I hope your winter break was full of rest and relaxation and that you have begun the Spring 2021 semester with optimism, enthusiasm, and passion. First, let me take a moment to acknowledge how challenging the past year has been. Due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to face unparalleled challenges, accompanied by a remaining sense of uncertainty for many of us. In many ways, we have been forced to reevaluate fundamental aspects of our operations. I recognize that we are in unprecedented times, and I know this is not the type of academic year that any of you planned for. However, we have come together in extraordinary ways to respond to the evolving challenges we face; I want to emphasize how much I truly value and appreciate your efforts.

Looking ahead, our work will continue to require creativity, innovation, good judgment, informed decision-making, and collaboration in order to navigate these difficult times together. There is significant work ahead and we must remain committed to our core mission. I have every confidence that we will continue to rise to the challenge together, as we have in the past.

Thank you for truly making a difference in many lives. Please continue to stay safe, to take care of yourself, and to support each other.

B. Grant Hayes, PhD, Distinguished Professor

Interim Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

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PIRATE ACADEMIC SUCCESS CENTER

PASC Alumni Council hosts February Career Panels for current ECU students

On Wednesday nights in February, PTC/PASC former student staff will “Talk Nerdy About Careers” with current ECU students. The career panel series is the first service initiative sponsored by the new PTC/PASC Alumni Council. Each panel will have five alumni who are active in their respective fields and will meet virtually on the TEAMS platform. Students can join virtual sessions from 7-8 p.m. via the following links:

• Feb. 3 - Allied Health Careers (Pharmacy, OT, PT, & PA) - Click here to join the meeting
• Feb. 10 - Chemistry Careers - Click here to join the meeting
• Feb. 17 - Medical Careers/Physician - Click here to join the meeting
• Feb. 17 - Dental Careers - Click here to join the meeting
• Feb. 24 - Nursing Careers - Click here to join the meeting

Founded on volunteerism and service in 2008, PTC/PASC Alumni Council members intend to continue their legacy of service to ECU. “We hope to provide more opportunities for alumni who served as tutors and mentors to give back to ECU with their time and talents,” observed Alex Simmons, former Chemistry Lead Tutor and current Advisory Council chair. For more information about the February career panels, contact PASC director Dr. Elizabeth Coghill.

OFFICE OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS

The Office of Global Affairs recently received a $20K Stevens Initiative grant to investigate the impact of virtual exchange on student success. Dr. Jonathan Lee (Department of Economics) will assist with this research, using institutional data spanning 2008 to 2018 to evaluate whether taking a virtual exchange courses impacts on retention, GPA, and graduation rates. Stevens Initiative is a U.S. Department of State sponsored organization whose mission is to grow and enhance the field of virtual exchange.

Are you a faculty member interested in improving your mentorship of international students with dissertation, thesis or other writing activities? On Feb. 10-11, the Office of Global Affairs and the Graduate School will host a special International Student Writing Colloquium featuring some of the country’s preeminent scholars in this area. Organized by Dr. Mark Johnson (English Department), this interactive workshop is open to all UNC System universities, so register soon! Details of the colloquium, including the registration link, are provided here.

This semester marks the launch of our fourth Global BEEHIVE Course sponsored by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Global Health is being taught by Dr. Kim Larson from the College of Nursing in collaboration with our Global Partners in Education partner institution, Modern University for Business and Science (MUBS) in Beirut, Lebanon. The launching of the course is the culmination of a yearlong design process that included Dr. Larson and Diana Maddeh from MUBS, as well as colleagues from partner institutions in Poland and The Gambia. Over the semester Dr. Larson and her students will be working with students at MUBS to develop an understanding of how cultural norms impact health behavior, compare health care delivery systems, examine issues of equity related to health care and access, and explore the role of global partnerships in health care all while also developing the intercultural skill set so integral in today’s interconnected world.

