Tag: faculty

Spalding University is pleased to announce the return of Brother Ignatius Perkins, OP, PhD, RN, an experienced nursing and health care leader and a scholar on bioethics, as the Chair of Spalding’s School of Nursing – a position he also held from 2003-05.

Bro. Perkins, who currently serves as Director of Provincial Administration for the Dominican Friars-Province of St. Joseph in New York, is a Spalding alumnus and former faculty member. During Perkins’ previous stint as Spalding’s School of Nursing Chair, he dually served as Dean of the university’s College of Health and Natural Sciences.

From 2010-15, he was the Dean of the School of Nursing at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee, and his career of more than four decades includes numerous other administrative, teaching and research positions in health care and nonprofit settings. He has presented and been published dozens of times, often on issues related to bioethics and medical ethics, and he has served on countless boards and committees.

Perkins holds two degrees from Spalding – a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (1972) and a Master of Arts in Education (1981) – and is a past recipient of the university’s Caritas Medal, the highest award that a Spalding graduate can receive. He also earned a master’s degree in nursing and a doctorate from the Catholic University of America in Washington. Perkins also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in primary care and clinical bioethics at Georgetown University in Washington, and he earned the National Catholic Certification in Health Care Ethics from the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

“Brother Perkins is truly a rare find—he blends both an impressive background as a nursing leader, educator and bioethics scholar with a deep and intrinsic understanding of Spalding’s unique identity as a place where students come to learn to make a difference in their world,” Spalding President Tori Murden McClure said. “We are incredibly fortunate to have him and are thrilled to welcome him back to our campus.”

Learn more | Spalding’s School of Nursing programs

Throughout a venerable career, Perkins has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Pillar Award at the Religious Brothers Conference in 2019, Faculty of the Year Award at Aquinas College in Nashville in 2015, and Lifetime Achievement in Nursing Leadership Award from College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. He is a Fellow with the NLN Academy of Nursing Education, the American Academy of Nursing, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Royal Society of Medicine and the National Catholic Bioethics Center, and he is an active member of multiple professional organizations, including the National Association of Catholic Nurses, the International Association of Catholic Bioethicists and the Catholic Medical Association. Perkins was also recently appointed as an Affiliated Scholar in the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University in Washington.

As Chair of the School of Nursing, Perkins will oversee all of Spalding’s undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. He will begin work this month.

“It is a genuine privilege for me to once again to serve the faculty, staff, students and alumni of the School of Nursing at Spalding University,” Perkins said. “The School of Nursing has an enduring history; its prophetic role in reshaping our world by promoting human dignity, freedom and human flourishing though caring and compassion is the seminal gift the graduates of the School bring to a world in need of healing and hope.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Nancy Kern, a longtime Spalding faculty member who currently serves as the Interim Chair of the School of Nursing, has been named Spalding’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program Director.

Kern, who holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Spalding, has been a member of the university’s faculty for nearly 11 years. In recent years, during the state’s hepatitis A outbreak, Kern was a leader in volunteer efforts to provide vaccines to homeless citizens of Louisville. She has been an American Red Cross volunteer for nearly five decades.

“We are excited that Nancy Kern will become the director of our BSN program,” McClure said. “During her time at Spalding, Dr. Kern has helped train countless students to become compassionate nursing professionals.  We thank her for the months she served as Interim Chair and look forward to the great work she’ll do in the future at Spalding.”

Dr. Deonte Hollowell, Assistant Professor of history and African-American Studies in the School of Liberal Studies, will present the spring 2019 Faculty Colloquium, at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the ELC’s Troutman Lectorium. In a presentation titled, “Policing the Black Experience,” he’ll present his research into the African-American community and police relations, and discuss the creation of a course he’ll teach in Session 6 dealing with these themes. That course is part of the African-American Studies minor in the School of Liberal Studies that Hollowell has developed.

In advance of his presentation, Dr. Hollowell discussed the Faculty Colloquium and his work at Spalding:

Why did you come to Spalding, and what do you like about teaching here?

I love being here, and I stay here because I like the history of the institution and I like the mission. It gives me something structurally that allow to be a pathway. My interests have always been in trying to make life better for people who are underserved, underappreciated in society. Spalding’s mission is linked to that. I came here as an adjunct in 2009 and was just looking for a place to teach courses. There was an opening to teach history here (three years ago), and I got it, and the rest is, as they say, history.

