The latest CTL
workshop, “Lights, Camera, Action!” is now available on the WINK
site.Videos are the new
"hot" thing in online courses.Some reasons for using videos include:
1. Most of us today
have the attention span of a gnat. Videos give us a more of a feeling into
someone’s personality and vibe.
2. Videos engage the
visual, auditory, and kinesthetic types of learners.
This workshop covered
use of video in our courses.Videos are
one way that you can get more engagement from students, participation in
discussions, and understanding whether you create an awesome video.
·Spend
some time planning or creating a storyboard for your video.
·Keep
your videos around 10 minutes.
Watch how to embed a
video available on YouTube into your course.You can also find videos in the library on the Films
on Demand database or TedEd link.Be sure
to incorporate an introduction to the video and key points for students to be
watching for, as well as discussion for them to utilize critical thinking
skills.
Easy ways to create
your own video:
Using
the Logitec camera on your computer.
Using
the camera in your laptop.
Using
Adobe Connect.
Using
your smart phone or a flip camera.
Posting
video to YouTube and embedding it into your course.
If you need a camera
for creating videos, you can request a Lecture in a Box.We will send you a flip camera and tripod
with directions, once you send the Lecture in a Box back, a designer will
assist you in loading it to your course.To request a Lecture in a Box, email Jonathan.Eskridge@myunion.edu.
Please include your
name and the mailing address with your request.
Last month,
Dr. Lib Pruden developed a revision of the New Program Protocol review process
to be in alignment with the Strategic Plan. The new model simplifies and
streamlines the steps for proposing academic programs, as well as continued
education and certification programs here at Union.
The main
issue that the New Program Protocol addresses is the number of different
committees working simultaneously on the evaluation of a proposal—often with
different evaluation standards in mind. The New Program Protocol eliminates
much of the cross-purpose confusion and clarifies the proper approval path of
new recommendations.
The
flowchart located below indicates the streamlined changes to the evaluation process.
A “proposal”
can include ideas for a Degree Program, a Certificate Program, or a Non-Degree
Program (e.g., professional development or some form of a continuing education
curriculum). This process would also be followed for changes to existing
programs, i.e., changing a program from low residency to online.
The chart
below illustrates how a new idea needs a sponsor from an academic program—a
dean in this case where the program involves academic credit. Once a sponsor
for a new program idea has been found, the originator must create a preliminary
two-page abstract with appendices as needed.
The
originator then submits the abstract to the Vice President of Academic Affairs
for a provisional approval.
Once the VPAA
has approved it, the originator prepares a full, detailed proposal with necessary
projection information and impact predictions.
Only after
that full proposal has been drafted and initially approved by the VPAA do the
appropriate committees begin evaluating the proposal: department-level
committees, the BS ARC, the BA EIC, or the Graduate Review Committee. Once the
committee approves a proposal, they recommend the proposal back to the VPAA who
consults with the deans to ensure that no more information is necessary.
If the
proposal is satisfactory, the VPAA presents the proposal to the President, to
the trustees, and to any external agencies as necessary, e.g., the Ohio Board
of Regents, the Higher Learning Commission, etc.
Each month I have enjoyed drawing attention to our faculty members in
the Union Strasse newsletter, and
this month is no exception. I am honored to present Dr. Dorothy Firman as a celebrated faculty member at Union this month. Dr. Firman takes the value of social
responsibility seriously—and she lives out the definition of that value in her
work, her teaching, her life in the surrounding communities and in their
outreach. I am proud to be in partnership with them here at Union Institute
& University.
Dr. Dorothy Firman has been a member of Union’s
faculty since 2006. She is a prolific author, speaker, life coach and
counselor. She was a guest on the Oprah
Winfrey show, and her book Chicken
Soup for the Mother & Daughter Soul (2012) was a New York Times
best-seller. Fox News, New Morning, Wisdom Television, Nightbeat,
Eldervision, Time for Spirit and the CBS special Family 2 Family have all been
media venues that have featured Dr. Firman and her work.
Her most recent book is titled Engaging
Life: Living Well with Chronic Illness (2013). In this collection of stories, self-help exercises, and
meditations on the importance of friendship and family, Dr. Firman tackles the
difficult subject of how to successfully navigate the path of pain and
suffering and how to support those who are bearing the burden of a long-term
illness.
