It started last August with another record-breaking enrollment: 5,240, which included more than 850 freshmen—our largest incoming class ever. The upbeat continued in September with the Classical Finals of the International Violin Competition, held in our acoustically exquisite Ruth Lilly Performance Hall in the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center. We received word in October that our Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning will manage Indiana’s $48-million, multiyear initiative to develop and reward teachers.

When the general election rolled around, we beamed with pride that one of our students, Tim Coxey, had been instrumental in developing a highly touted, slick new online voter aid during his summer internship with the Indiana Secretary of State’s office. The service gives Indiana voters the names of all of their elected officials, from the White House on down to the local school board.

Then the Greyhounds men’s basketball team stunned the nation by defeating Division I Tennessee in an exhibition game. In January, we celebrated the long-awaited inflation of the dome for our new student Athletics & Recreation Center—which will elevate UIndy’s profile even further when it serves as the practice facility for the NFC champions during the 2012 Super Bowl.

On the heels of that joyous Skybreaking, we announced the new Institute for Civic Leadership & Mayoral Archives in conjunction with a truly historic event on our campus—Five Mayors: An Evening of Insight & Vision—that brought together the current and former leaders of this city for a lively conversation about its future. Their spontaneous raising of joined hands at the end was a fitting finale to an inspiring evening and a wonderful cap to a remarkable year.

—Beverley Pitts, University President

PHOTO: President Pitts received an honorary doctoral degree in May from her alma mater, Anderson University.

UIndy’s hosting of an historic event on March 11—bringing five Indianapolis mayors together for a conversation about the city’s future—served as a springboard for announcement of the new Institute for Civic Leadership & Mayoral Archives at the University.

A public campaign is now under way to raise $7.5 million to establish the Institute in Krannert Memorial Library, where its collection of papers (see “Treasure trove”) can be digitized and preserved and where it can spearhead additional public discussions and scholarly activity. The campaign was jump-started with more than $1 million in pledges from current and former trustees.

“Five Mayors: An Evening of Insight & Vision,” cosponsored with the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and Star Media, demonstrated the active role the Institute will play in the city. Former mayors Richard G. Lugar, William H. Hudnut, Stephen Goldsmith, and Bart Peterson joined current mayor Greg Ballard in assessing the city’s emergence as a progressive metropolitan center and its prospects for future growth and vitality.

Speaking before a full house in Ransburg Auditorium, President Beverley Pitts opened the evening by announcing the creation of the Institute and the University’s collection of mayoral artifacts and papers donated by the former mayors. Since then, a campaign committee chaired by civic leader (and former UIndy trustee) David R. Frick has been working with University staff to raise the funds needed to carve out appropriate space for the Institute in the library, enable preservation and digitization of materials, and support ongoing operations.

Frick, retired executive vice president and chief administrative officer of WellPoint, served as a deputy mayor in the Hudnut administration. Also serving on the committee are Michael O’Connor, director of state government affairs for Eli Lilly & Co. and former chief deputy mayor for Peterson; civic leader Yvonne Shaheen, a UIndy trustee; Ersal Ozdemir, president and chief executive officer of Keystone Construction Corp. and a UIndy trustee; Anne Shane, civic leader and former chief of staff for Goldsmith; and Gene E. Sease, chair and partner of Sease Gerig and Associates—and UIndy’s president from 1970 to 1988.

Listen to highlights from Five Mayors: An Evening of Insight & Vision at http://1400.uindy.edu, and watch for details of a mayoral debate, the next significant civic event to take place under the auspices of the new Institute later this year.

Treasure trove

UIndy’s mayoral archives capture a significant era in the city’s history—a period that began with Unigov and included the creation of White River State Park, the financing of Circle Centre Mall, and the arrival of an NFL football team, among many other improvements. Already, scholars and urban planners around the country look to Indianapolis for lessons on metropolitan development. Former Indianapolis mayors Richard Lugar, William Hudnut, Stephen Goldsmith, and Bart Peterson—all of whom have served as University trustees—have committed their mayoral papers and related items to the University.

