BASTL student leaving non-traditional mark on CGA

 

BLOOMSBURG — Members of Bloomsburg University’s Community Government Association (CGA) executive board and senate are generally your typical college-age students between the ages of 18-22 who live on or near campus.

Lizz Matias breaks that mold in many ways. A non-traditional student elected to the CGA senate as the off-campus representative, Matias lives in Reading, 70 miles from campus.

“I decided to run for CGA Senate after receiving an email about elections,” said Matias, a senior. “One of the problems I ran into as a part-time student at Bloomsburg is that I am not eligible for Dean’s List, or any academic distinction because of my part-time status. When I looked further into Bloomsburg Academic Distinction honors, I found out you need 45 credits at BU  to even graduate with honors. While I know I might not be able to get these changes made for my graduating class, I hope to get this change made for everyone who follows after me and is working full-time while taking night classes.”

Along with serving as a member of the senate, she has a few other duties as well. “I volunteered to run and was voted in as the Senior Class treasurer, and serve as the CGA rep on the university’s planning and budget committee as well as the finance committee,” said Matias.

Matias graduated from high school in 2009 and moved on to a four-year college in south-central Pennsylvania, but soon found that she wasn’t ready for college. After a few years in the workforce, she enrolled at Reading Area Community College (RACC), earning her associate’s degree in accounting in 2015.

“I enrolled in BU’s Bachelor of Applied Science and Technical Leadership (BAS-TL) program at RACC,” said Matias. “It was great that I could get my bachelor’s degree on the same campus as my fiancé while he worked on his associate’s degree.”

“I never did well with remote learning, so I started with the classes I could take on RACC’s campus. Since I was working full-time, I only took two classes per semester at night. I am on schedule to graduate in May 2021.”

If she could give her younger self any advice, it would be to know you don’t have to go right to college after high school.

“That’s the one thing I think every high school graduate needs to know,” Matias.  “Don’t force something on yourself that you aren’t ready for. I am ready now and have a 3.63 GPA.”

As for life after Bloomsburg University, Matias is still weighing her options.

“Accounting is not what I want to go back to now,” Matias continued. “I’m interested in working at the college level in some capacity. Grad school at Bloomsburg University is going to be one of those options.” 

 Retrieved from The Week Ahead 11.9.20

BU partnership with B. Braun Medical continues virtually

Bloomsburg University’s partnership with B. Braun Medical of Allentown is a special one that dates to the inception of the university’s Bachelor of Applied Science in Technical Leadership (BASTL) program. Braun, which currently employs four BASTL graduates, was one of the founding businesses that helped create the program in 2012. To further strengthen the relationship between BU and B. Braun, BASTL alum and current B. Braun supervisor Michael Greer ’17 and BU faculty member Julie Ambrose devised a way for students to learn directly from those in the business world. Students have visited Braun since the fall of 2018 as a regular part of their Instructional design and leadership capstone II classes.

“Reinforcing our classroom experience with a corporate site visit has been invaluable to the students. B. Braun employees show them how what they’re learning applies in a work setting,” Ambrose said. “We appreciate that support from B. Braun.” Leaning on their business experience, a panel from B. Braun advises BASTL students on their instructional design and leadership capstone II projects. The spring semester leadership capstone project is a prime opportunity for the students to showcase what they’ve learned through the program before graduation.

The students’ most recent visit scheduled for March 26 was nearly canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place order from the governor. However, recognizing that the real-life experience of holding a large-scale virtual meeting would also have value, Greer and the Bloomsburg faculty worked quickly to change the event from an in-person meeting to a virtual one.
“Sometimes difficult situations can provide unseen opportunities,” Greer said. Approximately 20 students attended the event, and each project team had a chance to present and receive feedback from Braun’s advisory panel. And because it was virtual, students who normally couldn’t attend were able to participate. BASTL students from the following partner campuses were represented: Bucks County Community College, Community College of Philadelphia, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Northampton Community College, as well as Bloomsburg’s main campus.