Upcoming Programming

• Africa Faculty Interest Group: Monday, Feb. 8 at 3 p.m. Meeting on Teams. Featured presentation from Alex Manda (Department of Geology). Email GlobalAffairs@ecu.edu to join the A-FIG Team.
• Latin America and the Caribbean Faculty Interest Group: Thursday, Feb. 11 at 4 p.m. Meeting on Teams. Featured presentation from Laura Levi-Altstaedter (Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures). Email GlobalAffairs@ecu.edu to join the LAC-FIG Team.
• Gilman Scholarship Workshop: Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 1 p.m. on Webex. The prestigious Benjamin Gilman Scholarship, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, is geared toward Pell grant-eligible students interested in studying abroad.

OFFICE FOR FACULTY EXCELLENCE

Office for Faculty Excellence 2020/2021 Faculty Fellow: The OFE team is thrilled to be joined this year by Brittany Thompson who is serving as the 2020/2021 OFE Faculty Fellow. Thompson is a teaching instructor in the School of Communication, College of Fine Arts and Communications. In addition to experience with innovative teaching and student support, she brings an emphasis on professional development opportunities that build upon and address the expertise, interests, and needs of faculty in fixed-term positions. Thompson’s teaching interest centers on classes that give students the tools they need for a successful career after graduation. Her research interest lies in pedagogical processes that help students develop stronger critical thinking skills and move theory into practice.

Course Redesign Program: A team of faculty and students are working together, through a course redesign project supported by the BB&T Center for Leadership Development, to infuse an emphasis on leadership capacity building into HLTH 1000. HLTH 1000 is a personal health course that empowers students with awareness and skills needed to make informed decisions about their health and health-related behaviors. Taught by a team of instructors, the shared purpose for the course is to enable students to learn to see from different perspectives, develop a proactive health focused mindset, adjust efforts and behaviors to improve their quality of life, and influence positive change in others. Brian Cavanaugh, Julie Kulas, and two graduate-teaching assistants (Ijanee’ Bobbitt and Kaitlin Frey) spent the first week of December developing a multi-stage plan to infuse an emphasis on transformative leadership skills into the course. Students in the ECU Honors College will engage in a pilot version of the leadership-related elements this spring, and the team will continue to use feedback from students and colleagues to adjust and refine all sections starting in the Fall 2021 semester.

OFFICE OF RESEARCH, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT & ENGAGEMENT

Conflict of Interest Disclosure Reminder

On Jan. 11 the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance sent out the first reminders for EHRA faculty and staff to complete their Annual Conflict of Interests Disclosure in AIR. To complete your disclosure, login to AIR, locate the link for an “Annual or an Updated Annual COI Disclosure” in the center of the AIR homepage, and then answer the questions on the form.

Completing the Annual Conflict of Interests Disclosure is a compliance requirement of the UNC System. For most employees it should take less than five minutes to complete. If you need assistance in completing your disclosure or if you have other questions, contact oric@ecu.edu. ORIC appreciates your cooperation in completing this disclosure before the April 30 deadline.

Annual Export Controls and Customs Reminder

EHRA faculty and staff must complete their Annual Export Controls and Customs Disclosure in Formstack before the April 30 deadline. If you need assistance, contact the Office of Export Controls and Customs at ecuexportcontrols@ecu.edu.

Environmental Research Reboot

Mark your calendars for Feb. 26 for a chance to share your work and shape the future of environmental research at ECU as part of the Environmental Research Reboot. The day will include a combination of sessions with your contributed presentations and round table discussions to talk about issues and opportunities for enhancing our research capacity at ECU. Roundtables could range from student research concerns coming out from COVID-19, promotion of new collaborative research areas, opportunities for using technologies and open science to enhance collaboration, or anything else you can think of that would help you be innovative, efficient and happy in your research.

RCAW abstract deadline set for Feb. 11

Research and Creative Achievement Week abstract proposals will be accepted online through Feb. 11. Presentations will be held for oral and poster sessions, as well as performance, films, and other media presentations. RCAW will be hosted virtually this year beginning April 5. Presentations are open to undergraduates, graduate and doctoral students, as well as postdocs. Please share this opportunity with your researchers! Learn more online at RCAW’s official website.

RISEUp Academy launches

ECU’s inaugural RISEUp Academy launched Jan. 19, providing 12 entrepreneurial-minded interns an opportunity to launch their own microenterprises. The program takes paid RISE29 interns and paces them through an intensive 15-week program to develop a comprehensive plan for their business idea. As part of their work on developing their microenterprise, interns divide their time between the creation of their business plan, including completion of all requirements to formally launch their business, and an entrepreneurial exploration of the resources available throughout eastern North Carolina. Be on the lookout for their future businesses!

