University of soUthern Maine

Lewiston auburn College

faculty Profiles

The Secondary Education program at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College has Caron excited. Teacher education has been part of the USM LAC curriculum in the past, but this new program promises to increase secondary education teachers in the areas of life sciences, social studies and English. “We want to expand our Secondary Education program to certify our graduates to teach science and physics at the high school level, as well as to be able to offer the program during the summer with scholarships and fellowships for matriculated students. Funding through gifts and grants will allow us to offer housing and stipends for teachers participating in this summer academy. Matriculated students would have the chance to be certified not only in Life Sciences, but in Physical Sciences as well — a double teaching certification.”

Caron explained how he works with Professor Daniel Stasko to ensure that the newest technological innovations are supported at LAC. “The idea of using the latest technologies as teaching and learning tools is embedded at USM LAC — it’s become a culture. But, changes in technology sometimes happen quickly and by the time a four-year student graduates the technology used as a college

student will probably be different than the technology used in the student’s first job after graduation.” Caron added, “The ability to adapt to technological innovation is an extremely important skill, one that will benefit the student and teacher, in the classroom and on the job.” Caron and Stasko will present their findings, at conferences in San Diego, Toronto and San Jose about the theory that the method of teaching technological skills should include the ability to adapt to technological change.

New technology is not the end-all, it’s just another tool to use in the classroom, according to Caron, who, when he first started teaching 30 years ago, was using a Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80 computer in which programs were saved on cassettes. “I taught when papers were mimeographed — now instructors send tests electronically without the need to be printed.” Teaching — and learning — require that schools use up-to-date equipment and technologies for experiential learning, noted Caron. “As technology shrinks, everything will fit in a pocket. Someday our students will buy an electronic reading tablet at the start of the semester, or load up the one they already own, with all the textbooks they’ll need for their

courses.” That’s pocket technology used as an educational communication tool.

“USM LAC students and faculty shouldn’t be afraid of technology — we shouldn’t see it as a force against how we teach — it’s just another tool, it’s part of our culture. YouTube is part of our culture for online demonstrations, tutoring, lessons and research and is used in all types of classes — face-to-face, online, and a blend of the two types in which students meet face-to-face a few times during the semester and the remainder of the classes are online.” Caron outlined one area which he’d like to see funded, “Skype (a program that uses video and audio to connect people) is being used more and more in the classroom and all faculty should have computers with cameras that allow teacher and student to interact face-to-face in a virtual classroom.”

Participating in several committees offers Caron an audience of educators and learners who benefit from his research and knowledge. “I’m the chair of the (LAC) Curriculum Committee which oversees the creation of new programs.” Caron added, “Now, there’s a new Pedagogy Committee in which we look at the teaching methods of

Paul Caronbelieves creativity in the class will teach the teachers as students

Teacher education is a special area of interest for Associate Professor of Education Paul G. Caron. The community

wants highly qualified instructors in our schools, instructors who use the most effective teaching methods that produce highly employable graduates. The importance of graduating with an employable degree is one reason why teacher preparation programs are valuable.

By Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 20112 Paul Caron

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 Paul caron 3

LAC instructors. Peer reviews of faculty are similar to what I do with my students — the goal is to give advice as a peer.”

Caron designs his courses so that students use their own creativity in answering questions. “For example, today I am giving a mid-term in physics and, as part of that mid-term, the students have to answer questions that were given to them several weeks ago. They

can answer those questions in any format they wish — they can write songs, poems, stories, create slideshows or videos — any

way that shows they understand the lessons.” Caron described a video project in which a student used her own children as actors to demonstrate her knowledge of Newton’s Laws. He’s even presented some of his LAC students’ work at conferences.

The community wants their investment in education to produce highly qualified teachers who can ensure that students graduate with employment prospects and an education that prepares the student for life as a citizen in a democratic society. A very important aspect of the secondary education program at USM LAC is that students start teaching in actual classrooms at the beginning of their college education.

Early internships in student-teaching allow the student to assess whether or not a teaching profession is a right choice. “Currently, there is a huge need for science teachers, but we don’t want to just f ill those positions with bodies,” said Caron. Teachers of science need to be highly adept at keeping their curriculum and method of teaching up-to-date. “We find that it ’s better for students to know from day one the realities of teaching in an actual classroom with real students. Through this program at USM LAC, we’re trying to improve the level of teaching in all subjects.”

Creativity is a big part of making learning personal and practical rather than abstract and soon forgotten. “I don’t expect students to memorize or remember all the math formulas. What’s important is for the students to realize that they can do the math,” said Caron. “Don’t memorize this definition, give me your interpretation on a more personal level.”

One of the gems of education, according to Caron, is that American students maintain high levels of creativity even though they may not score high on standardized tests. When conducting student assessments, Caron looks for creativity in his students’ work. “In addition to being an educator, I’m a musician. I approach music writing — and teaching — with creativity and want to see that in LAC students.”

In the Leadership and Organizational Studies program at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College, Professor Marvin Druker enjoys teaching a media and politics course which is taught every two years coinciding with a political campaign. In that course, students study the relationship between the media and political campaigns and public policies. “The course includes a service learning project in which students hold a political ‘State Legislature’s Candidates Forum’ with state legislature candidates who discuss campaign issues and who participate in a question and answer session with USM LAC students and community members who are also invited.”

The fall 2010 media and politics course represents the 11th time Druker’s students have the opportunity to hold this type of forum. Since the last time Druker taught the

media and politics course in 2008, innovations in technology have become more widely used among students and community members which will enable this year’s students to include web cam presentations and invite the community to participate during a live chat by posting questions which the candidates answer. This year’s class is considering streaming this year’s candidate’s forum online which will allow people to watch and ask questions online. “That’s exciting; it’s service learning, working with the community.”

Over the years, USM LAC students have participated in many valuable community projects. “For example, we have worked with the Lewiston Police Department on citizen surveys,” says Druker. As part of the LPD grant renewal process, the police department needs to show what the citizens think about the police department’s work. The police

department has limited funds and the partnership is a great opportunity for LAC students to participate in the survey process. The students have taken the survey, drawn a sample, and sent out questionnaires to several hundred people. “Our students analyze the responses, write a report and submit it to the police department. Students perform the survey in the research methods course and the statistics class reports the analysis of the data.”

LAC research and statistics students also worked on a major study a few years ago when Androscoggin County was looking to develop an assessment / benchmark for social services and health services in the area. While Druker’s colleague, Professor Betty Robinson, had her social policy students visit local agencies like United Way and Head Start to get basic data about the number of people using those agencies’ services, Druker’s research

Marv DrukerLeadership and organizational studies

Field experiences for students in the community have been part of the USM LAC experience from the early days of

the school’s existence because the mission of Lewiston-Auburn College is to be a resource for the community. This aspect of the LAC mission is accomplished when students bring the concepts, theories, and skills that they have learned in the classroom to LAC community partners who have indicated they have projects that would benefit from the students’ participation. “Our students, in conjunction with faculty expertise, apply their knowledge to service learning projects of value in the community,” says Druker.

By Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 20114 Marv druker

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research methods and statistics students performed a major survey in which over 300 people were telephoned for a five to 10 minute survey. The survey results showed what these agencies were doing and was published in the local newspaper in a special edition. That survey became the basis for several initiatives including St. Mary’s Healthy Androscoggin.

A few years ago, United Way was interested in a project to get kids prepared earlier for school, relates Druker. “Students in my research methods class did a focus group with the mothers of Somali children to learn from them what things they were doing with their kids to get them ready for school and what kind of things they could use.” The students gathered significant information for United Way and the school distr ic t . Technology has changed rapidly, but not all communication can take place electronically. “Surveys performed by students are often done electronically and by mail, but it was difficult to find Somali mothers for this focus group who could speak English so this gathering of information by students could not be done over the phone and needed to be done face to face with an interpreter.”

These surveys may yield revelations. There is good news for the citizens of Lewiston-Auburn and it can be found in 20 years’ worth of surveys conducted by USM LAC students, according to Druker. “I was surprised the other day when I noted the number of surveys LAC students have done in Lewiston-Auburn over the last 20 years including social capital surveys for the Maine Community Foundation. The survey results indicate that local people truly believe that Lewiston-Auburn is a good place to live.”

Another research area that Druker’s students have worked on over the years includes innovative structures for local governments. Maine residents periodically look at ways to restructure municipal governmental systems. Maine has about 500 municipal governments, with some having only 50 to 100 residents.

