Public history alumna wins Telly Award for work on film
Georgia Southern public history alumna Katherine Conner has been selected as a winner in the 40th Annual Telly Awards for her work on the film “Our Citizen-Soldiers.”
Conner was the scriptwriter, historian and digital producer on the film. “Our Citizen-Soldiers” is one of a six-part series that highlights the history of citizen soldiers in the World War I era throughout Georgia’s history.
Founded in 1979, the Telly Awards honors video and television made for all screens and is judged by The Telly Award Judging Council, which is a group of leading video and television experts from some of the most prestigious companies in entertainment, publishing, advertising and emerging technology.
Georgia Southern receives provisional accreditation for B.S. in Biochemistry
Georgia Southern has been selected for provisional accreditation through December 2021 by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) for the Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry program.
It is within the ASBMB policy to grant provisional accreditation, rather than full, to all new programs. While the program on the Armstrong Campus for four years now, it is new to the Statesboro Campus. With this, the ASBMB considers it a new program.
This accreditation gives the ASBMB room to actively and visibly promote excellence and innovation in undergraduate biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) education, raise the profile and enhance the relevance of the ASBMB society among STEM educators and in the private sector. It also helps to connect with and recruit aspiring young biochemists and molecular biologists on a nationwide scale.
Georgia Southern hosts annual tick workshop
For the second year in a row, the James H. Oliver, Jr. Institute for Coastal Plain Science at Georgia Southern University is hosting the Gateway Program Tick Identification and Techniques Workshop on the Statesboro Campus.
The two-week workshop began on May 20 and drew a crowd of 20 participants from around the globe. The workshop offers tick identification techniques, tick physiology, tick control and management, tick-borne diseases, distribution modeling, and surveillance techniques and tools.
Lorenza Beati, Ph.D., curator of the U.S. National Tick Collection at Georgia Southern, is leading the workshop, along with 15 instructors from the Centers for Disease Control and universities across the United States and abroad.
With more than 1 million specimens, the U.S. National Tick collection is one of the largest curated tick collections in the World, if not the largest. It belongs to the U.S. National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) and has been housed at Georgia Southern University since 1990.
Georgia Southern English professor wins Agnes Strickland Prize
Renaissance literature professor Mary Villeponteaux, Ph.D., was awarded the 2019 Agnes Strickland Prize for her presentation of “The Poet and the Queen: Spenser’s Last Elizabeths” by the Queen Elizabeth I Society. Villeponteaux gave the presentation at the South Central Renaissance Conference in Lubbock, Texas, in April.
Villeponteaux, who has been at Georgia Southern since 2006, provides leadership on numerous university, college and departmental committees and serves as advisor of the English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta. She is the author of The Queen’s Mercy: Gender and Judgement in Representations of Elizabeth I, among other respected articles and reviews.
Hines honored with Southern Talon Award
Janna Hines, senior communication sciences and disorders major from Columbia, South Carolina, has been honored with the Southern Talon Award.
The award is presented annually to students with more than 60 credit hours who have demonstrated a significant commitment to enhancing campus life at Georgia Southern University.
“Receiving the Southern Talon Award means that I made an impact on the Armstrong Campus during my time here as a student,” said Hines. “Being chosen to receive the award is something that my family and I are very proud of. I am thankful for the committee who chose me and the organizations that I am apart of for allowing me the opportunities to serve them and the student body.”
Currently, Hines serves as a Southern Ambassador, co-event coordinator for the International Student Organization and was recently elected treasurer for the Rotaract Club. She is also involved with the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association, and she has been awarded Facility Attendant of the Year for the Student Recreation Center (SRC). She also has accepted a supervisor position at the SRC and the public relations and social media lead team position for the Southern Ambassador team.
Georgia Southern mental health counselor invited to speak at Caribbean Well-being Conference
Georgia Southern University Counseling Center mental health counselor Angela Landers has been invited to speak at the 2019 Caribbean Well-Being Conference, which will be held in August in St. Maarten.
Landers was asked to present the applications of a therapeutic program, Mindful Yoga, which she developed for Georgia Southern’s Counseling Center. Her presentation is titled, “Building Resiliency with Mindfulness.”
Landers developed Mindful Yoga as a means to reach a broad number of students who are looking to create proactive, healthy lifestyles, as well as students looking for a non-traditional, non-talk therapy model. Mindful Yoga incorporates empirically supported breathing exercises, yoga postures and psychoeducation for the treatment of depression, anxiety, body image concerns and trauma.
Georgia Southern student awarded Dow Jones News Fund Internship
Georgia Southern journalism student Brendan Ward will take part in the American City Business Journals Business Reporting Program at New York University as a part of a Dow Jones News Fund Internship.