ACADEMIC OUTREACH, CONTINUING AND DISTANCE EDUCATION

Academic Outreach, Continuing and Distance Education worked in collaboration with the director of Digital Learning and Emerging Technology Initiatives and Creative Services to create a new resource for students to use as they transition to online courses. The Student Readiness website was developed to help students assess their level of readiness to take an online course and teach them helpful skills that will enable them to succeed. Online courses can require a different skill set, so the modules on the Student Readiness website are intended to help students gain valuable knowledge concerning technology, tools, learning preferences, and balancing responsibilities while preparing for online courses.

COLLEGE UPDATES

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

Harriot College recently recognized its generous donors for their help in supporting and celebrating student success at the fifth annual student scholarship celebration. This academic year, 152 Harriot College students will benefit from more than $300,000 in scholarship assistance from donors. Read more or watch a recording of the virtual event.

Drs. Enrique Reyes and Joe Luczkovich from the Department of Biology recently led ECU’s effort to host a virtual joint meeting of the Southeastern Estuarine Research Society and the Atlantic Estuarine Research Society. This joint meeting brought more than 100 estuarine scientists, students and practitioners together for a week of talks, posters and workshops. Reyes currently serves as president of the Southeastern Estuarine Society, and Luczkovich serves as past-president of the Atlantic Estuarine Research Society.

Dr. Jeffrey S. Johnson, professor of English who became director of the Voyages of Discovery Series in spring 2015, stepped down as director of the series at the end of the fall semester. “Serving as director of Voyages is one of the great pleasures of my career,” Johnson said. “This is not work I trained for as a scholar and teacher of English Renaissance Literature, but it is work that has left me with the joy of memories that I'll never forget.” This spring, Johnson will continue his role as professor in the Department of English.

Temptaous Mckoy (English doctoral alumna, 2019), now an assistant professor at Bowie State University, has been selected as a recipient of the 2020 Presidents Dissertation Award from the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition for her project, “Y’all Call it Technical and Professional Communication, We Call it #Fortheculture: The Use of Amplification Rhetorics in Black Communities and their Implications for Technical and Professional Communication Studies.” This is the second national award from Mckoy’s dissertation, which also received the 2020 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Outstanding Dissertation in Technical Communication Award. Read McKoy’s dissertation online.

Dr. Stanley R. Riggs, Harriot College Distinguished Professor and emeritus professor of geological sciences, has been awarded the Francis P. Shepard Medal for Marine Geology by the Society for Sedimentary Geology. The medal is awarded in recognition of excellence in marine geology. Nominees for the medal have a sustained record of outstanding research contributions to marine geology or to other significant aspects of the field, such as geophysics, geobiology and geochemistry.

“I am deeply grateful to the international Society of Sedimentary Geology (SEPM). When I first began my work studying the sediments and coastal processes of the southeast U.S. coastal system in 1962, there was no way to foresee where the work would lead. Now, 58 years later, to be the honored recipient of the prestigious Shepard Award is a very humbling experience,” Riggs said.

Riggs will be presented with the award at the SEPM conference in Flagstaff, Arizona, in April 2021. The SEPM is a nonprofit society that focuses specifically on enriching professionals and students within sedimentary geology. SEPM is dedicated to dissemination and education in all related fields. Each year, the society awards medals of scientific excellence for long term, outstanding contributors in several areas of sedimentary geology.

Laura Mazow (Anthropology) received a 2020 American Society for Overseas Research (ASOR) Membership Service Award, which recognizes individuals who have made special contributions on behalf of the ASOR membership, through committee, editorial, or office services. She was selected for the award for her many years as Chair of ASOR’s Honors and Awards Committee, during which she established the committee as a standing committee within the organization, improved transparency, created two new awards, increased nominations, and increased the prestige of ASOR’s awards. Mazow also presented a paper, “Reclaiming the Road not Taken: Indigenous Knowledge versus Classical Perceptions at Beth Zur,” at ASOR’s virtual 2020 annual meeting.