Important restructuring considerations for any municipality include saving money and consolidating purchases and the delivery of services such as 911. “Lewiston-Auburn is one of the most advanced areas in the state in terms of levels of cooperation between the two cities. Leaders from L-A spoke about consolidation at a USM Corporate Partners breakfast. Afterward, attendees were saying, ‘This is great. How can other towns work together like this?’”

Learning and service projects also take place

outside the Lewiston-Auburn community. Each summer for about 10 days to two weeks, USM LAC faculty take students to study in another country, to talk to people in leadership positions, both in the private and public sectors, “not-for-profits, education, and so on, and to give students the opportunity to understand different cultures and how leadership might look differently or the same, but in a different situation,” says Druker. Through USM LAC programs, students have studied in South Africa, Rome, Costa Rica, Singapore and Malaysia.

In addition to service projects, increasing access to higher education is a very important goal at USM LAC. Faculty do that by sharing information about scholarships, talking to students about articulation agreements. For example, students may take an entry level job for which an associates degree gets

them in the door. Later on, the entry level employee finds that in order to be promoted in that job, a bachelors degree is required. They may have some leadership qualities, but don’t have any idea of what to do. “If they can get into our leadership program, with an articulation agreement, they can continue their education and add new credits to the credits accumulated in the associates degree, resulting in a bachelors degree – and leadership skills to use on the job,” says Druker. Students can bring their new skills to their workplace and return to the classroom

to discuss the results they see from their new leadership skills and to get feedback from their classmates.

“In our transformational l e a d e r s h i p s t u d i e s , in which we s tudy methods to improve people’s work lives, we’ve come to realize a very traditional notion of management and leadership which is, ‘I’m the boss, do what I say, do a good job, and get a salary increase, and don’t question me.’ That’s theory X.” Druker explains that at USM LAC, he teaches theory Y which is that employees

need to have a sense of ownership about their jobs and, since they know their jobs better than anybody else, let them come up with ideas about how to improve their work. “This is equivalent to Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs and self-actualization. Employees want to feel some self-esteem about their work and that, in many cases, may be more important than money.”

Druker notes that graduates of the USM LAC leadership and organizational studies program receive an education that encompasses far more than valuable leadership skills. “We are educating people not just for jobs, but that we are educating them to be good citizens. If we see our students doing public service as legislators, as council members, as mayors, serving on school boards and similar capacities, that’s wonderful; that’s fulfilling part of our mission when that happens.”

Many years ago, when the state of Maine was looking for ways to trim its budget, Druker was part of the group doing research on these cutbacks. One of the things the state did for its employees, rather than laying people off from work, was to provide reasonable alternative opportunities such as sabbaticals, shared jobs, leaves of absence, and early retirement. “We looked at innovations in terms of the ways in which people could remain employed, the quality of work life situations and searched for reasonable alternatives instead of lay offs. We also researched elements that would make the work place more pleasant.”

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 marv druker 5

Christy Hammer, associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College, began her college education studying the sociology of knowledge, also known as philosophy, before she realized she was very clearly attracted to the politics and economics of education. Social studies education is her area of expertise in teacher preparation and teacher in service education.

W h e t h e r y o u ’ r e conser vative or liberal, k n o w i n g a b o u t y o u r co untr y ’s h is to r y an d government is important, yet these are sti l l the only areas that are not tested at the federal level, explains Hammer. “States aren’t required to test civics, history and geography as they are required to test math and reading; just recently, they’ve added science back to the testing requirements.” But in the 1990s, when the state testing requirement was instituted, there were four academic areas that were tested: math, science, english, and social studies. Since the federal government stopped requiring social studies testing there has been a precipitous drop in the amount of social studies being taught in K-12.

Schools may decide what subjec ts to teach based on federal budget guidelines; schools do not want to be penalized for low test grades. “I know about a school in Texas that required its teachers to suspend all social studies teaching from January until after the testing in April because the testing was in math and English,” says Hammer.

This is the notion that what gets tested is what gets taught.

Under the umbrella of social studies, the big four subject areas taught are history, g e o g r a p hy, c i v i c s /g ove r n m e nt , a n d economics. “To what extent do we teach economics to children?” asks Hammer, noting that of all the four subject areas of social studies, economics is the area that is taught least well. “Usually states that require the teaching of economics do it as consumer economics – how to be a good capitalist and

balance or bounce your check book, instead of real micro and macro economic theory.”

Research shows that there are a lot of positives about learning economics in the elementary grades, according to Hammer, including learning to be an informed consumer and how to take care of your

finances. “The subject o f e co n o m i c s w a s taught as l i fe sk il ls courses called home economics and shop. But economics taught in that manner was dif ferent than what s h o u l d h ave b e e n taught which was the theory of economics, fo r mulas , p r ac t ice .

That’s a challenge we have as a country, to teach economics as it should be taught; since we are so poor in math, we are also poor in economics.

Social studies textbooks teach about urbanization and industrialization in which farmers moved into the big cities to work in the factories and, “Voila, there were ghettoes and inner city poor neighborhoods,” says Hammer who has researched how schools teach about poverty: “Basically, we do not teach about poverty. We know that unemployment and

Christy HammerPolitics and economics of education:The surprises of teaching social studies in grades K-12

“There’s nothing as political as education and, within education, there’s nothing as political as social studies education,” says Hammer, referring to how we’re taught – and how we’re not taught – the subjects of civics, history, and geography in grades K-12.

By Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 20116 christy hammer

underemployment create the economic need of capitalism; a certain class of people are needed who can be hired at the lowest possible wages, dropped when they are no longer needed, hired again, etc. Capitalism needs that class.”

Why do capitalist societies maintain poverty as a hopeless, insurmountable social condition? Hammer researched 27 of the most widely used social studies textbooks to see how poverty was taught. “There is no discussion of poverty as part of the price we pay for capitalism. We talk about freedom and democracy, but we don’t compare capitalism and socialism. We compare communism and democracy. We rarely see in textbooks true open analysis – here are the pros and cons of capitalism, the pros and cons of socialism.”

Capitalism also doesn’t make for very interesting television. “We have popular shows like Cops, which is based on street crime, and The Sopranos, which is based on organized crime. But we don’t have a popular show based on a third kind of crime, which is actually the biggest kind of crime that has the most amount of money stolen or embezzled, and that is corporate crime. It’s interesting that the crime that takes the most money out of our pockets – white collar crime - does not have a popular TV show based on that type of crime.” Hammer said that television crime shows have been discussed in the Deviance and Social Control course, which is part of the SBS program at USM LAC, and is taken by students who go into the human resources or social services fields.

Deviance may be approached psychologically, but defining behavior as deviant is different when approached sociologically. Something that is deviant in one culture might not be in other cultures. Students in the deviance and social control course discuss the seven index crimes: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. Television focuses on the crimes associated with poverty. “There are crimes in the streets and there are crimes in the suites. Society usually doesn’t focus that much on corporate crime, white collar crime, crime in the suites.”

Students learn through the deviance and social control course at USM LAC to evaluate notions of what constitutes deviance. The course gets into the ethics of what’s considered good behavior,

bad behavior. “What if the biggest common denominator among people in prison is their social economic status? Yet, everyone can be honest and poor at the same time. Why do people get away with corporate crime?” Investigating crime in corporations or even the crime in wealth accumulation reveals a very radical, different way of looking at wealth, says Hammer.

Queen Isabella of Spain sent Columbus to look for gold. Were crimes committed in the search for wealth during his voyage? He wrote in his diary about his disappointment in not finding gold. He also included details in his diary that reveal a less popular side of Columbus including how his crew members were punished by keel-hauling for infractions during the voyage. Hammer describes this punishment in which the hands and feet of crew members were tied with ropes, after which they were thrown overboard on one side of the boat and were hauled under the boat to the other side. “The keel was covered with barnacles which scraped the skin, and if they didn’t drown, the sharks ate them.”

Hammer has given talks at nursing homes around Columbus Day and had fascinating discussions with senior citizens about the history of the teaching of Christopher Columbus. It has only been a few decades since his diary was translated into English and it typically takes 20 years for knowledge in the academy to shift down into K-12. Hammer wrote about the politics of multicultural education in her dissertation and a whole chapter was devoted to the Christopher Columbus issue “because it was fascinating to me. Elementary teachers are often very apolitical, but they went from teaching about Christopher Columbus as a symbol of rugged individualism with an entrepreneurial get-out-there spirit, to not teaching about him at all after reading about his diary.”

