Academic Times 2016

Scheduling them as NSU adjunct professors, the Department of Marketing, Hospitality, and Supply Chain Management is using Tulsa Community College faculty members as recruiters to NSU. These are great instructors who have followings at TCC which we believe are transferring to NSU, according to Dr. Michael Landry, department chair. Adjuncts in NSU Marketing include TCC Associate Professor of Marketing and Management Pam Imhoff, and TCC Associate Professor of Marketing Rebecca Leigleiter. Joining NSU for Spring 2016, in Marketing, is TCC Assistant Professor of Management Gary Keck and in NSU Hospitality and Tourism Management is Jim O Mealey, who recently retired as head of TCC's hospitality program.

NSU's Supply Chain Management program is now listed as a sponsor of the Tulsa Chapter of the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) on the ISM-Tulsa website. Meanwhile, ISM-Tulsa and the NSU College of Extended Learning (CEL) will in February 2016 begin offering instruction in supply chain management designed to grant NSU-CEL certificates and to prepare students to sit for ISM international certifications. Teaching will be individuals from the NSU adjunct pool including Laurie Poole a 20-year supply chain veteran; Stephanie Jones, owner of a trucking company, and Scott Tillman of Warehouse Solutions in Tulsa. Meanwhile, Dr. Landry joined with other members of ISM-Tulsa at the Eastern Oklahoma Food Bank in November in their annual volunteer session; group prepared food packages for senior citizens. And NSU's Supply Chain Management program has been offering a class in warehouse management that has included on-site sessions at the food bank's industrial-sized 70,000-square-foot warehouse in Tulsa. Conducting the class has been NSU Assistant Professor of Technology Dr. Ed Bellman.

At the recent meeting of the NSU Supply Chain Management Advisory Board, industry members provided comments regarding the NSU program's curriculum offerings. This was the third time since about 2006 that the Supply Chain Management program has solicited such comments. NSU will then report back to industry members to demonstrate how their ideas are being applied to the curriculum. Besides executives from NORDAM, Georgia-Pacific, Warehouse Solutions, AAEON Technology, and Lynnco, attending for NSU were Dr. Bellman, College of Extended Learning Dean Dr. Eloy Chavez, Assistant Professor of Management Dr. Ken Jones and Dr. Landry.

Dr. Landry recently met with executives of Lynnco, a Tulsa-based third party logistics company that is growing into consulting. They have nine NSU supply chain management graduates (including their recently-promoted operations manager, Josh Hardy). They are looking for more interns and graduates as they grow and discussed with Dr. Landry how NSU can help with their talent needs. Another company seeking to develop close ties with NSU is ABF Freight whose Texas-based recruiter Ky Evans recently visited NSU and indicated there was a good fit between the cultures of ABF and NSU.

The NSU Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) program has developed close ties with the College of Extended Learning and the Office of International Studies. CEL is developing a recruiting program for HTM and the Office of International Studies envisions tourism as a program for which there can be extensive international recruiting of students. Sponsored by CEL, NSU Assistant Professor of HTM Kin Thompson spent fall break in the Bahamas attending a conference designed to recruit international students to study in the U.S.

Dr. Mary Waters, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Counseling, and Jeneshia Hicks, school -counseling candidate-in-training, represented the Oklahoma team at an invitation-only Third White House Convening on School Counseling. This convening brought teams from 33 states to discuss specific metrics to improve college counseling throughout the United States. Those in attendance learned and shared best practices concerning supporting first-generation college students to navigate the college application process with greater confidence and success.

Dr. Sophia Sweeney served as the state member on a Board of Examiners Team for a focused National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) visit.

Dr. Sophia Sweeney served as the moderator for the Teen Parents panel at the Community Education Forum in Tulsa hosted by the Margaret Hudson Program.

Dr. Sophia Sweeney is now the secretary for the Board of Directors for the Margaret Hudson Program, which provides comprehensive academic and family support services to help teen mothers succeed in life and parent healthy families.

PSYCHOLOGY AND COUNSELING FACULTY GO TO PHILLY!

Dr. Pamela Christol, Dr. April Adams and Karen Harris presented a poster presentation titled: Connecting Science Literacy and Inquiry-Based Instruction at the Association for Science Teacher Education International Conference on January 9, 2016.

Dr. April Adams was a state BOE member in an NCATE Legacy on-site visit. She helped write the NCATE and state accreditation reports after reviewing report documents and visiting with faculty, staff, students, and collaborating K-12 administrators.

Dr. April Adams and M.Ed. in Science Education graduate students, Ms. Cheri Barrera and Mr. Matthew Wallace presented a workshop entitled, Earn an M.Ed. in Science Education and STEM Education Certificate Online, at the Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching in Fort Worth, TX.

Cassandra Crawford Ciglar, MA, RDN/LD, CPT (NPFA, MT (ASCP) received approval on her doctoral dissertation proposal presentation on November 16, 2015 of "An Evaluation of College Students use of Social Media in Nutrition Education for Lifestyle Behavior Changes".

Cassandra Crawford Ciglar, MA, RDN/LD, CPT (NFPA), MT (ASCP) was an invited guest speaker at the NSU College of Optometry on November 19, 2015, presenting "The Role of Nutrition and Eye Health".

Cassandra Crawford Ciglar, MA, RDN/LD, CPT (NFPA), MT (ASCP) attended the National Fitness Professional Associations Sport Performance Series Seminar on December 5, 2015.

Dr. John de Banzie is exploring the use of individualized homework problems in Genetics. He has coded web pages that randomly generate realistic experimental data (so far, numbers from crosses and gel electrophoresis images) for each student to analyze. He hopes this approach will encourage students to become more self-reliant in data analysis. The web pages include features that will minimize the additional effort required in grading individual problems.

Dr. Richard Hasenauer, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, published the paper "Normsets of almost Dedekind domains and atomicity" in the Journal of Commutative Algebra, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2015.

Drs. Jim Hicks and John de Banzie gave a presentation titled Apple Airplay: Benefits for Classroom Instruction for the 2016 Community and Collaboration Day at NSU.

Deborah Hyde led the Physical Geology class on a field trip of six geologic sites in Cherokee County. Students were able to see firsthand how geologic processes continue to shape our beautiful landscape in the foothills of the Ozarks.

(from left to right) Kathryn Jackson, Deborah Hyde, Bradley Herrmann,Brandon Gibson, Blake Westerby, Lauren Cox, Lindsey Hurt, Kaylee Swenson, Danielle, Harrison, Hunter Ragland, Daniel Whalen, Candice Morey, Clint Burson, Kristina (Baldanado) Stricker, Keziah Grigson, Brittany Carter, Mary (Julie) Ferguson, William (Herschall) Thompson, Shelby Kiesewetter, Zack Mankins, Shanista Cloud, Gary Gregg, Autumn Acord and Lynsey Gass.

Deborah Hyde led the Environmental Geology class on a very rainy field trip to the Picher, Oklahoma Super-fund site on 30 October, 2015. Students observed environmental damage left from past lead and zinc mining, collected and tested water samples from the site. This trip allowed students to apply the skills they have been learning in class to a regional environmental problem. As a side benefit of the "flipped" or blended arrangement of the geoscience courses, NSU has experienced an increase in diversity of students enrolling in geoscience courses.

(from left to right in photo:) Jacob Pruiett, Sarah Chapman, James Dunham, Sara Blakley, Delaney Gray, JaCorie Maxwell, Brandon Gibson, James Shell, Bryce Wotjer, Joshua Coleman, Cory Kaiser, Samantha Byrd, Jana Green, Jonathan Sullivan, Nick McElhaney, Otto Kremmer and Robbie Wood II

Dr. Suneeti Jog submitted a contract with the Oklahoma Conservation Commission for wetland plant identification for $29,000.

Dr. Suneeti Jog co-authored a manuscript titled "Does visibly intact mean biologically intact and vice versa?" Bried J.T. and Jog S. K. submitted to Biological Conservation.

Dr. Suneeti Jog received a contract from the Oklahoma Conservation Commission for $29,315 for the research project titled "Collaboration on the National Wetland Condition Assessment".

Dr. Suneeti Jog co-authored an EPA report titled "Development of landscape GIS models for the prediction of wetland condition in Oklahoma" FY 2013 104(b)(3) CD00F56801 Project 2.

Dr. Kemp and her undergraduate student Jocelyn Couch attended the Autumn Immunology Conference in Chicago where Jocelyn won second place in the undergraduate poster presentation contest.

Dr. Kyeorda Kemp, Dr. April Adams, science teacher candidates Kinsey Biggs and James Shell, and biology major Tara Downs participated in the Women in Science Conference for girls grades 6-12 held in Tulsa, OK.

Dr. Kyeorda Kemp was accepted into the American Association for Immunologists.

Dr. Kyeorda Kemp attended the Arkansas INBRE meeting with her graduate student Cody Poe, undergraduate research student Sarah Cruz, and an undergraduate student from her Immunology course, Rusty Long. Sarah presented her work from the summer on characterizing gene expression in watermelon crops infected with viruses.

Dr. Kyeorda Kemp was accepted into the American Association of Immunologists as a full member.

Ben Kruger, a student of Dr. Rick Matzen, professor of computer science, submitted a poster to the faculty level poster contest for the 2016 ACM SIGCSE international conference. This conference is one of the largest annual gatherings of computer science professionals with over 1,000 registered participants.

Dr. Martha Parrott, professor of mathematics, presented "Mathematics Vocabulary: A Tool for Supporting Conceptual Understanding" at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, November 18-20, 2015.

Dr. Martha Parrott was invited to showcase the NSU Mathematics Clinic, an NSU outreach initiative of service, through a presentation given at the November Higher Education Forum held in Tulsa, OK.

Dr. Martha Parrott hosted on October 29, 2015 at NSU-BA a gathering of mathematics leaders from the State Department of Education and area school districts that comprise the Northeast Oklahoma Mathematics Consortium.

Dr. Mark Paulissen hosted Mr. Jay Stout and his Claremore High School Anatomy Club Students for a cadaver dissection session on November 3, 2015. The students assisted as Dr. Paulissen dissected the thoracic cavity and removed the heart of the cadaver (which is housed in the NSU cadaver lab and is used for the BIOL 2154: Human Anatomy class).

