Faculty Council Delicious Dialogues Continue to be a Success!

The newly created Faculty Council’s “Delicious Dialogs” Monthly Faculty Research Talk & Brown Bag Lunch continues to be a great success at the Broken Arrow campus!  Delicious Dialogue is a faculty led venue where each month, a speaker is highlighted to talk about their research, or some initiative that they have undertaken.

The Faculty Council began this new monthly event in November 2014 to broaden the social space just for faculty, “Delicious Dialogs Brown Bag Lunch & Talk”. Each lunch features a faculty speaker discoursing for the first 15-20 minutes on her/his current research and/or endeavors, followed by a short Q&A session. The remainder of the hour is reserved for talking with  colleagues. Dr. Cheryl Van Den Handel, Faculty Council President notes, “the intent behind this monthly event is for faculty to share our research, and to get to know each other better.  Oftentimes, we are so busy, we don’t have the opportunity to visit with our colleagues in other departments or colleges.”

So far, in Broken Arrow, we have heard from Dr. Erik Terdal on his study abroad and summer academy opportunities at NSU, Dr. Allyson Watson who spoke about outreach engagement in the local community, and the most recent – Dr. John Mercer who spoke about the Summer Intersession class where students visit Ashland, Oregon for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  See below for a photo of the event.

Be sure to join us if you can for the next Delicious Dialogue on February 11 in the Visitor Center Gallery from noon to 1:00 p.m. where Dr. Martha Parrott, faculty of the College of Science and Health Professions will discuss service learning models for creating programs.

Posted by Pamela Louderback

Louderback to present in Albuquerque next month

Dr. Pamela Louderback will be representing NSU in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the last week of February. She will be presenting research papers at two separate conferences. At the Southwest Texas Popular Culture (SWTX/PCA) conference which is being held February 25-28, she will present “Communicating through Popular Culture: Information Literacy Components in Freshman Orientation”. In this presentation, she will discuss her use of popular culture themes in a freshman English Strategies course that incorporates information literacy components to develop skills, techniques and strategies for retrieving information through a variety of video-based multimedia.

She will also present at the New Mexico Higher Education Assessment and Retention (NMHEAR) Conference, February 26-27. Dr. Louderback’s presentation, entitled “Retention of Native American students: Uncovering Epistemological Possibilities”, is derived from research that explored the differential effects of cognitive and non-cognitive factors on college success for Native freshmen students enrolled in a College Strategies course. She will discuss factors that promote academic success and provide better understanding of Native “ways-of-knowing”, share current innovative initiatives taking place at the institution, and offer recommendations for educational administrators, faculty, staff and counselors that promote student success.

Oklahoma Education: Leader or Laggard?

All over the United States, while our college age students are putting the finishing touches on projects and cramming for final exams, school age children are taking national and state writing assessment exams.  How does Oklahoma compare?  Unfortunately, the outcome seems bleak.  

Oklahoma and nine other states recently received an F in academic achievement.  Here are just a few salient points from the Nation’s Report Card.  For more details, go to uschamber.com/reportcard.

• From 1998 to 2005, a period with intensive, high-cost statewide reading initiatives, our scores dropped 5% – Only one other state saw its score drop over this 7-year period
• 30% of our students drop out – a big reason why most drop out may be tied to the fact that few 8th graders are ready to move on to 9th grade math – they simply cannot catch up!
• Our state tests say that 8th graders are 81% proficient in reading, and 76% proficient in math — Yet, national tests show true profiency rates of 25% and 21% respectively.  These are the widest state versus national discrepancies of any state in the nation!
• “C” in Education Funding — our state has a fraction of the state budget of many states ($7.3 billion)
• “F” in Truth in Advertising — Only one other state earned an “F” in truthfulness.  We are continually told that our schools are doing fine, or are at least improving. 
• ACT scores are below average and the gap is widening.  Only 17% of high school graduates are ready for college in all areas.

Let’s not become complacent by fooling ourselves into believing Oklahoma is doing well by “dumbing down” state scores and lowering PASS objective cutoff scores.  Last year, college freshmen spent $15 million for remedial (high school level) courses.  The state must address raising standards and providing a clearer picture on assessment and accountability. 

Pamela Louderback