Columbus and his crew also tortured the Native Americans whom they had captured and brought onto the boat. They threw the Native Americans into the shark infested waters and bet on how many of them could make the shore before they were eaten by sharks. The ones who made it to shore were brought on board the boat, thrown overboard again, and Columbus and his crew would bet on which ones would make it to shore again. “Taken in context, one can say that at the time, Native Americans were believed

to be subhuman, and Columbus’s behavior was not out of the ordinary for that period of time. His diary was powerful and shed new light on Christopher Columbus, the man. Columbus was really just an opportunistic who was looking for gold, he wasn’t out there to discover land.”

Hammer has been amazed at the number of elementary teachers who now do not teach about Christopher Columbus at all because they do not know how to teach about him. “It’s fascinating. One philosopher of education calls it the third way to be correct - it’s somewhere between the heavy, liberal politically correct and the heavy, conservative patriotically correct.” Hammer recommends teaching about the conflicts, teaching about the opposing sides. “Let’s look at all that we know about Christopher Columbus, the good, the bad and the ugly.”

When speaking to residents of the local nursing homes about Christopher Columbus, Hammer says that when the discussion gets to the question of what elementary teachers should teach about Christopher Columbus, the 80-, 90-year-old residents “are very conflicted as to what the correct answer is and usually a good number say that he should be portrayed as a good hero, a role model. Society still can’t figure out how to teach about Columbus. He’s been a hero in our history books for so long, it’s hard to let go of his hero status and look at the bigger picture of what he set out to accomplish and what his motivations were as an individual.”

In relation to individual accomplishments and social economic status, it is a comforting notion to think that we are intellectually alike, even with big individual differences in motivation and talent. “Each of us has had vastly different exposures to things that are tested in schools, cultural knowledge such as whether you were taken to the opera and museums, whether you were read to a lot, whether there were a lot of books in your house, all those kinds of cultural things that test out in higher test scores, but that really have nothing to do with higher intelligence.” It is called cultural capital, according to Hammer, and it is the notion of the organic intellectual which is based on the radically different opportunities and exposure to intellectual work or academic work that is unique to each one of us.

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 christy hammer 7

The University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College faculty recognize that the partnership

between the college and the community has become stronger over the last 20 years which p ar t l y s te ms f ro m th e history of the community’s ear l y sup p o r t an d th e o b s t a c l e s i t ove r c a m e to make the col le ge a reality, says Professor Jan Hitchcock. She has taught S o c i a l a n d B e h av i o r a l Sciences courses at USM LAC since 1991. Within the SBS program, Hitchcock understands that some students think that they are going to simply learn basic textbook facts, but, she says, “ I really want students to comprehend that in th e s o cia l an d behavioral professions , nobody’s going to f it the textbook examples completely. Students should ask critical questions and tolerate ambiguity and complexity.”

Another course Hitchcock teaches is “Creative Critical Inquiry into Modern Life,” a Common Core course at USM LAC. The creative critical

thinking course enrolls students from all the majors because, says Hitchcock, “we don’t teach in narrow fields. The learning disposition that people have in terms of asking questions,

being engaged, paying attention to what’s going on around them, being an active partner in their education and critical thinking is very important across all the majors.”

Whether a student enters college with professional aspirations or not, as a student

advisor, Hitchcock understands that some students know exactly what they want to do professionally, while others think they know what they want to do, but then they

change their minds. Students at USM LAC are very diverse in terms of their ages, academic experience, a n d p r o f e s s i o n a l e x p e r i e n c e . “ I encourage all students t o t h i n k a b o u t several professional combinations and the ability to respond to a fluctuating job market. You can be trained for employment in a specific industry and then those jobs are gone in 20 years. LAC look s at educating s t u d e n t s s o t h a t th ey c an a d v an ce professional ly and

adapt to change over time.”

Faculty, as well as students, may experience fluctuations in their professional fields of interest over the years. The trajectory of Hitchcock’s scholarship after graduate school was originally in public health areas such as

Jan HitchcockInterdisciplinary teaching and learning: The sum is greater than its parts

The LAC curriculum has an interdisciplinary aspect and a strong liberal arts bridge to professional application. “The faculty as a group is passionate about teaching and working together – their sum is greater than their parts,” explains Hitchcock. Part of what makes the SBS such a versatile degree is its interdisciplinary quality which gives students skills that they can adapt and use to succeed in a variety of different settings including graduate school. “Social and behavioral science graduates can enter social work as counselors, they can enter human services, and they can become teachers, lawyers, ministers.”

By Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 20118 jan hitchcock

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tobacco usage and substance abuse. She was struck at the perception that policy makers and individuals have about risk in that it varies so much and yet it’s very relevant in making decisions. Her first job was as a research associate at what now is USM’s Muskie School of Public Service where she developed a course in risk and public policy. “It turns out that perception is not based in gender dif ferences or inherent biological differences, but, in fact, is more of a social-cultural difference. It turns out that the big distinction in perception is between white males and women and people of color.”

In retooling her own p or t fol io, Hitchcock ’s teaching focus is now on midl i fe and adult d e v e l o p m e n t a n d gerontology, theories of personality and on interdisciplinary topics s u c h a s s p i r i t u a l i t y, violence, risk, and poetry. For the past five years or so, Hitchcock’s scholarship has gravitated toward the interrelationships between poetry and psychology, including, more specifically, dreaming. The aspects of psychology and understanding the human experience are uniquely adapted to creative literature and the capacity of people to choose well, she says, and adds, “I thought this topic would be a boutique-y, esoteric interface,

but in fact it’s worked out quite well in terms of students having interest, as a counseling angle perspective, and as a teacher education perspective.” Hitchcock mentions the National Association for Poetry Therapy, a professional organization whose members learn to use poetry and other forms of language as a healing art for personal growth and enriched

lives. The NAPT is a member of the National Federation for Biblio/Poetry Therapy which works with people who need credentials as a certified applied poetry facilitator, certified poetry therapist or registered poetry therapist.

In keeping their credentials up to date, faculty show a support of continuing education in their profession which is key to life long learning. In the USM LAC social and

behavioral sciences program, all students complete an internship which is an extensive professional experience in an area in which they want to work. Undergraduates also take a senior seminar course in which they pursue a meaningful project under the themes of diversity, justice, sustainability and democracy. We try to prepare students as human beings,

as citizens and, certainly, in terms of professional o p p o r t u n i t i e s , s a y s Hi tch co ck . “At L AC , we really try to bridge the strengths of liberal ar ts and intellectual inquiry with professional applications.”

But relying on machines t o s a v e t i m e m a y decrease the capacity and threshold to focus carefully, to reflect on an experience and to deal with complexity. Technology can be used in so many innovative ways, but think about

how we put so much time and energy into it, says Hitchcock. “Maybe it appears countercultural to empower people with the ability to enter a complicated situation, to sort it out, to understand it. Whether it’s an historical context, human behavior, or organizationally, we need to be active partners in trying to solve the situation, to apply what we know, to be effective in our communications.”

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 jan hitchcock 9

Two strengths of a liberal arts education are adaptability and communication. This is fortunate because of today’s technologically-driven society which requires multitasking due to increasing time pressures. However, Hitchcock notes, “What I really enjoy about teaching is getting to know each student, having a sense of where they want to go, how they approach situations, and, for me, face to face interaction is really important. It’s part of my commitment to profound individual changes that can happen in the classroom.”

The University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College has a natural and applied science

program which includes courses focusing on the biology of human health and illness and environmental issues. LAC professor and research scientist, I ke L e v i n e , t e a c h e s b a s i c b i o l o g y a n d environmental classes which are part of the required core curriculum. He also teaches upper l e ve l e nv i r o n m e nt a l classes such as botany, ecology, and marine biology in the program. “Our science students, I’m happy to say, with their ability to get hands-on training in my lab, have found jobs in their field of choice, whether it ’s teaching, or state labs, or microbiology in other fields. My students have gone on to work as a state field biologist, a manager of a microbiology lab at a sewage treatment plant, and at IDEXX Laboratories. We’ve been very successful in getting our students into a job or into graduate school,” says Levine.

In and out of the classroom, Levine studies

algae; he’s a phycologist and that’s what they do. Sometimes he studies big algae –seaweeds, and sometimes he studies micro algae called phytoplankton. Levine has been an algal farmer for 30 years and studied in the field since 1975 when there wasn’t much

interest in algae or biofuels, but it’s become a hot topic due to recent research on global warming and the need for alternate fuel sources. “Algae is grown for a diverse range of products including food, beer, chemicals, dyes, nutraceuticals, and cosmetics.” Levine notes, “In the last several years, algal farming has focused on growing algae for biofuels – it is cost-effective and clean as a fuel and can

reduce our dependence on fossil fuel.”