Taken separately, each mayor’s papers represent a significant body of work. Together, the archival material and artifacts offer information that could benefit other municipalities and provide insights to historians and urban planners seeking to understand the development of the city. The new Institute will digitize the mayoral collection, which now fills 450 boxes in a storage room of the University’s Krannert Memorial Library, while continuing to acquire and preserve other materials that chronicle the Indianapolis story. As such, the collection is conceived as a living archive.

The Institute, to be housed in a renovated section of the library, will be a hub for research, workshops, conferences, and public conversations related to urban government and civic leadership—starting with a public debate this fall between the city’s two mayoral candidates. The Indianapolis Star and television station WTHR will join the University in cohosting this event (date to be announced).
The Institute also will fill a role in civics education for Indiana secondary and postsecondary students, connecting with UIndy’s academic programs as well as its Lugar Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders. Visit www.uindy.edu/news for more information.

Most higher education institutions take pride in maintaining tradition. UIndy’s Department of Teacher Education and its Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning revel in upending it. Together, the two are helping to revolutionize teaching and reinvent classrooms, both on campus and across Indiana.

“When it comes to education reform, we pride ourselves on asking the question, ‘Why couldn’t we do that?’” says Kathy Moran, School of Education dean.

This type of proactive thinking, paired with a hands-on approach to transforming education, serve as hallmarks for CELL and the Department of Teacher Education. Driven by a commitment to student success, both have made a tradition out of continuous improvement and innovation to improve Indiana’s K-12 schools.  Take a look at some of the unique ways they are tackling the challenges educators face today.

Project-based classrooms
Classrooms largely have stayed the same over the past 200 years, but expectations for student achievement have escalated. To bring Indiana’s classrooms more fully into the 21st century, CELL promotes  project-based learning, an approach that marries academic content with developing such crucial advanced skills as collaboration,  communication, and critical thinking through rigorous, real-world class projects.

PBL is not new to education, but thanks to CELL, its popularity in Indiana is. CELL co-created Indiana’s Project-Based Learning Institute, leads the state’s only PBL school network, and recently received a $74,000 grant from the Talent Initiative in northeast Indiana to train and evaluate PBL school coaches in that region over the next two years. CELL’s support for project-based learning has helped nearly 1,000 K-12 educators across the state—and has influenced UIndy professors as well.

After attending the annual Project-Based Learning Institute, for example, Physics Chair Tim Duman worked with his colleagues to create a group project using a high-altitude research balloon. School of Occupational Therapy professors Rebecca Barton, Julie Bednarski, Candy Beitman, and Jennifer Fogo used PBL to create a health, wellness, and prevention project that turned OT students into consultants for community organizations. (See “Gym dandy.”)

These high-flying experiences and on-the-ground learning opportunities helped students better retain the subject matter, engaged them in the coursework, and taught valuable life skills along the way.

Angry Birds. Smart kids
Ever consider the parabolas and geometry behind a game like Angry Birds? UIndy student Kaley Robbins did, which is why she partnered with Plow Digital, an Indianapolis-based interactive game and software developer, to create a class project teaching statistics through gaming.

Kaley’s project was part of her coursework for UIndy’s Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship, which recruits talented individuals from across the nation and prepares them to teach math or science in Indiana’s high-need urban schools. UIndy’s Woodrow Wilson Fellowship stands as Indiana’s first teacher preparation program to integrate project-based learning throughout the curriculum. The Fellows pair their classroom learning at UIndy with field experiences to design engaging projects for their secondary school students that address academic standards their pupils need to master.

Engaging in their own project-based learning teaches the Fellows about student differentiation, community collaboration, learning integration, and how to make content relevant for students, notes Woodrow Wilson Assistant Professor Jean Lee.

Consider the alternative

While the Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship represents one pathway for new teacher preparation, UIndy’s Master of Arts in Teaching program takes a different road to develop high-quality teachers. As with many in the Fellowship program, MAT candidates are career-changers drawn to teaching at the secondary level.