Dr. Demitri Plessas presented "Graphs Are Uniquely Determined by Their Inverse Semigroup" at the 2016 Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America in January 2016 in Seattle, Washington, and he was a judge for the Undergraduate Poster Session.

Dr. Demitri Plessas was the head judge for the Muskogee VEX Robotics Competition on December 5, 2015.

Dr. Mia Revels led a very successful Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Broken Bow, Oklahoma on December 27, 2015 despite the flash floods and tornadoes. She had to call the count at 1:00pm because of the weather. The morning weather was relatively tame, at least compared to what came later! 60 bird species were located on the count including both Bald and Golden Eagles.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy supervised the mammalogy class at the Tulsa Zoo as part of the mammalogy lab.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy was appointed the Chair of the Biology Program for the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Erik Terdal met with a faculty from TCC-SE campus (a former master's student of Dr. Terdal) at the Tulsa office of the US Fish & Wildlife Service to plan research on bats involving TCC and NSU-BA students.

Dr. Erik Terdal checked motion-activated wildlife cameras in the Maya Mountains of Belize, Central America, the last week of December 2015 and arranged to place one with a new local land-owner.

Dr. Kevin Wang and his graduate student, Damien Hall, deposited Codon-optimized human tissue specific plasminogen activator (t-PA) in tobacco leaves dissolves fibrin and blood clots in GenBank: KT886995.

Dr. Kevin Yueju Wang and his former NSU student, Alexia Dickey published a review paper Plants as Factories for Human Pharmaceuticals: Applications and Challenges in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2015, 28549-28565; doi:10.3390/ijms161226122

Dr. Erik Terdal took a group of 18 to snorkel in Belize for "Coral Reef Ecology" the first week of January. 

Dr. Kevin Wang, current graduate student, Yves Hall, and recent graduate, Melissa Menie attended the Plant & Animal Genome XXIV Conferences held in San Diego, CA. January 9-13, 2016. Poster presentation: Transiently Expressed Human Tissue Specific Plasminogen Activator (t-PA) in Tobacco Leaves Dissolves Fibrin and Blood Clots.

At the December meeting of the Oklahoma Association of College and Research Libraries, Karl G. Siewert of the BA Campus Library was inducted as President Elect of the Association. He will serve as President for the 2017 calendar year.

Gary L. Cheatham, Assistant Professor of Library Services, published a review of the book titled Battles and Massacres on the Southwestern Frontier: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, edited by Ronald K. Wetherington and Frances Levine (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014). In Army History: The Professional Bulletin of Army History 98 (Winter 2016): 55-57.

DECEMBER 2015 GRANT AWARDS

NOVEMBER 2015 GRANT AWARDS

SENATOR LANKFORD VISITS NSU TAHLEQUAH

Mr. Nick Hughes, Oklahoma School Counselor of the Year, is being honored at a White House ceremony. Nick is a proud graduate of Northeastern State University's school counseling program and now is an adjunct instructor for the NSU counseling program.

Dr. Maria Christian, assistant professor of higher education leadership, organized NSU Broken Arrow's participation in the 2016 KTUL Spread the Warmth Blanket Drive. Working with Jessica Roberts, Coordinator of Community Engagement at the Broken Arrow Campus and Volunteers of America, NSU Broken Arrow became a donation location for campus and community members to donate new and used blankets. According to Amber Neville, representative for Volunteers of America, the blanket donation drive was a success. The blanket drive ran from January 6 - January 31.

Dr. Denise DaRos-Voseles, department of curriculum and instruction, and Susan Patrick, NSU graduate, presented Developing in Harmony: Using Play Materials to Enhance Infant Toddler Development on February 11 at the Southern Early Childhood Association Annual Conference in Tulsa.

Dr. Debbie Landry, Dr. Vanessa Anton, and Dr. Sophia Sweeney completed the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) State Site Visitor training on January 28 & 29. The training took place at the National Center for Employee Development in Norman, Oklahoma. CAEP is the new national accrediting body for educator preparation taking the place of NCATE and TEAC. Drs. Landry, Anton, and Sweeney have all three served on state site visitor teams for several universities with NCATE standards but will now be able to serve on CAEP state teams.

Mindy Smith, Sherry Been, Sarah Ramsey and Megan Moreland presented: Using Reader's Theater to Explore Informational Text at the 17th Annual Celebration of Teaching.

Dr. Thompson and Ms. Massey, in conjunction with Kappa Delta Pi - Kappa Rho Chapter, hosted the 17th Annual Celebration of Teaching on the Tahlequah campus. Keynote speaker and Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, Shawn Sheehan, motivated middle and high-school students in attendance to consider a career in teaching. The event concluded with the 140+ students in attendance participating in hands-on, interactive workshops that promote the positive aspects of teaching and learning.

Dr. Thompson and Ms. Massey conducted staff development for the kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers at Maryetta School in Stilwell, OK. Authentic writing and the Writer's Workshop approach were the focus.

Dr. Thompson and Ms. Massey hosted a "Best Practices in Reading and Writing Instruction Institute" in the Cappi Wadley Reading and Technology Center on the Tahlequah campus. The Center for the Collaborative Classroom presented best practices in reading and writing to over 40 area educators and administrators.

EDUCATION NEWS

On January 26, the Wadley Center hosted Sequoyah-nominated children's book author Tim Tingle during the first family literacy night of 2016. Mr. Tingle told stories and spoke about his inspiration for How I Became A Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Novel. Each child in attendance was given a book autographed by Mr. Tingle. Kappa Delta Pi members and officers helped with the event.

Dr. Kristopher Copeland, assistant professor of communication studies, and Kendrea James, graduate student-communication arts, received the Top Paper Award for the Forensics and Argumentation Division of the National Communication Association in November, 2015. Their paper is titled "My College Education Comes from my Forensics Experience": Examining Student Learning in Forensics.

Dr. Brett Fitzgerald, assistant professor of criminal justice, is one of three winners of the 2015 William Miller PUBP Best Dissertation Award from the University of Arkansas. Fitzgerald's dissertation is titled Incarcerating Exceptional Pupils: Is there a School-to-Prison Pipeline in Eastern Oklahoma?

Dr. Ben Kracht, professor of anthropology, has been invited to participate in a research study about how NAGPRA (the 1990 Native American Graved Protection Repatriation Act) and anthropological research ethics are taught to and learned by undergraduates. The study is part of the National Science Foundation-funded Learning NAGPRA project through Indiana University. The study concludes in 2017 with a joint publication.

Dr. Kimberly Lee, associate professor of English, interviewed with a reporter for the Cherokee Phoenix for a feature piece focusing on one of the new classes being taught in COLA for the Cherokee and Indigenous Studies and Languages and Literature Departments, Native American Film and Media . The story ran in the newspaper the week of February 14. Additionally, Lee's second book: Indigenous Pop: Native American Music from Jazz to HipHop (Arizona Press) is scheduled to be on shelves in mid-March. Further, Dr. Lee will be presenting a paper in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 1, 2016 at the Indigenous Interventions/Indigenous Narratives Conference sponsored by IAIA.

Dr. David Linebarger, professor of humanities and English, published his poem "Near the Coast" in the 2016 Winter Issue of The Cafe Review. Based in Portland, Maine, The Cafe Review has been publishing poetry, art, and book reviews for over 25 years.

English Professor Dr. Christopher Malone's essay, "Yeats's Easter Rising: The Rhetorical Making of a Mask," appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of The Yeats Journal of Korea: An International Journal of Yeats and Modern Literature.

Instructor in English James McGirk has been awarded a $12,000 grant from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition as part of the Art 365 program. McGirk will work with a curator to create a year-long art project that will culminate in a series of exhibits in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. His proposal is to create a series of art books in the style of Ed Ruscha. Two of his longform creative nonfiction pieces have been licensed by the French media company Ulyces.co for translation and syndication. Audible has agreed to produce an audio version of McGirk's last eBook A Grand Theory of Everything. He will also have two feature articles forthcoming in This Land Press, one called "Roadkill Moderne" describing the gelatinous science fiction aesthetic of the early 1970's and a second examining the class dynamics of the town of Tahlequah.

Dr. Cheryl Van Den Handel, assistant professor of political science, accompanied the Model UN team to Midwest Model UN in St. Louis, Mo. from Feb. 10-13th. Alondra Bustamonte, Darion Releford, and Joshua Owen took Honorable Mention for Economic and Social Council Delegation.

Amy Proctor, instructor of criminal justice, published "The Nature, Extent, and Effects of Trafficking, Distribution, and Use of Methamphetamine and Other Dangerous Drugs in Indian Country: Perceptions from Providers in Ten Western Tribes" as part of the Tribal Methamphetamine Initiative. The Initiative was a collaboration between NSU and the Cherokee Nation through a grant from the Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This research will benefit Native Americans not only here in the Cherokee Nation, but in other tribes as well. Furthermore, working with over ten tribal governments produced an enormous amount of qualitative data on drugs and their effects on Native Americans and Tribal Nations that will aid in future research. It also paved the way for future collaboration between NSU and the Cherokee Nation, as well as other Tribal Nations across the country.

NSU student Elizabeth Cotrill was awarded the $1,000 Chuck Schnake Memorial Scholarship by the Public Relations Society of America Tulsa chapter for the Spring 2016 semester. Cotrill, a Jay senior, is a Media Studies-Public Relations/Advertising major and President of the NSU Public Relations and Advertising Club.

The National Association of Social Workers Oklahoma Chapter awarded NSU student Sheridan Pogue the BSW Student of the Year Award. Pogue is a Broken Arrow senior.

Dr. Heather Fenton, Jennifer O Connor, and Dr. Tim McElroy spoke during the Muskogee Lions Club meeting on February 2, and Dr. Fenton and Dr. Diana Mashburn spoke during the Muskogee Kiwanis meeting on February 4. The topic was promoting the Unmask Your Potential: Celebrating Nursing and Nursing Education scholarship fundraiser Mardi Gras themed gala featuring Miss Colorado and Registered Nurse, Kelley Johnson. The gala, dinner, and silent auction will be held on Friday, March 11, 2016 at 5:30 pm.

Dr. Cindy Cisar, department of natural sciences, served on a National Science Foundation Review Panel in January 2016. She reviewed 30 applications and met virtually with the other panelists on the 19th and 27th.