Part of the
inspiration for the book came from one of Dr. Firman’s former patients—a woman
struggling with terminal cancer, with less than a year to live. This woman’s
journey became a remarkable story of survival, recovery, and of finding meaning
in the midst of incredibly difficult circumstances. Drawn from similar
experiences, Dr. Firman unpacks the emotional methods and interpersonal tools
that will allow an individual to seek the help they need and to cultivate the
relational support to walk through sickness and loss.
Self-reflection
and self-examination are among the tools that Dr. Firman recommends for her
patients. She provides exercises that help individuals become more aware of
their own life narrative—the trajectory of their own story—and to begin to see
and shape that narrative as a story of resilience, relationship, and purpose. Dr. Firman teaches in Union’s Master of Arts with a Concentration in Counseling
program, and she is the co-founder of the Synthesis Center in Amherst,
Massachusetts, where she acts as director of training in Psychosynthesis—an
integrated, medical-spiritual approach to psychology and counseling. She is
often both a national and international guest speaker and workshop leader. Her
focus and expertise prioritizes coaching people around the topic of meaning,
purpose, and empowerment in their lives. She is especially equipped for
counseling people as they walk through times of transition, including grief
counseling, spiritual and existential therapy, and coaching on dealing with age,
illness, and disease. She has also worked within the corporate world to provide
consultation regarding staff and personnel dynamics. When asked
how she understood the value of Social Responsibility, Dr. Firman said:
“For me,
personally, having been in the field for over thirty years, social
responsibility requires two things of me. The first is that I see clients and
all humans in their social context. In their social context means that a client
who is struggling, is struggling within their system (school, culture, family,
job, country). No one can be diagnosed, treated, cured, or transformed outside
of their community context and often a fair share of what creates a problem for
an individual is located squarely in the culture and is not simply a psychological
issue. Practitioners in the field now recognize that the most effective treatments
occur within a person’s social context and even have come so far as to
understand the very different essential impact of treatment on people of
various cultures. The meaning of counseling or psychotherapy is different
within one culture and another. Even the impact of a particular medication is
now understood to have different effects on people of different ethnicities. So
that's the first important take home for me. Who is this person sitting in
front of me and who is this person within the social system that he or she
lives in?
The second
value for me that arises from this knowledge is that I, as a professional, have
a responsibility within society to work towards its improvement. Having been an
activist for most of my life, this responsibility comes naturally to me, but I
have had to carve out the ways that a socially responsible activism works
within the field of psychology. In part it means being involved in professional
organizations, presenting at conferences on issues related to social
responsibility, and continuing to be trained on issues of diversity, social
justice, oppression, and human rights. It also means helping clients and students
see themselves within a system and take steps (however big or small they can)
towards being empowered within the system. To watch
an individual find voice, stand up for what they believe, confront injustice
and hold strong to their values, is a wonderful thing and one of the great
gifts, for me, of being in this field.”
Each month I have enjoyed drawing attention to our faculty members in the Union Strasse newsletter, and this month is no exception. I am honored to present Dr. Michael Raffanti as a celebrated faculty member at Union for this month. Dr. Raffanti takes the value of social responsibility seriously—and he lives out the definition of that value in his work, his teaching, his life in the
surrounding community and in his outreach. I am proud to be in partnership with him here at Union Institute & University.
Dr.
Michael A. Raffanti is the Associate Dean in Union's Ph.D. program in
Interdisciplinary Studies, and he is also a faculty member within the Ed.D.
program. Dr. Raffanti has been with Union Institute & University since
2007, but the passion for combining education and social engagement is
something that has characterized his life and work, now, for decades.
“Union’s long-time focus on social responsibility is what attracted me to join
the doctoral faculty. My professional life has, I think, reflected my desire to
connect social responsibility with my day-to-day work," he said. Dr.
Raffanti is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the subject of
education, legal issues, social justice, leadership, systems change,
qualitative methods, and action-oriented research. Grounded Theory Review, Journal of Qualitative and
Ethnographic Research, and
Journal of Integral Theory and Practice have all been venues for
Dr. Raffanti's research to be published.
His
background in history and philosophy, law, and teaching have provided him with
an integrated intellectual framework for his engagement of the surrounding
community in very practical ways.