UIndy’s MAT faculty identified that few, if any, Indiana transition-to-teaching programs provided learning experiences in alternative schools—nontraditional schools that often struggle to attract and retain talented teachers. To fill this niche, the faculty developed a class called Introduction to Alternative Education and made it a required course for the program. Through the class, MAT students become immersed in alternative school environments to learn best practices, develop educational plans for high-need secondary students, and engage in service-learning. Candidates complete the course prepared to help students succeed in alternative schools.

UIndy’s MAT program boasts a list of accomplished graduates, many of whom have chosen to teach in alternative education programs as a result of this one-of-a-kind experience. UIndy’s principal preparation master’s program, meanwhile, uses virtual reality to train leaders for the actualities of today’s schools.

Dose of (virtual) reality
What would you do if the superintendent demanded a plan to improve your school’s academic performance or if one of your teachers had classroom management problems? If you are an iLEAD student, you need only log on to a computer to test your leadership skills in handling these and other situations that confront today’s principals. iLEAD is Indiana’s only principal preparation program to use vLeader, a computer simulator allowing students to practice different leadership styles in a controlled environment. The program also offers training in turning around a struggling school by way of a custom-designed “alternate reality” game. The game provides a learning forum that requires students to analyze school data, create a turnaround plan, and work with teachers to gain support.

CELL and iLEAD created a scholarship designed for candidates committed to working in low-performing districts. More than 50 percent of iLEAD’s current graduate students now come from high-need schools, placing iLEAD in a position to become one of the state’s premier principal preparation programs for improving Indiana’s struggling schools.

Power in collaboration
CELL and the Department of Teacher Education’s success largely stems from continual collaboration—both with each other and among stakeholders. When CELL’s High School-to-College Transition Project identified Indiana’s dearth of secondary teachers qualified to teach dual-credit courses (where students receive both high school and college credit), UIndy’s Department of Teacher Education partnered with the College of Arts and Sciences to address the issue.

The result? Indiana’s only Master of Arts in Curriculum & Instruction with a concentration in dual-credit English. To support the Education and Arts and Science faculties’ work around 21st-century learning, Dean Moran proposed that CELL host one of its school tours at Columbus Signature Academy. The New Tech model focuses on student collaboration in self-directed, interdisciplinary projects, thus changing the teacher’s traditional role from lecturer to facilitator. While CELL and the Department of Teacher Education may have different stakeholders, they work together toward the same goal—ensuring that Indiana’s students receive a world-class education.

The Woodrow Wilson Fellowships
The innovative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) teacher-education program recently announced its third cohort of Indiana fellows, 54 select students who will pursue master’s degrees in the coming year at UIndy and three public universities. Meanwhile, the program’s second-year fellows have completed their intensive coursework and will begin teaching math and science this fall in high-need urban and rural Indiana schools. Since its Indiana debut, the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship has been launched in Michigan and Ohio.

The five-year grant brings the nationally renowned TAP professional development system to 44 high-need schools across the state and aims to enhance teacher quality to increase student achievement. The Indiana Department of Education selected CELL to implement TAP because of its record of innovative education reform initiatives.

“Partnering with CELL for this initiative makes perfect sense,” said Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent of Public Instruction. “CELL is dedicated to preparing all students for success and is respected as a leading catalyst for dynamic 21st-century reform in Indiana schools.”

TAP works to attract, develop, motivate, and retain high-quality teachers so that all students, especially those in high-need schools, have access to exceptional learning opportunities. TAP uses a four-pronged, comprehensive model for teachers’ professional growth and accountability:

—Multiple career paths:
opportunities for teachers to assume advanced roles and responsibilities with commensurate pay.

—Ongoing applied professional growth:
job-embedded professional development focused on both teacher and student needs.

—Instructionally focused accountability:
meaningful evaluations based on clearly defined, research-based standards to improve teaching practices.

—Performance-based compensation:
salaries and bonuses tied to teacher roles, responsibilities, instructional performance, and student learning gains.

