Stacey Mills ’96

The Association of American Colleges & Universities invited two University of South Carolina Upstate officials to write for one of its publications. Dr. Abraham Goldberg, associate professor of political science and co-director of the Office of Service- Learning and Community Engagement, and Mr. Stacey Mills, interim executive director of the Greenville Campus, are writing an article about democratic education at USC Upstate for Diversity and Democracy, which is an official publication of the AAC&U.  Their article will appear in a special issue dedicated to civic learning.

Abe Goldberg

Goldberg has also been invited to present on a panel of the Diversity and Democracy special edition at the AAC&U Annual Meeting in January in Washington, D.C.  The 2016 Annual Meeting will focus on higher education’s most pressing educational challenges—those centered on the intersections of equity, quality and democratic renewal.

The AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education.

For more information, contact Dr. Abraham Goldberg, associate professor of political science and co-director of the Office of Service-Learning and Community Engagement, at (864) 503-5670 or agoldberg@uscupstate.edu.

David McCurry

Dr. David S. McCurry is the director of distance education at the University of South Carolina Upstate where he is leading the planning, development, and administration of all online programs through the Office of Distance Education. McCurry also serves as the campus coordinator for USC Palmetto College.

“Dr. McCurry brings more than 35 years of professional experience in educational technology, media and international educational development to USC Upstate,” said Dr. Clif Flynn, interim senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at USC Upstate. “His level of expertise is critical as the University is expanding online education to serve the needs of increasing numbers of adult and professional degree seekers. Dr. McCurry will be expanding and developing the role of online learning in the academic programs at the USC Upstate Greenville Campus by working in conjunction with the University Center Greenville.”

McCurry previously directed the distance education program at Converse College and was a tenured faculty member of Monmouth University in New Jersey. McCurry was a Fulbright Lecturer in Malawi under the U.S. Information Agency Teacher-Text-Technology initiative and lived in Africa over nine years at various points in his career, as a Peace Corps volunteer and a senior technical advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. McCurry worked for the Teaching Learning and Technology Group, directing weekly online programming for more than 100 institutions in higher education.

He earned his master’s and doctorate degrees from the Center for International Education, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

For more information, contact Dr. David S. McCurry, director of distance education, at dmccurry@uscupstate.edu or (864) 503-5509.

Catherine Canino

Dr. Catherine Canino, director of the Honors Program; Dr. Samantha Hauptman, assistant professor of criminal justice; and Dr. Araceli Hernandez-Laroche, assistant professor of French, will present at the Global Education Conference at Georgia Southern University in September. The title of their panel is “Teaching Honors Cross-Divisional and Active-Learning Courses: Terrorism & Torture from a Global Perspective,” and it will explore innovative methods of collaborative teaching in cross-divisional honors courses using Active Learning principles.

Canino will discuss the USC Upstate Honors Program and its mission, study abroad opportunities, and service learning responsibilities. Hauptman will discuss the need for criminal

Samantha Hauptman

justice majors to be more concerned about terrorism and immigration and how we can bring the community to our classroom through service learning. Hernandez-Laroche will discuss how the U.S. foreign language deficit affects national security and how we can engage students in intercultural awareness through Active Learning.  Both Hauptman and Hernandez-Laroche are teaching an Honors Active Learning Class on Terrorism and Torture in Spring 2016, and they we will all discuss how these ideas play out in the classroom.

“This is a unique opportunity to promote USC Upstate and the Honors Program and it will also be the first time that faculty will be presenting on the Active Learning Grant outside of USC Upstate,” said Canino, referring to the $2.2 million Title III grant that USC Upstate received last year from the U.S. Department of Education.

Araceli Hernandez-Laroche

This conference, attended by officials from the U.S. Department of Education and by faculty and administrators from around the country, provides a venue to exchange ideas with other educational professionals on how to promote intercultural awareness and global citizenship in academia and local communities.

“It is quite an honor for three USC Upstate faculty members to be chosen as presenters among such a select group scholars and professionals who will be promoting cross-cultural and global educational awareness,” said Dr. Clif Flynn, interim senior vice chancellor for academic affairs.

For more information, contact Dr. Catherine Canino, director of the Honors Program, at (864) 503-5657 or ccanino@uscupstate.edu.

USC Upstate strength and conditioning coach Scott Senger was recognized Wednesday by the East Coast Hockey League with the Ryan Birmingham Memorial Award.

The award honors on-ice officials for contributions and dedication to the league officiating staff and is named for linesman Ryan Birmingham who tragically lost his life in an automobile accident in May 2007.

Senger began officiating in North Dakota during the 1988-89 season at the age of 17.

Read more about Senger on the ECHL website.

Ten faculty members at the University of South Carolina Upstate have been awarded Summer Faculty Innovation Grants thanks to a new initiative funded by the USC Upstate Foundation. Grants of up to $5,000 were available for curriculum innovations that might include interdisciplinary and cross-divisional courses and programs, new service learning models, innovative instructional concepts, and responses to discovered educational needs across the Upstate.

“This was a very competitive process, with 20 very strong applications submitted for the 10 grants,” said Dr. Clif Flynn, associate vice chancellor for faculty development and director of graduate studies. “The selected proposals represent a range of exciting innovations that have great potential for positively impacting teaching and learning at USC Upstate. I want to thank all who applied, the faculty members who served on the selection committee, and Chancellor Moore and the USC Upstate Foundation for making these grants possible.”