Donna Kain (English) and Irina Swain (Foreign Languages and Literatures) organized the Fall 2020 Institute of the Digital Humanities Collaborative of North Carolina (DHC-NC), hosted for the first time by ECU and the Digital Innovation and Scholarship in Social Sciences and Humanities (DISSH) organization. The initiative of this year's two-day event, held virtually Dec. 10-11, was to focus on ways that digital humanities projects and practices have intersected with lived experiences during this time of disruption, whether at work, school, home or in the community. More than 200 people registered and attended the event, which featured individual and panel presentations, and lightning talks showcasing a variety of approaches to using digital spaces. The DHC-NC is a community of digital humanities scholarly, technical and creative practitioners, teachers and learners. Their mission is to promote digital humanities projects and practices across North Carolina in an inclusive and equitable fashion. For additional information about DHC-NC, visit the website.

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

Coming in at No. 18, the COB’s Risk Management and Insurance program landed in the top 20 of Business Insurance’s list of the largest risk management programs in the United States. Since 2013, the RMI program has graduated almost 250 students, and officials say that job placement rate after graduation is around 99%.

Thanks to a $150,000 NC IDEA IDEA ECOSYSTEM grant, the Crisp Small Business Resource Center will continue its successful Accelerate Rural NC program, which recently completed its inaugural phase in Nov. 2020. Designed to increase the resiliency of rural communities in eastern North Carolina, the virtual program focused on helping 12 Pitt County businesses gain access to global markets with innovative products. The accelerator’s key components included e-commerce development, high-value offerings for niche markets, export training, and innovative business models based on customer discovery. With the new grant, the program will expand to all of ECU’s 29 county service region, i.e. Eastern North Carolina. Instead of one cohort, there will be four 10-week cohorts. Also, the program will open itself up to 20 companies participating in each cohort.

The Crisp Small Business Resource Center has added two ECU faculty members to its recently launched Faculty Alliance program. As part of this program, COB’s Sharon Justice and Dr. Qingxin He, visiting assistant professor in ECU’s Department of Economics, will add course modules to their student class projects that are focused on supporting small businesses. Justice will integrate a training delivery program into the human resource training and development class. He will incorporate industry research into the managerial economics class.

Taryn Sutton, a School of Hospitality Leadership graduate student, will receive a $2,000 scholarship from the Charlotte Regional Visitor Authority (CRVA) Foundation. According to CRVA, Sutton exemplifies the key characteristics the association looks for in award recipients, which includes a strong commitment to the hospitality industry through a promising career and flourishing vision of memorable customer experiences.

USASBE announced ECU and the Miller School of Entrepreneurship as the recipient of the 2021 USASBE Model Emerging Program Award, one of the organization’s four prestigious annual honors recognizing excellence in entrepreneurship education. The announcement was made Jan. 8 as part of USASBE 2021. The USASBE Model Emerging Program Award recognizes colleges and universities with new or restructured entrepreneurship programs that show outstanding progress toward becoming comprehensive, bold, and innovative educational programs with demonstrated student impact. The Miller School joins a list of award winners that include Eastern Washington University (2020), Florida State University – Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship (2019), Grove City College (2018), and North Carolina State University (2017).

College of Business marketing students making up 13 teams provided more than 2,000 hours for two local businesses. For Dawson’s Collision, students provided a marketing plan that focused on search engine optimization, the customer experience and social media. Intelipod™ by Venti LLC is a sensor-based system that helps firefighters and first responders detect the presence of hazardous chemicals in an emergency response situation. One student-led team provided the company with a marketing plan, which included analyses of the company’s business case and current marketing initiatives. Not to be outdone, another team established a connection between Venti and the firefighting publication, Firehouse. The team landed a ‘Product of the Day’ placement on the publication’s website for Intelipod. And, editorial coverage eventually followed.

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Congratulations to MSITE's Dr. Charity Cayton for winning the 2021 NTLI Fellowship for her work on the manuscript, "Using a framework to teach preservice mathematics teachers how to professionally notice within technology mediated environments."

