Outreach and Engaged Scholarship Symposium

Panel Details:

Moderator:

• Dr. Chippewa Thomas, Director, Office of Faculty Engagement and Encyclopedia of Alabama, University Outreach; Professor, Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation and Counseling, College of Education

Panelists:

• Dr. Octavia Tripp, Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum and Teaching, College of Education
• Dr. Linda Gibson Young, Professor and Outreach Coordinator, College of Nursing
• Professor Angela Burke, Clinical Professor, Director of Field Education, VSW Field Director, Social Work, Founder and Co-director BraveHeart Programs, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, College of Liberal Arts
• Dr. Nicholas Derzis, Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and Counseling, College of Education
• Dr. Cheryl Seals, Charles Barkley Endowed Professor, Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering

45-Minute Roundtable Presentation Details:

Legacy Ballroom:

Table 1:

• Alabama State Science and Engineering Fair
  Dr. Virginia Davis, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering and Mary Lou Ewald, College of Sciences and Mathematics
  This discussion will focus on making the Alabama State Science and Engineering Fair an Auburn University-wide endeavor. Presenters will discuss its alignment with the Auburn University land grant mission as well as how it relates to federal funding opportunities in educational research, workforce development and as broader impacts in NSF proposals.

Table 1:

• College Student Food Insecurity
  Dr. Onikia Brown and Sara Gonzalez, College of Human Sciences
  This presentation will discuss community-based research methods employed to establish campus coalitions and tools to measure campus food-aid resources.

Table 2:

• BraveHearts: Using High-Impact Service Learning to Build Community Inclusion Through Outreach
  Dr. Danilea Werner, Angie Colvin Burque, LCSW, MSW, Julie Wells, DSW, LiCSW, College of Liberal Arts
  This presentation will describe innovative service-learning outreach programs with graduate and/or undergraduate students designed to maximize inclusion for young adults with disabilities who have aged-out of traditional school programs. BraveHeart’s aim is to strengthen the community while addressing the unmet needs of adult children who have special needs and concurrently build professional skills of graduate and undergraduate students. Capacity building strategies with individuals who have moderate-severe cognitive and/or communication challenges is discussed.

Table 2:

• Building Equity Around Relationships, Opportunities, and Community
  Dr. Mary Jane McIlwain, Dr. Jamie Harrison, College of Education
  Reading and ESOL faculty engage in collaborative efforts to empower teachers, children, families, preservice teachers, and faculty to develop culturally relevant pathways toward continuous progress in language and literacy learning. The collaboration is supported through our relationships within the community and is leading us to understand the resources and strengths that bring us all into active engagement in our various roles. Presenters will share current initiatives and discuss potential next steps for community collaboration.

Table 4:

• TigerCheck^™: A school-based health screening effort in Alabama
  Dr. Barbara Wilder, College of Nursing, and Kelly Strickland, College of Nursing
  This presentation will discuss TigerCheck^™, a school-based screening effort in rural Alabama schools. The College of Nursing has partnered with academic nurses and health-related disciplines to deliver TigerCheck^™ over the past 12 years. In this presentation, we will share outcomes from this clinical outreach opportunity and will highlight lessons learned.

Table 4:

• Racial disparities in health promoting behaviors and blood pressure regulation in a sample of Auburn University students
  Dr. Austin T. Robinson and Soolim Jeong, School of Kinesiology, College of Education
  We have assessed health behaviors and cardiovascular health in a sample of Auburn University students. We have determined that the Black students obtain less nightly sleep and have poorer sleep efficiency compared to White students. The Black students also tend to have higher blood pressure and are more likely to have to high blood pressure. These disparities are influenced by social determinants of health such as neighborhood safety and neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation in childhood.

Table 6:

• Reaching Out Locally, National, and International: Meeting the needs of Preservice Teachers, Teachers, and Students in Global Education Outreach
  Dr. Octavia L. Tripp, College of Education
  This presentation will focus on exploration, discussion, reflection, and analysis of preservice teachers as they study issues pertaining to inclusive/multicultural, K-6 classrooms relating to STEM and Global Education. My outreach programs are centered around collaboratively engaging community outreach awareness in Rural Alabama, Malawi, Seoul Korea, Costa Rica and now expanding to teaching and professional development in STEM virtually to teachers and students in Shanghai and Shenzhen China. My outreach allows teachers and students who do not have multiple opportunities to work with students whose cultures are different from theirs but to provide self-reflection through observation and teaching while noticing student engagement and student/teacher talk in supporting constructive and critical thinking in students (K-6). This is very important and key to figuring out how to grow professionally as an Elementary educator. With exposure and interaction being one of elementary education goals, I have developed several international collaborative partnerships.

Table 6:

• Integrated Agriculture for Food Production, Education, Empowerment, and Development (iFEED)
  Dr. Felicia Tuggle, College of Liberal Arts and Mollie Smith, College of Education
  AU faculty and staff are leveraging the disciplines of agriculture and social work to accelerate action on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by (1) Increasing the instructional capability of STEM teachers in Liberia to incorporate integrated agriculture and aquaponics into the curriculum, (2) advancing K4-9 students' knowledge and skill in integrated agriculture and aquaponics, (3) establishing sustainable food production systems for school feeding and economic empowerment, (4) monitoring and evaluating the community impact and efficacy of teacher trainings. Preliminary evaluation results will be discussed.

