Tag: graduate programs

With Spalding University approaching the 100-year anniversary of the creation of its downtown campus, members of the university community will have an opportunity on Nov. 8 to learn more about the history of Spalding and its continued focus on compassion and social justice.

President Tori Murden McClure will host the “Changing Our World through Courage and Compassion: Historical and Current Realities” presentation and community conversation from 2-4:15 p.m. Nov. 8 in the College Street Cafe. The event is sponsored by the Center for Peace and Spiritual Renewal and the Office of the Graduate Dean.

Sister Frances Krumpelman, the historian for the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, which is Spalding’s founding body, will begin the program with a presentation about the university’s history.

Then McClure will lead a talk about present-day issues and challenges and opportunities to change the world through courage and compassion and the lessons we can learn from the Sisters’ example.

Chandra Irvin, Director of the Center for Peace and Spiritual Renewal, said Sister Frances “tells a captivating and compelling story of the courage and compassion which led to Spalding’s founding despite difficulty times. ”

Center for Peace and Spiritual Renewal Program Coordinator Liz Anderson said that attendees can expect Sister Frances to share stories about the compassion that inspired Mother Catherine Spalding to found Spalding University and the courage it took to make that a reality in 1814.

“It is so important, especially as Spalding approaches it’s 100-year downtown anniversary, for us to remember the vision and mission of Mother Catherine, know that we are standing on the shoulders of giants and be inspired to continue the work that she and her fellow Sisters of Charity of Nazareth began all those years ago,” Anderson said.

Anderson said that after Sister Frances’ presentation, the community will participate in talking circles that will consist of structured reflection and sharing around the importance of the courage and compassion we can (or maybe can’t) find in our own lives. The discussion, Anderson said, will challenge the group to continue carrying out the mission to meet the needs of the times that began with Mother Catherine.

“As we approach our 100-year anniversary in Louisville, it is important to reflect on how we are writing our own chapter in Spalding’s history,” Irvin said. “… As President McClure has said, the degree to which we embody both courage and compassion in our time will determine how our chapter will be read the future.”

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

Kosair Charities has awarded a grant of $275,000 to Spalding University for the 2018-19 year that will be used to enhance and support growth at the Kosair Charities Enabling Technologies of Kentuckiana (enTECH) assistive technology resource center, which primarily serves children with special needs, and to continue a pediatric fieldwork cooperative involving Spalding occupational therapy graduate students.

The grant continues the longtime support of Kosair Charities for Spalding and enTECH, which provides affordable access to assistive-technology toys and therapeutic devices while also offering therapy and community engagement programs. Since 2014, Kosair Charities has contributed more than $1.2 million to enTECH, Spalding’s Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy and the Spalding School of Nursing.

“EnTECH is a tremendous community resource on Spalding’s campus that uses modern technology to help children learn, grow and play,” said Keith Inman, President of Kosair Charities. “We support its desire to grow and serve as many children and families as possible as this directly aligns with our mission.”

“Through the Kosair Charities Scholars Program, students will gain valuable pediatric fieldwork experience. We support the efforts of Spalding’s Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy to train skilled, compassionate students who want to work with kids.”

enTECH improvements

Located on Spalding’s campus at 812 S. Second St., enTECH will use $200,000 of the 2018-19 grant funding in the following ways:

● Create “switch camps” and pre-vocational computer training for children 10-17 years old who have disabilities or limited mobility. The camps will introduce the children to assistive technology devices known as switches that allow users to navigate a computer and operate programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel. Conventional keyboards, mouse devices and other computer accessories are often inaccessible to individuals with limited mobility, making it difficult to get a job or succeed in classroom environments that require typing on a word processor, entering data or navigating a web browser.

EnTECH will upgrade its computer lab with switches that are designed to sense pressure, heat, puffs of air or facial movements in order to detect computer users’ intentions and help them navigate a program.

● Purchase two interactive autism robots – known as Milo ($7,500) and Nao ($10,500) – that will help children on the autism spectrum develop skills such as communicating verbally, making eye contact and understanding what others are thinking or feeling.

Milo has a life-like face that mimics emotions, and the robot speaks directly to the child. Nao performs fun, playful actions like playing a drum, pointing and dancing.

