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.”

USC Upstate Mary Black School of Nursing’s Eboni Harris of Simpsonville has been named a Johnson & Johnson American Association of Colleges of Nursing Minority Faculty Scholar.

Harris is one of five individuals selected through a national scholarship program funded by the Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing’s Future.

Launched to address the faculty shortage and enhance diversity among nurse educators, this AACN-administered program provides generous financial support, mentoring, and leadership development to graduate students from minority backgrounds who aspire to teach in our nation’s schools of nursing.

Harris, an instructor in the Mary Black School of Nursing, is a second-year doctoral student at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Her research interest is to develop culturally tailored interventions addressing obesity in African American women.

Harris was recently named a Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar and will receive $20,000 over the two-year period to support her doctoral studies, representing grant funds from the Jonas Foundation and matching funds from the College of Nursing at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. The Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program was created in 2008 to support the educational development of nursing doctoral students, helping to increase the number of advanced practice nurses and health care leaders as well as nursing school faculty. This is the second time the USC College of Nursing has received the Jonas Center Grant for doctoral students.

USC Upstate Mary Black School of Nursing’s Eboni Harris of Simpsonville was selected for the 2014–16 Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program of the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare.

As one of 300 Jonas Scholars across the country, Harris will receive $20,000 over the two-year period to support her doctoral studies, representing grant funds from the Jonas Foundation and matching funds from the College of Nursing.

Harris, an instructor in the Mary Black School of Nursing, is a second-year doctoral student at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Her research interest is to develop culturally tailored interventions addressing obesity in African American women.

The Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program was created in 2008 to support the educational development of nursing doctoral students, helping to increase the number of advanced practice nurses and health care leaders as well as nursing school faculty. This is the second time the USC College of Nursing has received the Jonas Center Grant for doctoral students.

Dr. Lynette M. Gibson, associate professor and director of research in Nursing, recently completed a fellowship at the Summer Nursing Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing Center for Health Equity Research.

Gibson has been appointed to the Southern Region Health Equity Council which is one of 10 Regional Health Equity Councils in the nation. The councils are public-private partnerships whose mission is to mobilize a comprehensive, community-driven, and sustained approach to combating health disparities and to move the nation toward achieving health equity.

A faculty member and a nursing student from the Mary Black School of Nursing at University of South Carolina Upstate will be recognized on April 6 with prestigious awards from the South Carolina Nurses Foundation.

Dr. Julie Moss, assistant professor of nursing, will receive the prestigious South Carolina Palmetto Gold nursing award. Moss earned a RN-BSN degree and a Master of Science in Nursing – Family Nurse Practitioner from the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, IN. She earned a Ph.D. in nursing from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and defended her dissertation April 2010 with a research study conducted in rural Ecuador regarding the health beliefs and practices of rural Ecuadorians. At USC Upstate, Moss is leading international community health classes to international destinations such as South Africa and Ecuador.

Palmetto Gold is the premier statewide nurse recognition program that annually salutes 100 registered nurses for exceptional nursing practice and commitment to the profession.  Nominations are received from nursing employers and peers from a variety of nursing education and health care facilities across the state. Selection criteria includes: promotes and advances the profession of nursing in a positive way in the practice setting or in the community; displays caring and commitment to patients, families and colleagues; demonstrates leadership and assists others in growth and development; and contributes to overall outcomes in the practice area/setting.

Jane Montero, a nursing student at USC Upstate Greenville Campus, will receive a Palmetto Gold Scholarship. Montero, a native of York, PA, is currently pursuing her bachelor’s of science in nursing (BSN). She works at St. Francis downtown in Greenville as a cardiology technician.

The Palmetto Gold Scholarship recognizes the student’s caring and commitment to patients, families and colleagues; leadership; assistance to others’ growth and development; positive promotion of the nursing profession; and high level of academic success. First established in 2002 to recognize and promote nursing as a profession across the state, the Palmetto Gold Scholarship now awards one undergraduate registered nursing student in each of the nursing programs in South Carolina with a $1,000 scholarship.

