Summer 2003
Tatiana Allen, Physics, Geology, and Astronomy, has been selected to serve as a grant proposal reviewer for the U.S. State Department's Science Center Programs. The Science Center Programs include the International Science and Technology Center in Moscow and the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine. Established to combat the proliferation of weapons, these programs support non-weapons research and development opportunities for weapons scientists and engineers in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. The proposal that Allen will be reviewing is entitled "Alloyed Diamond-Like Carbon Films New Material for Optics and Electronics." Allen also recently attended the Third World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, which took place in Osaka, Japan. She lectured there about Microcrystalline Silicon Thin Films Using D.C. Saddle-Field Glow Discharge, and a paper based on her presentation will be published in the conference proceedings in December. Allen published the scholarly paper entitled "Amorphous-Microcrystalline Silicon Films Obtained Using Hydrogen Dilution in a DC Saddle-Field Glow-Discharge" in a journal published by the Materials Research Society. Allen's paper is based on the presentation" Progress in Semiconductor Materials II, Electronic and Optoelectronic Applications," presented at the Material Research Society Symposium. Allen's collaborators on the research program include Drs. Milostnaya, Yeghikyan, Gaspari, Kherani, Kosteski, and Zukotynski, all members of the Material Research Society. Allen also presented two lectures at the spring meeting of the Material Research Society in San Francisco.
Sandy Cole, GEAR-UP, brought Link Crew to Ridgeland High School in Walker County and Bradley Central High School. Created ten years ago, Link Crew grew out of the need to address the problem of serious hazing and poor treatment of freshmen at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California. Under the program, upperclassmen serve as peer mentors in small groups of incoming ninth grade students.
The graduate and undergraduate programs in Criminal Justice recently completed their required five-year review process, and the external reviewer assessed the quality of the curricula, faculty, and students, and evaluated the programs' diversity, resources, and goals/objectives. At both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the department received perfect ratings. The reviewer describes UTC's Criminal Justice Department as a flagship criminal justice program in the state of Tennessee. According to the reviewer, the strength of the program lies in the diversity of its faculty in terms of gender, ethnicity, and substantive perspective, and he considers it to be considerably stronger than most similar programs throughout the nation.
David Cundiff, Department head of EHLS has been selected to participate in the Wellness Councils of America (WELCOA) University Affiliate Program. WELCOA is designed to provide students access to academic health promotion materials through WELCOA's InfoPoint website and Absolute Advantage magazine at no cost to the University. For more than a decade, the Wellness Councils of America, a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving employee health, has been partnering with educational institutions to assist them in building quality wellness programs.
Lucien Ellington, history, Asia Program has co-edited and contributed to the book Where Did the Social Studies Go Wrong? (Fordham Foundation, publisher), an extensive critique of the typical manner in which education schools prepare future history and social studies teachers. Distribution of the book will include policy makers and media outlets throughout the country. In fall, 2003 at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., Ellington will participate in a forum based on the research in the book. The forum will be narrated by the Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Gene Ezell, UTNAA Professor, Health Promotion in Exercise Science, Health and Leisure Studies has been honored by The University of Tennessee, Knoxville for outstanding personal and professional achievement. Ezell, who received his doctorate from UTK has received the Robert H. Kirk Distinguished Alumni Award, presented last spring at the annual convention of the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance in Philadelphia.
Faculty Fellows 2003-04 include Dawn Ford, Biology & Environmental Sciences; Pat Kopetz, Graduate Studies (Education); Richard Rice, History; Cathie Smith, Physical Therapy; Naomi Sutherland, Library; Joe Wilferth, English.
Leroy Fanning, UC Foundation Professor and specialist in Sports Management, Sociology & Psychology of sport, has been elected President of the Southern District of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD). Southern District AAHPERD serves as an advocate for quality programs that encourage healthy, physically active lifestyles. The mission of Southern District AAHPERD is to support and promote the aims of AAHPERD and assist in strengthening the state associations of these thirteen states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Fanning has contributed over 40 years of active involvement to the Alliance networks.
