Monthly Archives: September 2017

Doctoral students’ diversity-related research

Two separate awards from Miami’s Grants to Support Research in Social Justice, Human Rights, Diversity, and Inclusion feature doctoral students in the department. Sarah Dreyer-Oren (clinical), Anjali Jain (clinical), and Tessa Benson-Greenwald (social) are working on a project to examine how stigma of mental illness and social support relate to mental health help-seeking among domestic and international students at Miami. The project is supervised by their mentors, Elise Clerkin, Vaishali Raval, and Amanda Diekman, respectively.

Psychology graduate students Tessa, Sarah, Anjali, and Amy (L-R) receive funding for diversity and inclusion research.

Amy McConnell’s (clinical) project investigates risk factors for sexual victimization among bisexual women using a mixed methods approach that empowers the stakeholders in the research. The goal is to develop a better understanding of bisexual women’s perceptions of risk factors as well as the effect of minority stress. She is mentored by Terri Messman-Moore.

Doctoral student wins NIMH award!

We have exciting news to share regarding Anne Kalomiris, a doctoral student in the clinical area working with Liz Kiel. Annie has received the prestigious and highly competitive Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional National Research Service Award (F31) from the NIMH to fund her doctoral studies! According to Anne Schauer, this is the first F31 at Miami.

Anne Kalomiris, F31 award recipient

Annie’s research project is titled “Parenting, Physiological Reactivity, and Neurological Risk for Anxiety in Kindergartners.” The research implements a differential susceptibility framework to investigate how physiological reactivity in toddlerhood changes the association between early environmental factors and neural markers of anxiety in kindergarten-age children. Specifically, the project will identify how this neural marker is predicted by specific parenting behaviors (i.e., overprotection, appropriate support) that place children at an increased or decreased risk for anxiety. It is expected that only those children who display greater physiological reactivity will be susceptible to the parenting that they receive. By determining the interaction of specific parenting behaviors and the child’s openness to their environment on neurological activity, we can determine the type of parenting behaviors in toddlerhood that are optimal for neurological development to reduce the risk of anxiety in kindergarten-aged children.

Please join us in congratulating Annie and Liz for this amazing accomplishment!

Opportunities for your female students

There are two opportunities that might be of interest to your female undergraduates. From Monica Schneider, POL:

I am part of a group of people bringing Elect Her to Miami’s campus on November 11. Elect Her is a training program that trains college women to run for student government on their college or university campuses. Research has shown that women who run for student body elections in college are more likely to run for office as adults. The training addresses the disparity between the high percentage of women in colleges and universities and their low percentage in student governments (and in government more generally).

The daylong Elect Her training teaches college women why more women are needed in student government and provides them with the skills to run successful student body campaigns. Students learn how to create campaign messages and communicate them effectively as well as how to reach out and mobilize voters on campus. They will also meet with student government and an elected official. The organization is geared towards student government elections, but the skills will still be relevant for seniors or those thinking of a political career after Miami.

If you know a student that you believe would benefit from the program, please provide their information in this form. They will receive a personalized invitation to attend the workshop, which is free for students. Research shows that women need to be asked – and asked several times! – before they think they will be good enough to run for any type of office. If you know of an excellent student, please don’t hesitate to contact them directly (in person/by email) in addition to submitting their name.

Thanks for helping me get a great turnout for this exciting event! I’m hoping that everyone I know can invite 4-5 women – especially since I know you know a lot of great students on this campus!

And in case you missed her email, from April:

We are very excited to be starting the second year of the Miami Body Project. The Body Project is a cognitive dissonance-based body-acceptance program designed to help college-age women resist cultural pressures to conform to the thin ideal and reduce their pursuit of unrealistic bodies. The Body Project is well supported by research as an effective prevention program for disordered eating (more details here).

We will be offering multiple Body Project workshops this semester and I could really use your help to get the word out. I created a PowerPoint slide that provides information about upcoming Body Project workshops, and I would be very grateful if you would consider showing this slide in your classes, lab meetings, etc. [See April’s email or contact her for the slide].

Please let me know if you have any questions. Also, please consider “liking” our Facebook page and/or following us on Instagram #MiamiBodyProject.

April is also looking for peer leaders for the Miami Body Project. Peer Leaders will be expected to attend a training (that will take 1.5 days) and run 1-3 Body Project workshops over the course of this semester. The 1.5 day training will take place on Friday, September 29 (9am-5pm) and Saturday, September 30 (9am-1pm). Please have students contact April by Monday, September 25.

 

FSB Entrepreneurship speaker series announced

The Institute for Entrepreneurship at FSB announces the two speakers in their 2017-2018 Miami University Distinguished Entrepreneurship Scholar Lecture Series:

Dr. Tom Lumpkin, C.S. Trosper Chair and Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development in the Michael J. Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma. His talk, Social Entrepreneurship Impact: Are We Digging in the Wrong Place?, will be held on Monday, November 6, 1:30-3:00 pm is FSB 2079 and emphasizes his current research on the great challenge of sustainability and the impact of sustainable, ethical, entrepreneurial (SEE) enterprises.