Chosen as a New Century Scholar for 2009-2010 by the State Department’s Fulbright program, Levine has spent semesters overseas in India and China where he worked

with scientists from the University of Delhi and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, respectively. Other stops abroad for further research and study include London and Paris. “I have chaired a session on ocean acidification at a world global oceans conference hosted by the government of France and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic commission, UN E SCO,” s ays Lev in e. UNESCO is the Unite d N a t i o n s E d u c a t i o n a l , Sc ient i f ic and Cultural O r g a n i z a t i o n a n d t h e

I n t e r g o v e r n m e n t a l O c e a n o g r a p h i c Commission is a subdivision that promotes research in improving management and sustainability of oceans and marine environments.

“My current interest is shifting towards the algal agronomy, or the growing of algae for natural products and biofuels. But what

Ike LevineSolutions to real world problems are at hand:Algae for biofuels

By Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201110 ira “ike” levine

In regards to global warming, Levine gave a quick summary of how global warming affects oceans. “There’s real concern that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have a cataclysmic effect on living ecosystems. About half of the carbon dioxide released in the air gets absorbed by the oceans. Carbon dioxide is an acidic molecule so it’s lowering the pH of the ocean.” Levine says, “We’re studying whether algae can have any substantial effect on slowing this environmental threat.”

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 ira “ike” levine 11

I’m most proud of is the creation of Professors Beyond Borders,” says Levine, which was created as part of his Fulbright program. The Web site (www.professorsbeyondborders.com) states the organization is an “ac tion net work of academics and professionals willing to engage with real-world problems that impact qualit y of l i fe in diverse communities. This would entail problem-based knowledge creation, innovation in context; and mapping of expertise to community needs and ground realities. The paradigm is that operative in Mind to Market or Lab to Land initiatives.”

In addition to f ieldwork , Levine’s students perform laboratory work on campus. “When I came to USM, I had recently sold a company and I was allowed to keep about a million dollars worth of high-end, analytical equipment and, fortuitously, USM had just built an empty laboratory; together, we formed the aquatic research lab.” Levine says that the lab is a high functioning, highly technical cultivation and molecular biology laboratory used to train undergraduate students, the occasional post-doctoral student, and visiting lecturers. Fifteen post-doctoral students have requested to work in these labs with Levine.

“I had a Fulbright scholar from India stay here for a semester and we’re looking to bring in a Fulbright post-doctoral fellow next fall.”

Classes at the college are taught in three different methods: face to face, online only and a version that blends the two so that students meet several times in a semester face to face and the remainder of the classwork is completed online. “I’m in the middle of my first blended class and I’ve fallen in love with it - it’s worked out great. I think students are really pleased with the flexibility.” Levine says, “I teach 4 and 4-1/2 credit classes and so I meet twice a week in all of my classes. For the

blended, I meet approximately once a week which gives students the flexibility of doing some of the fieldwork on their own time and also some of the lectures on their own time.”

USM LAC uses many web-based and computer-b a s e d a p p l i c a t i o n s to bring the level of learning to the nex t l e ve l o f i n n ov a t i o n . Levine suggests that the technology and the programs at LAC have made digital learning a much easier transitional ef fort than one might t h i n k , e ve n f o r t h e person who doesn’t use computers much. His students learn to use computer simulations in many environmental modeling applications,

ArcGIS mapping, evolutionary simulations, speciation simulations, f ield ecology simulations. “We’ve cloned proteins, we’ve discovered how to control where marine plants grow, we’ve been able to advance biofuel production.” Levine says of his students, “We’re part of the algal genome project which is similar to the human genome project, mapping the genes of commercial algae. I think we’ve done well.”

Because there is nothing better than hands-on work for practical knowledge, Levine includes fieldwork in his environmental courses. His environmental class fieldwork includes a sewage treatment plant, a power plant, a food bank. Next up is a trip to the Harvard University Museum of Natural History where they have a tremendous glass flower collection and natural history collection. “We do field work at a bird sanctuary, in cemeteries, and in the woods.” Levine says, “I try to get students outdoors as often as possible.”

• “Excellent course. Prof Marsh was always prepared – she taught in a manner that did not leave anyone out – very inclusive… Thoroughly enjoyed it. Three months flew by.”

• “Her classes were a joy to come to.”

• “I looked forward to class each week.”

Student evaluation comments such as these give helpful insight to instructors about the courses they teach and their method or style of teaching and, at University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College, the faculty take student evaluations very seriously.

Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jayne D. B. Marsh, teaches required

and elective courses that include Human Growth & Development, Child Development, The Psychology of Attachment in Early Childhood and Infant Mental Health: Zero to Age Six as well as two ‘new’ special topic courses, Resilience in Early Childhood and Across the Life-Span and Parenting: Impact on Development (under development). These courses have maintained student enrollment and interest with student evaluation comments using additional descriptive words to describe the courses or Marsh as wonderful, organized, phenomenal, amazing, excellent, exceptional, fantastic, awesome, professional,

outstanding, knowledgeable, personable, compassionate, passionate, respectful, insightful, effective and relevant.

One student evaluation comment is particularly telling:

• “I rearranged my work schedule so I could have [this professor] again and it was the best decision I have ever made. Thanks for a great learning opportunity.”

How does Marsh characterize herself as a teacher? “I characterize myself as an instructor who challenges students to increase their knowledge through critical thinking, expression (verbal and written) and engagement with course content and

classmates.” Her philosophy of teaching aligns with the Relational Learning Model, which she explicitly uses in all of her courses.

“Classroom learning and behavior is based on a Relational Learning Model: respect for the learning environment through relationships with the instructor and others, building upon learner strengths in a progressive, sequential manner while incorporating current knowledge in the field.” Marsh encourages

students “to actively take part in, and to be responsible for, their own learning, to focus on the content and learning – not the grade.”

The Relational Learning Model includes “class rules” which are created in the first

Jayne MarshRespect for the learning environment:Take everything to a greater levelBy Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201112 jayne marsh

“Classroom learning and behavior is based on a Relational Learning Model: respect for the learning environment through relationships with the instructor and others, building upon learner strengths in a progressive, sequential manner while incorporating current knowledge in the field.” Marsh encourages students “to actively take part in, and to be responsible for, their own learning, to focus on the content and learning – not the grade.”

class of every semester for each course “to ensure discussion in a positive, supportive learning environment with class input, respectful of and open to all perspectives inclusive of non-dominant cultures. In this process identifying as a group what may interfere with the learning environment and is thus disallowed / discouraged such as cell phone use, side-talk, noisy, odorous food, strong perfume/after shave, etc.” assists with focused classroom learning.

Adult learning strategies utilized by Marsh in the classroom include lecture, interaction, group discussion, and indivdual and group exercises and activities with the use of overheads, handouts and video, as well as student lead discussion and presentation. Mar sh addit ional ly uses B lack b oard a n d M a i n e S t r e e t f o r communication with students and to post course materials and announcements. Students are aware and appreciative of these learning strategies as evidenced by student evaluation comments. Equally important to Marsh is “a process of student accountability for missed classes as attendance and class par ticipation is discussed as an important part of the learning process and a part of grading for the course. Additionally, in-class work includes intermittent group exercise / activities.”

In keeping with USM LAC’s mission statement of commitment “to being a national leader in interdisciplinary education, to serving as a resource for the community, and to providing an outstanding educational experience for its students through degree programs that are responsive to changing cultural and workplace demands and are available to a non-traditional and diverse student body,” integrated in Marsh’s classroom discussion and readings include “cultural, diversity, gender and global issues

related to overall ‘human’ wellness, from infancy through adulthood with reference to families in all courses as constellations of significant members.” Additionally, Marsh offers “one-to-one assistance as needed with students from non-dominant cultures to support their learning.”

In the classroom, Marsh is inspiring, which is supported by this student comment,

“I am not sure what to say about this instructor except she awed me. I wish we could clone her and I could have her for every other class.”

Outside of the classroom, Marsh is an SBS student Advisor and a member of USM-LAC internal committees including the Scholarships Committee and the Student

Conduct Council. Marsh is additionally a member of committees external to USM-LAC including the Early Childhood Statewide Higher Education Committee. Her liaison work with Maine Community College Early Childhood departments includes “meeting with Capstone students and providing mini-classes to demonstrate the next level of learning as well as providing information on continuing higher education / transfer to USM-LAC” and attending college fairs / forums

representing the SBS Program at USM-LAC.