Counselor Education faculty were featured in one of Counseling Today’s most-read articles from 2020, “Black mental health matters.” Read the article on Counseling Today or view the most-read article list.

Math Education adjunct professor Dawne Coker was featured in EducationWeek’s article “Digital Math Games and Apps: What Works and What Doesn’t?” for helping her students find the “why” for math lessons through a series of YouTube videos. This is one of the new ways that teachers are integrating technology into math instruction.

ECU alumna Chanelle Reese was chosen as the inaugural Dr. Linda L. Curtis Educator of Promise recipient. This Department of Defense Education Activity award recognizes early career DoDEA educators who demonstrate teacher leadership qualities. Learn more about Chanelle.

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

Mechanical engineering students Faith Cobb and Nia Wilson presented research during the Acoustical Society of America’s 179th meeting Dec. 7-11. Both juniors, they presented their separate research projects during the virtual semi-annual meeting. Both student presentations were part of an overall project by Dr. Teresa Ryan, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering. Ryan is conducting research through a grant from the Office of Naval Research to help improve a numeric model that will inform commanders of a military operation how close a ship can get to an enemy shoreline without being heard based on the atmospheric and sea conditions.

Two Department of Engineering instructors — Associate Professor Dr. Sunghan Kim and Assistant Professor Dr. Faete “JT” Filho — have received senior membership to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization with about 400,000 members. About 10% of IEEE members achieve senior membership, which requires at least 10 years of professional service and “significant performance” in the profession. The goal of IEEE is to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity while serving as a global community to technical professionals, recognizing their contributions to technology and to improving the world.

Turrochelle “Turre” McEachern started in her new role as the executive assistant for the College of Engineering and Technology on Jan. 4. She replaces Bonnie Eshelman, who retired in October after 27 years with the college. Among her many duties, McEachern will provide administrative support for the dean, the dean’s office, and the college’s four departments and three centers. She’ll serve as the administrative liaison for all business functions to include budgeting and planning, and will also work with other university offices including academic affairs, human resources, and finance and administration. McEachern worked previously as the lead administrative assistant in ECU’s Department of Chemistry and received a 2018 Treasured Pirate Award, which recognizes special or unique contributions of ECU employees.

COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS & COMMUNICATION

The College of Fine Arts and Communication has moved from the historic Erwin Building to the fabulously restored Proctor-Yongue House on Fifth Street, located next to the Dail House. With exhibition and informal performance spaces, a conference room, a planning and production area, offices and a kitchenette, the staff continues to serve as the pandemic permits.

The NC Museum of Art installed a billboard featuring art education professor Cynthia Bickley-Green’s painting Lamentation. The installation is a part of an exhibition of North Carolina painters entitled “Front Burner.”

Art History Program Coordinator Punam Madhok’s extensively researched article, “Mi-Sook Hur: Feather Trace, an Exploration,” appeared in the January issue of Metalsmith. In it, Madhok considers the work of metals professor Hur through the lenses of Egyptian texts, Aesop’s Fables and Hur’s childhood.

Borim Song (art education) is the recipient of the 2021 National Art Education Association Women’s Caucus Kathy Connors Teaching Award. As an awardee, she is invited to present at the forthcoming virtual conference.

Communication professor Adrienne Muldrow’s co-authored paper, “The Role of Interdependent Self-Construal in Increasing Donation Behavioral Intention: Underlying Processing Mechanism of Impression Motives,” competed as one of three finalists for Best Paper by the Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising for 2020. The finalist will be announced at the American Academy of Advertising virtual conference in March.

At the North Carolina Cultural Arts Live Conference on Dec. 16, Jayme Host (Director, School of Theatre and Dance) presented “Teaching Environmental Literacy through Dance,” and Patch Clark (theatre for youth/theatre education) presented “The Virtual Staging of A Woman Called Truth – The Journey, History and Impact of Sojourner Truth.”

The College of Fine Arts and Communication Access, Belonging, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (ABIDE) team awarded funds to Jessica Teague (dance) to support guest artists and teachers in a World Dance course offered this semester. ABIDE supported Patch Clark’s (theatre for youth/theatre education) proposal entitled “Inclusive Storybook Theatre,” which will support the interpretation and performance of children’s books that focus on diversity, inclusion and building caring communities.