Dr. Saras D. Sarasvathy, Paul M. Hammaker Professor in Business Administration in the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Holds cross-appointments at the Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore, India), as the Jamuna Raghavan Chair Professor in Entrepreneurship, at Nankai University (Tianjin, China), as the Chair Professor of Entrepreneurship, and at Chalmers University (Göteborg, Sweden), as the Jubilee Professor.  Her talk will be held on Friday, March 2, 1:30-3:00 pm is FSB 2079. Widely considered a leading scholar on the cognitive basis for high-performance entrepreneurship, Dr. Sarasvathy… is best known for her research examining effectuation, which is a model of entrepreneurial thinking that serves founders in the processes of opportunity identification and new venture creation.

Citizenship and Democracy Week

From John Forren, Department of Justice and Community Studies on the Hamilton campus, about events the week of Sept 11-15, across all Miami campuses and other venues. Contact John for a calendar of events which includes discussions and panels, films, engagement and volunteer opportunities, a naturalization ceremony and an open session of the Ohio Court of Appeals. He also writes:

And of course, anything that you could do to encourage your students (and friends, neighbors, relatives, colleagues, etc.) to take part in the various events would be greatly appreciated as well! (As a side note, we will be keeping track of student attendance at most of the events; thus, if you would like to embed one or more of the programs into your courses as extra credit, etc., we can, in most cases, provide you with a post-event list of student attendees.)

Thanks for your support of this event — and best wishes for a great semester!

Cross-cultural mentoring of graduate students

From Valerie Robinson in the Graduate School on a relatively new program:

In Fall 2015, the Graduate School introduced a program in Cross Cultural Mentoring. We partnered interested faculty with diverse doctoral students with all but dissertation status. It was a successful initiative by a number of measures and we want to extend it this year to include more graduate students. We hope you consider participating.

We seek doctoral level faculty/staff who will engage the student not as an advisor, but as a role model, counselor, and experienced future colleague, providing support for the research process and preparing for life after the dissertation.

We seek diverse doctoral students in at least their second year who are interested in a mutually beneficial mentoring relationship with a faculty or staff member.

We are planning a kick-off meeting in mid-September. If you are interested in participating or have questions, please contact Valerie.

CTE seminar calendar posted

The Center for Teaching Excellence has not only retained its name for two years in a row now, but they have updated their calendar to reflect offerings for the CTE as well as some other partners. The calendar can be found here, and includes sessions on funding opportunities, service learning, study abroad, diversity, the new Title IX reporting requirements, and more; specialized topics such as Chinese names, Peer review of writing, or Teaching large classes; and systems and software such as Qualtrics.

I would encourage you all to check it out and think each of you might find something to contribute to your professional development.

Two requests from CAS and Admissions

From Ted Peters, Asst. Dean in CAS, regarding some need for faculty to help with recruitment efforts. First, they are looking for instructors willing to allow prospective students to attend a class. If you might consider allowing an occasional guest in your class, please enter it directly in the Google Sheet here. They are also looking for faculty willing to sit on panels during recruitment days; he writes:

The Office of Admissions is seeking one faculty representatives from each academic division to serve on panels for the following events this fall semester. Participants will be asked to respond to questions asked by students and/or admissions staff; there is nothing faculty need to prepare beforehand. Admissions will likely ask panelists to address two questions: 1) what’s special/unique about Miami?; and 2) What advice do you have for prospective students about being successful in this environment?

  • Sat. 9/9 @ 10:45AM (Admission Visit Center – Shriver; access via ground level in the rear)
    • Day of Champions: multi-cultural recruitment event.  Please arrive no later than 10:45AM; will take the stage at 11:00AMand finish by 12:00PM
  • Fri. 10/6 @ 9:15AM (Wilks Theater- Armstrong Ctr)
    • Red Carpet Day: high ability student recruitment.  Please arrive no later than 9:15AM; will take the stage at 9:30AM and finish by 10:15AM.
  • Sat. 10/7 @ 9:15AM (FSB 1000)
    • Admission Preview Day: first-year recruitment event.  Please arrive no later than 9:15AM; will take the stage at 9:30AM and finish by 10:15AM
  • Fri. 10/20 @ 9:15AM (Wilks Theater- Armstrong Ctr)
    • Red Carpet Day: high ability student recruitment.  Please arrive no later than 9:15AM; will take the stage at 9:30AM and finish by 10:15AM.
  • Sat. 11/4 @ 9:15AM (FSB 1000)
    • Admission Preview Day: first-year recruitment event.  Please arrive no later than 9:15AM; will take the stage at 9:30AM and finish by 10:15AM
  • Sat. 11/11 @ 9:15AM (FSB 1000)
    • Admission Preview Day- first-year recruitment event.  Please arrive no later than 9:15AM; will take the stage at 9:30AM and finish by 10:15AM

Please let Ted know directly if you are able to help out, have any questions, or have trouble accessing the form. These are some important and impactful recruitment efforts to continue to attract a strong and diverse incoming class.