Dr. John Diamantopoulos, professor of mathematics, was named the south-central regional director of Kappa Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honor society.

Dr. John Diamantopoulos was elected vice-president of the NSU faculty association.

Dr. John Diamantopoulos attended the joint meetings of the Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society in Seattle in January 2016 where he judged the MAA undergraduate student poster competition, judged the Association for Women in Mathematics graduate student poster competition, and participated in a focus group on "Quantitative Reasoning/Literary - An Alternative to the Traditional Liberal Arts Course".

Dr. Sung Kun (Sean) Kim, associate professor of chemistry, along with his student Austin Dinkel published the article Inhibitory Effect of Bridged Nucleosides on Thermus aquaticus DNA Polymerase and Insight into the Binding Interactions in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.

Dr. Troy Lee, assistant professor in the occupational therapy program, presented Client Centered Care: Increase Patient Outcomes to occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, physical therapists, social workers, nurses, and physicians at Eastar Hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma on January 22, 2016. The presentation focused on team-based care in an interdisciplinary environment.

Dr. Mia Revels coordinated The Nature Conservancy J.T. Nickel Preserve Winter Bird Count on January 23, 2016. Fifty-eight bird species were located for the count by volunteers from all over the state.

Dr. Erik Terdal placed a "jaguar" camera trap in a new location in the Maya mountains of Belize, Central America.

JANUARY 2016 GRANT AWARDS

Check out an article published by the Muskogee Phoenix about "NSU economics professor studies cigarette tax increases."

New adjuncts for the department of Marketing, Hospitality, and Supply Chain Management are Justin Carltonand Arthur Churchill, both with NSU bachelor and MBA degrees. Mr. Carlton is in the process of starting a State Farm Insurance agency and pursuing a doctorate in education in sports and recreation management at the University of Arkansas. Mr. Churchill is operations manager for Union Public Schools in Tulsa and an adjunct in the business division of Tulsa Community College.

In honor of Supply Chain Management month, Dr. Michael Landry, chair of the Department of Marketing, Hospitality, and Supply Chain Management spoke to the ISM-Tulsa monthly meeting in March regarding The History of Supply Chain Management. The supply chain concept is so new, I guess I could have only spoken for 3 minutes, according to Dr. Landry. His talk traced contemporary supply chain management back to military logistics and post-World War II supply and distribution efforts involving marketing, manufacturing, materials handling and more.

As part of his efforts to promote immersive learning, NSU Assistant Professor Dr. Ron Petty is leading three students in working with a healthcare organization in Cherokee County on the issue of uninsured individuals not seeking health care coverage.

Dr. Bea Keller-Dupree, assistant professor of psychology, was awarded the honor of being named a 2016 DaVinci Institute Fellow. Dr. John deBanzie, professor of biology, was also named a fellow this year. The award recognizes innovation and creative responses to unique challenges in the classroom. This honor includes a $1,000 cash award and will be conferred at the DaVinci Institute Honors and Awards Ceremony at the Oklahoma History Center on April 1, 2016. Oklahoma is one of only 13 recognized Districts of Creativity in the world. It is the only state in the U.S., and the only location in North American to own this recognition. Congratulations to both Dr. Keller-Dupree and Dr. deBanzie for this prestigious recognition of innovation and creativity.

Dr. Vanessa Anton presented at the American Alliance for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) in Las Vegas with Dr. John E. Henning, Monmouth University; Dr. Lynne Mills, Georgia Gwinnett College; and Dr. Carol Ryan; Northern Kentucky University. The presenters are a part of the Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation's (CAEP) Clinical Experience Design Team. The design team is a group from the 13 states in the CAEP State Alliance working to develop clinically-based, practice-based approaches to teacher education.

Dr. Sophia Sweeney, Ms. Emily Finney(alumna), Dr. Judy Moody, and Dr. Cindi Friesled a panel discussion on e-portfolios at the Critical Questions in Education Conference in San Antonio, TX on March 7. This presentation was the outcome of research conducted by the team pictured as well as Dr. Karen Carey, Dr. Renee Cambiano, Dr. Jocelyn Payne, Executive Director of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, Ms. Devin Basinger (alumna), and Mr. Josh Silver (alumnus). The original research project was funded by the "Through Their Eyes" Collaborative Course Redesign Grant administered by NSU's Center for Teaching and Learning. The purpose of the project was to work collaboratively with NSU students to redesign a traditional course as a blended one. Ms. Finney, Ms. Basinger, and Mr. Silver were Honors Students at the time of the research.

Dr. Tobi Thompson, Director of "Cappi" Wadley Reading and Technology Center, did a family literacy presentation on February 25, 2016 at Sequoyah Elementary and on March 22, 2016 at Hulbert Elementary for Cherokee Nation on family literacy. In addition, Dr. Thompson also presented "Reading Across the Curriculum" to the teachers at Cleora on March 11, 2016.

Dr. Linda Wilson received a Technology Innovations for Learning and Teaching (TILT) Grant from the Center for Teaching and Learning for the 2016-2017 year. The grant entitled, Learning Styles Enrichment and Supplementary Project, will benefit candidates in ELED 4563. These candidates take the course one semester before graduation.

EDUCATION NEWS

Dr. Cindy Cisar and her student, Robby King, attended the annual meeting of the Missouri Valley Branch and Missouri Branch of the American Society for Microbiology on March 4-5, 2016 at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. Robby presented his research results in a talk entitled "Gut Microbiome of the Prairie Lizard, Sceloporus consobrinus . The research project is a joint project with Dr. Mark Paulissen and was funded by an NSU Faculty Research grant.

Dr. John deBanzie, professor of biology was awarded the honor of being named a 2016 DaVinci Institute Fellow. Dr. Bea Keller-Dupree, assistant professor of psychology, was also named a fellow this year. The award recognizes innovation and creative responses to unique challenges in the classroom. This honor includes a $1,000 cash award and will be conferred at the DaVinci Institute Honors and Awards Ceremony at the Oklahoma History Center on April 1, 2016. Oklahoma is one of only 13 recognized Districts of Creativity in the world. It is the only state in the U.S., and the only location in North American to own this recognition. Congratulations to both Dr. Keller-Dupree and Dr. deBanzie for this prestigious recognition of innovation and creativity.

Dr. Heather Fenton presented at ONA Region 3 on February 11, 2016. Dr. Fenton shared information about Nursing Cruises and Continuing Education.

Dr. Heather Fenton, Jennifer O'Connor, and Dr. Diana Mashburn with Dr. Wes DeRosier hosted the Joint Meeting of the NSU and Connors State College Nursing Advisory Committee on February 25, 2016. This was an information sharing and planning session with area nursing programs and health care facilities.

Dr. Lucas Foster, assistant professor of mathematics, was awarded a China Studies Institute (CSI) Zhi-Xing China Academic Leaders Fellowship. The Fellowship supports participation in the CSI to be held in China from June 5 to June 24, 2016. The China Studies Institute (CSI) offers college and university faculty members without prior experience in Chinese studies to learn from scholars, business leaders, and education administrators about China both past and present. The institute encourages participants to develop strategies for incorporating Chinese studies into courses on their campuses. The Institute involves three weeks of intensive seminars, lectures, readings, and cultural activities related to Chinese history, culture, literature, government, business, language and education. Institute faculty include scholars, administrators, representatives from the local Chinese community, and government officials.

Dr. Diana Mashburn served as a program evaluator for the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing during a site visit in Wisconsin on February 23-25, 2016. She also attended the ribbon cutting for the new Nursing Student Center at Eastar Health Systems in Muskogee on February 26, 2016. Recruiting activities included participating in RiverHawk Jam on February 27, speaking to Associate Degree nursing students from Northeastern Oklahoma State College on February 29, Western Oklahoma College of February 7, various nursing programs at Legislative Day on March 7, and Carl Albert State College on March 9. Dr. Mashburn taught CPR and First Aid classes for Bureau of Indian Affairs employees on March 2 and 3. She was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Baptist Free Clinic and attended the first board meeting on March 8. On March 9, 2016 Mashburn was on Okie 101.7 radio promoting the upcoming Unmask your Potential-Celebrating Nursing and Nursing Education scholarship fundraiser gala.

De Ann Lowder Jones, Dr. Darryl Linde, Dr. Sue Woods, and Alexander Duncan helped at the NSUBA booth at the Central Tech STEM Event on March 10, 2016 in Drumright, OK. This recruiting event enabled NSUBA to be exposed to many high school and middle school students in the Drumright area.

Jennifer O'Connor, Dr. Diana Mashburn, Dr. Judith Melvin, Melody Yozzo, and Dr. Alexis Jonesserved as judges for the Muskogee Regional Science and Engineering Fair held at the Muskogee Civic Center on March 1, 2016.

Dr. Spence Pilcher submitted a manuscript entitled "Preparation of 4-Ethoxyphenylurea using Microwave Irradiation" to the Journal of Chemical Education.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy submitted a manuscript to The Prairie Naturalist entitled, "Small mammal diversity and abundance at abandoned home-sites in western North Dakota."

Dr. Kevin Yueju Wang was awarded a $7,200 grant from Oklahoma INBRE to support undergraduate student Summer Research.

Dr. Kevin Yueju Wang reviewed a manuscript for the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

As a special Centennial Scholar, Dr. Kevin Yueju Wang taught sciences and DNA world for 6th grade students at the Centennial Middle School in Broken Arrow on February 24, 2016.

The NSU Oklahoma College of Optometry was well represented at the annual Heart of American Contact Lens Society meeting in Kansas City between February 12-14.

• Dr. Lee Carr, NSUOCO professor, provided 6 hours of continuing education lectures.
• Dr. Abby Gillogly, contact lens resident, received a $2,000 award for her research poster presentation.
• Dr. Samantha Giang, family practice resident, also received a $2,000 award for her research poster presentation.
• All 28 members of the NSUOCO fourth-year class, working in pairs, presented research posters at the meeting and each team received a $100 travel award. Over the past four years 85% of the posters presented at the meeting were from NSU.
• About 10 other NSUOCO students served as volunteers at the meeting.
• During the banquet, Dr. Thomas Salmon, NSUOCO professor, was presented the society's Vision Service Award for his contributions to eye care during his 36-year career.
• In addition, Drs. Wes DeRosier and Heidi Thoden of NSU serve on the board of directors for the Heart of America Contact Lens Society.