● Purchase four OptiMusic Beam systems ($7,500 each) that use a combination of lights and sounds to encourage children with disabilities to explore and interact with their environment. EnTECH’s Kosair Virtual Immersive Playground room already has four OptiMusic Beams, and their popularity has led to increased demand.

● Renovate the entryway and transitional spaces of the enTECH facility – housed in the former Kosair Shrine Temple – into a lively, clearly defined space that is appealing for children and celebrates Spalding’s partnership with Kosair Charities.

● Revamp the enTECH website and enhance enTECH’s marketing efforts in order to help grow the number of children receiving services and resources.

Continuation of Kosair Charities Scholars Program

The other $75,000 of grant funding will be used to continue and expand the pediatric fieldwork cooperative known as the Kosair Charities Scholars Program, which began in 2016. The grant will fund stipends for 15 graduate students from the Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy to perform their 12-week Level II training at approved child-centric sites.

The fieldwork placements will result in dozens of children receiving services.

To qualify for the Kosair Charities Scholars Program, students must commit to working with children or providing occupational therapy services to youth for a minimum of three years after graduation.

“We’re extremely grateful for the support of Kosair Charities,” said Cindee Quake-Rapp, chair of the Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy. “This grant will help make enTECH an even better resource for children, and it will strengthen Spalding’s ability to train great pediatric therapists.”

About enTECH: Kosair Charities’ Enabling Technologies of Kentuckiana (enTECH) is a division of the Spalding University Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy. It is one of five state-designated assistive technology resource centers in Kentucky. Its mission is to create assistive technology solutions to meet the needs of the times through the enhancement of all people’s participation in everyday life activities. More information is available at entech.spalding.edu.

About the Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy: Established in 1995, Spalding’s Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy prepares students to become outstanding occupational therapy practitioners in varied health, education and community settings. Its nationally ranked master’s-level training program is leading the way by transitioning to a doctorate-level program well prior to a deadline mandated by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education. More information is available at spalding.edu/occupational-therapy.

About Kosair Charities: Established in 1923, Kosair Charities’ mission is to protect the health and well-being of children in Kentucky and Southern Indiana by providing financial support for clinical services, research, pediatric healthcare education and child advocacy. More information is available at kosair.org.

While dozens of graduates from Spalding University Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy work in and around Louisville, many other alumni have found jobs across the country that they said pay well and are personally fulfilling. Here, we highlight one of them, Clarissa Tenido Perry, who works at the Villa Pueblo Skilled Nursing and Rehab Center in Pueblo, Colorado.

Clarissa Tenido Perry, a native of Hawaii who attended high school in West Virginia, got job offers in Southern Indiana and in Colorado – where she wanted to be – shortly after graduation from ASOT in 2015.

“Anywhere on the West Coast, there are a lot of jobs,” she said. “Anywhere in the South and in any rural areas there are plenty of jobs.”

She said she felt eager and prepared to go work out west after Spalding placed her at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland for her Level II fieldwork.

Tenido also got her bachelor’s in health science from Spalding, participating in the bridge program in which senior undergraduates can begin working toward their graduate-level OT coursework and finish a year sooner. She said she enjoyed the small class size of the ASOT program.

“I felt like it was more of a family atmosphere, and that was really nice,” she said. “They promoted that feeling and culture. … I think Spalding helped me become a well-rounded therapist. I’m doing a little bit of outpatient and a little bit of skilled nursing. But if I wanted to go on into mental health, or community therapy, I would be able to do it with all the knowledge and all the education I received from Spalding. So I would highly recommend it. I think they did an excellent job in educating and getting me ready for whatever setting I chose to work in.”

Learn more about the Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy.

Watch a video about the Spalding Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) program.

Register for a Aug. 28, 2018 Spalding OTD info session.

While dozens of graduates of Spalding Univesity’s Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy  work in and around Louisville, many other alumni have found jobs across the country that they said pay well and are personally fulfilling. Here, we highlight one of them – 2015 alumnus Tom Cox, who is a hand therapist in Florida. 

Tom Cox credits his Spalding Level II fieldwork under and current ASOT faculty member Dr. Greg Pitts for setting him on the path to success in hand therapy. He said that right after graduation, he earned a job in Washington, D.C., making $79,000 initially and that within the first year received a raise to six figures. As of the summer 2018, he works under a group of hand surgeons and orthopedic surgeons in South Florida.