Selected to receive the inaugural Summer Faculty Innovation Grants are:

• Lola Bradley, reference librarian, and Bree Kirsch, reference librarian: “Turning LIBR 201 into a Hybrid Course Using a Flipped Classroom Model and Incorporating Service-Learning”

• Chase DeHan, assistant professor of economics: “Developing a Flipped Classroom for Finance 363”

• Samantha Hauptman, assistant professor of criminal justice, and Lynn McMillan, instructor of child advocacy: “Childhood Trauma: Potential Pathway to the Criminal Justice System”(interdisciplinary course)

• David Marlow, associate professor of linguistics: “International ESOL Service-Learning for Diversity and Understanding”

• Tish Oney, assistant professor of music: “New Course Development: Music of Black Americans”

• Allison Pingley, assistant professor of political science: “Developing Political Behavior course as Service-Learning Course”

• Araceli Hernandez-Laroche, assistant professor of French, and Samantha Hauptman, assistant professor of criminal justice: ”The Twin Ills of Terrorism and Torture: A Global Perspective” (interdisciplinary course)
• Tom Rogers, assistant professor of engineering technology management: “Creating a Fully Asynchronous Lab for EMTG 320L: Engineering Cost Analysis Lab”

• Sharon T. Smith, instructor of nursing: “Integrating Second Life into the Childbearing and Women’s Health Curriculum”

• Rachel Snow, associate professor of art history: Spartanburg Art Museum Service-Learning Seminar”

“The Foundation Board is delighted to establish $50,000 in Faculty Innovation Grant Funds to support curriculum innovation by University faculty,” said Steve Harvey ’80, president of the USC Upstate Foundation. “These grants will allow faculty members to increase their engagement in experimentation and collaboration designing more engaging and effective learning experiences for students. Ultimately, it will be our students who benefit from the teaching advances made possible by the cutting-edge efforts of the faculty.”

Dr. Melissa Pilgrim, associate professor of biology at the University of South Carolina Upstate, and Dr. J Vaun McArthur, senior research scientist at the University of Georgia, were recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant to establish a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site at the Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL).

The program will begin this summer and allow 10 student participants to engage in field and laboratory studies aimed at describing, understanding and predicting the fate of radionuclides in environmental systems, the impact of radionuclides on the environment, and biogeochemical and physiological processes by means of tracer studies. The program leverages SREL’s history of radioecology research in national and international arenas (e.g., Chernobyl and Fukushima) with the lab’s current analytical capabilities, access to natural and industrial field sites with a variety of contaminant histories, and custodianship of the only chronic low-dose experimental facility in the world. Active collaboration among faculty members, research scientists, and administrators at SREL, University of Georgia, University of South Carolina Upstate, University of South Carolina Aiken, and University of South Carolina is vital to the program’s success.

“The multi-university collaboration will allow for recruitment of a diverse group of undergraduate participants, facilitate continued mentorship of participants, and encourage regional partnerships,” said Pilgrim.

The dates for the summer program are May 18 – July 31. Applications are due by April 15, with selection of candidates by April 20. Selected applicants must accept by 24 April. Participants will be provided a stipend of $525 per week, as well as free housing, a small food allowance, and travel reimbursement (more details to be provided to selected participants). For more information and application materials, visit https://www.srel.uga.edu/education/ugrad.html.

For more information, contact Melissa Pilgrim, director of research and associate professor of biology at the University of South Carolina Upstate, at (864) 503-5781 or

mpilgrim@uscupstate.edu.

On Monday, March 23, 2015, Jim Charles, Education, presented “Man Made of Words: N. Scott Momaday” as part of the Native American Studies Week lecture series sponsored by USC Lancaster’s Native American Studies Center.

Dr. Jack Turner, director of the Watershed Ecology Center, was recently recognized by Upstate Forever as a Clean Water Champion during the Sixth Annual ForeverGreen Awards Luncheon which celebrates individuals and organizations for significant contributions in the fields of land conservation, water quality, air quality, sustainable development, waste reduction, public service and volunteer work.

Since the creation of the Watershed Ecology Center in 1999,
Turner has been educating children – and adults – about the
need to be good stewards of the environment and its resources.
The outreach efforts he and WEC staff continue to promote have
reached nearly 70,000 in Spartanburg County.

Dr. Abe Goldberg has been recognized by the University of South Carolina Office of Research as one of the Featured Scholars for November.

You can read the story here.

Dr. Brigitte Neary will travel to Berlin, Germany to share her knowledge on German women’s experiences of sexual violence and expulsion from East-Central Europe at the Authenticity and Victimhood in Twentieth Century History and Commemorative Culture Conference, which will be held December 11-13.

A professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina Upstate, Neary’s specific research focus has been on women and displacement and women and armed conflict, including their experiences in war zones. She has received both national and international recognition for her work.

The conference aims to explore the experience and construction of victimhood and related narratives in international comparison with the main focus placed on the history of the 1930s to the 1950s and responses to that past in Europe, Asia, and North America. Moreover, the conference seeks to place German and European historical experiences in a broader global context. Hosts include the Institute of Contemporary History, Munich-Berlin, the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, in cooperation with the Leibniz Research Alliance on Historical Authenticity, and the George Washington University.

For more information, contact Dr. Brigitte Neary at (864) 503-5834.