In and out of the classroom, Marsh has an interest in early childhood areas including development , inf ant mental health , attachment, emotional health, resilience, brain and behavior, preventive-intervention assessment, parenting, community health, self care and reflective practice. She is one of three infant mental health trainers in Maine sanctioned by the Maine Infant Mental Health Association. As a professional with over 30 years experience in early childhood matters, through her private consulting practice, Developing Child, Marsh provides training and workshops at the USM Center for Continuing Education in Portland as well as to various organizations and agencies across the state and nationally. She additionally presents

early childhood topics at local, regional, state, national and international conferences / institutes and facilitates parent e d u c a t i o n - s u p p o r t groups and ref lective practice groups and is a Parent Coach.

Over the last 10 years, Marsh notes, “there have been many advances i n b r a i n r e s e a r c h , emotional development, a t t a c h m e n t , i n f a n t mental health, etc. which confirm the importance and inf luence of the early childhood period

throughout one’s life.” Providing students with the most current early childhood research translates to knowledgeable, employable graduates. Marsh believes that, “The early childhood period of development has significant impact on who one becomes and how one interacts with their environment (people and place). Childhood does not end, but endures as pathways into adulthood continuing to impact who and how we are in the world throughout our lives.”

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 jayne marsh 13

Marsh, in summarizing the importance of student’s narrative feedback in terms of her passion for sharing knowledge through teaching, especially around early childhood issues, is evidenced in two particularly poignant student comments as follows:

• “An excellent professional professor…We all learned so much! You are changing us and our future by dedicating yourself to education!”

• “I feel that the knowledge I have gained from her courses will be an asset that I will use throughout my life.”

Larry Nowinski enjoys teaching anatomy. “I was a surgeon in my other life,” he said recently,

referring to his career as an Ear, Throat and Nose specialist prior to retirement, “so anatomy has always been an interest for me.” His knowledge of upper extremities sensory areas of eyes, nose and ears benefits University of Southern Maine’s Lewis ton -Auburn Col le ge science students and, since this is his area of interest, coming out of retirement to work as a clinical instructor in the Natural and Applied Sciences program has worked out well for him, too.

I n t a l k i n g a b o u t b o o k s that he may use in his LAC classes or recommend to students, Nowinski stated that “Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology,” by Frederic Martini, “Human Anatomy & Physiology,” by Elaine N. Marieb and Katja Hoehn, and “Principles of Anatomy & Physiology,” by Gerard J. Tortora and Bryan H. Derrickson remain his steady favorites. He added that though he’s not presently using it

in his classroom, Tortora’s textbook presents lessons that balance text and illustration which students have praised. His personal taste in casual reading includes mysteries, who-

dunnits, and psychological thrillers. “I may read 15 to 20 books throughout the summer and enjoy reading books by Stephen King. There are other authors, but he’s the one who stands out.”

When it comes to learning, there’s no substitute

for hands-on laboratory work, according to Nowinski. “I like labs because students’ comprehension of their lessons can be assessed. The anatomy and physiology labs are

one-on-one - students need direction to start their lab work, but after that, they can carry on alone.” He noted that, “The lectures in a Science class are just that – lectures. I encourage students to ask questions during lectures as preparation for lab work.”

Nowinsk i bel ieves that the Natural and A p p l i e d S c i e n c e s programs at USM LAC is exceptional. However, he notes that “There are some

things that I’d like to add to the NAS program and one is the ability to study on cadavers. I was a prosector in Chicago and, based on my experience, I believe that the dissection of cadavers promotes learning in a hands-on sort of way.” At LAC, students use 3D models and computer software.

Larry Nowinskibelieves in hands-on experience for students who will work on people

By Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201114 larry nowinski

Another topic that Nowinski enjoys reading about is fly tying. “Fly tying is what I like to do. Some of the books I’ve read on fly tying are instructional books on tying patterns and methods, and others are about fly tying for shows,” Nowinski said, noting that tying flies requires a time commitment that he doesn’t have at this time of his life. His hobby can also be challenging in addition to finding the time, because, he added, “Some of the materials used in the classic salmon flies are no longer available because the bird is endangered and so substitute materials have to be used in their place.”

Another teaching and learning tool used in the lab is the microscope, a common piece of equipment in a lab which gets constant use by students. When he was completing his fellowship at the Armed Forces School of Pathology, Nowinski sat at a microscope for eight hours a day reading slides.

“The slides allowed me to learn about pathology from all over the world,” he said. Nowinski is also a strong believer in the importance of learning the correct way to use the microscope. “You don’t just put a slide on the microscope and adjust the lens. There is a specific procedure that needs to be followed such as starting at low power because you can put the lens right through the slide if you’re not careful. In the lab, I can assess that the student knows how to properly use a microscope, that they follow instructions, and that they use care. Skills like these need to be developed.”

During lectures, students should be able to use the correct terminology, and as technology changes, so does the terminology. Nowinski has observed tremendous innovations in technology since his college days. He started working in the ENT field before cat scans and magnetic resonance imaging were available.

“Now, the f iber optics used in ENT are phenomenal. Before, the tools we had to use for sinus surgery allowed us to see grossly, but you had to understand where the operating tools were while you were operating,” he said, and now, with fiber optics, doctors operate

with microscopic tools on the eyes and ears. “Before CTs and MRIs, we had hints about diagnoses, but couldn’t see the tumors over the ears, for example. We knew the tumors were there, but couldn’t see them. Now we have high-contrast CTs and MRIs that are really amazing. Doctors are going into areas of the body with scopes that we could never get into safely before.”

Students in the occupational therapy and nursing programs at USM LAC impress Nowinski because, he said, “Most of the students are in a graduate program and are overachievers so they really get involved in their work.” Nowinski’s clinical experience

demonstrates to his students the importance of hands-on experience “when you’re dealing with people as patients – where and how they use their knowledge applies. So they’re not just memorizing something, lab work is going to be useful for them on the job.”

It is Nowinski’s belief that since students pursuing medical careers in nursing or occupational therapy will be working with people, it is important that these students thoroughly understand and judiciously apply methodologies learned to their patients for maximum patient benefit.

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 larry nowinski 15

Making sure that students realize the importance of fully understanding the lessons is one of Nowinski’s primary teaching goals early in the semester. “Because nurses and occupational therapists work with people, their jobs are different than working with inanimate objects. You can’t try to slide by without knowing what you’re doing when you are working with people,” he said.

With three degrees in sociology – a bachelor’s, a master’s and a Ph.D. – Professor Betty Robinson embodies a lifetime of work, study and teaching in labor relations, social and human services, and education. Through her graduate work, Robinson was ultimately led to leadership and organizational studies and teaches in the University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College undergraduate masters’ programs in Leadership Studies.

In the early days of her career, Robinson worked in labor union relations. The f irst union she

worked at was the Massachusetts Nurses’ Association, which today is the largest professional health care union in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was a professional staff member of the union and

also unionized. “The bargaining units were nurses and I worked on policy analysis. That was back in the early days of health reform in the 1980s. I also testified for arbitration,” notes Robinson, who additionally led the nurses at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in contract negotiations with the hospital one year “which was very exciting for me at the time because I was considerably younger, and here I was at the bargaining table sitting across from some big time management lawyers representing the hospital.”

When Robinson moved to Maine she worked at what is now known as the Service Employees International Union Local 1989 (MSEA) where she presented arbitration as an advocate for the union. During her labor relations days, she spent a lot of time arguing on behalf of employees who were underpaid in their job classification or had been wrongly classified. “Before I came to USM, I had left academia feeling alienated by the union busting that went on at Boston University when I was there,” says Robinson. “I came back to a university job after seven years of union work just because I was looking for a different type of job and I was tired of what I was doing then for MSEA. At the time, there weren’t any other growth opportunities in the union. Besides, I’d continued teaching part-time on and off through those years.”

The first help wanted ad that Robinson read in the newspaper intrigued her. The new University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College was looking to hire faculty. “I thought that if I’m ever going to go back to academia – because I had been totally out for seven years – I’d better hurry up because I was going to need to get re-educated if I waited too long. I was the first faculty member at USM LAC.” Robinson was very intrigued about the faculty position because the ad said that LAC wanted to hire faculty who had been practitioners as well as academics. “That was appealing to me in terms of who my colleagues might be at LAC. And non-traditional students -- that was interesting to me. I knew a little bit about how hard this area had fought for a campus and being a social activist sort, I was very intrigued.”