Teachers vote to TAP

Indiana’s 44 TAP schools, representing traditional elementary, middle, and high schools as well as public charters, will launch the initiative during the 2011–12 school year. Each school self-selected to adopt the program after receiving a certified teaching staff vote exceeding 75 percent in favor of implementing TAP. CELL supports TAP schools through onsite staff support, ongoing training, and constant collaboration through the new Indiana TAP Network.

Indiana joins 200,000 students and 20,000 teachers in 500 schools across 17 states in implementing TAP. The system is expanding nationally, as data show TAP schools significantly outperform traditional schools in student academic growth. More than 1,500 teachers across Indiana will benefit from this professional development system. Visit cell.uindy.edu/TAP for more information.

The “scientists” are with instructor Mary Gobbett’s Biology for Elementary Education class. Some are Biology Club members, some are Americorps volunteers, and some are students who’d taken the class earlier and simply loved the experience.

Make room for science
The need to teach children STEM-related subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has been well documented. Still, science is not a graded subject in second grade, so teachers have to try and work science instruction into the literacy portion of their teaching. Teachers focus on reading and math, since that is what students are tested on, but there usually isn’t an entire chunk of time set aside for science in the second-grade curriculum. At least that was the case until Gobbett’s daughter was in second grade at Abraham Lincoln.

When Gobbett noticed that her daughter wasn’t learning as much science as she could, she wanted to change that. She started bringing in college students now and then to teach age-appropriate science lessons to the second graders. What started as a few lessons in just one classroom has blossomed into two or three visits per month in all six second-grade classrooms. Brittany Summers is a freshman Elementary Education major. Thanks to this program, she is already gaining teaching experience in the classroom.

“I enjoy being around the kids and seeing their excitement,” she says. “It’s fun to be interactive and to be involved in hands-on projects with the kids.”

The UIndy students teach creative lessons on fossils, weather, the solar system, plants, even topics such as chemistry and physics. The second graders might plant seeds to observe how plants grow or dissect an owl pellet to discover what’s inside.

“We just love all the material the UIndy students bring,” says Abraham Lincoln’s Lori Beaupre, who has been teaching for 13 years. “It’s so engaging and hands-on, and they teach the kids about things that they don’t see every day. We love when they visit.”

Benefits for teachers, too
Even after the UIndy students leave, the teachers are finding ways to incorporate the lessons into future discussions or readings.

“Because the UIndy students are based in science, they bring in more things than I as a classroom teacher would know about,” says UIndy alumna Corie Steed, a teacher at Abraham Lincoln for seven years. “They do some really cool things with the kids—such as bringing in worms or slugs—that I wouldn’t have access to on a regular basis. I watch the UIndy kids and think ‘Wow! I never would have thought of that!’”

Steed enjoys being able to interact with her own students on a different level when the UIndy students are there—not as teacher, but as observer. She takes the opportunity to see what the UIndy students bring to her classroom and think how she could incorporate their lessons with her weekly lesson plans.

Making it permanent?
Gobbett hopes to expand the program over the next couple of years, eventually turning it into a required element for a class that elementary education majors take as sophomores. She is working with Nancy Steffel and Bev Reitsma in UIndy’s Department of Teacher Education to develop a class that would cover all science areas and include a practicum at the school. UIndy students would be learning college science as well as how to apply the techniques and content knowledge to teaching elementary students.

“I’m really excited that our kids are getting exposed to science and piquing their curiosity in the subject,” says Steed. “It’s fun to see the creativity that the UIndy students bring to my classroom and to see how much my kids enjoy learning from them.”

Stemming the tide of science inadequacy

Though they might not always don lab coats, wear goggles, or carry test tubes in their pockets, UIndy’s elementary education majors are becoming confident scientists in their own right, thanks to a grant from the I-STEM (Indiana Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Resource Network and some experimental University faculty. The focus on science developed after the UIndy Department of Teacher Education discovered that graduates were motivated to become more comfortable teaching in this subject area.

The department secured the two-year, $60,000 I-STEM grant in 2009 to develop a curriculum designed to enhance content knowledge and develop positive attitudes toward science in elementary education majors. Freshman and sophomore biology students now engage in seminars and labs twice a week, then visit local elementary school classrooms to apply their learning by teaching a lab themselves. This experience is open to all UIndy students taking introductory biology, not just teacher candidates, because people learn best by teaching others.