In his
former career as an attorney in San Francisco, Dr. Raffanti specialized in
issues of poverty law:
"My
first career as an attorney was primarily spent working in non-profit
organizations that focused on serving low-income communities. This work took
the form of housing, immigration, and domestic violence matters; it was a
combination of legal advocacy and educating the community of their
rights."
He has
also worked with outreach organizations to the AIDS community, helping develop
HIV prevention programs. In addition, teaching elementary school in
high-poverty, urban environments and mentoring high school students through
weekend tutoring and workshop programs have been signatures of Dr. Raffanti's
commitment to being a socially responsible scholar practitioner.
"By
the time I came to Union in 2007," Dr. Raffanti said, "my
professional career was a bit eclectic, but it had a common thread of educating
people of all ages in the hope that such education would improve lives as it
had mine. At Union, my sense of worth now comes from helping adult learners,
mostly nontraditional doctoral students, achieve something that perhaps would
otherwise seem out of reach—a doctorate. As a first-generation college graduate
and someone who grew up poor, I understand some of the obstacles that people
may face, not only the financial barriers and the academic challenges of higher
learning, but also the self-doubts that can arise when perhaps one hasn’t been
groomed for higher education. In my current work as an educator and
administrator, I gain some satisfaction from knowing that I am helping to
facilitate adult learners in their educational journeys. And from the
perspective of social responsibility, what really motivates me is the knowledge
that our doctoral students (who already come to us with strong values of social
responsibility), will use their enhanced knowledge, skills and credentials, to
better serve their communities.”
As we continue to talk about how to build learning communities and how to increase connectivity with our students at Union Institute & University, I am happy to highlight Lucinda Bliss, M.F.A. as an example of a faculty member who is committed to social responsibility. Lucinda takes her academic and artistic gifts and uses them both to benefit her surrounding communities in unique, dynamic ways, and I'm proud to recognize her this month.
Lucinda Bliss, M.F.A., has taught at Union Institute &
University since 2005. She is an instructor within the BA program, specializing
in the area of visual culture and art history. In addition to her work at
Union, Lucinda has taught widely at other institutions, such as the University
of Southern Maine, and within the MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine
Arts. Along with her teaching, she also worked for four years as the Director
of the Bowdoin Summer Art Camp at Bowdoin College, as well as published the
short chapbook of poetic verse, The
Anatomy of Desire: the Daughter /
Mother Sessions (2000). Lucinda is likewise a prolific visual artist, who
has exhibited widely, demonstrating her passion and talent for painting,
drawing, and mixed media works.
In her own art and within her classes, Lucinda seeks to
demonstrate the productive balance between creative freedom and critical
thinking and research skills. Her own research background includes the topics
of feminism and women’s studies, semiotics, the culture of rock-and-roll,
psychoanalysis and identity, as well as the relationship between pedagogy and
technology.
Lucinda
seeks to create engaging learning environments for her students and is always
aware of her role in productively challenging and mentoring them to achieve
their full potential. Lucinda said about her understanding of social
responsibility: “In working with students, my first priority is to create a
sense of group trust, which is essential to establishing a context for rigorous
dialogue and critique in the classroom. The bottom line is that it takes time
to draw students out and to address their concerns, including fears and
insecurities about art, as well to share a bit about myself and my work with
the group.At Union, we serve a diverse
student body and this makes for a rich sense of community, if students in a
course are committed to the group dynamic and to offering rich feedback on one
another’s work. I believe that the arts hold a unique position in society—that
self-awareness and cultural understanding can be deepened though artistic
process and that art objects can speak to the human experience uniquely.
Educating students in the arts means contributing to each individual’s ability
to see, analyze, problem solve, and essentially become more engaged citizens of
the world. It sounds grandiose perhaps, but I know it to be true, and it is
this belief that links my practice as a teacher with my understanding of social
responsibility.”
