Monthly Archives: November 2018

Input on Miami’s upcoming strategic plan

From Vaishali, who is a member of the newly-formed university strategic planning committee (thank you!):

President Crawford has formed a steering committee to create a comprehensive, mission-driven, and sustainability-centered strategic plan for the next five years for Miami. The strategic priorities are: academic excellence, excellence in research and scholarship, transformative student experience, diversity and inclusion, financial sustainability, and a national university. See here for more information.
If you have any input about any of these priorities, and specifically about research and scholarship (a subcommittee that I am co-chairing), please let me know.

CIQS female recruiting event

Please see below an event organized by Lynette Hudiburgh, STA/CTE, to recruit female high school students. She would be grateful to have participation from faculty, graduate students, and/or undergraduates in Psychology, in particular:

Please mark your calendars so that you can join us for CIQS (Careers Involving Quantitative Skills) Day 2019, tentatively set for Tuesday, January 8, from 9:00 – 2:00, to recruit talented young high school females to study quantitative and science subjects in college. An alternate date of Thursday, January 10, has been set in case of inclement weather. This will be our Fifth Annual CIQS Day.

The Department of Statistics, in partnership with the College of Education, Health, & Society, and StatHawks sponsors CIQS Day: an annual event exclusively for female high school students. For this event we will invite such students from high schools in Southwestern Ohio (including downtown Cincinnati) to come to campus, participate in activities with faculty and current students, listen to faculty and student presentations, and converse with women who are working in STEM fields and in fields where good quantitative skills are needed. It is our hope that by introducing the students to these fields early, and by exposing them to exciting aspects of our fields of study, they will become intrigued and motivated to study a STEM discipline or to continue to study quantitative methods regardless of future majors.

We would love to have you join us and contribute to the success of this day. Opportunities for faculty to contribute include:

  • Create and facilitate an activity or exploration (30-40 minutes) that would be interesting and accessible to high school students. Presentations from last year included: Teamwork in Engineering; Big Data Analytics and its Applications; and Introduction to Earthquakes, just to name a few.
  • Identify current undergraduate and graduate majors in your department who might be available to participate in this day.

Psychology major’s original music production

Andrew Higgins, a senior Psychology and Music double major, has his senior recital opening this weekend, which contains themes of mental health. From Andrew:

“Hopeless Romantic” serves as my music composition senior recital – a testament of everything I’ve learned as a composer at Miami. The show times are: Thursday, 11/29 @ 6:00pm; Saturday, 12/1 @ 2:00pm and 7:30pm; and Sunday, 12/2 @ 2:00pm. The show encompasses two subjects I’ve fallen in love with through Miami: music and mental health. It is a two-act musical, which will run about 2.5 hours. It will take place in Wilks Theater – in the Armstrong Student Center. Admission is free!

More information about the musical can be found through a recently-published Miami Student article (here).

Although I am unable to attend due to a performance weekend of my own, I would encourage those interested to attend this free entertainment and am sure Andrew would love to see the support!

Final diversity & inclusion events of the semester

Bowling Shabbat
When: Friday 11/30 @ 5-7pm
Where: Oxford Lanes (4340 Oxford Really Rd)
Description: Hillel is hosting a fun way to celebrate the end of the week by group bowling!

Viet Night
When: Saturday 12/1 @ 5-10pm
Where: Stonebridge Hall Common Room
Description: The Vietnamese Student Association will host its semesterly event to celebrate Vietnamese culture and enjoy unique cuisine.

Latke Passout
When: Tuesday 12/4 @ 11am-2pm
Where: The Seal (501 E High St)
Description: Hillel is starting the celebration of Hannukah by passing out Latkes at the seal.

So Much Funnikkah Hanukkah Party
When: Wednesday 12/5 @ 7:30-10:30pm
Where: Armstrong Student Center Pavilion
Description: Hillel is hosting its 2018 Chanukah Celebration, where attendees can decorate Chanukah sweatshirts, eat latkes and donuts, and play dreidel. Contact Brendan (newmanbm@miamioh.edu) with any questions.

Mental Health and Stress Shabbat
When: Friday 12/7 @ 6-8pm
Where: Hillel (11 E Walnut St)
Description: Hillel and the Jewish community will host a weekly Shabbat while also learning strategies to control stress before finals. Therapy dogs will be there!

Congrats to our Castellan Prize winner!

I am pleased to share that Mitch Dandignac received the 2018 Castellan Prize for the best student paper at the 48th annual meeting of the Society for Computers in Psychology (SCiP) in New Orleans. His topic was “Writing for Coh-Metrix: A Systematic Approach to Revising Texts to Foster Gist Inferences,” and he is advised by Chris Wolfe. Join me in congratulating Mitch!

All-expenses paid training in computational neuroscience

This would be a great opportunity for graduate students interested in acquiring these techniques. All expenses including airfare and lodging are covered through NIH funding:

We would like to bring to your attention a one-week NIH funded Summer Short Course (14-20 July 2019) titled “Interdisciplinary Training in Computational Neuroscience” for pre- and post docs, medical students, and faculty from Biology, Psychology, Medicine, Engineering, Physics and Math interested in computational neuroscience.

The one-week NIH Summer course is absolutely free to the attendees, with airfare, lodging, meals everything paid by NIH.

We had approximately 70 applicants each year for the 24 positions/year during the past years. They were from multiple disciplines including Biological Sciences, Psychological Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Physics and Mathematics.

The interdisciplinary computational neuroscience short course includes limited experimental and systems neurophysiology components. The background expected is high school level calculus and programming together with a strong interest in learning about computational/software. One of our goals is to introduce students/ faculty to the process of biologically-based modeling incorporating data related to cellular and synaptic neurophysiology.