Joseph Kizza, computer science, has been selected by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) to be a candidate on the Fulbright Senior Specialists Roster. CIES uses this roster to place specialists in overseas research programs. Academic institutions abroad send requests to CIES for scholars in a specialized field of study to travel to the foreign institution and assist with research studies, and the CIES then chooses a scholar from the Fulbright Senior Specialists Roster who is a match with the program's required expertise. Kizza will remain on the roster for five years, and if selected as a match for a program, he will take part in a two-to-six-week research project at the foreign institution.
Deborah McAllister, UC Foundation Associate Professor, has been selected by NASA to review candidates for the NASA Educator Astronaut Program. McAllister will be a member of a panel which will review and evaluate 1,100 transcripts from Educator Astronaut applicants. The Educator Astronaut program is a 21st century version of the Teacher in Space program begun by NASA in the 1980s. Christa McAuliffe was the 1st teacher selected for this program, but after the Challenger disaster in 1986, the program was put on hold for more than 15 years. Now, in 2003, NASA is searching for qualified teachers to begin the new Educator Astronaut program. McAllister will review candidate applications to help narrow the field of applicants to a small pool from which NASA officials will interview and select the final group of Educator Astronauts; the estimated number of participants in the program is between three and six. These selected educators will begin a year of basic training at NASA in 2004 and be eligible to participate in a mission by late 2005 or early 2006. NASA believes that putting teachers into space will significantly increase the interest of students in pursuing math and science fields. McAllister also participated in the Summer Urban Institute held at Brown Academy, where she introduced teachers to "math trails," a collection of community mathematics modules developed by students in McAllister's Teaching Strategies and Materials in Secondary and Middle Grades Mathematics course
Dr. Marcia Noe, Coordinator of Women's Studies, was selected recently by the Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC) to serve on a citizen advisory panel. As a panelist,. Noe's responsibilities include meeting once a year with other panel members to offer advice on program planning and to review grant applications; she will also be available to TAC staff as a year-round information resource. TAC has twelve different citizen advisory panels to oversee program areas such as arts-in-education, theater, dance, visual arts, and music. Noe was selected to serve on a panel for the literary arts. She met with other panel members in Nashville for her first advisory session. She will serve a two-year term.
Nicky Ozbek, psychology, and clinical psychologist at Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation has received the Chattanooga Area Brain Injury Support Group Community Service Award. Ozbek was one of the founding members the Chattanooga Area Brain Injury Support group.
Tom Patty, Director of the Challenger Center, was asked to advise the National Science Foundation (NSF) by providing recommendations for funding of innovative Engineering Education programs. Patty joined other panelists in the two-day review process in Washington, D.C., reviewing and scoring proposals submitted to the Engineering Education Program, determining which proposals best meet the goal of the program: to increase the number and quality of students earning B.S. degrees in engineering.
David Pittenger, Department Head, Psychology, was chosen by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to serve on a peer review panel that read and evaluated proposals to NSF's Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement program, Adaptation and Implementation track for psychology. Pittenger attended panel meetings in Washington, D.C. to review grant proposals, assessing and ranking proposals based on their scientific and intellectual merit and the broader impacts of the research activity described in each proposal.
The Psychology Department recently conducted its five-year review process, and external reviewers were impressed with the faculty's concern for and mentoring of their students. Likewise, the reviewers noted the great level of respect that students have for the faculty members. For the undergraduate program specifically, the reviewers commented on the strength of the course offerings, saying that, "the faculty has taken care to craft courses to foster critical thinking, content integration, and independent study." At the Master's level, reviewers specifically commented on the success of the program in "attracting diverse and talented students." Both the undergraduate and graduate programs were evaluated using criteria developed by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. For the undergraduate program, standards such as goals, curriculum, teaching, inclusiveness, and support are judged; and for the graduate level, areas including admission and retention, methodology, extra-disciplinary experience, research, learning environment, and faculty quality are examined. For both levels, the programs received perfect scores, with 100% of the required standards being met.
Scott Rosenow, Southeast Center for Education in the Arts (SCEA), has been selected to review proposals for the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation. These grants enable fine arts teachers to develop and implement programs that will enhance the learning experience of students at risk of school failure.
Jeffrey Rush, UC Foundation Professor, Criminal Justice was recently named an Academic Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and education on the war on terrorism. The stated mission of the FDD is to produce independent analyses of global terrorist threats, as well as of the historical, cultural, philosophical and ideological factors that drive terrorism, and which threaten democracies and the individual freedoms guaranteed within democratic societies.