In
addition, Lucinda’s own artistic pursuits offer further avenues for practicing
social engagement such as partnering with Maine Farmland Trust, an organization
designed to support farmers and to protect farmland: “Over the summer, I began a collaboration with the Maine Farmland
Trust in which I've combined my passions for running, drawing, and farming. The
process involves literally running the boundaries of farmland and documenting
each run with a GPS watch. I then write a blog entry about the experience
(lucindasrunningblog.com, which has been featured on Freshly Pressed) and then translate the narrative into visual form
in my studio. Work from this project
is currently on view at the Maine Farmland Trust Gallery in Belfast, Maine,
and will exhibit in 2014 at Aucocisco Galleries in Portland, Maine. In
addition, there will be an exhibit of related work in the fall of 2014 at
Landmark College in Vermont."
As we continue to talk about how to build learning
communities and how to increase connectivity with our students at Union Institute & University, I am happy to
highlight Dr. Woden Teachout as an example of a faculty member
who is committed to social responsibility. Dr. Teachout takes her academic and artistic gifts and uses them both to
benefit her surrounding communities in unique, dynamic ways, and I'm proud to recognize her this month.
Dr.
Woden Teachout has been teaching at Union Institute & University since 2003
and was part of the inaugural task force for building Union’s Online MA program.
She admitted that she was skeptical of online learning at first, but her work
with the MA program convinced her of its great value: “By carefully crafting
the curriculum, we have been able to provide students with the essential tools
for scholarship in the foundational classes, and provide flexibility for
student-designed curriculum in the advanced classes, while dedicating credits
to internships and experiential learning.” She continues to mentor and serve in
the History & Culture concentrations offered within the Online MA degree.
Dr. Teachout is a writer and historian primarily interested
in the cultural history of American patriotism and American understandings of
democracy. Her first book, Capture
the Flag: A Political History of American Patriotism (2009) examines the
changing, and controversial meanings of the American flag since the founding of
the United States. The book received wide attention and praise for its
narrative style and cultural insight, being reviewed by publications, such as The
Washington Post and The Boston Globe, and by documentary filmmaker, Ken
Burns.
Her
most recent book,Slow Democracy: Rediscovering Community, Bringing
Decision Making Back Home(2012),
was co-written with Susan Clark. In this work, Dr. Teachout draws on
her historical training to show how the values of town-hall, American democracy
are still practiced in the twenty-first century. Taking recent examples of
community activism, Dr. Teachout and Susan Clark offer an attractive,
alternative vision of a democratic government, powered by local concerned
citizens, working together to address a variety of social and legislative issues.
Dr. Teachout’s writing,
research, and instruction are intimately bound up with the questions of social
responsibility and how she can have an impact on her surrounding communities. “One of the
things that I most value about Union is its long tradition of engaged
scholarship: scholarship that speaks to a community of academic scholars, but
that also moves out of the ivory towers and into the rough and tumble of public
life,” Dr. Teachout said.“I’m
interested in the cultural history of democracy, both as a scholar and a
citizen, so social responsibility is always a central question. How have
citizens tried to foster democratic cultures throughout the American past?How have they used our history as a source of
inspiration and a way to articulate values that might guide the nation?And what might we do now to reinvigorate
American democracy?”
But
Dr. Teachout is interested in more than the content of history. She is also
concerned with how that information is presented: “Looking at these questions,
I’ve been increasingly drawn to issues of how
we learn as well as what we
learn.As so many thinkers have
articulated, there is a clear and necessary link between education and
democracy.Critical thinking, in
particular, can be one of the foundations of civil society: both a means to
personal empowerment for the disempowered, and one of the best ways to
strengthen democratic culture and civic engagement.
For
someone with these convictions, our Master of Arts program is a really exciting
place to be.We are blessed with
incredible students:thoughtful
individuals who come to us with a host of rich life experiences and ways of
looking at the world.Our faculty talks
a lot about John Dewey and Paolo Freire and their insights into the personal
and social relevance of education.We
see our role as helping our students develop their capacities to their fullest,
giving them the scholarly tools and strategies to unlock difficult problems –
not only in our program but in the world beyond.”
Watch a short interivew below with Dr. Teachout as she talks about her book, Slow Democracy!
The posts for the October Union Strasse newsletter come on the heels of a successfully
executed virtual national faculty meeting. All recordings and resources from
each presentation are available in the WINK
group on CampusWeb, and I encourage
everyone to stop by and revisit the informative workshops by led by our
generous, expert faculty presenters.