Capitalizing on the department’s nationally recognized expertise in literacy, the faculty revised elementary education coursework to connect science with reading and writing in elementary classrooms. UIndy teachers-in-training now study specific science curricula and learn how to integrate books and nonfiction writing to develop science knowledge in elementary students. Science also plays a role in every field experience for UIndy elementary education majors and is embedded in all teaching units.

The two-year experiment with new coursework and field experiences is being evaluated to ensure that it’s helping future teachers gain the competence and skills they need to incorporate science at even the lowest grade levels. Their own interest in science, and their skill in teaching it, could spark a lifelong interest in a child—good news for a state bent on producing more STEM graduates.

Fellowship pays off for first-year teacher —and his students

“This year has been more fulfilling than I could have ever imagined,” he says.

The former mortgage broker was among UIndy’s first cohort of Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellows. The New Jersey-based Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation launched the program in Indiana in 2008 and has since expanded to other states.

Committing to high-need schools
The fellowships include $30,000 stipends to attract would-be teachers—ideally career-changers or recent grads from math, science, and technology fields—to an intensive one-year master’s degree program followed by at least three years of closely mentored teaching in high-need public schools. The University of Indianapolis, IUPUI, and Purdue and Ball State universities designed special curricula to prepare recruits for the rigors of the classroom. At UIndy, the fellows began observing and teaching in local schools from the very start. Johnson was placed at Lynhurst for his student teaching and, after completing his coursework, secured a full-time position at the Wayne Township school last fall.

“I was able to jump into it with both feet,” he says. “The program really prepared me for the challenges that we’re facing as first-year teachers.”

Lynhurst Principal Dan Wilson says Johnson is handling those challenges well.

“David has made a huge impact in the short time he’s been a part of our school family,” Wilson says. “He’s an outstanding math teacher, but he has also become a leader, mentor, and role model for our students.”

A key element of UIndy’s Woodrow Wilson program is its emphasis on project-based learning, a teaching method that replaces traditional classroom lectures with collaborative group assignments in which students apply their knowledge in multiple subjects to address real-world concerns. Johnson said instructors such as Deb Sachs, clinical/mentoring coordinator for the UIndy fellowship program, walked the talk by using PBL methods to teach the concept.

“We weren’t sitting in a lecture about how we’re not supposed to lecture,” he says. “She modeled everything perfectly, and it was effortless. She didn’t say, ‘I’m doing this because… .’”

One class project for Johnson’s students this year involved the surface area and volume of three-dimensional forms. They were asked to consider a standard band drum—a cylindrical prism—and redesign it for maximum storage efficiency with no change in pitch or volume. (Did you answer “hexagon”?) UIndy’s Woodrow Wilson curriculum also covers the non-academic aspects of teaching, such as the important influence of home life and socioeconomic issues on student success. Some students at Johnson’s school miss class regularly. Many come from low-income families that move frequently.

Keeping it real
Johnson, therefore, made an effort to build a rapport with each of his classes, using team-building and group exercises he learned. He takes time to talk with students honestly about the issues they and their friends face, which gives him a head start whenever a student seems distracted or troubled. And he has told them his own story, about why he took the plunge and became a teacher.

“Sharing that with them just made our relationship more authentic,” he says. “If you’re doing a dog-and-pony show, they know that. Now I can just ask them, ‘What’s going on?’ Usually it’s some type of family issue.”

Ultimately, however, the job is to teach math. Johnson’s year as a student was challenging, with long days spent juggling classes, student teaching, and observation, but he felt even more pressure upon getting his own classroom, with responsibility for 90 eighth-graders.

“The stakes were even higher. I’ve got these students here who are going to be tested, and I really want them to succeed,” he says. “I’m excited every time I come to work, just to see the growth in the students. I told them, ‘I can’t wait until you take ISTEP. I can’t wait until you prove everybody wrong.’”