Dr. Richard E. Castillo, NSU-OCO Assistant Dean for Surgical Education, traveled to San Antonio, TX in January where he was an invited speaker presenting a morning of lectures at the University of the Incarnate Word Rosenberg School of Optometry's 2nd Annual Glaucoma Symposium.

Dr. Richard E. Castillo also lectured and held workshops at NSU's Advanced Procedures Course in Tahlequah, January 2016. The course is part of NSUOCO's ongoing post-graduate curriculum in Optometric laser's and office-based surgery.

Award Name: INBRE-Equipment 2016
Award Dates: 01/07/2016 - 04/30/2016
Award Amount: $25,000.00
Project Director: Dr. Jessica Martin
Purpose of Award: To purchase the following equipment:

• Zyfone Super Mouse 750 AllerZone Micro-Isolatory System $3,449
• Stainless steel 5 shelf adjustable rack $2,060
• Nunc-Immuno 8 Channel Plate Washer w/rack $755
• ADAM MC Automated Mammalian Cell Counter w/AccuChip Kit $7,660
• Rotator Variable Speed 4-80rpm $744
• Mastercycler Nexus x2 $7,412
• HPLC columns $2,735
• Other - $185

Funding Agency: Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education through INBRE-NIH

NSU DELEGATION VISITS CHINA

In an effort to strengthen and forge new relationships between NSU and its international partner universities, Dr. Steve Turner, along with a group of NSU faculty, staff and students, are currently traveling to various cities in China. The delegation includes Dr. Roger Collier, Dean of the College of Business and Technology, Dr. Debbie Landry, Dean of the College of Education, Jami Wright, International Admissions Coordinator for the Office of International Programs, and Xuan Li, Instructional Coordinator of Asian Programs for the Office of International Programs. Also traveling with the group are two NSU student ambassadors, Tricia Price Diaville and Maegan Blevins. This is the first time an NSU delegation has included student representatives. Some of the stops have included Beijing, the Anhui Province, Hangzhou, Jinhua, Chengdu, Weifang, and Shanghai. In addition to working on agreements with the partner universities and visiting with Chinese students, the delegation has been able to visit some of the notable sights in China, such as a panda habitat and the Terra Cotta Soldiers.

OKLAHOMA RESEARCH DAY

NSU was proud and honored to host Oklahoma Research Day for the fourth time, with 2008 and 2009 held in Broken Arrow and 2015 and 2016 in Tahlequah. On Friday, March 11, 2016 the 17th annual Oklahoma Research Day was located in the new Event Center and Community Building for the hallmark annual event. The statewide event showcased approximately 650 posters by over 1,000 authors and co-authors, welcomed over 900 visitors/participants, and a banquet lunch was provided for approximately 800 guests. During the banquet Dr. Kenneth Tobin, Director of Electrical and Electronics Systems Research Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, provided the keynote speech. NSU thanks all universities, faculty, staff and students who were involved in Oklahoma Research Day 2016. Oklahoma Research Day is designed to be a true showcase of research; guiding Oklahoma toward a bright and prosperous future. 

Susan Carrillo (left), president of the Tulsa Chapter of the Institute for Supply Management and NSU Adjunct Professor of Supply Chain Management, presented NSU senior Danielle Shelton with the $1,000 scholarship ISM-Tulsa awards each year to an NSU supply chain major. Ms. Shelton, a Tahlequah resident, worked five years in purchasing for the home building industry in southern California, is an administrative assistant for a small non-profit, and has accepted an internship as a carrier performance analyst at LynnCo, a Tulsa third-party logistics and consulting company. She has an associate's degree from Connors State College and was scheduled April 18 to be inducted into the NSU Chapter of Delta Mu Delta international business honor society. ISM-Tulsa presented the award at its April 12 meeting on the NSU Broken Arrow campus.

KINDERGARTEN GOES TO COLLEGE

The illustration and design work of Assistant Professor of Art, Melina Smyres, is currently part of an exhibit at the O'Kane Gallery in Houston, TX. The exhibit presents A LIFE IN BOOKS: A Bleu Mobley Retrospective, on view March 24th April 23rd and is supported in part by the Cultural Enrichment Center at the University of Houston-Downtown. THE EXHIBITION presents itself as a retrospective of Bleu Mobley's life's work and includes all first edition cover designs of Mobley's 101+ books accompanied by their original catalogue descriptions, select interior pages, book-like objects, animations and video performances of book excerpts (by the band BETTY, actress/poet La Bruja, and beatbox artist Chesney Snow), and reproductions of books Mobely composed as a boy in the letterpress shop of his junior high school. A Life in Books has won 9 awards so far including: The 2015 International Book Award for Best New Fiction; the 2014 IPPY Outstanding Book of the Year Award for Most Original Concept (Independent Publisher); the 2014 Best New Fiction (USA Best Book Awards); 2014 National Indie Book Award; and a PRINT Magazine Regional Design Award.

Dr. Kristopher Copeland, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, and Elaina Ross, Adjunct Instructor of Communication Studies, presented their competitive paper, "Sometimes I Have to Announce My Feminism and I Don't Mind Doing That": Instructor Self-Disclosure of Feminism in the Classroom, at the Central States Communication Association annual conference in Grand Rapids, MI.

Dr. Christopher Flavin, Assistant Professor of English, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship for 2016. Dr. Flavin's fellowship will be for the NEH Chaucer Seminar focusing on The Canterbury Tales held at Kent State University. The seminar will allow him to work and research with some of the preeminent Chaucer scholars in the country, including faculty from Kent State, Yale, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. Flavin has also been retained as the academic editor for a critical anthology surveying responses to the work of Geoffrey Chaucer as part of the Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 series published by Gale/Cengage to be published in the fall of 2016.

Robert Fourkiller, NSU Child Welfare Trainee in social work and Cherokee Nation Indian Child Welfare employee, provided the closing remarks and a prayer at the Governor's Launch of Oklahoma Foster Care on February 12 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is a new initiative to engage faith community in supporting children in foster care.

Art Professor, Lance Hunter, won First Place in the Rockies West National 2016. The exhibition was held at theWestern Colorado Center for the Arts in Grand Junction from March 2nd April 2nd. His painting Net Worth previously received the top award in the Keystone National Works on Paper Exhibition in Pennsylvania in the fall of 2014.

On the 3rd annual Field Methods in Ethnology field trip to New Mexico, Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Ben Kracht's students traveled to New Mexico during spring break and visited Acoma, Zuni, and Kewa (Santo Domingo) Pueblos. Student research projects at Zuni Pueblo focused on the commodification of art and promoting cultural capital through tourism. Presentations were given at the 44th Annual Symposium on the American Indian, and the students entered a poster for NSU's Undergraduate Research Day. Kracht also received notification from University of Nebraska Press that his book Kiowa Belief and Ritual will be published in spring 2017.

James McGirk, Instructor of English, was among several dozen academics and geopolitical analysts participating in a future-forecasting simulation of the technology industry between 2017-2025 for online think tank Wikistrat. McGirk presented a paper at the 2016 Visions Conference discussing the difference between creative process and research. He was also a finalist for an American Society of Magazine Editors National Award for a story about circadian rhythm that appeared in WIRED magazine last year.

Dr. Melissa Strong, Associate Professor of English, presented a keynote address entitled "Fancydancing with Sherman Alexie: Simulacra, Authenticity, and Performance" at the 2016 Visions Conference in April. The Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board selected Strong as an alternate candidate for the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program for 2016-2017. Strong's paper "Fiction as Mixtape in A Visit From the Goon Squad" has been accepted for the 2016 South Central MLA conference where she will present it on the panel American Literature after 1900.

Dr. Cheryl Van Den Handel, Assistant Professor of Political Science, participated in the "Great Decisions" Foreign Policy Association program at Muskogee Library in March and April. She presented on "International Migration" and "The United Nations Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals for 2015-2030". Also, the Model UN Team participated as part of the UN Security Council at the Global Crisis Simulation at ORU on April 16th. Van Den Handel serves as Expert Faculty Advisor for the simulation.

Denis Vovchenko, Associate Professor of History, received an Oklahoma Humanities Council Scholar Research Grant of $500. Together with matching funds from the College of Liberal Arts, the award will help cover Vovchenko's living expenses in the Russian capital while he conducts research for his second book project. Unorthodox Fascism examines the role of race and religion in the rise of extremist political movements in Russia, Greece, and Bulgaria during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Vovchenko also completed a distance-based professional development in East Asian Societies through Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute this spring.

Dr. Mike Wilds, Professor of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, made a presentation titled "Stingray and Privacy Implications" at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences held in Denver during March 2016. He also made a presentation on "Technology, Ethics, and the Law" at the Criminal Law Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association Forensics Seminar held in Oklahoma City in March.

Shin Yeon Jeon, Assistant Professor of Art, had an article about her work, The Ceramic Sculptures of Shin Yeon Jeon by Greg McLemore published in New Ceramics: The European Ceramics Magazine.

LIBERAL ARTS NEWS

Eight NSU Child Welfare Traineeship students from the NSU Social Work Program attended the National Indian Child Welfare Conference in St. Paul Minnesota, April 3-6, 2016. Robert Fourkiller, NSU Child Welfare Trainee and Cherokee Nation Indian Child Welfare employee, spoke on the student panel, "Preparing a highly-qualified child welfare workforce: Recruiting, educating, and launching students for service to tribal children and families" along with two students from Arizona State University. Dr. Virginia Whitekiller, Professor of Social Work, served as the moderator for the student panel. In addition, Toni Hail, Social Work Instructor, was a presenter on the faculty panel, "Improving the child welfare workforce: Lessons learned from three agency and university partnerships," with two others from Arizona State University and Minnesota State University.

On March 25, Drs. Joseph Ahlander, Dragos Albinescu, Cindy Cisar, John de Banzie, Kyeorda Kemp, Sean Kim, Jessica Martin, Kathi McDowell, Sallie Ruskoski, Rui Zhang, and Victor Zhu in the Department of Natural Sciences attended an OK-INBRE Retreat on Promoting Undergraduate Research in Oklahoma with other faculty from Oklahoma regional universities. The retreat was held in Oklahoma City.