Cox said Pitts instilled in him the “Four C’s” of a successful therapy practice – caring, communication, confidence and competence. “His big philosophy is that if you love patients, they recognize that, and you’ll never be slow at your clinic,” Cox said. “That’s how I’ve operated, based on his philosophy. If patients know you genuinely care about them, genuinely love them, and are genuinely invested in them getting better, they’ll bend over backwards for you with what you ask of them.”

From 2013-17, 95 percent of Spalding graduates passed the National Board Certification of Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) exam, which is required to become a registered and licensed occupational therapist. Cox said he was impressed by the way the Spalding faculty prioritizes board exam preparation.

“At Spalding, you’ve got some of the best professors in the nation, in my opinion,” Cox said. “You had really good professors who were passionate about the subjects, so they armed you with the information you need. And they prepare you for that NBCOT extremely well, and that’s what you want to be prepared for. If a program doesn’t prepare you for the boards, it’s not worth going to. … If anyone wants to be set up for success, Spalding would be the place to go.”

Learn more about the Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy and its new doctor of occupational therapy (OTD) program.

School of Nursing faculty member Dr. Nancy Kern is helping battle the recent hepatitis A outbreak in a way that aligns with Spalding University’s mission of spreading compassion and serving underserved and vulnerable populations.

Kern, an associate professor in Spalding’s Master of Science in Nursing program, and her husband, Paul, who works for Louisville Metro Government’s Department for Public Health and Wellness, have spent a night or two per week for the past several months traveling around the city administering hepatitis A vaccines to homeless citizens.

Since November, Kern said, she’d given shots to about 450 people they’ve encountered in parking lots, under overpasses or in back alleys.

“I’m very aware that this is what the university’s mission is, and when I’m with my students, it’s just kind of reminding them, ‘This is what we’re called to do,’” Kern said.

Kern said she and her husband do their hepatitis A vaccine work, literally, out of the back of their car, attempting to approach homeless folks in an unassuming way so they’ll be more likely to participate.

The homeless can be among the most vulnerable to the hepatitis A virus due to a lack of sanitation in their living conditions. They also are at risk for hepatitis B and hepatitis C, and a co-infection with hepatitis A can have serious consequences.

But because drug use can be prevalent in homeless populations, those people tend to be leery of coming to a health department office or traditional brick-and-mortars medical facility to get a vaccine and or explain why they might be at risk. That led to the Kerns trying the mobile approach.

They offer food, some information about hepatitis and the opportunity to get a shot.

“If they’re not interested, it’s just, ‘OK, well, here’s some information,’” Nancy Kern said. “’If you know anybody who starts having these symptoms, tell them they need to get seen. Here’s some soap. Remember that hand sanitizer doesn’t work. You have to use soap and water to protect yourself.’ So we’re trying to do a lot of patient education but in a non-threatening, non-authoritarian way.”

Kern said she and her husband are happy to get two or three people vaccinated in a night, and over time, they hope that’ll build trust and get more people to participate when the Kerns show up again.

Kern is no stranger to working with the homeless, and she said she has “just always gravitated toward working with the underdog.” She has been a Red Cross volunteer since 1970 and has lived overseas and been exposed to folks living in extreme poverty.

“Many people just aren’t comfortable talking to somebody who’s homeless,” Kern said. “I’m not afraid of these folks. … I don’t care if they look disheveled. I don’t care if they haven’t had a bath in a while. I don’t care if they have a mental illness because my background is also in mental health.”

Kern has taken Spalding graduate and undergraduate nursing students with her on the hepatitis A street outreach trips and other service initiatives.

For example, Kern, assisted by four Spalding students, immunized 160 festival goers at the recent Pride Festival on the waterfront.

And last fall, Kern and Spalding undergraduate nursing professor Dr. Rebecca Gesler took a group of nursing students to Grundy, Va., to participate in the Remote Area Medical free clinic for underserved and uninsured individuals. The Spalding volunteers worked closely with dentists providing free dental care.

Kern said service learning is valuable to nursing students.

“With my students, they’re learning more about infection, about infectious disease, infection prevention with vaccination,” she said. “They learn patient education approaches.”

And as for working with homeless and other underserved populations, Kern said, “some students have never been confronted with something other than the life that they know. That’s what service learning is about.”