As the events in Washington, D.C. unfolded on Jan. 6, BFA candidate Imani McCray (graphic design) was on site with his camera and captured the image above. The artist travels frequently to the capitol to document change. He writes: “As a minority I have marched in solidarity with others striving to defend our most basic human rights to life, to freedom, to vote, and to love in public without the threat of an oppressive society continuing to cause us harm. Protesters have occupied streets and been used in social justice movements to remind others of our humanity. What we witnessed wasn’t protest—peaceful or otherwise.” To learn more about the artist and read the full statement supporting this photo and the events of Jan. 6, visit artscomm.ecu.edu.

Jessica Wooten (BFA ’20) placed fifth in the top ten at the International Hamburg Dance Competition and is in the running for a Jules Matberg Dance Award. Wooten submitted a work of a dance solo that she choreographed during her senior year at the School of Theatre and Dance.

Dance Magazine recognized Yesenia Ayala (BFA ’10) among its “Top 25 to Watch.” The dancer was cast in the recent Broadway revival of "West Side Story."

Twenty students from the School of Theatre and Dance competed in the virtual North Carolina National Association of Teachers of Singing Musical Theatre Auditions in November. Video submissions from across the state were adjudicated on breathing, alignment, intonation, style and performance. Alex Portaro took third place among first year treble voices. Nikki Neuberger and Sam Scipioni tied for third place among third year treble voices. Second place awards went to Jordan Martin (fourth year TBB voice) and Rebekah Marler (second year treble voices). Allie Jesse won first place among second year treble voices. Andrew Goins and Keith Petersen tied for first place among first year students with TBB voices.

COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN PERFORMANCE

Can We Talk About It?

Talking Across Generations to Break the Climate Silence Habit, Tuesday, Feb 9, 2-3:30 p.m. Join us for a virtual discussion with Mick Smyer, founder and CEO of Growing Greener: Climate Action for a Warming World. Smyer is an expert on aging. Our aging human population isn’t his only focus, however. He’s concerned with how our planet is aging and how we are – and aren’t – talking about it. The founder and CEO of Growing Greener: Climate Action for a Warming World and former provost at Bucknell University, Smyer uses his expertise in gerontology, communication strategies, and human-centered design to move to talk about – and take action on – climate change. On Feb. 9, he’ll virtually visit the ECU community to speak about intergenerational climate talk and breaking the climate silence habit. Join the conversation on Zoom (password: climate).

Sponsored by the College of Health and Human Performance, Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, the East Carolina University® Sustainability Program and the ECU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi.

Aging Well Together Documentary Film Festival

This year’s virtual event on Feb. 18-20 will showcase different aspects of aging and feature post-viewing talks with filmmakers and experts from the social work and health care fields and more. Watch the films at your convenience – each film’s link will be available for a period of 24-48 hours – and then join us for a live discussion.

• Feb. 18, 6:30 p.m. “95 and 6 to Go” discussion (participants TBA)
• Feb. 19, 6:30 p.m. “Life and Death in Assisted Living” discussion (participants TBA)
• Feb. 20, 1:30 p.m. “When My Time Comes” discussion with NPR’s Diane Rehm; Dr. David Grube, medical director of Compassion and Choices; director Joe Fab and executive producer Diane Naughton

Viewing links will be shared beginning on Feb. 17.

Meditation Mondays with PEP – starts today!

The PEP Squad student organization in the Department of Health Education and Promotion invites the ECU community to participate in a monthly meditation series. The virtual sessions will take place on the first Monday of the month throughout the semester, from 5:30-5:45 p.m. via Teams. Join this evening’s session here.

Social Work lecture series

The ECU School of Social Work has three upcoming lectures for the Social Work Professional Development Lecture Series. This semester only, we are offering the lecture series free of charge as a thank you for your time and dedication to the university and our students. As always, you will receive two contact hours of continuing education. To register, send an email to Megan Kelly. Let her know which lecture(s) you are registering to attend. Once you register, she will send you the Webex link(s).