David Johnson launched a new career through the Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship at UIndy. He now teaches math at a Westside middle school, where he helps coordinate a multicultural student organization. The group’s success has sparked several speaking invitations for both students and teachers, including at the annual statewide education-reform conference sponsored by UIndy’s Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning. Johnson is one of just 50 teachers nationwide selected to participate in the Siemens STEM Institute, a week of hands-on professional development this summer at the Discovery Communications world headquarters in Washington, D.C. Also, at the end of that week, the 50 fellows will serve as school and community leaders in advancing the cause of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.

An interesting side of David Johnson’s work at Lynhurst 7th and 8th Grade Center involves the Junior Giant Kings, a group of minority students making a name for themselves not only in their own school but also among educators in Indiana and across the country. Lynhurst formed the group in response to reported tensions, both locally and nationwide, between African-American and Latino students. About 30 young men representing both backgrounds were selected to join.

Now in eighth grade, with support from Johnson and several colleagues, the students meet daily in homeroom to discuss relevant issues and reinforce each other’s roles as positive leaders and mediators in the school and community. Some of the kids are concerned about relatives and friends who are living undocumented in the United States. In one case, the group talked a classmate out of joining a gang.

“It’s like a peer intervention that happens,” Johnson says. “We talk about all kinds of subjects.”

A second group of Kings has been inducted to carry the torch as eighth-graders next year, and another group is expected to follow. The school corporation has noted the value of the program and has considered replicating it in other buildings.

Kings hit the road
As for the Kings’ unlikely debut as education consultants and graduate-level college instructors—seriously—that came through assistant professor Azure Dee Smiley, who teaches secondary education courses, focusing on special ed and cultural and family issues. Some of her classes meet at Lynhurst, where college students can learn by observing and assisting full-time staff. Smiley also teaches in UIndy’s Woodrow Wilson program, including a course called Education 601: Project in Equity and Diversity. A year ago, while preparing for the second-year cohort of Woodrow Wilson fellows at the University, she got the idea to incorporate the Kings as co-teachers.

After meeting with their families, she and Johnson arranged to bring some of the students to UIndy last summer for three sessions, in which they told the Fellows about their lives—and the practical issues those freshly minted teachers will face in the classroom.

“The Kings bring a level of expertise to the course that I cannot offer,” Smiley says. “They have lived my research.”

The boys even received paychecks for their work: $25 each. “I have a picture of that,” Johnson says. “You would think they’d hit the lottery.”

Since then, the Junior Giant Kings and their Lynhurst faculty sponsors have been on the speaking circuit, talking about the successful program to the Wayne Township School Board, at an Indianapolis Public Schools conference for central Indiana educators, and in December at the annual statewide education-reform conference sponsored by UIndy’s Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning.
The Kings’ sponsors also traveled to Nevada in November to speak at the annual conference of the National Association for Multicultural Education. They hope to bring some of the students along to present at this year’s conference in Chicago. And an education publisher has enlisted Smiley to write a guide for creating similar programs, aimed at educators from preschool through college; proceeds will support the Wayne Township program.

But the real success, Johnson says, is what happens in that Westside classroom every day. He’s more than a little pleased that some of the Kings are planning to become teachers.

“To take these stereotypes on, and see them become friends with people from other backgrounds, that’s really strong,” he says. “I’m just honored to be a part of that.”

CAC launches anti-infection initiative in healthcare settings

Initiative includes hospitals, long-term care facilities, ambulatory surgery centers, dialysis centers, and home health & hospice agencies.

Following the success of the Indiana Pressure Ulcer Initiative, the Indiana State Department of Health has chosen the University of Indianapolis Center for Aging & Community to develop and implement another ambitious quality improvement effort. CAC thus has launched a series of education sessions around the state to help healthcare workers reduce the rate of infection arising in their patients. Healthcare-associated infections are those acquired in a hospital or other healthcare setting while a patient is being treated for another condition.

