Dr. Teresa Plummer, assistant professor of occupational therapy, recently presented at the annual conference of the Batten Disease Support and Research Association (BDSRA) held in Nashville, Tenn. Plummer shared her expertise in a presentation on handling and positioning children with Batten disease and assistive technology products for children with the disease.
Batten disease affects children from birth and causes mental impairment, worsening seizures, and progressive loss of sight and motor skills over time. Eventually, the child becomes blind, bedridden and unable to communicate, and the disease is always fatal. Although Batten disease and related disorders are considered rare, they often strike more than one person in families that carry the defective gene.
BDSRA was formed in 1987 by a family who had three children with the disease. The association provides technical assistance and support to families who battle the disease while promoting research and education.
Dr. Noel Boyle, associate professor of philosophy, published a chapter in Chronic Illness and Spirituality. His chapter is titled “In Spite Of: Reflecting on My Son’s Pain and Suffering.”
Boyle’s son, Ciaran, now 13, has a rare and destructive seizure disorder known as Dravet’s Syndrome. Boyle tells the story of Ciaran’s suffering, including numerous brain operations, days with hundreds of seizures each, seizures lasting for hours, the isolation of lacking language skills altogether and about 1,000 nights in the hospital.
Refusing easy answers that deny the reality and purposelessness of Ciaran’s suffering and isolation, Boyle builds on the work of existentialist theologian Paul Tillich to find a more genuine standpoint from which to reflect on Ciaran’s suffering. Tillich maintains that, instead of fleeing from anxieties regarding such things as death and meaninglessness, we need to embrace them and take them on.
Following Tillich’s lead, Boyle does not deny Ciaran’s suffering, but asks whether joy exists in spite of his suffering, whether meaning emerges in spite of the pointlessness of Ciaran’s pain. While holding that authentic affirmative answers to these questions do not and cannot, come easily, Boyle suggests that they do come. In the end, Boyle suggests that an honest confrontation with Ciaran’s suffering has helped him more clearly what Tillich calls “the God who appears when God disappears in the anxiety of doubt.”
Dr. Ronnie Littlejohn, professor of philosophy, has published “First Contact: The Earliest Western Views of Daoism in Matteo Ricci’s Journals,” in The Dynamics of Cultural Counterpoint in Asian Studies (SUNY Press, 2013).
He has also been asked to respond to the panel on his book Daoism: An Introduction at the 9th International Conference on Daoist studies at Boston University on May 30 and June 1, 2014.
Dr. Pete Giordano, professor of psychological science, is one of six managing editors on The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology, a three-volume book recently published by Wiley-Blackwell. It presents a collection of current state of knowledge relating to the fields of cross-cultural, cultural and indigenous psychology. Kenneth Keith of the University of San Diego is the editor-in-chief of the book. In addition to serving as one of the managing editors, Giordano also published three Encyclopedia entries on personality, personality assessment and the cultural psychologist Jaan Valsiner.
Belmont’s head women’s basketball coach Cameron Newbauer hosted the inaugural Parent-Daughter Camp on Aug. 3 in Belmont’s Curb Event Center. The one-day camp made learning basketball fundamentals into a family affair.
Belmont’s coaches and players were on hand to teach shooting, passing, rebounding and defense in a fun atmosphere for both parents and daughters. Participants also received discounted ticket options for the Women’s Basketball team’s 2013-2014 home schedule.
“The first basketball memories most of us have from learning the game are those moments in which our parents began teaching us the fundamentals of the game,” said Newbauer. “Our first Parent-Daughter Camp was a huge success. Our players and staff had a great time sharing our love of the game of basketball while cultivating our relationships with new and old fans alike. We are looking forward to our next Parent-Daughter Camp.”
Research and Instruction Librarian Claire Walker, along with a small team visited, Cap Haitien, Haiti in May to continue work on the library at the College du Souverain. The library was developed in 2008 by Walker and has been maintained by school teachers and the principal. During this trip the team took inventory at the library, identified future needs and led a workshop for teachers on how to use books in the classroom.
Lisa Haack works with a patient for balance retraining. The Neurological Physical Therapy Clinical Residency instituted last year is a partnership between Belmont University’s School of Physical Therapy and Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson’s Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute. (Photo Credit Amy Woosley)
Belmont University’s School of Physical Therapy and Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson’s Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute (PBPRI) have received accreditation from the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) for their collaborative Neurological Physical Therapy Clinical Residency instituted last year.
The one-year residency is one of 23 programs of its kind in the United States to have achieved this status and is the only such program in Tennessee.
PBPRI is an outpatient interdisciplinary neurological rehabilitation program where physical therapists work in teams with colleagues in occupational therapy, speech-language pathology and social work to promote community re-entry and vocational and/or academic transitioning.
“Being the first neurological physical therapy residency program in Tennessee, we have the responsibility and the privilege to train the next generation of outstanding neurological clinical specialists,” said Lisa Haack, Neurological Clinical Residency director, a PBPRI clinical staff member in physical therapy and a neurologic specialist.
Academic Residency Director Renee Brown, professor of Physical Therapy at Belmont University, said completion of the credentialing process is an affirmation of the program’s commitment to its patients.
“We have had a long-standing working relationship with Vanderbilt and this new program is an extension of that partnership,” Brown said. “We look forward to continuing to collaborate to train the next generation of physical therapy providers in the area of neurologic rehabilitation.”
The Neurologic Physical Therapy Clinical Residency will be recognized during the Residency/Fellowship Career Development Reception at the 2014 Combined Sections Meeting hosted by the APTA.
“An important mission of both Belmont and Vanderbilt is to educate and train the next generation of leaders in health care,” said Mike de Riesthal, director of the PBPRI. “The success of the collaborative residency program is a perfect example of this mission in action.”
Pam Parry, chairman of the Communication Studies Department, will participate on two panels this week at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Washington, D.C. The first panel will focus on “Relevancy, Trust and Profitability,” and it will be sponsored by at the Community College Journalism Association-Advertising Division on Aug. 11. The second panel will focus on “‘A’ Word: Using Assessment to Make Long Overdue Changes, Validate What You Are Doing Right,” and it will be sponsored by the Small Programs Interest Group on Aug. 10.
Pam Parry, chairman of the Communication Studies Department, signed a book contract with Lexington Books, a subsidiary of Rowman and Littlefield, to publish her dissertation titled, The PR President: How Ike Transformed Political Communication. The book will be released in hardback and ebook formats in December 2014. Her research was supported by two grants from the Eisenhower Foundation and three fellowships from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Miss.
Dr. Mike Pinter, professor of mathematics, gave a presentation at the at the annual Mathematical Association of America MathFest held in Hartford, Conn. on Aug. 1-3. The MAA MathFest is the largest annual summertime gathering of mathematicians offers conference sessions including Invited Addresses, Invited Paper Sessions, a Short Course, Contributed Paper Sessions and Minicourses. Pinter’s presentation was part of the Recreational Mathematics: New Problems and New Solutions contributed paper session. In his presentation entitled “Randomly Generating a Dekaaz Poetry Form,” Pinter explained two different ways to count the number of possible variations for a new poetic form called Dekaaz. After offering several examples of Dekaaz he had created, the presentation ended with using coin tosses to randomly generate a Dekaaz variation.
Dr. Teresa Plummer, assistant professor of occupational therapy, recently presented at the annual conference of the Batten Disease Support and Research Association (BDSRA) held in Nashville, Tenn. Plummer shared her expertise in a presentation on handling and positioning children with Batten disease and assistive technology products for children with the disease.