 What are some of your academic specialties and areas of interest in research?

Overall, it’s African-American Studies and Pan-African Studies. African-American Studies is what we teach here at Spalding, that’s also the PhD that I have from Temple University. I also have a master’s and bacherlor’s in Pan-African Studies from the University of Louisville. Temple was the first program to offer a PhD in African-American Studies.

Why did you feel it was important to introduce and develop an African-American Studies (AAS) minor at Spalding?

I think there was a void there in our curriculum just to make sure we study and highlight not just accomplishments but also the struggle of people of African descent and people who identify as African-American in this country. Again, it goes back to the mission that speaks toward having compassion and inclusivenss, diversity. The situation was just right for it. We have the right president. Both (former Liberal Studies Chair) John Wilcox and (current Chair) Pattie Dillon are very interested in African-American Studies, which is why they brought me here in the first place, because of my background. When I came here as an adjunct, I would speak to students who didn’t have too much knowledge about the African-American experience, whether they were African-American or not, so I felt there was an opportunity there to pinpoint more of that history and to have a separate offering of courses. I’ve always been intrigued by the praxis side of African-American Studies, where you go into communities and try to get a better understanding of some of the social issues that are occurring and some of the solutions and trying to be a part of it, whether it’s legislation or cultural practices that highlight solutions to a social problem.

Tell me a little about what you’re planning at the Faculty Colloquium.

It’s titled, “Policing the Black Experience.” It’s influenced by when I was a grad student at Temple. I went there to look specifically at hip-hop music and its effects on the African-American community. That’s what I promised to do my research on when I got there. (After working with an advisor who was skeptical that it could be the basis of the research and project), she asked for me to come up with another topic and something that I was passionate about, something that affected me personally. She said to reach back in my childhood and try to find something involving the African-American struggle that was personal to me. I started thinking about how I was arrested when I was 10 under the guise that I was stealing from a store, which I wasn’t. I was beaten up at that time by a police officer who arrested me in public in a grocery store, and this time type of thing happened to me or people I know throughout my life. I started to write about it. …. My PhD advisor wanted the project to be Afrocentric, so I had to get a handle on what Afrocentricity means, not only academically but socially. So I came up with the topic for my dissertation. It was called, Control and Resistance: An Afrocentric Analysis of the Historic and Current Relationship between African American Communities and Police.  … Upon my being hired at Spalding, Pattie Dillon and I talked about my dissertation and how we could possibly make that into a class, how we could take the work I was doing in African-American Studies and make that into a minor. … Since I’ve been here at Spalding full-time, I’ve visited six cities, so I’m kind of breaking that down into a case study where these types of issues have occurred and have interesting stories. There are seven cities – six I’ve been to, one I haven’t so far. Louisville; Greensboro, North Carolina; Sacramento, California; Oakland, California; Ferguson, Missouri; and Cleveland, Ohio. And Chicago, which I haven’t been to. All of those cities, with the exception of Cleveland, I’ve made connections with Black Lives Matter organizers. I’ve been to several different protests. I’ve been a fly on the wall, so to speak. I’m just trying to get a sense of what are some solutions people are trying to take into account, what are some of the reasons people feel these things are happening. Most importantly for me, what’s the culture of the city that allows this to take place? A case in point, in Ferguson, we were looking at the housing politics. St. Louis was starting to grow so rapidly that they had to find placement for other people, so the local housing entities started to establish public housing in the area that’s now known as Ferguson. That area is very densely populated by African-Americans, but African-Americans did not have political power. They do now. They’ve achieved a lot more political balance there. But the housing situation shaped the whole Ferguson dynamic. I’m looking at stuff like that.

What are some other things you’ve been involved with at Spalding?

As part of the Intro to African-American Studies class, we established the Elmer Lucille Allen Conference on African-American  Studies. She was an early African-American graduate at Spalding. She’s a very dynamic personality. She’s been a big part of us establishing the Black Student Alliance. All these things are kind of coming into fruition with the coursework and the curriculum.

The Spalding University art department welcomes the entire Spalding community to an afternoon at the Speed Art Museum today, Friday, Feb. 8 for the first Winter Social at the Speed, with multiple activities organized by the Spalding art faculty and the Frazier History Museum.

The Winter Social will be held from 1-4 p.m. Like always, general admission to the Speed is free with a Spalding ID for all Spalding students and benefit-eligible faculty and staff through the university and museum’s educational institution partnership.

