Accomplishments - March, 2016
Four Automotive Technology faculty members presented at the Illinois College Automotive Instructors Association Conference in St. Louis, March 10-11. Blaine Heisner and Drew Croxell presented “FCA’s Multi-Air Induction; Ralph Tate presented “Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication: First Phase of the Connected Car,” and Sean Boyle presented “Diagnosing, Testing, and Teaching Transmissions with Scopes.”
Lisa B. Brooten, Radio, Television, and Digital Media, was one of four international experts invited to present during workshops on media broadcasting in Yangon, Myanmar. The conference, “Myanmar Media Law Conference: Challenges to Myanmar’s Media Landscape,” was March 19-20. Brooten’s workshop focused on “private television,” and she discussed the benefits and problems with private, commercial broadcasting in the United States. Members of Myanmar’s government, the nation’s newly established press council, broadcasters, journalists and policymakers attended the conference that looked at developing media laws as the nation moves away from the one-time military dictatorship.
Marcus Odom, Accountancy and Deloitte & Touche Faculty Fellow, has been named the 2016 Outstanding Educator by the Illinois CPA Society. The award recognizes Illinois educators at a community college, college or university who excel in leadership and teaching, and who make continuous and outstanding contributions to accounting education in the state. Odom will be honored June 14 in Chicago at the organization’s leadership recognition dinner. Odom joined the SIU College of Business in 1998. He served as director of the School of Accountancy from 2004 to 2014 and became the director of the Master of Accountancy program in 2016.
Jeanne Kitchens, Center for Workforce Development, participated in the U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen Exchange on Feb. 26. The meeting brought together state and school district leaders from states that have committed to #GoOpen, along with officials from education technology companies and non-profit organizations. Kitchens demonstrated the Illinois Open Educational Resources, an educational resources repository where webpages, files and partial and complete teaching curricula are shared.
Gretchen Dabbs, Anthropology, recently earned “Fellow” status with the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. The academy is “a multidisciplinary professional organization that provides leadership to advance science and its application to the legal system,” according to the organization’s website. Dabbs is also co-founder and director of the Complex for Forensic Anthropology Research at SIU.
Natasha Zaretsky, History, has been selected for a 2016-2017 visiting fellowship at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney in Australia. The fellowship will allow Zaretsky to complete her book on the cultural history of the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island.
Andy Wang, dean, College of Applied Sciences and Arts, attended a meeting hosted by the National Science Foundation, Feb. 1-2, in National Harbor, Md., to discuss “Computer Science (CS) for All,” an initiative announced by President Obama. The initiative’s goal is to give all students in the United States an opportunity to learn computer science in school.
