Dropping names …

Bruehl

Otanez

Borrayo

Peggy Bruehl, instructor, and Aimee Bernard, senior instructor, Department of Integrative Biology at CU Denver, attended an intensive weeklong National Science Foundation-supported professional development workshop at Hobart & William Smith College in Geneva, New York in mid-June. The workshop is based on a new teaching approach that seeks to transform the learning environment of undergraduate science courses to model the creativity, complexity and excitement of the scientific process. This teaching approach, called the CREATE (Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment) strategy, focuses on the directed reading of primary literature and incorporates numerous pedagogical tools designed to increase critical thinking skills and to instill a deep appreciation of the scientific process. Bernard was selected to be a full implementer for the 2013-14 academic year by the creators of this teaching method and will use the method in her BIOL4622/5622 Topics in Immunology course. … Michael J. Rice, professor and endowed chair of psychiatric mental health nursing at the University of Colorado Denver, was elected a member at-large to the board of directors of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA). Rice has extensive experience representing APNA on various task forces and committees. He will assume his position during the annual meeting and town hall at the APNA 27th annual conference in October in San Antonio. … Two School of Medicine faculty members and an administrator were recently appointed to leadership positions within the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Kevin Lillehei, professor and chair of neurosurgery, and Pamela Peterson, associate professor of medicine in the cardiology division, will become charter members of the AAMC’s Council of Faculty and Academic Societies. The council identifies critical issues facing medical school faculty and provides a strong voice for faculty within the AAMC leadership structure. … Cheryl Welch, director of faculty affairs at CU Denver, recently was appointed to the Research Project Development Subcommittee of the AAMC’s Group on Faculty Affairs. The subcommittee will engage in strategic planning and oversee collaborative and scholarly projects pertaining to faculty evaluation, faculty development, promotion and tenure and other faculty matters. … CU Denver’s Marty Otañez, assistant professor of anthropology, and Evelinn A. Borrayo, professor of psychology, received a two-year, $500,000 award from the Ford Foundation to promote “Social Media for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Access and Justice.” The two are colleagues in the Latino Research and Policy Center in the School of Public Health. As part of the grant, during the summer, Otañez and undergraduate and graduate CU Denver students completed one of three digital storytelling workshops with Latina teens who are pregnant or already parents. The sessions conducted at Denver’s Florence Crittenton High School focus on themes including stigma associated with being a teen mom and health and reproductive rights and justice. … Ann Komara, associate professor and co-chair of Landscape Architecture at CU Denver, wrote an essay about landscape architect Satoru Nishita that has been published on The Cultural Landscape Foundation website. Nishita, who died July 16, 2013, was the partner-in-charge and lead landscape architect for many notable projects in landscape architect and urban planner Lawrence Halprin’s office, including Skyline Park in Denver (1973). He also was involved in the design of Babi Yar Park in Denver. … Lawrence Hergott, professor of medicine in the CU School of Medicine cardiology division, wrote an essay for the Journal of the American Medical Association about preserving the soul of medicine when external pressures threaten to distract us. “I have been increasingly concerned about the effects of external forces imposed on physicians in the last decade. My concern includes not only the obviously diminished autonomy of physicians, but also what seems to be lessened organizational and cultural value of physicians. More bothersome are some of the responses physicians have made to the pressures,” Hergott wrote. “Some of the imposed pressures, and some of the responses to them, threaten to extinguish the soul of medicine – that thing beyond the biomedical, immutable, sustaining: the caring, compassionate, dedicated, enthusiastic attitude that set us on the difficult-by-nature, enriching journey called the medical life.” … Five staff members joined the University of Colorado Colorado Springs in June. They are: Amy Booth, site coordinator, Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences; Jonathan Radtke, associate manager, bookstore; Bradley Plesz, audio visual technician, University Center; Steve Smith, administrative assistant, Department of Human Resources; and Cynthia Rhoads, program assistant, Department of Human Resources.