Spalding art history professor Dr. Flint Collins, who is in his first year as a full-time SU faculty member and who organized the Winter Social, said that the Winter Social serves as an invitation to students, faculty and staff from programs across the university to meet students and faculty of the art department while also enjoying the rich resources and art of the Speed, 2035 S. Third St.

“I would invite anybody to come out and just hang out, even if they don’t participate in some of the activities,” Collins said. “We invite anybody to come down and join us. We hope it’ll give folks a little break to get off campus and come hang out and interact with the art department. Community building is one of the goals of it.”

READ MORE: Information on Spalding’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Arts program

Activities planned included sketching, guided tours, an open-mic poetry reading and a screening at the Speed Cinema of Oscar-nominated animated shorts (extra paid admission required, though some free tickets are available for students, first-come, first-served). At 1:15, there will be an opportunity to sketch a live model, restaging a portrait from the collection, sponsored by the Frazier History Museum.

Collins hopes the Winter Social will raise awareness to the Spalding community of the benefit of its free access to the Speed. He said he takes students there all the time, hopping on the free TARC LouLift bus (stop on South Third Street near the Spalding Library) and making the short ride south to the museum.

“It’s a really great resource to have,” Collins said. “A part of this Winter Social is to help people understand that.”

Collins came to Spalding this fall after serving as an adjunct professor at multiple universities. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Louisville and also has worked at the Speed.

He has a background in museum education, “so I’m a big advocate for getting students in the museum and looking at actual artwork, as opposed to just slides,” Collins said.

Collins said he’s enjoyed his time so far at Spalding working under new art program director Deborah Whistler and teaching Spalding students. Collins is also working with art seniors on their senior theses and preparing for that year-ending show before commencement.

“It’s been great,” Collins said. “The students are real curious and responsive. We’ve dived right in.”

Here’s the full schedule of Spalding’s Winter Social at the Speed:

1-4 p.m. : Sketching in the galleries; gallery games; information table with “Slow Down at the Speed” mindfulness podcast; internship, membership and programming information.

1:15-2:15: Sketch a live model

2-3: “Secrets and Stories” guided docent tours

2:30-3:30: Open-mic poetry readings at the atrium.

3:30-4:30: Cinema screening of Oscar-nominated animated shorts (extra paid admission required, though some complimentary students are available first-come, first-served.)

Poet and author Lesléa Newman, a faculty member in the Spalding University Master of Fine Arts in Writing program, recently received the Matthew Shepard Foundation’s Making a Difference Award for her writing and work involving the LGBTQ community.

Watch and listen to Newman’s entire acceptance speech in the player below or by clicking here. It came during the foundation’s Bear to Make a Difference Gala in Denver.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation advocates for the LGBTQ community while seeking “to erase hate by replacing it with understanding, compassion and acceptance,” according to its website. The organization was started by the parents of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who died after being brutally attacked in 1998.

Newman is the creator of 70 books, including many children’s books that feature LGBTQ characters. In 2012, she published October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard, which explores the impact of Shepard’s murder through many poetic voices.

“It is up to each of us to make a difference in the memory of Matt Shepard, a young man who I never had the chance to meet but to whom I owe so much because I have been telling Matt’s story for the past 20 years,” Newman said during her speech. “I have met literally thousands of people. I have met high school students and college students. I have met teachers and librarians. I have met actors and activists. I have met parents and poets. And I have yet to meet a single person who has not been moved by hearing Matt’s story.”

Dr. Steve Katsikas, Chair of Spalding’s School of Professional Psychology, was named the Kentucky Psychological Association’s Psychologist of the Year earlier this month.

“It’s really humbling because there are so many amazing psychologists that are part of this state association,” Katsikas said. “For them to say that I did a good job and that they appreciate what I do is super meaningful.”

Katsikas was also elected to become the next president of the KPA, starting in 2020.

Katsikas, who has been at Spalding for 12 years, received the KPA award on Friday, Nov. 2, at the KPA Annual Convention in Lexington. He was recognized for his contributions to teaching and training.

Katsikas has overseen a doctor of clinical psychology (PsyD) program that has received millions in federal grants allocated to student scholarships and stipends. Two current grants through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) are used to provide scholarships for doctoral students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have financial need and to award stipends to PsyD students who provide behavioral health services at primary care sites that serve medically underserved populations.