“It was great hearing the B. Braun team’s feedback to the questions we had,” said senior Ethan Westerhold. “It provided us with valuable insight as we move forward.” In attendance were BU faculty members Jessica Briskin, Julie Ambrose, and Bryan Sidwar ’01/’15M.
Braun’s panel consisted of business unit manager Eric Leayman, production supervisors Bradly Lundquist ’19 and Michael Greer ’17, project engineer Thomas Sutliff ’17, and operational excellence leader Joe Marcone.
~from bloomsburgu.tumblr.com

A seat at the corporate table with help from BASTL

After graduating from Reading Senior High School in 2003, Ashley Faulkner held a series of temporary positions before landing a job on the assembly line at a battery manufacturing plant. Working as a machine operator, materials handler and in virtually every other position along the line, Faulkner said the pay wasn’t bad. But after almost six years on the job, she said she couldn’t see herself performing heavy manual labor the rest of her life.

She realized that education was her ticket out. “I knew I didn’t want to beat my body down, and I wanted a chance to exercise my mind and talents,’’ said Faulkner, 32, who lives in Reading and earned her associate degree in public administration and pre-law from Reading Area Community College in 2012. She was eager to earn her bachelor’s degree, but she became discouraged after trying one college program and finding that it lacked flexibility. She was unable to juggle work and school, despite sleeping in her car to cut down on travel time. “When I found out about Bloomsburg (University) and that many of the classes were virtual and the rest would be taught at RACC and that they would accept my associate’s credits, I felt I could do it,’’ she said.

Faulkner received her Bachelor of Applied Science in Technical Leadership degree (BASTL) from Bloomsburg in May 2018 and is considering pursuing a master’s degree in leadership. Faulkner, who works part-time in retail at Boscov’s corporate store in Reading, said the BASTL program gave her confidence in her abilities and taught her how to communicate ideas effectively. It also gave her an appreciation of the financial considerations behind business decisions, she said. Recently, Faulkner suggested a way to reward employees who get customers to take Boscov credit cards, which account for about 30 percent of the department store’s transactions. The BASTL program taught her to examine how a business operates and to look for paths to improvement. It also furnished her with the vocabulary to make her case to management. “I had never been part of the corporate atmosphere, and the BASTL program prepared me to communicate with executives in email or in person,’’ she said, adding that the classes on making presentations using online tools will be important as she advances. “I now realize that in making decisions you have to consider overhead, losses and liability. I didn’t come from that background and didn’t understand how big a role these factors play in operating a business,’’ she noted.

After consulting with employers who are looking for skilled managers, Bloomsburg University created its Bachelor of Applied Science in Technical Leadership program primarily for individuals with associate degrees who work and need flexibility. The program accepts up to 60 associate degree credits, and half the BASTL classes are online, with the rest taught at Bloomsburg’s partner institutions: Bucks County Community College, Community College of Philadelphia, Harrisburg Area Community College, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Northampton Community College and Reading Area Community College, as well as at the State System of Higher Education campus in Center City Philadelphia.

Learn more at http://bloomu.edu/bastl
~from https://bloomsburgu.tumblr.com

Recent publications and presentations

Publications
Rebecca Toothaker, assistant professor in Nursing, recently had a paper entitled, "Development and Validation of the Just Culture Assessment Tool for Nursing Education" published in Nurse Educator.  This work was a collaboration with individuals from Texas Christian University, The College of New Jersey, Oakland Community College, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Kate Beishline, assistant professor of BAHS, recently had a paper entitled, "Elevated telomere dysfunction in cells containing the African-centric Pro47Ser cancer-risk variant of TP53" published in Oncotarget. This work was a collaboration with individuals from The Wistar Institute and the Childrens Hospital of Phildelphia.