The help wanted newspaper ad that Robinson read was for faculty for the Management and Organizational Study degree, which is what the Leadership and Organizational Study program at USM LAC was originally called. “I thought to myself, ‘This is interesting. I’ve spent all these years advocating for employees in the workplace and so many times would become frustrated by the limits on what we could do because of what the contract said.’” Robinson notes that if the contract didn’t have any language to address the issue that member had called about, then

Betty Robinsonbelieves that teaching is about developing and supporting people to become more fully who they can be

By Denise Scammon

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201116 betty robinson

Photo

she says, “I couldn’t do anything for them. And a lot of the time the issue was that managers weren’t doing their jobs.” Robinson and her union co-workers found themselves telling the person with the complaint, “You’re right. It ’s not fair, but we don’t have any legal opportunity to do anything about that – that’s a management issue.”

The unfairness of not being able to right a wrong gave Robinson the impetus to think of how to best channel her knowledge so that people could learn from her experience. She says, “I thought, well, okay, I’ll try another avenue. I thought I could teach people how to lead organizations in a just way from the social justice and the workplace perspective.” Responding to the help wanted ad landed Robinson a job – and new career – as a USM LAC faculty member and, she says, “I’m a faculty union member here, so I’ve been a union member most of my adult life.”

Robinson teaches organizational theory and leadership theory courses. Her knowledge

in these theories comes from studying sociology and working with organizations and groups of people as well as studying how change happens in organizations. Additionally, she teaches a conflict course for the USM LAC graduate program and one covering the ethical and spiritual dimensions of leadership. Robinson points out that,

“It’s not ethical leadership; it’s not spiritual leadership, per se. It ’s the dimensions of leadership that have an ethical or spiritual aspect.” People in the masters’ in leadership program come from many different fields – education, social services, human services, and people from the private sector including bankers and engineers.

In her leadership classes, Robinson tries to help people realize the importance of taking a step back to think about what values are important. “Even if I’m not explicitly talking about the teaching of ethics – ethics are paramount all the time when you’re trying to exercise leadership.” Robinson explains that, “What

you’re trying to do is influence other people and so if you’re not doing that with clear and positive values about human beings you risk doing great harm, more harm to others than you are necessarily aware of.”

When change occurs in the workplace, from a managerial point of view, divide and conquer is one strategy that may be an unethical strategy. “It’s really important to sit back and be clear about what you’re doing to minimize the negative impact on people, and how to support them through really rugged transitions. That sort of mitigates the harm.” Robinson says the positive power of paying attention to another human being has amazing effects. “I’ve tuned in to that belief from different perspectives. You can look at it from a social-psychological perspective and the research that was initially done on children and how paying attention and raising expectations for children make them raise their own aspirations, perform at higher levels. The same thing happens with adults.”

When you’re involved in social activism and you’re trying to organize people o move forward to address a problem, Robinson notes, “you have to pay attention to them and where they are at. When you’re teaching, leading or supervising people you have to hear them, you have to listen to them, you have to care about them. “In my mind, managing people is about order and control and delegation and holding people accountable. Leading them is about supporting them to become leaders, to become who they can be, paying them the kind of attention that improves them and transforms them and their lives and what they see as possibilities in their lives. That’s the coolest thing.”

For a p hi los op hic al p er sp e c t ive on leadership, the works of Simone Weil, are

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 betty robinson 17

After Robinson entered the world of work and organization, the idea of recreating one’s life through work “became fascinating to me because we spend so much of our lives in the workplace. In my graduate school days I had read early writings by Karl Marx in which he wrote that work is the way that human beings create and recreate their lives.” To Robinson, that was a powerful concept. “We create and recreate our lives in lots of ways – when we make families, when we build communities, when we make friends, but today, we spend so much time at work.”

worth reading, says Robinson. Weil was a French Jewish philosopher who died in her 30s during WWII. She was the author of Waiting for God, in which she tells the story about the good Samaritan and how he sees a person lying in a ditch and recognizes that person’s humanity.

“Weil wrote that attention is the greatest gift that one human being can give another. That really jumps out at me. I’m always telling my students that. Paying attention to people and building relationships with people is key to leadership – that is absolutely what leadership is all about.” Robinson says, “If you step back and look from a psychological and social perspective at people who feel they’ve been or have been ignored most of their lives, they’re a mess.”

Some of the new brain research that’s coming out now tells us that recognizing ourselves in each other, seeing ourselves in each other and how our brains respond to that interaction result in actual physiological changes that occur in our brains as we interact with different people. “It’s so interesting from a sociological perspective because more and more often we are seeing that there really is an interaction between the social and physiological that impacts each other – the social impacts the physiological and the physiological impacts the social. It’s not a one-way causal thing, it’s an interactive process and is yet another example of the way in which everything is interrelated,” says Robinson.

This fall, the undergraduate leadership theory course taught by Robinson will be face to face. Last year it was a fully online leadership class. “I was an early adopter of the blended class because I like to learn new things and experiment. Going from face to face teaching to online or to a blend of the two means instructors kind of have to learn to teach all over again, which is fine if you want your teaching to be new and fresh,” notes Robinson.

The mental reframing that takes place when implementing new teaching methods may be the biggest hurdle to digital learning. “It’s time to think differently about how students learn

the material and how you assess that learning. You have to figure out how to translate one into the other or to scrap it and start from scratch. That process for me was done incrementally, but some people do it with a leap,” Robinson explains. “But in any event, the blended classes work great for our graduate students and for our mature undergraduate students. By mature I mean responsible, motivated, and with mature academic skills. Also, with good fundamental writing and reading comprehension skills.”

When teaching a fully online leadership class, Robinson thinks the students who stuck with it “self selected” the course and were ready

for it. “Online courses have been a lot more fun for me than I thought they might be. I had dragged my feet when it was my time to teach this course fully online, because we’re moving away from the blended and we’re rotating toward fully online and fully face to face in response to current student preferences.”

Robinson says, “Some of the face to face students will grab an online class from time to time, but we’re not doing as much with the blended anymore because most undergraduate students want one type of class or the other, not a blend.

Students say, ‘I want to do it online because I’m a busy person and I’m mature enough to handle my time so why do I have to come in?’ or ‘The main reason I’m in college is because I want to build up my social network and get

to know people and I learn by being in the classroom with other people and why do we have to do this online.’”

U S M L A C s t u d e n t s b e n e f i t f r o m technological innovations as the university uses its ability to instruct on a global level. Robinson notes that the passion of her work in recent years is global learning and the importance of taking students overseas to more fully experience diverse cultures and become more world minded.

Robinson focuses on educating LAC students about and bringing them to Sub-Saharan Africa, in part because the recent immigration

in the Lewiston-Auburn community is from there and in part because of her instinct for social justice and leadership. “I feel that the Western world did these peoples tremendous injustice through colonization and the extraction or destruction of so many of their natural resources.”

Teaching is about developing and supporting people to become more fully who they can be, says Robinson, and adds, “Teaching leadership is perfect for that goal because we also spend a fair amount of time encouraging people to take some risks, to make some mistakes, to stretch beyond the comfort zone. In a way, when you’re teaching, you’re always asking that of students, but you’re even more explicit. This is what it’s about. It’s about stepping out there and finding out how far you can go.”

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201118 betty robinson

“I fear that the world is shrinking far more rapidly than most Americans realize because we’re accustomed to being at the center. That’s no longer the case.” She explains that, “Newer economies and different societies are developing rapidly. There’s great opportunity here, but also some danger… especially if we don’t fully educate our students about globalization and what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

Mark SilberAn interview with this cultural anthropologist offers insight into a diverse array of topics

By Denise Scammon

When asked in what subject he got his degrees, University of Southern Maine Lewiston-

Auburn College Professor Mark Silber explains that as an undergraduate, he was pre-med, but then he decided that was not the career path he wanted to follow. “When I was in pre-med, I worked at Harvard School of Public Health watching monkeys that were used in sensory deprivation studies. It was very hard to watch, but there was a great deal of information that we learned that was applied to how people interact in times of stress, when they’re isolated, and how important social interaction is for healthy behavior,” says Silber.

The ability to articulate the differences between monkeys and humans is in the realm of people who are anthropologists, evolutionar y biologists , evolutionar y anthropologists, or various other sub-disciplines. “What models can we use in order to associate animal behavior and human behavior? How do they relate? Are they really different? Are there qualitative and quantitative differences and to what degree?” Silber’s doctorate is in medical anthropology, but while he was in graduate school he thought he would get his degree in visual anthropology. He paid his way through school as a photojournalist and fine art photographer.

Silber says, “I have done a lot of things in my life. And I have done all of those things simultaneously. I have always kept busy.”

