Dr. Mike Pinter, teaching center director and professor of mathematics, has had a peer-reviewed article published this month in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 4, Issue 2, 2014. The article is entitled “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways for Syllabic Variation in Certain Poetic Forms.” Click here to read the article.

In the article, Pinter considers a connection between poetry and mathematics via the Dekaaz poetic form which is similar to haiku with its constrained syllable counts per line. He describes two different ways to count the number of possible Dekaaz variations, one using a binary framework and the other approaching the count as an “occupancy problem” that is studied in the Combinatorics course that he teaches. The counting methods described are generalized to also count variations of other poetic forms with syllable counts specified, including haiku. Pinter includes Dekaaz examples and suggests a method that can be used to randomly generate a Dekaaz variation.

Several faculty members from the College of Pharmacy made presentations at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) held in Grapevine, Texas earlier this week.

Dr. Leigh Ann Bynum and Dr. Angela Hagan were co-presenters for a session titled “Curricular Approaches to Active Learning,” which demonstrated different ways in which active learning techniques have been incorporated into pharmacy curricula. Bynum and Hagan focused on the use of patient simulation technology in the classroom.

Dr. Scott Weston moderated the session which included presentations from two other pharmacy schools.  Dr. Weston is the incoming Chair of the AACP Curriculum special interest group and was recently appointed to the Editorial Review Board for the AACP Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE).

Dr. Hagan also joined with Dr. Hope Campbell to speak at a session on “Reviving the Meaning and Perceptions of Being a Minority Faculty Member.”  In addition, Hagan and Campbell presented a poster titled “Where’s the Minority Representation? State of Affairs in Academic Pharmacy.”  Campbell is the incoming Chair of the AACP Minority Faculty special interest group.

Dr. Ashton Beggs presented a poster titled “Student Perceptions of Inter-Professional Collaboration through Geriatric Case Training.”  This poster was a report prepared by Beggs, who worked with faculty in the Meharry Consortium Geriatric Education Center, to produce a day-long training session for students in nursing, social work, physical therapy, dietetics, medicine and pharmacy. Beggs also made a poster presentation with Dr. Alisa Spinelli on “Student Preference for Traditional vs. Non-Traditional Presentation Modalities.”

Dr. Condit Steil, professor of pharmacy,  Dr. Mark Chirico, a former faculty member in the College of Pharmacy, and Dr. Richard Thompson,from Lipscomb University, have co-authored a manuscript accepted for print publication in August by Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning.  The article describes the implementation and first two years of follow-up of a novel interprofessional program which includes the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing at Vanderbilt University, the Social Work Department at Tennessee State University, the College of Pharmacy at Lipscomb University and the College of Pharmacy at Belmont University.  The study suggests positive benefits, as well as some areas for improvement, of interprofessional students working together in experiential settings and provides a format for other institutions to follow.  Clicking here to read the article.

Belmont faculty members Dr. Robbie Pinter (English) and her husband, Dr. Mike Pinter (Math/Teaching Center Director), were profiled this week in the New York Times in an article titled “When the Caregivers Need Healing.” The article discusses new research on mindfulness training and positive adult development techniques as means for dealing with the stress of parenting a child with severe developmental disabilities.

For the Pinters, mindfulness practices like meditation and breathing techniques have given them tools to cope with caring for their 21-year-old son Nicholas, who has been diagnosed with autism and bipolar disorder. Both Robbie and Mike have also incorporated mindfulness elements into their teaching.The story ran in the July 29 print edition of the paper and can be found online here.