Dr. John Diamantopoulos, Professor of Mathematics, was successful in his bid to have NSU host the 2019 OK-AR Mathematical Association of America annual section meeting. NSU will welcome 200-250 mathematicians and students from Oklahoma and Arkansas. Students will participate in individual and team math competitions. Students and faculty will present research, participate in workshops and enjoy several speakers of national prominence.

Dr. Richard Hasenauer, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, was invited to give a talk at the eastern meeting of the American Mathematical Society which took place March 19-20, 2016 in Stony Brook, New York. The title of the talk was Factorization properties of Prufer domains of finite character.

Dr. Jim Hicks gave a talk titled "Taking a Byte out of Microprocessors" at the NSU Physics Club monthly seminar. This presentation included student projects from the Introduction to Microprocessors course.

Ms. Deb Hyde presented at the Oklahoma Clean Lakes and Watersheds Association annual conference in Stillwater, OK March 29-30, 2016. Her poster was titled, "Geographic Information System Study of the Illinois River Basin".

Dr. Alexis Jones and her graduate student, Whitney DeNeen, attended the annual Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, CA, April 2-6, 2016. Whitney presented her research results in a poster titled, "Comparison of Stress Response Pathways in Male and Female Athletes During Ultra-Marathon Events." The research project is part of Whitney's Master of Science thesis work. In addition, Dr. Jones served as a Minority Travel Fellow Mentor for students receiving a Minority Travel Award from the American Physiological Society to attend Experimental Biology.

Dr. Alexis Jones' commentary to the article, "Reappraisal of the acute, moderate intensity exercise-catecholamines interaction effect on speed of cognition: role of the vagal/NTS afferent pathway" was published in the Journal of Applied Physiology March 2016.

Dr. Edgarita Long, Professor in the Speech-Language Pathology program, attended the UCO Inez Miller Conference on Communication Sciences & Disorders on Saturday, April 9, 2016. The topic was Respiratory Strength Training presented by Dr. Christine Sapienza, Dean of the Brooks Rehabilitation College of Healthcare Sciences at Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Sapienza is a specialist in the area of voice and respiratory function for people with diseases, such as Parkinson's, MS, ALS, etc.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy submitted a proposal for two years of research on river island colonization by reptiles, amphibians and mammals to the Faculty Research Committee's proposal competition.

Dr. Erik Terdal visited the Coastal Marine Education & Research center in Tampa, Florida to learn how they study sharks and rays.

Dr. Kevin Wang submitted a manuscript titled "Genotype-independent Transformation of Cotton using in planta Shoot Apex and Glyphosate Selection" to the Journal of Integrative Agriculture (international peer-reviewed journal).

Seven of Dr. Kevin Wang's students presented posters at the Oklahoma Research Day held at NSU-TQ.

Dr. Kevin Wang was invited to review a manuscript for Plant Cell Report Journal.

Richard Castillo, OD, DO, NSU-OCO Surgeon and Assistant Dean for Surgical Education, was invited by the Washington State Association of Optometric Physicians to present a 4-hour discussion on Optometric Surgery and Anesthesia delivered in March 2016 at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dr. Spencer Johnson presented 5 hours of continuing education lectures at the Minnesota Optometric Association 2016 Annual Meeting on March 4 in Minneapolis. Lectures covered Headache Assessment in Primary Eye Care, Adenoviral Conjunctivitis Diagnostic and Therapeutic Update, Nutrition and Diabetes, and Lab Testing for Optometrists. 

Susan Woitte, Kathleen McCay, Chad McLane, Richard Hoenes and Olaf Standley presented a poster of their assessment project at Oklahoma Research Day. They studied the information literacy assignment within University Strategies, the first year transition course at Northeastern State University. The team proudly shared their methods and conclusions that a student's ability to select the most appropriate database for stated information needed to be improved after multiple points of librarian instruction, and while the students believed they learned how to evaluate websites, they were not able to fully apply the skill to the survey example.

Award Name: American Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES-EPSCoR Spring 2016 )
Award Dates: 02/15/2016 - 06/30/2016
Award Amount: $3,610
Project Director: Ms. Alisa Douglas
Funding Agency: Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma EPSCoR through National Science Foundation
Purpose: To assist students with travel expenses to the AISES National Conference located in Rochester, Minnesota April 14-16, 2016. To fund keynote speaker at the AISES Spring 2016 luncheon.

Award Name: Unorthodox Fascism 2016
Award Dates: 03/01/2016 - 10/15/2016
Award Amount: $500
Project Director: Dr. Denis Vovchenko
Funding Agency: Oklahoma Humanities Council through National Endowment of Humanities
Purpose: To assist the Project Investigator with travel funding in order to perform archival research in Moscow, Russia.

DR. TIFFANY MAHER LEGACY AWARD

KIN THOMPSON AWARDED A PRESTIGIOUS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

HAITI ALL-GIRL TEAM EMPOWERED BY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Professor Lance Hunter received the Color Award at the 76th International Exhibition of the Northwest Watercolor Society. This year, the NWWS exhibition was held April 18- June 3 on Mercer Island a few miles from downtown Seattle. As in most national or international watercolor exhibitions, the award winners are featured online and in a printed catalog. Last year this painting, Seeing Red also received an award in the National Watercolor Society Members Exhibition in California and it was featured on the cover of Watercolor Artist magazine.

Melody Yozzo, Devonna Grover and Mary Battoe attended PA Day on April 28, 2016 at the Oklahoma State Capitol to speak with legislators regarding the endorsement of the Medicaid Rebalancing Act ($1.50 cigarette tax to help fund SoonerCare health coverage).

Cassandra Crawford-Ciglar successfully defended her Doctoral Dissertation Presentation, An Evaluation of College Students use of Social Media in Nutrition Education for Lifestyle Behavior Changes, on April 22, 2016.

Cassandra Crawford-Ciglar and Jason Stevens were invited guest presenters at the Oklahoma Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics State Spring Convention April 14-15, 2016, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cassandra Crawford-Ciglar's presentation was titled Current Issues in Nutrition: ACEND's Recommended Model for Future Education. Jason Stevens' presentation was titled Mindful Eating: Eastern Thought Meets the Western Diet.

Cassandra Crawford-Ciglar and the Nutritional Sciences Program were awarded $1,000.00 from the Tahlequah B.E.S.T. Community Coalition for the Reasor's Guided Grocery Store Tours Program, Spring 2016. Ms. Ciglar was also awarded $450.00 from the CTL Service Learning and Community Engagement Grant for the Reasor's Guided Grocery Store Tours, Spring 2016.

Deb Hyde and students from her Historical Geology class toured geologic sites in four counties in northeastern Oklahoma on Friday, April 15, 2016. Students had the opportunity to collect fossils and see some of the oldest rocks in the central United States. From left to right the students are: Samantha Byrd, Brian Leader, Ja`Corie Maxwell, Katlin Napier, Miriah Million, Shelby Watts and Otto Kremmer.

The Didactic Program in Dietetics received full program accreditation until June 30, 2022 from the Accreditation Council in Education in Nutrition and Dietetics.

Dr. Jim Hicks attended Chemistry Play Day, a science teacher outreach activity sponsored by NSU Chemistry and Physics Academy participants, in Fargo, Oklahoma.

Dr. Mark Paulissen co-authored an article in the latest issue of HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION & BIOLOGY entitled: "Rare syntopy of the diploid parthenogenetic lizard (Aspidoscelis laredoensis B) and both gonochoristic progenitors (A. gularis and A. sexlineata) in Texas, USA." Herpetological Conservation and Biology. 11:29-39. The article was co-authored with James M. Walker and James E. Cordes.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy submitted a manuscript entitled, "Carnivore distribution and occurrence patterns in the Oklahoma panhandle" to the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Kevin Wang gave an invited presentation Using Plant as Pharmaceutical and Factory in Hangzhou, China on April 29, 2016.

Dr. Kevin Wang presented his research Low cost clot-dissolving protein from transgenic plants for stroke treatment for OK-INBRE External Advisory Committee Meeting on May 09, 2016 held in OUHSC Research Park Conference Center, OKC.

Dr. Kevin Wang attended TCC's Spring Biotechnology Advisory meeting held on May 6, 2016 as a board member.

Dr. Sue Woods led a hands-on demonstration with the 5th grade classes at Caney Valley Elementary School. They discussed bacteria, fungi and viruses then isolated bacteria and mold.

DR. NATHAN LIGHTHIZER NAMED 2016 YOUNG OPTOMETRIC PHYSICIAN OF THE YEAR

The Oklahoma Association of Optometric Physicians (OAOP) named Dr. Nathan Lighthizer the 2016 Young Optometric Physician of the Year. This award is given to a younger Optometric Physician who demonstrates exceptional leadership in both the Optometry profession and in his or her community.

Dr. Lighthizer serves as Assistant Dean for Clinical Care Services and Director of Continuing Education at the Oklahoma College of Optometry. He is an internationally sought after speaker who frequently lectures on topics that include advanced ophthalmic procedures, electrodiagnostics, and ocular disease. He has delivered over 250 lectures on different topics and has been published in dozens of books and scholarly publications.

Dr. Lighthizer was also recently named as the recipient of the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) "Rising Star" Award. He will be presented this award at the upcoming American Optometric Association Meeting in Boston, MA in June.

K. Scott Mullins (right), 1st Vice President of the Tulsa Chapter of the Institute for Supply Management, presents the W. L. Bill James Outstanding Member Annual Award for 2016 to NSU Professor Michael Landry, chair of the Department of Marketing, Hospitality and Supply Chain Management. The award stems from the close working relationship between ISM-Tulsa and NSU, with plans to increase that cooperation in the future, according to Mullins of NORDAM Corporation.

Michael Landon, NSU Supply Chain Management major, received a $750 scholarship in May from the Tulsa Area Manufacturers Association. In addition to being a full-time NSU student, Mr. Landon works for John Christner Trucking.