Deadly but preventable
Such infections kill 99,000 Americans each year, but as many as 80 percent of those cases are preventable, says CAC executive director Ellen W. Miller. Under a federal grant, CAC is coordinating the Indiana Healthcare Associated Infection Initiative on behalf of the state. Approximately 180 Indiana facilities and agencies are participating, including hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, hospice agencies, ambulatory surgery centers and dialysis clinics. After months of planning for the new initiative, the first round of day-long education sessions began this spring.

Follows successful pressure-ulcer initiative
The process is similar to a previous CAC-coordinated state initiative in 2009 that significantly reduced the incidence of pressure ulcers in participating healthcare facilities. That initiative reduced by more than 30 percent the incidence of pressure ulcers, commonly known as bed sores, in more than 160 participating Indiana nursing homes and other healthcare facilities.

Aging Studies are clicking

High-quality, high-touch, high-tech
All gerontology courses in the Aging Studies programs of the Center for Aging & Community have been adapted into a completely online format. Changes in the economic landscape, the significant number of graduate students taking classes while also working, and UIndy’s desire to expand its outreach with aging studies education made the transition to distance learning timely and prudent.

Prior to the transition during 2010–11, courses for the Master of Science degree and the graduate Certificate of Gerontology were a hybrid of online and on-site instruction.

“Half of our CAC students were located in other parts of the state and outside of Indiana,” says Tamara Wolske, CAC Academic Program Director. “We also received inquiries of interest from candidates outside of the U.S. where aging studies programs are not available.”

Interactive learning
“One common misconception about online learning is that students spend all their time sitting in front of a computer reading articles,” says Ellen Miller, PhD, CAC executive director and co-chair of the University’s distance learning committee. “The technologies available to us and our students enable online learning to be highly interactive with other students and faculty. From webinars to interactive PowerPoint discussions to chat rooms, online learning is far from learning inside a silo.”

Online option for all
Graduate students are not the only ones enjoying the benefits of CAC’s online course format. Undergraduate students, at UIndy and elsewhere, can earn an undergraduate Certificate in Aging Studies online while working on their bachelor’s degree.

“Offering the aging studies courses online gives undergraduate students the ability to earn, in addition to their bachelor’s degree, a value-added certificate in a rapidly growing field,” says Wolske.

The flexible delivery option makes the coursework accessible to students from other universities where aging studies content is not available as well as to professionals in the community who want an aging studies credential, Wolske notes.

And what started as occupational students visiting Damar to work with the residents eventually turned into a fine example of a recognized fieldwork experience for the students.

Damar (pronounced “day-mar”) is a residential facility on the west side of Indianapolis that helps children and teens struggling with autism, mental retardation, and other developmental disabilities to live more successful lives. Approximately 145 children between the ages of 6 and 21 live on the campus, attend classes, and receive therapy to help them become more independent.

As part of its capital campaign in 2007, Damar built a multipurpose center complete with a full-size basketball court, stage, and bleachers, giving Damar the opportunity to repurpose its existing half-court gym. After much input and consideration from the staff, Damar opted to transform that space into a therapeutic sensory gym for children with autism.

The play’s the therapy
In spring 2008, Donna Stutler, Damar’s Development Director, asked UIndy occupational therapy students to develop design concepts for a sensory area that would best meet the needs of the Damar residents. Using their consultation skills, the OT students conducted a needs assessment to understand more about Damar and its residents, researching equipment, problem-solving how to use the equipment therapeutically, and interviewing Damar staffers.

When the research was complete, the OT students put together a presentation for the Damar leadership team, and the plan became reality. Money to outfit the gym was raised, equipment was ordered, and in 2010, the gym opened, much to the delight of the kids. Filled with colorful balls, swings, bolsters, a climbing gym, and other specially designed equipment that is able to either stimulate or calm the senses, depending on individual needs, the gym provides a safe and nurturing environment where Damar staff can help residents develop motor control and cognition skills and learn how to interact with other kids.

“It’s so great to see the kids’ faces light up when they go into that gym,” says Stutler. “They run to play there now. It’s also great to see the OT students working with our students and overcoming their fears or hesitations.”