The largest portion of Silber’s work has been as a cultural anthropologist in which he has researched and produced oral histories since the early 70s. Much of his research was done around the Lewiston-Auburn area including a big project in 1982 called, “Our Lives, Our Work.” As part of the research, Silber and other anthropologists and community members interviewed people who were mostly retired and many were of Franco-American heritage. Silber says, “We recorded their stories about their lives and work, but particularly how work was such a featured aspect of their relationship with the community, the family, the religious life, and their work ethic.”

An extension of that research p r o j e c t s e r e n d i p i t o u s l y came up about five years ago when Silber began working on a project with Rachel Desgroseilliers of Museum LA. Together, they have been recording people who have worked in the local mills, shoe

workers, and brick makers. Silber says, “What is wonderful about this project is that the research we’re doing is akin to salvage. Any oral history is salvage anthropology because something is recorded for posterity.”

With all the research and writing he has done, it is no surprise that Silber is a published author of more than half a dozen books. Some of the books are photo documentaries and oral histories and some of the books are on horticulture and ethnobotany. Silber

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 mark silber 19

If you extend ethnobotany to the way Americans use plants, there is a great diversity of uses because the population is diverse, explains Silber. Take lettuce, for example. Why are there so many different kinds of lettuces, and why is iceberg lettuce a lower class lettuce, and why is leaf lettuce an upper class lettuce.? Is there really any difference?

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201120 mark silber

i s ve r y inte re s te d in e thn o b ot a ny. Ethnobotanists study how ethnic and indigenous groups use plants. When he was an undergraduate at Harvard, he studied with the man known as the father of modern ethnobotany, Richard Schultes. Silber notes, “For 50 years, Schultes traveled to South America and lived among various tribes and learned how plants were used indigenously. In fact, some of the plants that he discovered and tried are now used in medicine.”

“Well, people ascribe symbols to the world around them and it just so happens that iceberg lettuce gets the low life designation, partially because it ’s common. If iceberg lettuce was unique, it would have a different meaning ascribed to it.”

Silber says that his “Food, Culture, and Eating” class has talked about the status of arugula, a type of lettuce, and how arugula has become so political because when then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama ordered a sandwich in Chicago and asked for arugula, it became designated as an elitist food.

“Arugula doesn’t know that it’s elitist, nor does it care that it’s elitist, but there it is. So, food is not only what we consume, but food is what we imagine it to be, a designation or association, how we define our friends or how we define our socioeconomic status. It has just as much to do with how we imagine ourselves and how others imagine us.”

Silber knows vegetables as he grew many types of vegetables in the gardens on the 200-acres surrounding Hedgehog Hill Farm, his home in Sumner. “I came to the United States from the Soviet Union. When I was in Ukraine, my family had a rural garden about three miles out of the city where we lived. It was a luxury. Not everyone was allowed to have one, but my mother was a teacher and my father was an engineer, so their status gave us the opportunity to have a garden.”

Years later, Silber still firmly believes that everyone should have access to farm fresh vegetables. Because of that belief, Silber played a large role in organizing the early farmers markets in the 1970s in Maine. “At that time, it was like banging your head against the wall. It was difficult for people to imagine

getting food from somewhere other than a grocery store. Everything has changed a great deal over the past 30 to 40 years,” says Silber.

An organizer of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, Silber had a booth at the Common Ground Fair for 25 years where he sold dried flowers and herbs from his shop at Hedgehog Hill Farm. Over the years, he has seen many farms and has observed farming trends.

Silber is concerned about the development of a few, large corporations controlling both the food supply and seed stock. “It’s very difficult to have any food security if a monopoly controls our seed. If seed stock is developed by one or two corporations and that seed is all that is available and is grown by all farmers, but the seed depends on certain chemicals which are also sold by the seed company, then if there’s a natural disaster, the seed stock could be wiped out.”

Chi ldren should be involved in the planting and care of small gardens for an understanding of the environment and the interactions of insects, animals, and plants, according to Silber. Gardening gives children an understanding of how plants grow, it gives them exercise, it gives them responsibility. It gives them a sense of self-satisfaction.

“There are just so many aspects of gardening that create a productive member of society. In an agricultural society and in a hunter-gatherer society, the way people survived was by relying on their interactions with the environment. They were really sensitive to how the environment produced for them and how

they treated it. One of the reasons we are so dissociated with the environment is because we no longer participate in it.”

Other environmental issues are considered by students in Silber’s classes when they study the mystery surrounding Easter Island which is located about 2,000 miles off the Chilean coast in the middle of nowhere. It was settled sometime between 400 and 1200 A.D. There’s a great deal of dispute about the date of settlement. At the time it was settled, it was forested with palm trees that gave people food, heat, rope, and so on. Now it is treeless. The 64-square-mile island’s perimeter is lined with many huge statues called moai, some weighing 200 tons. Silber’s students discuss questions about the people who erected the statues.

What happened to that society that was organized enough to carve the moai, to transport them? Why were some statues

left in the quarry, abandoned as if the island’s inhabitants were interrupted as they worked? Silber asks, “Did the quarry statues exceed the islanders’ carrying capacity? Was there some kind of climatological change? Were the islanders attacked? There are many theories and a lot of research has been done on it.”

Environmentally, it is possible the demise of the forest affected life on the island – the islanders either cut the trees down or rats ate the seeds. Needless to say it’s a confluence of many factors all at once and the answers may shed light on environmental issues closer to home.

Disease in a monoculture will wipe out everything because no one can foresee with 100 percent accuracy what disease will develop in an evolutionary process. Silber adds, “However, if each one of us has a garden and we save our own seeds and our seeds are adapted to the microclimate, we can be self-reliant because we will have local control of local seed stock of local foods.”

Her students say that Professor Elizabeth “Liz” Turesky is enthusiastic and passionate about the courses she teaches at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College: Organizational Change and Development, Group Dynamics, Foundations of Leadership: Understanding and Leading Individuals and Groups, Interpersonal Behavior, Toward a Global Ethics, and Leadership Study Abroad. Students with preconceived notions about whether or not they will learn anything useful or get any enjoyment from these courses find that Turesky is an excellent facilitator of knowledge in her emergent learning classrooms.

“As an Organizational Behaviorist, I am a facilitator of learning and, as such, teaching, coaching, and research are at the heart of what I do. After teaching for 15 years in a traditional college environment, it has been my pleasure, and a joy, to teach nontraditional courses to nontraditional students in a progressive, supportive and nurturing college. I find it gratifying to contribute to this learning community and the larger USM community through my teaching, scholarship and community service.”

“Given our global society and the greater need for students to be sk il led in vir tual shared leadership, I teach mostly blended classes,” says Turesky, referring to innovative classes that include both face-to-face meetings in a classroom, as well as online classes in which students “meet” in virtual classrooms. “A study done by the U.S. Department of Education, a meta-analysis of over 100 researches done between 1996 and 2008, showed that blended learning

has a larger advantage relative to face-to-face learning and purely online learning. I have found this to be the case.”

Students in her classes can expect a mostly seamless transition between online classes and face-to-face classes for several reasons,

the most important being that Turesky ensures a thorough demonstration of, and support for, the technology used in her classes. That

Liz Tureskyenables students to be responsible for acquiring skills and knowledge at the college level

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Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 elizabeth “liz” turesky 21

An important LAC goal, Turesky notes, is to reach and provide accessible leadership education to a greater number of Maine students. Developing and teaching highly process-oriented courses – blended and online – such as Group Dynamics and Interpersonal Behavior with an experiential approach, has been a significant challenge, but one which Turesky embraces.

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technology includes Blackboard, Elluminate, Camptasia and Skype. “Online, and when in class, students can expect to engage in experiential learning simulations and activities as well as team service or research projects,” according to Turesky who has been experimenting with teaching online and blended classes for graduate and undergraduate students.

By enabling students to be responsible for acquiring the skills and knowledge necessary to study at the college level, Turesky builds trust and creates a safe environment for learning. Her students reap the benefits. “I love being surprised by the student who initially expressed trepidation at the start of a project and then gives an incredible team project presentation.”

The courses in the Leadership & Organizational Studies are both theoretical and practical in nature. Experiential learning and leadership development occur both in and out of the classroom. As an example, Turesky notes that the coursework for Organizational Change and Development is structured as a complex project in which the students this semester study the application and results of lean manufacturing principles and practices in Maine government.