Kern has taught at Spalding for 10 years. A nurse practitioner who received her MSN and doctorate of education in leadership (EdD) from the university, Kern teaches graduate courses in health assessment, adult primary care and the theoretical foundations of nursing as well as a scholarly synthesis course in which she guides MSN students through evidence-based projects.

She is also in practice at Norton Occupational Medicine.

Asked in a recent interview during National Nurses Week why she thinks nurses should be appreciated, Kern said nurses have “the unique experience of being with you at the very best of times, like when your baby is born, to the very worst of times.”

“We enter a very sacred space with our patients,” she said.

More information | Read more about the historic Spalding School of Nursing

A group of doctoral students and faculty from the Spalding University School of Professional Psychology spent last weekend learning and helping at the same time.

Ten students from Spalding’s Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology program (PsyD), along with faculty members Drs. Norah Chapman and Amy Young, volunteered to provide information and mental health services while also conducting research at the Remote Area Medical free clinic in Hazard, Ky.

The RAM mobile clinics provide free medical, dental and vision care to underserved or uninsured individuals. The Spalding PsyD volunteers helped add mental health services to the fold in Hazard.

Chapman said the PsyD volunteers worked in three roles at the RAM clinic: staffing an informational table to explain about good mental health practices, performing direct interventions and brief counseling with clients, and providing integrated care with the dentists. They  helped calm patients – including many who’d not seen a dentist in years or ever – as they received extractions, fillings and other procedures.

The Spalding volunteers interacted with more 200 clients and patients over the weekend, Chapman said, and for some of the newer PsyD students, it was their first experience working directly with clients.

“This is really the pinnacle of our training programs – research intervention, integrated health care and serving underserved populations,” Chapman said. “It was an incredible experience.”

Chapman said the Spalding volunteers tried to explain to clients and patients the importance of mental health services and to put them at ease about talking to a professional about their concerns and needs. She said some had faced physical trauma; felt anxiety or stress over family or financial issues; or were battling addiction.

Chapman said some of the visitors thanked Spalding’s volunteers for being there and told them they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to mental health services where they live. Chapman said several of visitors there had never previously talked to a mental health professional.

Spalding PsyD student Autumn Truss said it was “truly inspiring” to see the range of health providers from the across the country come together at the RAM clinic to serve the “resilient population of Eastern Kentucky.”

“Partnering with RAM to provide free mental health services was the perfect opportunity to help this underserved population and carry out Spalding’s mission as a compassionate university,” Truss said.

Here’s a summer invitation from Spalding University: Get some training on athletic training.

If you’re a teenage student who contributes to the athletic training staff of your high school’s sports teams, or if you’re just interested in learning about athletic training, an upcoming Spalding skills camp figures to be right up your alley.

Spalding’s Master of Science in Athletic Training program, partnering with the Kentucky Orthopedic Rehab Team (KORT), will host its second annual High School Athletic Training and Sports Medicine Workshop on Wednesday, June 20 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eighth-graders are also invited to participate. The cost is $30, and the deadline to register is June 15. Here is the link to sign up.

Spalding athletic training faculty member Sabrina Pletz said most of the students who attended camp last year were athletic training aides or team managers at their schools, or high school athletes, themselves, who have been hurt, gone through rehab and worked with an athletic trainer.

“People who attend the camp can definitely increase their skills,” Pletz said. “Taping is always something that students can do on the sideline at their high school. Basic first aid, assisting with spine boarding, splinting, these are all things they can learn and enhance their skills and take back with them if they’re helping out at their high school, or even middle school.”

The camp will include an overview of athletic training and demonstrations of taping, bracing, making splints, using a backboard and performing emergency procedures. Campers will also be introduced to some modalities and therapy devices such as an ultrasound machine, and they’ll learn some rehab techniques.

The Spalding athletic department’s strength and conditioning coach, Sarah Clinton, will meet with campers and explain the kind of work she does with athletes.

And the camp will conclude with the Athletic Trainer Olympics – a fun competition of relay races to test the campers’ skills.

The camp will start and finish at Spalding’s Columbia Gym, 824 S. Fourth St., which houses the university’s varsity basketball and volleyball gym upstairs and the athletic training room, fitness center and athletic department offices in the lower level.