Under Katsikas, the PsyD program has achieved student internship match rates of 100 and 97 percent in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Katsikas is also the founder of Spalding’s Center for Behavioral Health – an on-campus clinic started in 2015 that offers a range of assessment and therapy services for all ages while also serving as a training ground for PsyD students.

RELATED: Spalding’s Collective Care Center a ‘safe place’ for those facing race-based stress, trauma

RELATED: A Louisville Business First profile on Dr. Steve Katsikas’ work

Katsikas credited the entire faculty and staff of the School of Professional Psychology for making Spalding’s programs what they are, and he said the grant-writing staff of Spalding’s Office of Advancement played a key role in helping secure the highly competitive HRSA funding. He said former CBH director Virginia Frazier and current director Norah Chapman and associate director Steven Kniffley deserve credit for the growth of that clinic.

“Everything I’ve been able to accomplish has been because of the team and the teams that I work with,” Katsikas said. “I’ve really done nothing on my own. I have an amazing faculty who are dedicated to teaching and training. … There’s an old saying that if you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go with a team. And we’ve gone far because we have a really good team.”

Katsikas said Spalding’s faculty is made up of “stellar psychologists” who could be working anywhere in the country in any kind of professional setting.

“And they choose to work at Spalding to train the next generation of psychologists,” he said. “That’s pretty cool.”

Before coming to Spalding, Katsikas was the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychology at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital, and he also served as Director of Training for that institution’s post-doctoral fellowship program in clinical psychology. Katsikas earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Arkansas.

He was not the only Spalding faculty member honored at the KPA convention. Kniffley, a Spalding SOPP alumnus and current assistant professor, received an award for multicultural professional development.

Find out more about the undergraduate and post-graduate programs of Spalding’s School of Professional Psychology at spalding.edu/psychology

Two authors who are faculty members of the Spalding University Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing program have received new accolades.

Silas House, who is a member of the Spalding MFA program’s fiction faculty as well as a Spalding MFA alumnus, had his new novel, Southernmost, placed on the 25-member longlist of candidates for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Meanwhile, Lesléa Newman, a Spalding MFA faculty member in the concentration of writing for children and young adults, has been named a winner of the Matthew Shepard Foundation’s Making a Difference Award for her writing and work involving the LGBTQ community.

The Carnegie Medal for which House has been longlisted recognizes the best fiction book for adult readers published in the United States in the previous year while serving as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. The award is presented by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the American Library Association’s Booklist publication and the Reference and User Services Association.

The short list of three finalists will be announced on Oct. 24, and the winner of the Carnegie Medal for fiction will be announced on Jan. 27.

House, who won Spalding’s 2015 Caritas Medal as the university’s alumnus of the year, is teaching a community writing workshop next month at Spalding in conjunction with the program’s fall residency.  He is also the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College.

Newman’s award comes from the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which advocates for the LGBTQ community while seeking “to erase hate by replacing it with understanding, compassion and acceptance,” according to its website. The organization was started by the parents of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who died after being brutally attacked in 1998.

Newman is the creator of 70 books, including many children’s books that feature LGBTQ characters. In 2012, she published October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard, which explores the impact of Shepard’s murder through many poetic voices. Her newest children’s book, Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story, based on her own family history of immigration, will be published in February 2019.

Olympic figure skater and bronze medalist Adam Rippon is the Matthew Shepard Foundation’s other 2018 Making a Difference Award honoree.

RELATED: Read bios on all Spalding MFA in Writing faculty members

James G. Rissler, President and CEO of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Investment and Loan Program, was recently named the new chair of the Spalding University Board of Trustees, and Tomarra Adams, a former program director and assistant dean at the University of Louisville, is now Spalding’s Dean for Undergraduate Education. They are among the new appointments and hires in leadership positions announced by the university for the 2018-19 academic year.

Rissler, who has been a Spalding trustee since 2012, will serve as board chair for two years. He has led PCUSA’s Investment and Loan Program since 2015 and before that served as the program’s Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

Rissler replaces Paul M. Ratterman, Managing Director of Fixed Income Institutional Sales at Stifel Financial, as the Spalding board chair after Ratterman served two two-year terms. Ratterman remains on the board.

Adams, Spalding’s new undergraduate dean, began work on Aug. 1. She was previously Director of Undergraduate Studies in the U of L Department of Pan-African Studies and an Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences with responsibilities in Advising and Student Services.