“The class is structured with differentiated roles and responsibilities,” she says, and adds that students grasp the high engagement required on their part because “what they are doing has meaning and significance both to themselves and their own learning, and also because the project itself is significant – it involves real people with important research questions about the sustainability of change in our public sector.” In her Foundations of Leadership class, the student service learning project this spring involves a collaboration with the Maine Association of Nonprofits.

Turesky is presently working on two papers. Her current research focuses on organizational development and lean manufacturing in the public sector, women in leadership, and a systems approach to teaching, focusing on the classroom as organization and experiential learning. She finds that information has become more easily accessible for research and for teaching than ever before through the USM library resources.

Study abroad courses are an area of interest for Turesky and she is thrilled to take part in the program – Leadership Study Abroad – started by her colleagues Tara Coste, Betty Robinson, and Marv Druker.

“About 84% of the students at Lewiston-Auburn College are women and I find it gratifying to work with our students in developing their leadership capacity. As part of the coursework, we interview women from all over the world, in such places as Italy and Costa Rica, about their perceptions of, and experiences in, leadership,” says Turesky. “In 2011, our Leadership Study Abroad class will travel to Australia.”

There are multiple teaching and learning methodologies in practice and Turesky strives to make learning sticky for her students: experiential learning simulations and activities, self-assessments, application writing assignments, reflective journaling, research and research papers.

Student competencies include quality of writing, presenting, and the depth and breadth of the course material, which the student has learned. “I’m learning all the time about the factors that create a highly committed and engaged classroom learning environment.”

Turesky’s goals for her students are “ultimately to develop greater confidence in their capabilities. It is important that students know what being a life-long, reflective learner means, a critical leadership skill, and how to use their skills to achieve their own career goals and be better citizens of the world.”

Turesky serves as co-chair of the Research

Council at USM which “advocates for and makes recommendations about policies, structures, communication, funding and other factors that support faculty and student research and scholarship collaborations,” according to its Web site. She fulfills the task of being a better citizen, “about creating and sharing new knowledge with others in the world,” and serves on the board for Maine Youth Leadership. “I find great meaning in being a part of the leadership development of Maine’s youth and citizens.”

Enabling students through leadership education to become more desirable to Maine businesses and organizations is a win-win situation because then Maine businesses have the potential to hire locally from an educated workforce and students have a greater choice of potential employers here in Maine. Turesky strives to create more public awareness and support of the value of developing leadership capacity.

“In these leadership courses, our students learn to become valuable employees, citizens, and more fulfilled in their lives because of their own development and achievements . With its talented and supportive faculty and staff, LAC is where I am in my professional element,” says Turesky.

“I am energized by the entrepreneurial spirit of the faculty at LAC, the value placed upon continuous improvement and experimentation in teaching and scholarship, as well as involvement with the larger community. This is a place of high energy and dedication to the quality of learning and teaching.”

Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201122 elizabeth “liz” turesky

“Connecting theory to practice is important. Students need to ask themselves, ‘What is it from this class that I can use in my life, in my work?’” Supportive student feedback, writing assignments, peer reviews, and guidance for student leadership and contributions to the class’s learning are tools used by Turesky to help students assess their work.

The University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College has a whole treasure chest of gems

in its faculty which includes Professor Kristin Winston, who teaches in the Master of Occupational Therapy program. Both her bachelor’s and Ph.D. degrees are in occupational therapy; her master of education degree is in early childhood special education. Winston’s academic interests and conference presentations cover pediatrics, early intervention, feeding and oral motor skills, and family-centered care.

For some students, occupational therapy is a second career. That wasn’t the case for Winston who started her college career in the field of occupational therapy at the age of 17. Winston says, “I always knew that I wanted to work in occupational therapy. As a teacher I truly enjoy being able to share with students what an amazing profession they have chosen.” While her primary interest and career track has been in pediatrics, Winston has also spent some time working with adults with neurological impairments and adults living in skilled nursing facilities.

While students learn professional theories in Winston’s classes, she also teaches the realities of the day-to-day work of a career as an

occupational therapist, and what it means to work with individuals, whether it is the clients themselves or the caregivers, particularly at vulnerable times in their clients’ lives. It is vital that students know what it means to be a part of that therapy and how important it is for therapists to “really be sure that what we’re

doing is the best thing that we can be doing for our clients who look to us for guidance, for support, for help to recover or to change the way they’re doing things.”

USM LAC is very interested in presenting and integrating the importance of life long learning in all its programs. “Life long learning is a huge piece. This University is very interested in creating critical thinkers. There are programs that have more content and memorization, but what we would like for

our students is for them to be really good thinkers when they are working in their profession. It is our hope that they ponder, that they question, that they create from their critical thinking, as opposed to being fed information and then going out and recreating that,” says Winston.

In general, instructors can demonstrate skills and share information with their students, but instructors can’t control how their students use their classroom k n ow l e d g e w h e n wo r k in g as an occupational therapy professional. “There’s a certain excitement behind knowing, as an instructor, that I have planted seeds of relevant skills, competency and techniques in my students, but at the same time not knowing what challenges they will face when they start working in this profession. There’s excitement in waiting

to see who they become, where they take their knowledge,” notes Winston. “It’s the bigger picture. It’s not about the disease process, it’s really about who the person is and where they want to go and what they want to do.”

Kristin WinstonStudents are responsible for using their classroom knowledge in their chosen profession

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Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 2011 kristin winston 23

Winston says, “Education is just the beginning for our students. As educators, we build the foundation for our students to remain life-long learners so that when they start out in the profession, they know they are just beginning to scratch the surface of what it means to be an occupational therapist.”

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Faculty Profiles, USM-LAC, Lewiston, Maine, Saturday, January 1, 201124 kristin winston

“At USM LAC, we use that theory with our students. We demonstrate that the role of an occupational therapist is to help clients push through to a new place in their lives, a new identity following injury or illness. It’s not so much about returning to or restoring as it is about pondering what’s next, and how to improvise with the environment in order to move forward.”

The Master of Occupational Therapy program at LAC is an entry level masters program, “so our students come to us with a bachelor’s degree in another field or a related field,” says Winston. “We’ve had students with art history degrees and backgrounds in kinesiology or biology or psychology.” New students are required to do a certain amount of prerequisites before entering the program which now runs three years if a student goes through the program on a full-time basis.

The field of occupational therapy has seen its share of technological advances – the profession is going to be 100 years old in 2017. Occupational therapists are wonderful at interacting with clients, but historically have not been as wonderful at producing research that supports the wonderful work that they do. In the last 10 years, some amazing research has been published about the value of occupational therapy, the value of occupation-based interventions.

“I believe in the individual’s experience and, so, for me as a profession we really are oriented toward qualitative methods of inquiry which are more about the perceived experience, how this therapy was meaningful to the individual.” Winston says that she would find it very difficult to find large groups of individuals who all had the same interest, who all had the same disability, large groups that could be used for the big statistically significant type of studies.

“What I’m interested in is not whether it was good for 50 people, but did it work well for the one person who I happened to be seeing, did that make a difference in their life. How do you achieve statistical significance when you’re concerned about the one, and not the 200?”

A challenge in occupational therapy research is that there are still many in the profession who don’t understand the validity and rigor present in qualitative research. There are some very skilled researchers in qualitative research in the field but, says Winston, “I would love to see the profession push that envelope even more so than they’re doing now. Every individual is so unique that the concern should not be on

whether a specific treatment benefited the whole sample population but on the person who needed that treatment.”

The MOT program and its faculty at USM LAC support the idea of interactive learning in such a way that students work on projects which are presented to peers and faculty. Projects and presentations are part of the student assessment tools used by faculty.

“We do a lot of writing, a lot of reflection. As faculty, theoretically, we find that writing is the best way to see how students are thinking

and how they are processing and how they make meaning out of information. Yet our national examination for certif ication is multiple choice,” says Winston, who explains that faculty continues to have numerous conversations about how to balance that paradox, how to prepare students for the realities of the profession versus the way the MOT program honors learning.

In this profession, currently, the entry level degree is a master’s degree. So students can choose to do that in a program where they go from freshman straight through master’s, or “they can come to our program which is an entry level master’s degree where they

come from another baccalaureate program, another degree, or their second career. Our classes are interesting in that we have students ranging in age from early 20s to 50s which makes for very lively and engaging conversations,” says Winston.

People are at different levels, they’ve had different life experiences, they’re thinking about things differently. “Even as faculty it can be quite challenging to manage all that difference in terms of learning style and experience.”

Training a technology-savvy generation of health care providers is a valuable opportunity to enrich the medical staffs in our communities. And, certainly, it would be wonderful to have increased access to technology in terms of how students are trained.