There will also be a stop by Spalding’s athletic training lab in the Kosair Charities College of Health and Natural Sciences building., 901 S. Third St.

This is the first year Spalding and KORT, which employs many of the athletic trainers who work at area high schools, have partnered on the camp, and Pletz said she’s excited to have the KORT athletic trainers on hand to share their expertise.

The Spalding and KORT athletic trainers, such as Kevin Brown, who works with the Louisville Ballet, will explain the many kinds of job settings in which athletic trainers can work.

“There are military settings, industrial settings,” Pletz said, noting that Spalding has a couple graduates who are now ATs at GE. “It’s not always just taping ankles on the sideline. There is so much you can do. The settings are expanding by leaps and bounds.”

To the students who attend the camp and might want to make athletic training their profession, keep Spalding in mind for college. Spalding’s master’s in athletic training program was the first accredited athletic training graduate program in the state. And if you attend Spalding as an undergrad, you can begin taking courses toward your master’s during your senior year before you graduate. If you do it successfully, once you get your bachelor’s degree in natural science, you’ll need only one more year to get your master’s in athletic training.

“You can finish with a bachelor’s and a master’s in five years,” Pletz said. “That’s a big plus.”

RELATED: Commencement Q&A with Spalding track and field champ and future athletic trainer Katie Suiters 

Spalding Director of Student Engagement Anna Foshee is earning her master of science in business communication degree (MSBC), which is a popular program for Spalding employees who choose to continue their education. With commencement coming up at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 2, Foshee, who is Manual High School and Butler University alumna, discussed her experience as a Spalding grad student.

What’s your favorite memory while going through the MSBC program?

I’ve really enjoyed getting to know other people at the university who work here because a lot of folks are in this program, so it’s kind of introduced me to a lot of different departments – advancement, athletics, admissions. One thing that was really meaningful was that I, along with two other Spalding folks from admissions, were asked to do a joint capstone project, which I think was the first time they ever allowed a group capstone. That was something that meant a lot to all of us, and we were excited to present a really good piece and sort of expand the options for students moving forward as far as group projects and assignments moving forward.

What accomplishments are you most proud of as a student at Spalding?

I was really proud of myself for completing the finance course because I’m someone who typically struggles with math and sciences, and Professor (Derek) Bonifer was the instructor for the class, and he was really amazing at sort of relating it back to everyday life and how you can use finance not only in the business sense but in the personal sense. That made it really relatable. That was a class I was really proud to complete with top marks and actually feeling like I learned some really important and useful things.

What is your favorite spot on campus?

I probably spend the most time on campus in the courtyard outside of the library and Teilhard Hall. It’s nice and shady, and I love that space. I also really like the Kentucky Room in the library because it looks out onto that space, and it’s very calming and just sort of a really nice, shaded view of campus. I look to go in there to work and study.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your student experience at Spalding?

Just in general, this program has been challenging for me because it was the first time I’d ever had to do coursework online, which I think is a really important skill to have in today’s world. And I think it’s important for me to have experience for when I communicate with students that I’ll have a better understanding of where they’re coming from and the situations they might be in when it comes to online learning. Also, I’m just really excited to utilize the skills I learned in the MSBC program in my work here at Spalding to help better serve as a developer of student leadership and positive communication and effective communication in the workplace. I think it’s going to serve me well.

Candice Johnson will participate in Spalding commencement on June 2, having earned her doctorate of education in leadership (EdD) from Spalding. Dr. Johnson, a senior outreach counselor with the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority, discusses some more about her Spalding experience in this interview.

What is your favorite Spalding memory?

It’s hard to name just one. Spending time on campus during weekend classes, having lunch outside in the library courtyard.

What accomplishments are you most proud of during your time at Spalding?

Successfully defending my dissertation on Dec. 14, 2017, all while raising an amazing daughter, Miss Kyla Brooklyn Ford, working full-time, and serving the community.

What is your favorite spot on campus?

Second floor of the library, second table to the right by the window. It became my home away from home.

Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Wow, I am so excited to participate in commencement weekend at Spalding. Spalding is a special place, and I knew it was where I was supposed to be to do my doctoral studies. Lately I’ve been sharing with students that they are worth it, so they have to work it. I pray that by my actions of “working it,” I am continuing to show students that their own goals and dreams can come to fruition with faith and work. And really that goes for everyone!