palgrave, 2019.

Jordan presented her paper, “Cultural Memory and Mapping in Imperial Great Britain,” at the annual conference of Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies in Dallas, Texas, (March 2019). In addition, Jordan was awarded a Research and Teaching Development Grant from the office of the Upper Iowa University Provost. She will be visiting the Special Collections and Rare Book Collections of the State University of NY at Albany and Skidmore College in order to finish research on her book project (late spring 2019).

 

Mariea Schnor, assistant professor of accounting, was a recipient of a Research & Teaching Development Grant used for attendance of Minnesota Higher Education Accounting Professors Conference. (April 2019).

Summer Zwanziger Elsinger, associate professor of business, reviewed text entitled Management: Leading & Collaborating in a Competitive World (McGraw Hill) by Bateman. (January 2019). Zwanziger Elsinger also reviewed the following papers for North American Management Society (January 2019): “Improving Mobile Phone Banking Usefulness, Usability, Risk, Cost and Intention to Adopt,” “Robert Owen: Early Industrialist Social Activist and Education Reformer,” “Team entrepreneurial psychological ownership: The process and effects in new venture teams,” and “Diversity Initiatives for Tribal Colleges and Universities: A Look at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.”

 

Megan Knight, adjunct professor, co-authored “Taking on a New Grading System: The Interconnected Effects of StandardsBased Grading on Teaching, Learning, Assessment, and Student Behavior,” which was published in the NASSP Bulletin. The NASSP Bulletin is a peer-reviewed journal that informs practice, supports data-driven decisions, and advances the vision and performance of middle level and high school principals. Megan teaches pre-service educators at the UIU-Quad Cities Center.

Elissa Wenthe, associate professor of art, presented a group exhibition Iowa Educators: Artists as Makers, in Conjunction with NCECA (National Council on the Education of Ceramic Arts), Squirrel Haus Arts Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. (March 2019).

The UIU Financial Aid Office was honored at the Iowa Association of Financial Aid Administrators (IASFAA) spring conference in Johnston, Iowa.  All financial aid offices in the state are given the opportunity to submit an application describing the ways they promoted early FAFSA filing on their campus during the month of January.  UIU’s submission was selected by the IASFAA awards committee. The UIU staff members were awarded the Fabulous Frieda Flamingo Traveling Trophy for the 2018-19 academic year. They also received the state proclamation for Financial Aid Month, as signed by Governor Kim Reynolds, to display in their office.

The following 2018 faculty and staff notes, were submitted following the publication of the 2018 Winter Bridge.

Laura Gleissner, assistant professor of art, and Elissa Wenthe, associate professor of art, presented four 5-week long community education art classes with Drypoint Printmaking. (Tuesdays from September 11 – October 9, 2018).

Wenthe presented Solo Exhibition Remainder at Farnham Gallery, Simpson College-Indianola, IA. (October 2018).

Wenthe presented Demonstration Workshop and Public Artist Lecture, Winona State University.  Winona, MN. (November 2018).

John Grummel, associate professor of political science, presented “Political Polarization: A Look at Individual Perceptions,” at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Popular Culture Association in Indianapolis, IN. (October, 2018).

Melinda Heinz, associate professor of psychology, presented keynote “Do Psychosocial Theories of Aging Still Apply to Extreme Longevity?” at the 24th annual Tri-State Undergraduate Psychology Conference, Dubuque, Iowa. She also co-presented poster “Environmental Modifications for Individuals with Autism” at the same conference. (November 2018).

Heinz presented “Evaluating the Oral History Narratives of Minority Centenarians: A Case Study in Social Justice.” At the 71st annual Gerontological Society of America, Boston, MA. (November 2018).

Heinz attended the 91st annual Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago, IL., where she co-submitted poster abstracts entitled “Factors in Quality of Care at Long-Term Care Communities,” “Sexual Assault on Rural University Campuses,” “How Self-Confidence Affects Competition Success Among College Athletes,” and “Student-Athlete Transition out of Sports.” (November 2018).

Julie Hinders, assistant professor of health services administration,  is recipient of social change grant and fellowship at Walden University. The grant award will fund a research project titled “Older Adults and Caregivers: Food policy and healthcare in rural America.” As a fellow, she will serve in an advisory capacity to the president on advancing the university mission of social change. (2018-19).

Hinders reviewed “The application of social exchange theory by entrepreneurs leading small businesses in Appalachia” for the Transnational Journal of Business. (December 2018).

Susan Massey, assistant professor of education, co-presented “ILA/CAEP workshop for reading/literacy specialist program writers and reviewers” at the International Literacy Association 2018 Conference, Austin, TX. (July 2018).

Massey authored an article titled “Leadership in reading: Understanding the ‘gender gap’” in the Illinois Reading Council Journal. (Summer 2018).

Massey co-authored an article titled “What do they do all day? Field experiences in literacy coaching” in the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers Yearbook 40. (Fall 2018).

Massey co-presented “Literacy clinic experiences: Influencing pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy” at the 62nd Annual Conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers in Louisville, KY. (November 2018).

Katherine McCarville, professor of geosciences, presented an invited talk entitled “Big Rocks and Big History” at the Workshop on Native American Presence: The Past, Present and Future, sponsored by The Ho-Chunk Nation and the St. Lucas Historical Society, at the German American Museum at St. Lucas, IA (June 2018).

McCarville presented a talk entitled “Iowa Rocks! Glaciers and Extinctions” at the Fayette Community Library (July 2018).

Doug McReynolds, Bissell professor of English, is judging creative writing and American literature criticism entrants in Sigma Tau Delta’s annual collegiate writing competitions.  Sigma Tau Delta is the national honorary fraternity of undergraduate English majors.

Rebecca Schmidt, assistant professor of biology, co-authored an article titled “A batf3/nlrp3/IL-18 axis promote natural killer cell IL-10 production during Listeria monocytogenes infection” (2018) in Cell Reports 23(9):2582-2594.

Schmidt co-authored an article titled “A New Strategy to Control and Eradicate “Undruggable” Oncogenic K-RAS-Driven Pancreatic Cander: Principles Learned from Developmental and Evolutionary Biology in MDPI Cancers (May 2018).

Jennifer Stoffel, associate professor of biology, and Scott Figdore, professor of science and Robert L Fox endowed chair of science, were awarded a $1,034 grant from the Iowa Native Plant Society for project “Continued management of university owned prairie remnant used for conservation and plant research and instruction.” (April 2018).

Stoffel authored a poster entitled “Biodiversity activity survey: breaking the ice with the next generation of scientists”, presented at the Ecological Society of America Annual meeting in New Orleans, LA (August 2018).

Stoffel and McCarville co-authored a session entitled “Science Literacy in Undergraduate Introductory Earth Science Courses” presented at the Iowa Academy of Science, Iowa Science Teaching Section Meeting: Cultivating Science Literacy in 3D, Ankeny, IA (October 2018).

Schmidt, Stoffel, and McCarville co-authored a poster entitled “Unearthing the Potential Geoscientist: Engaging Students in Biogeochemical Field-Based Research and Service in the Critical Zone.”  The poster was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America, at Indianapolis, IN (November 2018).

Stephanie Tippin, associate professor of nursing, presented “Applying QSEN Competencies to Systems-Based Learning: Implementation of a Quality Improvement Capstone Project and Virtual Poster Conference Experience” at the 2018 Nurse Educators Conference in the Rockies, in Vail, CO (July 2018).