“I’m honored to have been selected as a a Dow Jones intern this summer,” Ward said. “This is a huge opportunity, and I’m excited to represent Georgia Southern University. I want to thank the amazing journalists at The George-Anne and the Georgia Southern journalism professors for helping me grow as a journalist.”
Ward is one of only 79 students nationwide who will work this summer in a paid internship at one of the nation’s 65 leading news organizations through the Dow Jones News Fund. The Dow Jones News Fund arranges summer internships for college juniors, seniors and graduate students in newsrooms across the country in data journalism, digital media, business reporting and multiplatform editing. On average, nearly a third of the fund’s graduating seniors are offered full-time jobs when their internships end.
University Housing garners Organization of the Month and the Student of the Month regional titles
Georgia Southern University Housing garnered recognition with the Organization of the Month and the Student of the Month regional titles through the Of The Month (OTM) awards with The South Atlantic Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls and the National Organization of the Month title for the National Association of College and University Residence Halls, Inc. in recent months.
The Organization of the Month and OTMs are given to organizations that actively contribute to the student leadership, recognition or other aspects of residence life during the month of nomination. University Housing earned the award in after professional and student staff members worked tirelessly to move 330 students out of a residence hall and into various other complexes in just a few days.
The Student of the Month award is given to a student who has made outstanding contributions to the residence halls through leadership, motivation, programming, volunteering and/or acting as a role model for others during the month of nomination. Nicole Maksym earned the title after she extinguished a fire in her residence hall earlier that month.
Georgia Southern’s Sport Management program ranked No. 5 for best value
Georgia Southern University’s online master’s degree in sport management was recently ranked No. 5 on the list of 35 Best Online Master’s in Sports Management by the organization Best Value Schools. Best Value Schools ranked hundreds of schools based on degree investment return, student and alumni evaluation, cost value, matriculation, and academic success.
The 36-credit, online program, housed in the Waters College of Health Professions, was designed to provide academic preparation and practical experience in the skills and techniques necessary to be successful in the sport business and leisure field. Students are able to complete the program in 24 months or as their schedule permits.
Best Value Schools is committed to linking students with institutions that are both affordable and an investment of continued value for the students.
Georgia Southern COE shows strong presence at state science teacher conference
Georgia Southern University College of Education (COE) was represented with nine presentations during the Georgia Science Teachers Association (GSTA) conference held in Columbus, Georgia.
Students representing the Statesboro and Armstrong Campuses attended the conference and presented a wide array of topics.
Armstrong Campus presentations included:
“Investigating the Use of Individual Student-Nurtured Plant Specimens (ISNPS) as a Tool for the Promotion of Self-Efficacy in the Secondary Science Classroom,” presented by MAT candidate Lindsay Norcross
“Utilizing Game Strategies to Increase Student Participation and Learning in 8th Grade,” presented by MAT candidate Lorna Smith
“Using Academic Language to Enhance Student Understanding,” presented by MAT candidate Caryn Nelson
“Utilizing Question Driven Project-Based Learning Techniques in a Sixth Grade Research Classroom to Promote Abstract Learning that is a Necessary Foundation for Research,” presented by undergraduate Monique Ellis (BSED)
“Understanding Freshman Adjustment to High School,” presented by undergraduate Allison Gladin
“How to Use an Online Gaming Platform in a Science Classroom to Improve Student Engagement and Performance,” a workshop session presented by MAT candidate Kaitlyn Demirjian, Lauren Kelly of the STEM Academy at Bartlett, Britton Scott of the Polaris Tech Charter School and COE faculty member Mary Rebecca Wells, Ed.D.
Statesboro Campus presentations included:
“Phenomena, 3-D Framework, and Collaboration: Working Together to Better our Practice,” presented by faculty members Lacey Huffling, Ph.D, and Heather Scott, Ed.D., as well as students Elissa Blount, Gabby Coumes, Regina Collins, CJ Elmore, Britt Gantt and Jonathan Riggins
“Citizen Science: Collaboration that Authenticates Scientific Practice,” presented by students Regina Collins, Britt Gantt, Melissa Weeks and faculty members Heather Scott, Ed.D., and Lacey Huffling, Ph.D.
Faculty members also presented the following:
“Okefenokee Swamp, TriState Water Conflict, and the Deepwater Horizon Event: Leveraging Water as a Tool to Engage Students in Problem-Based Learning,” presented by Lacey Huffling, Ph.D., and Heather Scott, Ed.D.
During the GSTA conference, board election results were announced. COE’s Institute for Interdisciplinary STEM Education (i2STEMe) Coordinator Kania Greer was appointed as the College Representative for the GSTA Board.