Shaheen Awan, professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, recently had a paper entitled, "Spectral/Cepstral Analyses of Phonatio in Parkinson's Disease before and after Voice Treatment: A Preliminary Study" published in Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica.  This work was a collaboration with individuals from  the University of Jeddah, the University of Louisiana, and the University of Memphis.

Sean Hartzell, adjunct faculty of BAHS, recently had three papers published;  "Observation of a Cambarus bartonii bartonii (Common Crayfish) Overwintering in a Terrestrial Winter Microhabitat" published in Northeastern Naturalist; "Sexual Dichromatism of Dorsal Stripes in "Red-back" Morph Individuals in a Population of Eastern Red-vacked Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus)" published in Herpetological Review; and "Observation of a Cambarus bartonii bartonii (Common Crayfish) Overwintering in a Terrestrial Winter Microhabitat" in Northeastern Naturalist.

Kevin Ferland, professor of mathematical and digital sciences, published a paper, "Maximal Crossword Grids", in the Journal of Computational Mathematics and Computational Computing.  This was joint work with Robert Pratt of the SAS Institute.  It determines the maximum number of clues possible in a square crossword puzzle grid of any size.

Debra Stayer and Elizabeth Culver, assistant professors of nursing, published a paper, "Case Report of Nursing Care for a Pregnant Woman with Cystic Fibrosis", in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing.  This work was a collaboration with Geisinger Medical Center.

Abby Hare-Harris, assistant professor of BAHS, published a paper, "Within-task variability on standardized language tests predicts autism spectrum disorder: a pilot study of the Response Dispersion index" in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders.  This was a collaboration with Geisinger Medical Center, Bucknell University, and Rutgers University.

Reza Noubary, professor of MADS, published a book, Reflections on Contemporary Life, An Outsiders Perspective.  The book recounts the life of a boy who through hardships, learns a great deal about the dynamic aspects of life and the changes that take place accordingly.

Chris Lynd, associate professor of MADS, published a paper entitled,  "Sequences Generated by Powers of the k^th-order Fibonacci Recurrence Relation", in The American Mathematical Monthly.  BU undergraduate James Sharpe was also an author on this publication.

Barry Minemyer, assistant professor of MADS, published a paper entitled, "Filling triangulated surfaces" in Geometriae Dedicata. This work was in collaboration with the Ohio State University. 

Rebecca Toothaker and Pamela Cook, assistant professors in Nursing, recently had a paper entitled, "Measuring Nursing Students' Perception of Just Culture within Nursing Programs: A Multisite Study", accepted for future publication in the January 2020 edition of Nurse Educator.  This work was a collaboration  across 18 schools nationwide with 20 nurse educators from the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Academic Taskforce.

Presentations

Peggy Shipley, assistant professor of nursing, presented a poster entitled, "Compassionate Love: A Concept Analysis" at the Beta Sigma Research Day at the Pennsylvania State University.

Julie Ambrose, instructor of BAS-TL, participated in a panel discussion "Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn" at the 2nd Annual Pennsylvania Leadership Studies Conference.
   
James Rommens, instructor of BAS-TL gave a talk entitled,"How a Lean Six Sigma Mindset can Help Project Managment", at the Project Management Institute Keystone Chapter Professional Speaker and Networking Event Series.

Chris Lynd, associate professor of MADS, presented a talk entitled, "The class of sequences of nested radicals" at the American Mathematical Society (AMS) regional conference at the University of Connecticut. The talk included published research from two BU undergraduates, James Sharpe and Devin Lesher.

Barry Minemyer, assistant professor of MADS, gave a Colloquium talk at Juniata College entitled "The geometry of n-dimensional triangles via edge lengths". He also gave a talk, entitled, "Warped product metrics on complex hyperbolic manifolds" at the 53rd Annual Spring Topology and Dynamical Systems Conference at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Conference Scholarship
Daniel McCurry, assistant professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, received a Research Corporation for Science Advancement scholarship to attend the American Chemical Society (ACS) New Faculty Workshop in Savannah Georgia.