Our keynote speaker, Dr. Bernard Bull, is the Assistant Vice
President of Academics, Associate Professor of Education, and Director/Chair of
the M.S. in Educational Design & Technology at Concordia University
Wisconsin. His presentation addressed the topic, “Online Learning through
Community, Connectivity, and Collaboration.”
Many of you who attended reported how encouraged and
inspired you were by Dr. Bull’s vision of using virtual classroom tools to
cultivate better learning communities among your students.
The goal, he emphasized, is never to use technology for the
sake of technology. Rather, technology becomes a means of achieving our main purpose:
keep relationship and connectivity at the center of our mission and calling as
teachers.
The calling of the online learner in the twenty-first
century, Dr. Bull said, is as much about building learning communities and
learning networks as it is about accessing information. He offered seven
dynamic tools to empower instructors to cultivate those learning and networking
communities with their students. I wanted to remember those seven tips and
tricks here.
1)Google+:
This platform is similar to Facebook, and it is great for inviting outsiders into
a virtual space to have a conversation, share videos, type comments, and share
photos. Find more
information here.
2)Twitter:
Dr. Bull said that using Twitter might see odd at first, but Twitter is really
like micro-blogging—you can type 140 characters or less in any online posting. He
encouraged us to use Twitter as a great place to share links and resources. He
even recommended Twitter as a way to build 30 minutes of professional
development into your day by just subscribing to certain Twitter accounts. In
this way, a faculty member or a student becomes exposed to more resources by
being connected to other people than they would find by trying to research it
all on their own. Find out more here.
3)Google
Hangouts: This interface is similar to Adobe Connect. You can host up to 10
people in a virtual room, and the interface contains video and audio features. You
can share screens and interact with a chat portal. The “On Air” capability
allows you and your students to automatically record a meeting and stream it to
YouTube. Recording is useful in case you or your students want to save the
meeting for future reference. Find
out more here.
4)Diigo
(Digest of Internet Information, Groups, and Other Stuff): Diigo is a social bookmarking
website that allows users to highlight any part of a page and to attach a “post-it-note”
to the highlight or to an entire page. If you are looking to organize a series
of websites for your students, or if you want students to bookmark, record, and
add notations about the usefulness of certain websites, Diigo is an excellent
tool for individual research and for shared, team research possibilities. Find out more here.
5)Blogging:
Never underestimate blogging as a formative assessment tool. You can use any
number of blog sites for students to record journal entries or begin drafts of
papers for you and other students to give feedback. Find out more
here.
6)Google
Docs: This feature in Google is useful for writing collective essays. The
program also allows users to view and track editorial changes. This tool is an
excellent compliment to a letter-grade assignment, ensuring that students have the
opportunity to practice and learn before turning in their final draft. Find out more here.
7)Digital
Learning Community: The last tip is to encourage students to think about and become
a member of a digital learning community. Part of being a digital learning
community is to communicate early and often, be really curious, and to look for
and reach out to specific individuals. Another part is to encourage and affirm
IN OUR WORDS and talk intentionally rather than to discourage and distract. A
digital learning community is a space to challenge and question one another and
build upon the ideas of others.
Dr. Bull said that putting some of these tools into place
has three advantages. Using them: 1) increases learning through practice, 2)
increases student engagement and a greater sense of community and
responsibility, and 3) increases access and possibility to your learners.
If you are an instructor at Union, and you have not already done so, please send me an e-mail at
VPAA@myunion.edu and let me know how you
think you could use some of these tools to increase connectivity, relationship,
and engagement in your courses!
Susan Whitehead and Matt
Pappathan continue to provide innovative and helpful resources for our faculty
through the UI&U Library. In an effort to support and
promote both an engaging learning experience for our students, as well as the
professional development and equipping of our instructors, I wanted to
highlight some of the library’s latest tools and resources.
Our library recently subscribed
to the Films on Demand Master Academic
Collection
database which includes 11,200 full length videos and 166,000 video clips.
Major subject categories include the Humanities, Social Sciences,
Business, Economics, Health/Medicine, Science, and Mathematics. Archival films and newsreels are also included. Access is delivered via online
streaming technology and is ideally suited for online classroom or individual
usage. Follow the link to the Library’s resource page, scroll down to Films on
Demand, and enter the site by typing in your Union ID and password.