Social Work Professional Development Lecture Series Spring 2021 Schedule:

• Wednesday, Feb. 10, noon to 2 p.m. - 911: Vicarious Trauma. Who’s Helping You? Dr. Niah White
• March 10, noon to 2 p.m. - The Therapeutic Relationship and Health Disparities in the Time of COVID-19. Kimberly Ennis, MSW, LCSW
• April 14th 12-2pm Echopsychology in Social Work Practice: Nature-Based Intervention for At-Risk Children and Youth. Dr. Kevin White

Two HHP faculty members are presenting work as part of ECU’s virtual Love Data Week on Tuesday, Feb. 16.

• Guy Iverson, Department of Health Education and Promotion, will present "Spatial and High-Frequency Data: Applications in Environmental Health Research," 9-10 a.m. Click here to join the meeting.
• Kristin Black, Department of Health Education and Promotion and affiliated faculty, Center for Health Disparities, Brody School of Medicine, will present "How CBPR Can Still Thrive in Online Spaces: Using Photovoice as an Example," 11 a.m. to noon. Click here to join the meeting.

HONORS COLLEGE

Honors College students performed service at the ECU Community School and South Greenville Elementary to ready the schools for students’ return after the holidays.

During the inaugural healthcare-centric interprofessional case competition, a team led by Honors alumna Mona Amin took first place for their solution to reduce the mortality rate related to heart disease in Perquimans County. Current Honors students Arvind Rajan and Grace Krell also participated. Learn more about the competition.

INTEGRATED COASTAL PROGRAMS

The second installment of the Coastal Studies Institute’s Meet the Scientist was held on Jan. 28. The episode was streamed live via Youtube and featured Dr. Mike Muglia (CSI, DCS), who shared his unique academic path and ongoing research on the Gulf Stream, including the possibility of using it as a renewable energy resource as part of the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Research Program.

In December, Drs. O’Driscoll (DCS), Humphrey, and Iverson (Environmental Health Sciences), along with collaborators Jane Harrison (NC Sea Grant) and Katie Hill (University of Georgia) contributed a webinar on “Climate Change Influence on Coastal Onsite Wastewater Infrastructure” to the North Carolina Climate Office Webinar Series. The webinars are part of a series that covers aspects of climate change in North Carolina, centering on the recently released North Carolina Climate Science Report.

Dr. Nadine Heck (DCS) released a technical report on global climate change risk to fisheries with collaborators at TNC in Germany and at UCSC. The full-length technical report for download can be accessed here, the summary report here, and the press release from TNC here.

Dr. David Lagomasino (DCS) was an author on the recently published article, “Large-Scale High-Resolution Coastal Mangrove Forests Mapping Across West Africa With Machine Learning Ensemble and Satellite Big Data,” published in Frontiers in Earth Science. He has also received a grant for “Global Hotspots of Change in Mangrove Forests” from the NASA Land Cover/ Land-Use Change Program. He and his team have proposed a Multi-Source Land Imaging (MuSLI) approach to quantify historical and current drivers of human-induced mangrove forest “hotspots” in the coastal zone by:

• 1) Quantifying the global change in mangrove extent from the 1970’s to present;
• 2) Quantifying mangrove degradation and regeneration in change hotspots;
• 3) Identifying direct anthropogenic proximate drivers of change in change hotspots resulting from commodities and agricultural use (e.g. Aquaculture/rice), pollution (e.g. oil spill, mining) and Logging (e.g. degradation and/or clearing) or natural/climate change-related trends (e.g. shoreline erosion, storms and cyclones); and
• 4) Developing a framework for assessing future global mangrove vulnerability.

Dr. Mike Muglia (CSI, DCS) and his co-PI, Dr. Nicole Elko, received funding from SECOORA to install 5 new Hohonu water level sensors in Dare County. The project kick starts a 5-year program led by SECOORA to create more comprehensive water level monitoring network in the southeast. Muglia and Elko are working closely with community stakeholders from Southern Shores, Nags Head, Jennette’s Pier, and Dare County Emergency Management to find the most impactful sites for the sensors. They recently went on a scouting mission to explore several potential locations. Many thanks to our collaborators, Ryan Mulligan, Holly White, Drew Pearson, David Ryan, Mike Remige, Wes Haskett, Brian Glazer, and Kate Jones.