Efforts are underway to re-establish a student chapter of the American Marketing Association on the Tahlequah campus. NSU's Top of the Line student chapter previously functioned on the Broken Arrow campus under the sponsorship of Dr. Ron Petty, assistant professor of marketing. Because of the difficulty in operating a student organization on a commuter campus like Broken Arrow, Dr. Petty and Tulsa AMA chapter Vice President Collegiate Relations, Van Webb, a media executive, are working to promote student involvement in AMA on residential campus locations in Northeast Oklahoma. New faculty sponsor for the revamped chapter is Dr. Jitendra Tewari, professor of marketing.

A LONG WAY FROM HOME

Dr. Alexis Jones, Assistant Professor of Medical Laboratory Science, recently had a manuscript accepted for publication in Behavioral Brain Research titled, "Estrogen and voluntary exercise interact to attenuate stress-induced corticosterone release but not anxiety-like behaviors in female rats."

Dr. Troy Lee, Assistant Professor in the Occupational Therapy Program, coordinated and attended the Oklahoma Occupational Therapy Association's Medicare Documentation and Reimbursement Workshop on June 4, 2016 at OU-Tulsa. On June 10, 2016 he was invited to participate in the first round-table discussion and workshop hosted by the Telehealth Alliance of Oklahoma at the Oklahoma Medical Association in Oklahoma City. The focus was the expansion of telehealth to allied health practice, and included the Director for Oklahoma Medicaid, OU faculty, the Medical Director for Oklahoma Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Integris Health, and various allied health clinicians.

Dr. Troy Lee, Assistant Professor Occupational Therapy Program, was elected chairperson of the Occupational Therapy Committee of the Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision. He has served on the committee since 2013 and served one term as vice-chairperson.

Jennifer O'Connor, Nursing Adjunct, was awarded a National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Nursing Research T32 Health Behavior Science Pre-doctoral Fellowship from the Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri, Columbia, accelerating the completion of her PhD studies in Nursing.

Award Name: Confucius Classroom 2015-2016
Award Dates: July 1, 2015 - June 30, 2016
Award Amount: $10,060.08
Project Director: Dr. Eloy Chavez
Funding Agency: University of Oklahoma-Confucius Classroom
Purpose of Award: To strengthen the Confucius Institute by providing social services to the local community, developing Chinese teaching and learning, and enhancing the mutual understanding and friendship between young people of both China and the United States. The Confucius Classroom will support both teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture.

Award Name: TABERC Summer 2016
Award Dates: June 1, 2016 - July 31, 2016
Award Amount: $1,500
Project Director: Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo
Funding Agency: Tulsa Area Bioscience Education & Research Consortium (TABERC)
Purpose of Award: To develop bioscience research in Tulsa and surrounding communities by providing summer internships at local universities and community colleges.

Award Name: SMaRT Summer Mentor - Kim 2016
Award Dates: June 1, 2016 - July 31, 2016
Award Amount: $4,257.00
Project Director: Dr. Sung-Kun Kim
Funding Agency: Oklahoma INBRE/OSRHE
Purpose of Award: To enrich the academic experience of first and second year undergraduates by providing quality research mentoring experiences.

Award Name: SMaRT Summer Mentor - Kemp 2016
Award Dates: June 1, 2016 - July 31, 2016
Award Amount: $5,306.00
Project Director: Dr. Kyeorda Kemp
Funding Agency: Oklahoma INBRE/OSRHE
Purpose of Award: To enrich the academic experience of first and second year undergraduates by providing quality research mentoring experiences.

Award Name: SMaRT Summer Mentor - Martin 2016
Award Dates: June 1, 2016 - July 31, 2016
Award Amount: $8,495.00
Project Director: Dr. Jessica Martin
Funding Agency: Oklahoma INBRE/OSRHE
Purpose of Award: To enrich the academic experience of first and second year undergraduates by providing quality research mentoring experiences.

Award Name: Research Project Ischemic Stroke 2016 Yr. 3 of 3
Award Dates: 05/01/2016 - 10/31/2016
Award Amount: $50,294.00
Project Director: Dr. Kevin Wang
Funding Agency: OUHSC through National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Purpose of Award: To develop an alternative plant seed-based platform for large scale and low cost production of functional DSPAs for the treatment of acute stroke patients.

Award Name: INBRE Summer Mentors 2016
Award Dates: 05/01/2016 - 07/31/2016
Award Amount: $13,200.00
Faculty Mentors:
Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo $4,400
Dr. Joseph Ahlander $4,400
Dr. Ratnakar Deole $2,200
Dr. Kevin Wang $2,200
Funding Agency: OUHSC Board of Regents through National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Purpose of Award: Faculty will be research mentors for students during the Summer of 2016. Students will gain experience in both research and ethics.

Award Name: Research Project-Ard1 Drosophila 2015-16 Yr. 3 of 3
Award Dates: 05/01/2016 - 10-31/2016
Award Amount: $52,038
Project Director: Dr. Joseph Ahlander
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health through Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center
Purpose of Award: Experiments in mammalian cancer models have shown that over expression of Ard1 promotes tumor growth, while its inhibition causes tumor cell death, yet the molecular mechanisms that underlie these observations have not been fully elucidated. The PI's preliminary data suggest a novel mechanism for the role of Ard1 in cell survival, and this research will make an important contribution toward understanding cancer.

Award Name: Alternative Dispute Resolution- Early Settlement East Program 2016-17
Award Dates: July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017
Award Amount: $71,748
Project Director: Ms. Stacey Stephens
Funding Agency: State of Oklahoma Supreme Court
Purpose of Award: To provide mediation services according to the Dispute Resolution Act and other directives and forms provided by the Administration Director of the Courts. Dispute mediation services shall be provided to northeast Oklahoma as determined by need.

Award Name: Oklahoma Alliance for Manufacturing Excellence 2016-2017
Award Dates: July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017
Award Amount: $46,000
Project Director: Mr. Curtis Evans
Funding Agency: Oklahoma Alliance for Manufacturing Excellence through the National Institute of Standards & Technology-U.S. Department of Commerce and OSRHE
Purpose of Award: A Manufacturing Extension Agent working out of the NSU-BA campus, will assist local manufacturers in various ways to make their businesses more successful.

Award Name: Performing Arts Series 2016-2017
Award Dates: July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017
Award Amount: $11,000
Project Director: Ms. Cindy Chanslor
Funding Agency: Oklahoma Arts Council
Purpose of Award: To provide funding for a series of performances in addition to educational outreach events. These events provide the community with quality art experiences that educate and engage the audience through a culturally diverse series.

Award Name: Arts of Indigenous Cultures 2016-2017
Award Dates: July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017
Award Amount: $2,500
Project Director: Ms. Sara Barnett
Funding Agency: Oklahoma Arts Council
Purpose of Award: To assist in expenses with artists who will be involved in the American Indian Heritage month and the powwow at the 2017 Symposium on the American Indian.

Award Name: NSU Green Country Jazz Series 2016-2017
Award Dates: July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017
Award Amount: $3,275
Project Director: Clark Gibson
Purpose of Award: To cultivate the growth and development of jazz performances and education for students, music educators, and audiences throughout the region. Funding to assist with fees for guest performers for the Green Country Jazz Festival.

Award Name: Mcm 10: Polymerase epsilon at replication forks 2016-17
Award Dates: 05/01/2016 - 04/30/2017
Award Amount: $49,721
Project Director: Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health through Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center
Purpose of Award: There are three aims to this project: (1) focus on identifying domains in the Pol that are crucial for interaction with Mcm10. (2) design experiments to determine if elimination of Mcm10 binding region in Polymerase epsilon results in compromised cell cycle progression (3) Carry out Chromatin immunoprecipitation and quantitative PCR studies to answer the question if Mcm10: Pol interaction is required to the replisome under replication stress conditions.

Award Name: Role of 4 8c 2016-2017
Award Dates: 05/01/2016 - 04/30/2017
Award Amount: $31,025
Project Director: Dr. Kyeorda Kemp
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health through Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center
Purpose of Award: Research will be to determine how 4 8c regulates type 2 cytokines in established TH2 cells using the following (3) aims: (1) Determine if IL-12 is inhibited in established TH2 cells treated with 4 8c, (2) Determine if treating established TH2 cells with 4 8c results in loss of TH2 cytokine production due to reduced mRNA stability, (3) Determine if varying the concentration of 4 8c allows us to target specific TH2 cytokine in established human TH2 cells.

Award Name: Educational Talent Search - Tahlequah Campus 2016-17 Year 1 of 5
Award Dates: September 1, 2016 - August 31, 2017
Award Amount: $240,000
Funding Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Project Director: Diane Walker
Indirect Cost: $17,726year

Award Name: Educational Talent Search- Broken Arrow Campus 2016-17 Year 1 of 5
Award Dates: September 1, 2016 - August 31, 2017
Award Amount: $240,000
Funding Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Project Director: Diane Walker
Indirect Cost: $17,726/year
Purpose of Award(s): To identify disadvantaged youths with potential for post secondary education, encourage them to complete secondary school and undertake post secondary educational training. To publicize existing forms of student aid. To provide tutorial services for youths being encouraged to undertake or re-enter programs of post secondary education. This program is part of TRIO.

PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS TRAVEL TO CAP-HAITIEN, HAITI

The latest edition of a popular anthology of contemporary watercolors by North Light Books features a painting by Professor Lance Hunter. Splash 17: Inspiring Subjects was edited by Rachel Rubin Wolfe and released in late July. Published annually, the Splash series showcases the work of international and American watercolor artists with insights about the selected artist's technique and inspiration. Hunter's painting, Catch and Release: Fish Tales IV, was featured in the chapter focusing on the human figure. Previously, a watercolor of the artist's daughter was featured on the title pages of Splash 8, and last year Hunter had two paintings selected for Splash 16: Exploring Textures.

Art Assistant Professor Shin Yeon Jeon had an article about the 50th NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) conference published in the May issue of the Monthly Ceramic Art magazine in Korea.

Dr. Denis Vovchenko, Associate Professor of History, has published his book Containing Balkan Nationalism: Imperial Russia and Ottoman Christians (1856-1914), in the Religion and Global Politics series at Oxford University Press.

Dr. Kevin Wang was invited to present Expression of plasminogen activators (t-PA and DSPAa1) in tobacco plants dissolves fibrin and blood clot at the 7th International Crop Science Congress (ICSC) held in Beijing, China on August 14-19, 2016.

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo was selected by OK-INBRE to mentor two summer research students. She was also selected by the Tulsa Area Biotechnology Education and Research (TABERC) as a faculty mentor for summer student internship.