The UI&U Library now
provides access to the Chronicle of Higher Education without the additional step of
logging in through our proxy server. This is the premier news source of
post-secondary education. Log in to find out academic, technological and
administrative trends nationally and globally. Go to chronicle.com, and in
the upper right hand corner, click log in. (Don’t subscribe! We’ve done
that for you!) Then create a free account with your Union email. You
maintain the same account whether you’re at one of our centers, at home,
working on your laptop,desktop, or iPad. You can
download the app from the iTunes
store here or by searching for it by name. It appears in the newsstand
and you simply log in or create an account with your Union email.
Our library will soon be adding
online subscriptions to two new research journals in response to requests
from our Ph.D. program. Both journals will
become available to our community in early in 2014 with the start of their
newest volumes.
-The International
Journal of Servant Leadershipis an annual publication that
contains cross-disciplinary essays relating to politics, business, social
justice, science, and a holistic and ethical approach to community engagement
and personal growth.
-Political Communicationis a quarterly
journal that focuses on the interplay of various forms of communication and
their political implications. The journal presents cross-disciplinary, avant-garde
research and encourages a variety of theoretical approaches and analytical
methods examining communication policy and practice.
Our library continues to build
its electronic book collections. We recently exceeded 200,000 titles and
are rapidly expanding our holdings. Check the UI&U
Library Blog site to see this list of latest additions!
Social responsibility is one of Union’s foremost values, and
I see it displayed every day in the passion of the leaders who work and teach
at Union Institute & University. This month I am happy to recognize
Dr. Frederick Read as one of the outstanding faculty members who embodies that value in unique ways.
Dr.
Frederick K. Read has taught at Union since 1998, and now serves as a
faculty member and as an academic advisor to Union students within the Business
Administration and Business Management programs.
Dr.
Read’s courses are complemented by his years of experience in the U.S. Army, Working
in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, and by his experience at Easter Seals,
Southwestern Ohio as the vice president of Operations.
Union
celebrates and values their scholar/practitioner instructors, and Dr. Read is
one of our professors who successfully combined his academic training with his
military and business careers. He knows the corporate environment as well as
the academic world, and it is vital to him that his students apply the values
and knowledge they receive in the classroom to their own businesses and
careers. “Social responsibility is an
important issue for each of us,” Dr. Read said. “Each person should try to find
a place (niche) where he/she can make a difference in people’s lives; whether
it is small or large. We should think of this as service to the greater
community. Social responsibility, especially corporate social responsibility,
is an integral piece in several of my courses. This is an important concept for
students to know and learn.”
According to Dr. Read, environmental
awareness is one of the ways that the value of social responsibility can be
applied in the business world. “Many corporate giants are embarking on
environmentally-friendly processes that use fewer fossil fuels, less water, and
reduce waste. Students should be encouraged to emulate this concept in their
daily lives. We only have one planet. Every resource we have, except for maybe
oxygen, is finite. We have to save it!”
Dr. Read continues to invest in the mission
of Union through his student engagement, but he is also an involved member of
the Covington community, in Northern Kentucky. He serves on the Diocese of
Covington School Board, on the Alliance for Catholic Urban Education, and is a
member of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association and the Northern Kentucky
Officials Association.
A
crucial aspect of caring for a community and working for change, according to
Dr. Read, is understanding the history of a place. “When I was I kid, back in
the days before television, we used to sit at the dining room table and dad
would tell us history stories. I think it’s important to know the history of
why we did things. There’s an old story about if you don’t understand history
you’re doomed to repeat it. I don’t know that I agree with that, but I do think
we need to understand how we got where we are, and we shouldn’t forget that. I
think part of that is missing today. Too many people don’t know the civil rights
movement, they don’t understand that struggle and I think that needs to be
retaught on a continual basis. It is only when we understand this history and
how society changed in the 1960s that we can fully understand and appreciate
social responsibility. It is also important to remember that social
responsibility, especially in the area of civil rights, is everyone’s business.
That is a message I try to deliver.”
Social responsibility is one of Union’s foremost values, and
I see it displayed every day in the passion of the leaders who work and teach
at Union. This month I am happy to recognize Professor Lawrence E. Hibbert as one of the outstanding faculty members who embodies that value in unique ways.