Moss and Montero, along with the other recipients, will receive their awards at the 12^th annual Palmetto Gold Gala on Saturday, April 6 at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. Net proceeds from the gala are used to endow scholarships for students in state-approved registered nursing programs in South Carolina, thereby continuing the legacy of excellence in nursing practice for South Carolina citizens.

To learn more, visit www.scpalmettogold.org.

Dr. Margaret Hindman, assistant professor of nursing and director of the Joint Center for Nursing Research and Scholarship, was selected by the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine for a BioMedicine Informatics Fellowship to be hosted by the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. in September 2012. Biomedical informatics focuses on the interface of computers and healthcare, or biomedicine, and the eight-day program is designed to familiarize participants on the application of computer technologies and information science in biomedicine and health science through a combination of lectures and hands-on computer exercises. The program will help identify the conceptual components of biomedical informatics, or telemedicine, by offering courses such as principles of database design, human-computer interfaces, and methods for measuring costs and benefits in health care systems.

Lynette Gibson, associate professor of nursing at the University of South Carolina Upstate, is a member of a team of nursing professionals that recently had the following article published:

Bethel, Susan A., Seitz, Sue, Osika-Landreth,  Cathie (Greenville Hospital System), Gibson, Lynette, & Whitcomb, John (Clemson University) (2012). Energize Staff to Create a Research Agenda, Clinical Nurse Specialist Journal, September/October, 272-276. 

She has also been selected to give a podium presentation entitled, “Facilitating Research by African-American Undergraduate Students,” at the Caribbean Exploratory Research Center’s 5^th Annual Health Disparities Institute to be held on October 17-19, 2012 in St. Thomas, USVI. The conference is being co-sponsored by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities and the Caribbean Exploratory NIMHD Research Center at the University of the Virgin Islands School of Nursing.

Dr. Margaret Hindman, assistant professor of nursing and director of the Joint Center for Nursing Research and Scholarship, was selected by the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine for a BioMedicine Informatics Fellowship to be hosted by the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. in September 2012.

Biomedical informatics focuses on the interface of computers and healthcare, or biomedicine, and the eight-day program is designed to familiarize participants on the application of computer technologies and information science in biomedicine and health science through a combination of lectures and hands-on computer exercises. The program will help identify the conceptual components of biomedical informatics, or telemedicine, by offering courses such as principles of database design, human-computer interfaces, and methods for measuring costs and benefits in health care systems.

Smith, S. T., Amendolair, D., and Talley, C. “Using 3-D Multi-User Virtual, Environment Technology to Support Nursing Education,” Poster presented Southern SREB Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing 2011, Atlanta, Georgia, November 2011.

Smith, S. T., Amendolair, D., and Talley, C. “The Use of Virtual Reality in Nursing Education,” Poster presented at the Emerging Technology in Nursing Education Conference, San Francisco, CA, July 2011.

Smith, S. T., Amendolair, D., and Talley, C. “ MUVE – A New Frontier for Nursing,” Poster presented at the 11th Annual Nurse Educator Symposium, Branson, MO, March 2011.

Smith, S. T., Amendolair, D., and Talley, C. “Multi-User Virtual Environment: A New Frontier for Nursing Education,” Sigma Theta Tau, Mu Rho Chapter, Awarded June 2011, $500.

Smith, S. T., Amendolair, D., and Talley, C. “Multi-User Virtual Environment: A New Frontier for Nursing Education,” Investigator/Developer of the multi-user virtual environment and development and testing of the effectiveness of MUVE in Nursing
Education, $3,900, University Center Greenville, March 2011 – April 2012.

Smith, S. T., Amendolair, D., and Talley, C. “Developing a Health Care Delivery System (Hospital) by application of Virtual World,” Coinvestigator/Developer of the multi-user virtual environment, March 2010 – April 2011, $5,000.