In 2010 and 2011, OT students enrolled in fieldwork experience courses developed a usage manual for the staff at Damar that includes directions about how to use the equipment, warns of safety hazards, and explains how a child could benefit from the equipment. Grad student Olya Mangusheva was part of the class that helped put the training manual together and conducted an in-service workshop for Damar staff.

“We spent six weeks here looking at the equipment and watching how Damar students were using it,” she says. “It’s basically self-directed play, but now we’ve given the staff ideas on how best to use the equipment.”

Direct-care staff at Damar can now safely and properly use the sensory gym equipment without an occupational therapist present.

“The children just love it in here,” says Stephanie Meadows, a direct care staffer. “It calms them down and puts them in a better mood. It’s a nice place to bring them just to have fun or when they are getting a little antsy.”

Giving OT a leg up
This experience also gave OT students an opportunity to advocate for the profession and influence Damar’s decision to expand its occupational therapy component.

“This is more than just a student project,” explains UIndy professor Becky Barton, who works with the OT graduate students. “This is real-life stuff. The students want to do a good job with everything because they know their work will be used.”

It certainly will. In fact, as Damar prepares to replace some of the sensory gym’s well-loved equipment, UIndy students are getting practice in writing mock grants for such items as balls and beanbags used for play therapy.

“It’s so cool to see the evolution with Damar and the work that our OT students have done with them,” says Barton. “Every year another piece gets added, and our client—Damar—gets the services that they need. It’s a wonderful partnership.”

For the past several years, Professor Davis and a succession of student researchers at UIndy have studied the plant, known informally as Bouncing Bet, and have discovered some groundbreaking information. They were the first researchers to recognize that S. officinalis changes color as it transitions from male to female.

“Our findings have never been published or documented before,” says Jabbari. “We are the first people to have our name on this research, and that’s really cool.”

Jabbari transferred to UIndy in 2008 and was interested in doing research. After taking a genetics course taught by Davis, Jabbari asked if they could work on a research project together. Davis had just published “Potential for mixed mating in the protandrous perennial Saponaria officinalis (Caryophyllaceae)”  in the journal Plant Species Biology, with the help of student Laurah Turner, and needed someone to take her place when Turner graduated. Jabbari jumped at the opportunity.

“I’m not interested in going into a botany field,” Jabbari explains, “but I was very excited to have the opportunity to do research as an undergrad, and I found the subject matter to be very intriguing.”

She and Davis set out to study S. officinalis to analyze environmental and genetic differences among the plants and to figure out why the flower changed color from white to pink.

Patience pays
For the next two and a half years, Jabbari and Davis worked. They studied the pollen tube formation under the microscope. They grew plants and endured sweltering summer days outside in the garden. They sat for endless hours to watch bees and moths pollinate the flowers to calculate how many visits each flower received. And they documented that the color change is the result of the flower transforming from male to female. Finally, at the end of all their work, they had some never-before-seen research. They spent the greater part of a year compiling all their research into a publication and a presentation. Davis even allowed Jabbari to be the first author on the report, which is a rare opportunity for an undergrad.

“This was the opportunity of a lifetime,” says Jabbari, who completed her studies in December. “Students usually don’t have published work until they are working on PhDs, not at the undergrad level. And I’m so happy that it helped to get UIndy’s name out there in the research field.”

Research buzz
In addition to compiling the report, Jabbari and Davis presented at three conferences, including a poster presentation at the 2010 annual Botanical Society of America conference in Providence, Rhode Island, last fall. And to cap off all their hard work, Davis, Jabbari, and fellow student coauthor Emily Carter recently found out that their paper, “The interaction between floral color change and gender transition in the protandrous weed Saponaria officinalis,” was accepted for publication in Plant Species Biology.

And the research will continue. Carter and Davis will work more with S. officianalis to determine whether males are turning into females and reproducing, which could be a genetic disaster. With publication of their research looming, Jabbari has her sights set on medical school and becoming a doctor.

“You just don’t learn the practice of science until you do it,” she says. “You learn so much more if you just jump in and try. You get the chance to learn and practice techniques from a professor. And before you know it, you’ve created a project and collected data and are doing real research. You’ve become a true scientist.”