Table 8:

• Increasing Outreach and Awareness Programs for Hispanic Families Impacted by I/DD
  Dr. Doris Hill, College of Education
  Barriers to access affect Hispanic families more acutely than their white counterparts, including professionals’ attitudes and biases, lack of cultural curiosity, and lack of knowledge of specialized supports. These barriers create inequities that can lead to lower achievement in children, and other deleterious outcomes which are worsened by Hispanic families’ overrepresentation in rural counties in Alabama. The authors developed an outreach template to train culturally competent advocates and assist Spanish speaking families impacted by IDD in Alabama.

Table 8:

• Tiger Babies^™: Community Support for Breastfeeding
  Ann Lambert and Amy Curtis, College of Nursing
  This presentation will discuss Tiger Babies^™, a community-based outreach effort by Auburn University College of Nursing. The program offers a clean, comfortable, and private environment for mothers to breastfeed or pump at athletic events and other community happenings. We will provide an overview of the program, demonstrate how nursing students and other disciplines are involved and ways to encourage replication at other universities.

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Oak Room

Table 1:

• Auburn University Rural Health Project: Integrating Technology, Outreach, Public Private Partnerships with a Patient-Focus
  Dr. Hollie Cost, University Outreach and Public Service and Jennifer Kerpelman, Human Sciences Administration, and Linda Gibson-Young, College of Nursing
  Roundtable leaders will provide attendees with the status and mission of Auburn University’s Rural Health Project including an overview of the TOPP model that is being implemented. This accessible and innovative healthcare option combines the state-of-the art OnMed^® telehealth station with hands-on wellness care provided through university faculty and students in health-related fields using a patient-centered approach. Interested attendees will be presented with opportunities to join the team.

Table 1:

• Causal connections between socioeconomic disparities and COVID-19 in the USA
  Tannista Banerjee and Ruchika Rungta, College of Liberal Arts
  This presentation will discuss socioeconomic disparities that have a causal link to the spread of COVID-19 in the USA. Results show that the effects of socioeconomic disparities on the spread of COVID-19 was more pronounced at the beginning of the pandemic. While in the parts of the USA with higher population density, the spread was driven by the population density, socioeconomic metrics and show significant causal connection with the spread of COVID-19.

Table 3:

• Mosaic Theatre Company on Campus and in Community
  Dr. Joan Herrell, Dr. Tessa Carr, Abdul-Khalil Murtadha, Theater Department
  This presentation will discuss information about the outreach and DEI work of Mosaic Theatre Company, a joint project between the College of Liberal Arts and the Department of Theatre. Keywords: social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, community collaboration, performance, theatre.

Table 3:

• Evidence-based behavior sciences applications in diabetes self-management outreach: Local, state, and national opportunities
  Dr. Jan Kavookjian, Harrison College of Pharmacy and Amie Hardin, Director, Diabetes and Nutrition Center
  A trajectory of behavior sciences outreach and engagement was initiated via EAH Diabetes and Nutrition Center community partner. A brief summary will describe motivational interviewing (MI) and its role in talking with persons with diabetes about essential self-management behaviors and a progression of research projects and infrastructure building from this work. A COSG-funded project will highlight impact of lay-level MI training for parents of type 1 diabetes youth and the culmination of this work into national opportunities to develop collaborations for next-level funding for research and infrastructure. Discussions about strategies and participant experiences are included.

Table 3:

• Bryan Stevenson meets Basketball Shoes
  Benjamin Bush and Katherine Chastain, College of Architecture, Design and Construction
  Two CADC faculty set out to engage and inform underrepresented, in-state high school students through a 90-minute workshop. As we developed the workshop we felt the need to strike a balance between working collaboratively through the iterative design process and offering content that was accessible and entertaining. Now in our fifth iteration of the workshop, we wish to share how we engage high school students through the intersection of shoe wear and celebrity.

Table 5:

• Engaging the Community in Difficult Conversations
  Dr. Ashley Brown, College of Education and Joe Davis, College of Liberal Arts
  This presentation will discuss ways in which Lee County Remembrance Project (LCRP), a grassroots, community-driven initiative has been working with the community to reconcile racial terror, violence, and trauma that occurred in Lee County, AL. LCRP has established a partnership with Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) to align its goals with EJI’s truth and reconciliation model.

Table 5:

• ClimateWise Barrier Analysis Preliminary Findings
  Dr. Jonathan Fisk, John Morris, Mac-Jane Crayton, and Steven McKnight, College of Liberal Arts
  The goal of barrier analysis under EEOC Management Directive 715 “is to identify the root causes of disparities in equal employment opportunities so that federal agencies can take action to remedy the policies, procedures, and practices that lead to such disparities.

Table 7:

• Engineering and STEM Outreach in Traditional and Non-Traditional Settings
  Dr. Cheryl D. Seals, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering
  Dr. Seals has hosted a myriad of engaged opportunities (i.e., camps, seminars, workshops, etc.) for students in traditional settings (e.g., labs) and non-traditional settings (e.g., community centers). Most recently, this summer her activities highlight many novel learning experiences for STEM youth engagement. Some summer scholars were exposed to artificial intelligence, machine learning training, augmented and virtual reality exercises. Some of these activities took place at Auburn University and others took place at rural community centers.

Table 7:

• ITEST-Alabama: Bridging the Diversity Gap in Computer Science
  Dr. Jung Won Hur, College of Education, Auburn University and Dr. Jay Bhuyan, Andrew F. Brimmer College of Business and Information Science, Tuskegee University
  The presentation will share the ITEST-Alabama project aimed to promote interest in computer science among high school girls and minority students attending schools in Alabama’s Black Belt. This NSF-funded project provides high school students with hands-on and project-based learning experiences through a one-month Summer Academy followed by semester-long follow-up activities. During the presentation, we will share the first-year project outcomes as well as lessons learned.