Professor
Lawrence E. Hibbert is the Director of the Criminal Justice Program in Miami,
Florida. He has been part of Union’s full-time faculty since 2006, and it is
through his servant leadership, innovative outreach and program development
that the Criminal Justice Program has experienced such success.
Professor
Hibbert served for many years as a Sergeant of Police in Jamaica, where he was
born.When he came to the United States in
1980, he worked fulltime while completing his bachelor’s
degree in Union Institute & University’s business management program.
Professor Hibbert went on to the master’s program in dispute resolution at the
Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He completed both
degrees while continuing to work and support his family.
According
to Professor Hibbert, many officers come to Union with reservations—they do not
know if they can complete their degree and continue to work full time. He is
able to empathize and share his own experience with them and encourage them
through their courses and, ultimately, across the graduation stage. He knows
that completing a degree takes time, scheduling, focus, and dedication. Because
of that care and empathy, Professor Hibbert is a trusted mentor and counselor
for officers pursuing their degrees.
One
of the new developments for the Criminal Justice program in Miami is the addition
of a new off-site classroom at the Miami Dade Police Academy—the largest police
department in South Florida. This makes a total of eight off-site classrooms
that the Miami Center has established throughout southeast Florida. These
off-site locations are key strategy components for program enrollment. This
allows thousands of officers to find out about Union and the opportunities to
complete their bachelor’s degrees and qualify for promotions. “I know it’s a
feather in my cap to get into the academy where they train all their officers,”
Professor Hibbert said. “Being there when the new officers come in, they‘re
going to see that there are other officers who are completingtheir degrees, and they’re going to want to be a
part of it. That will help us a lot with recruiting.”
In
addition to expanding class offerings through off-campus sites, the Miami
Center offers Saturday tutoring sessions where students can receive one-on-one
instruction in writing, math, and questions relating to their respective
programs. Participating in these Saturday tutoring sessions is one of the ways
that Professor Hibbert has made the Criminal Justice program so attractive to
the students. These tutoring sessions are tangible retention practices that
have kept the academic program strong.
When
asked about the role of social responsibility in his life, Professor Hibbert
said, “Being socially responsible means that I must behave ethically and with
sensitivity towards everyone. Striving for social responsibility helps me to
have a positive impact on students and prospective students of Union Institute
& University and the South Florida community as a whole.
I
believe that my commitment to social responsibility is reflected by the activities
I choose to participate in and the lifestyle I lead as a husband, father,
grandfather, colleague, and faculty member. Only through embracing and
embedding a sense of social responsibility into your personal value and belief
system can you truly become socially responsible in all that you do.
This
is my motto and I live by it: ‘I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the
whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever
I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the
more I live.’” (George Bernard Shaw)
One
of the guiding questions I am asking as the Vice President of Academic Affairs
at Union Institute & University is how we can better cultivate the practice
of writing grants.
I
am happy to announce the recent appointment of Dr. Terri Henderson to Union
Institute & University. She is a researcher, administrator,
and grant writer who has a long history as an educator and as an executive
director for the Boys and Girls Clubs (BGC). Throughout her tenure she garnered
more than $7 million in local, state, and federal grants. I am happy that Dr.
Henderson will guide our faculty and staff in seeking external funding.
Prior
to her work with the Boys and Girls Club, Dr. Henderson held a number of leadership
positions in both K-12 and higher education. She has served as the CEO for the
BGC’s Career Connections Charter High School, as a Federal Programs Director,
and as a high school and middle school principal. She also worked for five
years as a national training institute manager for Bridges.com, Inc., one of
the premier organizations in North America specializing in online education
resources and career counseling for middle schools and high schools.
In the fall of 2012 she
assumed the position of professor for the Master of Education (M.Ed.) online program
for Union Institute & University, in which she upgraded the technical
components of the online course modules and served as a faculty advisor to the master
of education students.
Her
commitment to the values of social and ethical responsibility has fueled her
service and leadership roles in various organizations and agencies such as the
United Way, the American Red Cross, the Allegheny County Medical Society Task
Force, and the Pittsburgh Job Corps Community Relations Council, just to name a
few.
We are excited to have her on the Union team and part of the Office for Academic Affairs.
Follow the link to hear more of Dr.
Henderson’s story of community outreach and grant-writing success.