The Biology and Chemistry seminar series organized by Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo hosted four seminar speakers in the spring. The series was a huge success with more than 100 student attendees at each talk.

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo was awarded an OK-INBRE collaborative grant to work on her research in collaboration with OSU-Center for Health Sciences.

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo was awarded NSU Faculty Research Grant for the second year to work on her project Proteomic approach to identify protein interactions for genome stability and cancer .

Four research students from Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo's laboratory presented their work in the Biomedical section at the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences meeting at NSU.

Four student posters from Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo's laboratory were selected for presentation at NSU Undergraduate Day. Her students won 1st place and 3rd place at the poster competition.

One of Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo's students, James Brown, represented NSU at the 21st Annual Research Day at the Capitol on March 29, 2016. This event is organized by Oklahoma Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (OK EPSCoR).

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo's graduate student, Casey Eddington, and research assistant, Brandy Fultz, presented their individual research at the Cell Cycle meeting at Cold Spring Harbor in New York from May 17 to May 21, 2016.

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo attended the OK-INBRE summer undergraduate research program at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center on July 14-15, 2016. Her research students, Mohamed Abdelmonem and Tyler Noble gave short talks and presented posters at the meeting.

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo represented NSU at the Tulsa Area Biotechnology Education and Research Consortium (TABERC) meeting at Tulsa Tech Health Sciences Center on July 20, 2016 where her student, Samira Ali, gave a talk on her summer research.

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo was awarded INBRE travel award to present her research at FASEB meeting titled Chromosome structure, replication and segregation at Snowmass Village, Colorado from July 31-August 5, 2016.

Dr. Jim Hicks attended a Manufacturing Technology Networking event designed to bring together academic researchers and industry professionals involved in robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles and computer science.

Dr. Sharon Jones has been contacted by Dr. Kateryna Bielka, senior editor for Medical Research Archives, and Barbara Sun, editorial assistant of the Journal of Education and Developmental Psychology, regarding her paper titled Maternal cradling bias and early communicative interactions: Implications for early identification of children at risk which was published in Infant Behavior and Development. She has been asked to submit a manuscript related to her original article.

Dr. Sung-Kun (Sean) Kim and two undergraduate research students, Austin Dinkel and Mara Demuth,presented at the 252nd American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition in Philadelphia, PA on August 21-25, 2016.

Dr. Sung-Kun (Sean) Kim and his student Mara Demuth submitted a manuscript "Inhibition of Bacillus anthracis Metallo-beta-lactamase by Hydroxamate Functionality" to Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry.

Dr. Edie Long was one of three authors who were invited to submit a joint paper about appropriate language testing of English Language Learners who are Native American. Dr. Long is the national contact person for the Native American Caucus.

Dr. Mark Paulissen co-authored a short article in the September 2016 issue of Herpetological Review. The article is entitled: ASPIDOSCELIS EXSANGUIS (Chihuahuan Spotted Whiptail) DIET and was co-authored with J. M. Walker (University of Arkansas), G. C. Carpenter, A. Fitzgerald, and L. Kamees (University of New Mexico).

Former NSU Honors student Laura Myers and Dr. Mark Paulissen co-authored an article that has recently been accepted in the Journal of North American Herpetology. The article is entitled: Aggressive behaviors and their effect on resource use by male little brown skinks, Scincella lateralis . The article is a product of Laura Myers's honors research while she was an undergraduate at NSU.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy submitted an abstract for an oral presentation entitled, "Plant diversity affects mammal community structure in western North Dakota grasslands" to be given at the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference held February 2017 in Lincoln, NE.

Dr. Erik Terdal gave two talks to the Mesoamerican Society for Biological Conservation, held this year in Belize. It was a large international conference. The first talk, on jaguar population ecology, was nearly full in the largest session room. The second, on mesocarnivore mammals, was also attended by over 100 audience members. Dr. Terdal was able to make contacts with researchers from many countries for future research projects on mammal ecology and conservation.

Dr. Erik Terdal traveled deep into the Maya Mountains of Belize where he does his research. Hurricane Earl had recently passed through, and he could compare the landscape after such a large natural disaster.

Dr. Erik Terdal took a boat to the little island in the Caribbean where he has brought well over 100 NSU students since 1999 to make final arrangements for the December trip (12 - 22), especially to monitor reconstruction after Hurricane Earl.

Dr. Erik Terdal traveled to Tampa, Florida to meet with NSU Master in Natural Science alumnus T. Scott Eaton on the campus where he now teaches to discuss manuscript preparation for work Mr. Eaton performed in Dr. Terdal's laboratory as part of his thesis.

Dr. Erik Terdal worked with current master's student, Brett Nixon, on mammal ecology research at Lake Oologah and on teaching methodology.

Dr. Kevin Wang received an award for Seed-derived Therapeutic Protein Ischemic Stroke 2016-2017 Yr 2/2. Award Dates: 09/01/2016 - 08/31/2017. Award Amount: $64,527. Project Director: Dr. Kevin Wang. Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Ms. Melody Yozzo has been appointed Interim Chair of the Governance Council for the Physician Assistant Education Association.

Award Name: OHC 2017 Symposium on the American Indian
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Director: Ms. Sara Barnett
Funding Agency: Oklahoma Humanities Council
Purpose of Award: Funding will be utilized to assist with scholar fees and publicity for the 2017 Symposium on the American Indian.

Award Name: Seed-derived Therapeutic Protein Ischemic Stroke 2016-2017
Award Amount: $64,527
Project Director: Dr. Kevin Wang
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Purpose of Award: To develop a low-cost, plant seed-based platform for large scale production of functional t-PA for treatment of stroke patients.

Award Name: Student Support Services 2016-2017 Year 2/5
Award Amount: $297,343
Project Director: Lena Deere
Funding Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Purpose of Award(s): To provide student services to those who meet the federal eligibility criteria and demonstrate academic need in order to successfully complete a program of study at NSU. To provide a comprehensive system of support services such as counseling, tutoring and academic enrichment activities.

Clean Line Energy Partners visited the NSU Tahlequah campus to present the College of Business and Technology with a $2,500 annual scholarship for a senior in the Environmental, Health, and Safety Management program.

Read more about the Clean Line Energy visit.

NSU was named to the President's 2015 Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for General Community Service. Read more about this achievement on the Corporation for National and Community Service website.

Junfeng Guo, a visiting scholar from Southwest University of Science and Technology in China, donated an original pencil and watercolor sketch to NSU.

Biography:
1979 Born in Linfen, China
2001 Graduated from Institute Fine Arts of Shanxi Normal University, China
Working in Southwest University of Science and Technology, China
Position: Fine Arts Instructor
Research Direction: Easel painting
Visited NSU as a visiting scholar from Aug 2015 to Aug 2016.

Dr. Kevin Wang chaired plant tissue culture and biotechnology session and presented Seed-derived plasminogen activator (t-PA and DSPAa1) at the 2nd Global Summit on Plant Science held during October 06-08, 2016 in London, UK.

Dr. Chris Burba and Dr. Spence Pilcher submitted a grant proposal to the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for the synthesis and characterization of new solvate ionic liquids.

Dr. Chris Burba submitted a request for beam time at the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, MD to perform small-angle neutron scattering experiments on nanoconfined benzene-cyclohexane solutions.

Dr. Jody Buckholtz attended the 22nd Annual Oklahoma Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in STEM (OKLSAMP) at Oklahoma State University on Saturday September 24, 2016. Two students presented posters: Travis Young and Sarah Cruz. There was one other student in attendance as well.

Dr. Craig Clifford was invited to attend the inaugural Monarchs on the Mountain , a festival celebrating the vital role Eastern Oklahoma plays in the Monarch butterfly migration. The event was held Saturday, September 24, 2016 on Turkey Mountain. The festival took place from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm in the pavilion and lawn of the Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area near the main trailhead located at 6850 S. Elwood Ave. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dr. Clifford was invited to attend as a representative of NSU by Ms. Anita Barstow of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Tulsa Office. Ms. Barstow assisted Dr. Clifford at his booth. A continuous stream of families with your children participated in the event visiting educational and craft related booths learning about insects, pollinators and monarchs specifically.

Dr. Sapna Das-Bradoo s manuscript titled, Mapping ubiquitination sites of S. cerevisiae Mcm10 was accepted for publication in Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports. Her research assistant, Ms. Brandy Fultz is one of the authors on this publication. This work was carried out in collaboration with scientists at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Jim Hicks attended the annual meeting of the Course Equivalency Project Faculty Curriculum Committee at the University of Central Oklahoma. Dr. Hicks volunteered to serve on a subcommittee to develop Student Learning Outcomes for physical science courses which will accompany common course descriptions.

Dr. Martha Parrott, professor of mathematics, will travel with mentors to St. Louis in November for a National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference to facilitate mentor training as part of the Oklahoma Teacher Induction Program.

Dr. Martha Parrott is co-director of the Oklahoma Mathematics Advancement Project [OKMAP], a project of the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Mathematics teachers visit NSU-BA during the summer months and again on select weekend days during the fall 2016 and spring 2017 semesters for continued professional development in mathematics content, best practice, and exposure to new Oklahoma Academic Standards for Mathematics.

Dr. Martha Parrott is the on-site coordinator for the NSU-BA Oklahoma Algebraic Thinking [OKAT] project. This initiative is funded by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education - Improving Teacher Quality, Elementary and Secondary Education Act. High school and middle school algebra teachers visited NSU-BA for a summer 2016 institute and continue with weekend professional development workshops during the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017.

Dr. Martha Parrott represents NSU on the Tulsa Research Day Planning Committee. This event is scheduled for Thursday, November 3, 2016 at OU-Tulsa and represents the 4th city-wide research day. Tulsa Research Day is open to faculty and students with contributed talks and posters for a general scientific audience. Poster sessions will include select K-12 entries. The focus of Tulsa Research Day will be on food, energy, and water systems.

Dr. Martha Parrott will be presenting at the Ninth Annual Oklahoma Service Learning Conference on October 28th, 2016. Her presentation ties in high impact teaching practices with the benchmarks of high quality service learning experiences. The NSU Mathematics Clinic will be used as a model for demonstrating these high impact teaching practices.