Learn more about your Coastal Campus. The Coastal Studies Institute has released a full-length, 360-degree, virtual tour of the ECU Outer Banks Campus. Explore the research and education building, meet faculty, and learn about the exciting research and education projects of the ECU Integrated Coastal Programs and the Coastal Studies Institute. Take the tour!

ECU and the Coastal Studies Institute will again host the annual Blue Heron Bowl, a regional event of the National Ocean Science Bowl. This year the event will be virtual with eight teams from six North Carolina school participating. Dr. Lisa Clough will give the keynote address, speaking about this year’s NOSB theme of “polar sciences” and her career path. Prior to her current role as Section Head of Ocean Sciences at the National Science Foundation, Clough was an Associate Professor and later the Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at ECU. As part of the grand prize, Clough will meet for a virtual one-on-one session with the winning Blue Heron Bowl Team. For those interested in volunteering, please contact Parker Kellam for more information or sign up here.

Over the last year, CSI and the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program (NCROEP) have been working closely with DOE and NREL in support of the wave powered desalination competition. The ADAPT phase of the competition recently closed. During the upcoming CREATE phase, competitors will build their devices for deployments for five days at Jennette’s Pier in the spring of 2022 during the DRINK phase. We look forward to sharing more on workshop and outreach opportunities related to Waves to Water in coming months.

In addition, CSI (led by George Bonner and Dr. Linda D’Anna), NCROEP, and the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC), were recently selected as a community-based partner for DOE’s ETIPP (Energy Transitions Initiative Partnerships Program). We are excited about this opportunity to help provide technical assistance for island and remote communities to transform energy systems and enhance resiliency. An informational webinar for ETIPP is scheduled for Jan 26.

Sixteen students arrived at the ECU OBX campus in mid-January for the second annual ECU Semester Experience at the Coast. This diverse group includes students from each undergraduate class with interests ranging from interior design to applied geology. What’s the one thing they all have in common? An interest in the coast! The students will spend their semester immersed in interdisciplinary classes about coastal resources, sciences, and management. Additional updates will be posted on the CSI website as the semester continues.

The much-anticipated article about the UNC Institute for the Environment’s 2019 Outer Banks Field Site (OBXFS) Capstone research project focused on barrier island hydrogeology, storm water runoff and wastewater treatment was published in Pumper magazine! OBXFS is hosted each fall by the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks Campus. Read the article.

ICS doctoral student Samantha Farquhar published a paper in Coastal Management titled, "The IUU Nature of FADs." The article has recently been mentioned by news outlets such as Undercurrents and Atuna. Samantha will also be serving the USDA as a judge for an innovation competition titled, "Protecting the Natural Flavor of Catfish."

CRM doctoral student Dominic Bush was recently selected to be a Graduate Student Associate Member of the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology. The ACUA serves as an international advisory body on issues relating to underwater archaeology, conservation, and submerged cultural resources management. It is working to educate scholars, governments, sport divers, and the general public about underwater archaeology and the preservation of underwater resources.

The Integrated Coastal Sciences (ICS) Ph.D. Program is currently recruiting applicants for Fall 2021. A recruitment day will take place on Feb, 12 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Details about the program and recruitment day, as well as information regarding some of the current research projects actively recruiting students, can be found here.

ACADEMIC LIBRARY SERVICES

SOAD Exhibit

The 13th annual Joyner Library School of Art and Design Graduate Student Art exhibition is on view until March 5 in the Janice Hardison Faulkner Gallery. The exhibition features artworks by current graduate students in ECU's School of Art and Design. The diverse works include paintings and drawings, textile and metal designs, sculpture, photography, pottery and more. The exhibit is sponsored by the Friends of Joyner Library.

Expanded equipment loans for students

As we start the spring semester, Academic Library Services has expanded the inventory of technology equipment available for loaning out to ECU students in 2021. Laptops (PC and Mac), webcams, headsets and microphones are readily available for checkout for the entire spring semester. A limited number of WiFi hotspots are also available for students having network access issues. Please encourage your students to visit the Circulation Desk in Joyner Library to learn more and check out items.