The deadline for applications is February 15, 2019. An on-line application form and additional details can be found at the website.

Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Prize

From Pam Engel, on behalf of the National Fellowships committee, announcing the current cycle of Miami’s most significant award that would be suitable especially for honors theses:

The Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Prize will be awarded to current juniors/rising seniors to carry out a yearlong, independently-designed project in scholarship, journalism, or the arts. Recipients of the prize might use the stipend to compose music, write a work of fiction, conduct scientific or historical research, or gather material for a work on American civilization. The prize will support aspiring poets, writers, musicians, historians, social scientists, scientists, and artists who, as a result of their experience, will contribute more fully and richly to the community of scholarship and creative achievement that they will enter after their graduation from Miami. To be eligible for the award in this year’s competition cycle, you must be on track to graduate by May or August 2020.

The prize (up to $11,000) is awarded to current students of junior status (graduating May 2020) for a senior year project. The intention of the prize is to give students with exceptional promise the rare luxury of independently pursuing ideas and activities that will enrich their later work and careers. Funds can be used for travel, living expenses, supplies – essentially anything required to complete the project.

The Goldman Memorial Prize is open to any student, not just those in the Honors Program. We do ask that you send interested students to Old Manse to pick-up a paper copy application so we are able to monitor the number of students interested.

The application deadline is February 1, 2019.

Please contact Dr. Zeb Baker (Zeb.Baker@miamioh.edu) or Pam Engel (Pam.Engel@miamioh.edu) with any questions.

Call for Howe Faculty Writing Fellows

See below the call from Elizabeth Wardle, Director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence. Note that this requires a team submission involving multiple faculty. You might ask Brooke, Vrinda, and Yvette (featured below) about their experiences if you are interested, and please let me know if you intend to apply.

What is the Howe Faculty Writing Fellows?
This semester-long “master class” is designed to support faculty members and their departments/programs in their efforts to teach their students to write more effectively in their professions/disciplines and to use writing in ways that support deep learning of disciplinary material.

The program is designed on the premise that a) teams can make more lasting and wide-reaching change than individuals b) faculty already have expertise with writing in their disciplines that they can tap into to better help students and 3) a theoretical framework around writing and disciplinary thinking helps faculty design more innovative writing experiences for their students than typical “tips and tricks” workshops.

Participants must attend in teams from their programs or departments. Each Fellows cohort consists of teams from at least three different departments. The goal is to ensure that you have conversation both within your program about how to make change, and that you have the opportunity to talk with faculty from other disciplines about what writing looks like for them.

You can read more here. Since Spring 2017, 55 faculty members from 17 programs and 4 colleges have completed the program. 18 more will complete it by the end of this year.

What do Fellows Do?
During the fall and spring, attendees meet each Monday from 3:30-5. In the summer term, participants meet daily for 3 hours over a two week period.

Fellows read and discuss theory about threshold concepts in their disciplines and about writing, and read theory and research on transfer of knowledge, how learning works in relation to writing, and linguistic conventions of texts across disciplines. They engage in frequent brainstorming activities and share their own practices and ideas with teams from other departments.

At the end of the program, teams have time to work on a project of their own choosing related to writing in their programs/departments, which they then present to the other teams and take back to their departments.

What Does This Look Like in Practice?
If you would like to see what other teams have to say about their experiences, please read these Miami Writing Spotlight features:

History: “Crossing Thresholds”
Gerontology: “Discovering the Voice of Gerontology”
Development Psychology: “A Howe Fellows Journey”

You can see materials that teams have created to explain writing to students here.

Who Can Participate and What are the Incentives?
Teams should primarily consist of continuing faculty (tenure-line or lecturer, for example) in order to ensure there is continuity in implementation of ideas across time. Exceptions can be made in some circumstances, so please ask if you have questions. Departments who have not had teams participate previously will receive first priority. Teams from both Oxford and Regional campuses are welcome.

All individuals who complete the program receive $2,000 in professional development funds.

Departments whose teams complete the programs have access to additional services from the Howe Center for Writing Excellence, including grants for related research and curriculum development; embedded writing center consultants in their classrooms; collaborative research projects; department-wide workshops and more.

How Do You Sign Up?
If you are interested, please email Liz at wardleea@miamioh.edu and tell her which department/program you represent, who else might be interested from your program, and whether you are interested in participating for Fall 2019 or Spring 2020. Depending on interest, we may offer the program in Summer 2019 (a two week program beginning immediately after school ends).

Diversity & inclusion events next week

Not a lot going on with the break, but here they are. Also, it has been awhile since I thanked Lauren Forrest for compiling these each week!

Untangling the Cultural Misconceptions about Your Hair (event 3)
When: Monday 11/19 @ 6-7:30pm
Where: Hillel, 11 E. Walnut St, Oxford, OH
Description: Hillel is hosting its third event “to learn about the ways that different cultures and ethnicities value and treat their hair, though month-long events in the form of panels, talks, and conversations.”

Transgender Day of Remembrance
When: Tuesday 11/20 @ 12-1pm
Where: 114 Rentschler Hall (Hamilton campus)
Description: The Office of Diversity and Multicultural Services is hosting an annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.

APA Minority Fellowship Program

From the APA, via COGDOP:

Our Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Fellowships are about more than simply financial support – appointed Fellows join a lifetime community of mentors & peers committed to both professional success and the improvement of ethnic minority behavioral health issues. MFP is a longstanding fellowship program funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). We are committed to increasing the number of ethnic minority professionals in the field and bettering the outcomes of the communities they serve.

Of particular relevance is the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (MHSAS) Predoctoral Fellowship. Note that this is for those that intend to serve ethnic minority populations, but is not restricted to applicants who identify as ethnic minorities. Deadline is January 15, 2019.