Dr. Martha Parrott hosted an information meeting for the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship which develops future leaders in health through service projects targeting needy populations in the greater Tulsa area. Established in 1991, the U.S. Schweitzer Fellows Program is a year-long service learning experience that enhances graduate students' skills and abilities to meet the health needs of under served people. In addition to medicine, nursing, dentistry, public health, mental health wellness, and other health-focused programs, U.S. Schweitzer Fellows comes from a variety of disciplines such as the sciences, education, social work, law and the arts.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy accompanied 13 students in the NSU Mammalogy class to the Fall Oklahoma Field meeting from September 23-25, 2016 at Roman Nose State Park.

Dr. Wang presented Plant-Derived Drugs for Stroke at Tulsa Community College on Sept. 28, 2016.

Dr. Wang reviewed a paper: Oil Palm Defensin: A Thermal Stable Peptide that Restricts the Mycelial Growth of Ganoderma boninense for Protein & Peptide Letters.

Award Name: American Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES-EPSCoR Fall 2016 )
Award Amount: $3,000
Project Director: Ms. Alisa Douglas
Funding Agency: Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma EPSCoR through National Science Foundation
Purpose: To assist students with travel expenses to the AISES Indian Science Engineering Society Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The national conference will be held November 9-12, 2016.

Award Name: RiverHawk Academy 2016-17Award
Amount: $6,817
Project Director(s): Dr. Deborah Landry
Funding Agency: Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Oklahoma Teacher Connection
Purpose of Award: The goal of the RiverHawk Academy for Future Teachers is to provide outreach initiatives to attract high school students to the profession of education and teaching careers.

NSU Assistant Professor of Marketing Dr. Ron Petty, shown speaking to a student at the October University Major Fair, recently organized open houses on the Broken Arrow campus for potential student members of a revived NSU Top of the Line collegiate chapter of the American Marketing Association. It was during Marketing Week, October 3-7, and at least a dozen students attended. Dr. Petty, long active with the Tulsa chapter of AMA, and Dr. Jitendra Tewari, faculty sponsor for Top of the Line, have been working with Van Webb, a Tulsa media executive and AMA-Tulsa chapter vice-president for collegiate relations. During October's Marketing Week, students were able to meet with Webb and with incoming AMA-Tulsa chapter president Whitney Emerick, and former president Kathleen Beisley.

More than thirty students, faculty, and individuals from Tulsa's Lynnco, a logistics company employing a substantial number of NSU graduates, toured Walmart Distribution Center 7015 near Ochelata on October 26. Among them were (l to r) Tomoyo Inoue, Geetismita Singha, Katrina Schmitt, Laosue Xiong, Levi Mosier, Aidin Taalaibekov, Timothy Warnack, Jason Hance, Dr. Ken Jones, and Charles Coffman. Guiding the tour for Walmart was Phillip Cordova (not shown).

NSU Supply Chain Management class Warehouse Management meets regularly at the Donald W. Reynolds Distribution Center of the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma in Tulsa. Class includes (l to r) Supply Chain Management majors Mike Roebuck, Darnell Christian, Taylar Epperly, Bobby Maddox, Lucas Brittain, Lucinda Leavitt, and Mike Landon, along with Ryan Walker, chief operating officer of the food bank, and class instructor Assistant Professor of Technology Dr. Ed Bellman.

Through the NSU Warehouse Management class, students in effect provide consulting services to the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. Left to right are Taylar Epperly, Mike Roebuck,and Lucinda Leavitt doing an audit for irregularities and safety hazards in part of the contemporary 78-thousand-square-foot industrial facility. The food bank uses a paid staff of about 50, plus hundreds of volunteers.

Chief Operating Officer of the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, Ryan Walker (left), confers with NSU Supply Chain Management students (l to r) Lucas Brittain, Mike Landon, Darnell Christian, and Bobby Maddox. Through 450 partners including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs and senior centers, the food bank serves 24 eastern Oklahoma counties. There also is a branch facility in McAlester.

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP DEPARTMENT

Thirteen students from Dr. Kevin Wang'sMolecular & Cellular Laboratory and Research in Biology attended the 105^th Annual Technical Meeting of Oklahoma Academy of Science on November 05, 2016 held at the Center of Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University. Sawyer Sparks presented a poster Expression and purification of nattokinase and lumbrokinase.

Vickie Brown-Racy and Sheree Whitesideattended and presented at the Phi Upsilon Omicron Conclave 2016 September 22-24, 2016 Oklahoma City, OK.

Dr. Pamela Christol and Dr. Kyeorda Kemp presented "Mad Lab Science" at the Women in Science Conference on October 11, 2016. Together they taught young girls about protein denaturation and structure using chemicals that "cooked" eggs and about flight and Bernoulli's principle.

Dr. Cassandra Crawford-Ciglar presented Transformative Learning in a Didactic Program in Dietetics: Connecting Curriculum to the Community at the 9th Annual Oklahoma Service Learning Conference: "Converting Challenges to Opportunities Through Community Engagement in El Reno, OK on October 28, 2016. Crawford-Ciglar was a guest speaker to Mr. Chad Stangl's Personal Health Class on Saturday October 29, 2016, giving the students a personal guided grocery store tour at Reasor's and nutrition tips for college students.

Dr. Heather Fenton delivered a presentation titled "Culture, Language, Disease States, and the Lifestyles of the Not so Rich and Famous" at the Oklahoma Nurses Association Convention held in Tulsa, OK on October 20, 2016. The theme of the ONA Convention was Dreaming in Color: Creating a Culture of Health. Fenton also received the 2016 Excellence in Nursing Award for her creative entrepreneurial efforts in providing continuing education for nurses onboard cruise ships. Dr. Fenton was also elected to serve as Treasurer for the Oklahoma League for Nursing (OLN) for 2016-2018.

Dr. Kyeorda Kemp was awarded the OK-INBRE Research Project Investigator Award. This award will fund her research for the next 2.5 years and is for $251,423.

Karl Kruczek, Instructor of Mathematics, had his dissertation proposal approved by his committee. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at Oklahoma State University.

Dr. Diana Mashburn assumed the mantle of President of the Oklahoma League for Nursing for 2016-2018 at the annual meeting on October 20, 2016. She also presented to Oklahoma College of Optometry residents a session titled "Nursing and Optometry: The Benefits of Collaboration for Evidence Based Practice". Dr. Mashburn also Recruited at Northwest Arkansas Community College on October 27, 2016.

Dr. Kathi McDowell and her graduate student, Hayley Fischer submitted a poster entitled "Kill curve experiment comparing different doses from two blasticidin batches on 293-F human embryonic kidney cells". Hayley Fisher presented the poster at the OAS Annual technical meeting. This year the meeting was held at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa on Friday November 4, 2016.

Jennifer O'Connor presented two poster sessions titled "Leisure-Time Physical Inactivity, Obesity and Diabetes Rates in the Southern United States" and "Describing the Mechanisms of Older Adult's Falls Recorded in Video by the Microsoft Kinect Sensor" at the ONA Convention and recruited at Tulsa Community College on October 18, 2016.

Dr. Mark Paulissen presented a paper entitled: "Dominance relationships in juvenile five-lined skinks (Plestiodon fasciatus): does small size matter?" at the 105th Annual Technical Meeting of the Oklahoma Academy of Science November 4, 2016 at OSU Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa, OK. He also served as a judge for student papers in the Zoology section of the meeting.

Dr. Michael Shaughnessy had a paper accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences entitled, " Patterns of Carnivore Distribution and Occurrence in the Oklahoma Panhandle". The paper will appear in the 2017 issue of the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Joyce Van Nostrand, NSU faculty emeritus, became ONA President for the 2016-2018 term.

Dr. Kevin Wang accompanied 3 students from Research in Biology class to the Tulsa Research Day on November 04, 2016.

Three students from Dr. Wang's lab attended Arkansas INBRE Research Conference on October 21-22, held at The University of Arkansas. Sawyer Sparks presented a poster Inclusion body and periplasmic transgenic expression of blood clot dissolving proteins .

Dr. Wang participated in the NSU/BA Public Schools: Middle School Partnership and demonstrated DNA world from fruits at the Oliver Middle School on November 02, 2016.

Dr. Wang submitted a manuscript: Optimization of Vacuum Agroinfiltration for Rapid and Large-scale Protein Production in Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) Romaine Cultivar to the BMC Biotechnology with his students Yves Saint Hall, Melissa Menie and Sawyer Sparks.

Dr. Wang published the research story Planting seeds of hope: New drug production method could provide affordable, safe treatment for stroke victims in Research Features Magazine.

Award Name: TURN- Project hope 2016-2017
Award Dates: 09/01/2016 - 05/15/2017
Award Amount: $9,000
Project Director: Dr. Allyson Watson
Purpose of Award: The project will continue the Teaching & Urban Reform Network partnership with Tulsa Public Schools. This project will continue to increase and retain the number of teachers committed to working with minority students.
Funding Agency: Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Oklahoma Teacher Connection

Award Name: Alliance for Minority Participation 2016-2017
Award Dates: September 1, 2016 - August 31, 2017
Award Amount: $43,357/year
Project Director: Dr. Jody Buckholtz
Purpose of Award: A subcontract to contribute to the national agenda to increase the number of under-represented minorities receiving B.S. degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation through Oklahoma State University

Award Name: INBRE Travel Phoenix 2016
Award Dates: 09/23/2016 - 04/30/2017
Award Amount: $2,000
Project Director: Dr. Alexis Jones
Purpose of Award: To assist with travel expenses to Phoenix, Arizona to present at the American Physiological Society conference.
Funding Agency: Oklahoma INBRE-OUHSC-NIH

Award Name: Native American Support Center (NASC), Year 1 of 5
Award Dates: 10/01/2016-09/30/2017
Award Amount: $338,977
Project Director: Dr. Thomas Jackson
Purpose of Award: Implementation of the NASC -Native American Support Center. This center will assist in the retention, intervention and referral services of at-risk native students as well as provide internal academic advising, personal and academic coaching, tutoring and mentoring. Primary goals of this center are:

1. Increase Native American student retention;
2. Develop a peer-to-peer college persistent mentoring program;
3. Provide a source of culture, connection, and care for Native American students on all three campuses.

Funding Agency: U.S. Department of Education