Adams, who was a tenured member of the U of L faculty, holds a PhD in social work jointly from U of L and the University of Kentucky. A licensed clinical social worker, she also holds a master’s degree in social work from U of L. Her undergraduate degree is in psychology with a minor in Pan-African studies.

“My passion has been to create space for students to be successful and be their advocate within higher education,” Adams said. “I have facilitated this passion through the lenses of Pan-African studies and social work – meeting students where they are while being committed to social justice and social responsibility. I am excited to be a part of the Spalding community, which embraces a mission centered on meeting the needs of a diverse body of students, impacting and engaging an urban community, and promoting peace and justice. It is uplifting to be among scholars and professionals who demonstrate this same passion in their own work every day and watch them make it a part of the fabric of the institution. I am inspired.”

Other faculty leadership positions that have been filled for 2018-19: Shannon Cambron, permanent chair of the Spalding School of Social Work after previously serving as acting chair; Stacy Deck, program director, bachelor of science in social work program; Pamela Elzy, program director, doctor of nursing practice program; Deborah Whistler, program director, bachelor of fine arts in studio art program; and Frederick Williams, a program director who has been hired to develop curriculum for a program in criminal justice studies with an emphasis on criminal justice reform.

New trustees on the Spalding board this year are: Mark B. Carter, Chief Executive Officer, Passport Health Plan; Christe S. Coe, a nurse practitioner who is a former member of the Kentucky Board of Nursing and Spalding’s 2018 Alumna of the Year; Pattie Dillon, the faculty trustee who is the chair of the Spalding School of Liberal Studies and an associate professor of history; Roger McClendon, who recently retired as Chief Sustainability Officer at Yum! Brands; and Eric Schwartz, Chief Investment Officer for Schulte Hospitality Group.

Spalding’s other board officers are: First Vice Chair James A. Morris, Vice President of Finance for Baptist Health Louisville and La Grange; Second Vice Chair Angela Leet, President of ALEETCO; and Secretary John P. Malloy, Vice President of Gas Distribution for Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company.

Spalding University’s first-year students have been on campus and in class for a couple weeks at this point, but on Wednesday, they got another warm welcome, more well wishes and an extended lesson on Spalding’s mission during the university’s annual Convocation ceremony.

All of Spalding’s new freshmen filled into the lower level of the Columbia Gym Auditorium to hear speeches from President Tori Murden McClure and others about making the most of their college experience.

McClure gave an in-depth explanation of the Spalding mission statement – reading it aloud, then expanding on it line by line.

“Spalding is a diverse community of learners,” she said, referring to the first line. “Look around. We value diversity. We want to learn from all kinds of voices, and we want to hear yours. Disagreement is not a sign of trouble; disagreement is a sign of thinking.”

She said Spalding works to meet the needs of the times in the tradition of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and values compassion, the Golden Rule and a commitment to service, peace and justice.

“Here’s a secret,” she said. “The world’s not going to make you happy. It’s up to you. You’re in charge of your happiness. It’s all about attitude, all about being, all about finding your mission and finding your heart. … While you are here, I hope you find your mission.”

Then, as has become tradition at Convocation, McClure distributed bronze coins to all the new students that are engraved with the Spalding symbol on one side and key tenets of the Spalding mission on the other.

“It was really inspiring,” first-year psychology major Haley Logsdon said of Convocation. “I like to collect things that mean something to me, and I’ll put them on my dresser or somewhere where I’ll see them every day, and I’ll do that (with the coin).”

She continued: “When I was in high school and thought about going to college, I kind of  thought of  it as just a stressful experience just to get a degree and stuff like that. But now that I’m here, I see that it’s also about making relationships with people around you and about making a difference.”

Other speakers at the event were Peace and Restorative Services Director Chandra Irvin, new Dean of Undergraduate Education Tomarra Adams, Liberal Studies faculty member Deonte Hollowell, Spalding social work alumna Tanaa Davis, Student Government President Scotty Brooks, current student and peer mentor Shianne Davis, International Student Coordinator Sister Margaret Rodericks, SCN, and First-year Experience Coordinator Jeffrey Cross.

“The mission of Spalding is to make a difference in the world,” Tanaa Davis told the freshmen. “You all each have something different to contribute to make this world a better place. Here at Spalding, you can actually make things happen. This is the make-it-happen type of university.

“If you have an idea or a vision that you want to bring to pass, this is the place to do it, and this is the place where you’ll have the foundation for your purpose in life. You’re going to find your purpose in life here, I promise.”