Author: Elizabeth Gillooly

Defining Impact: 4-VA Grant for ENGH 302

One of the mainstays of the 4-VA at Mason program is to identify and grow academic ventures that truly make a difference in higher education – creating cost savings, providing greater access to the educational process, and developing new or more effective pedagogies.

That said, it’s hard to find a more impactful grant than the one supporting ENGH 302: Advanced Composition. This grant was provided to help build an OER collection for this celebrated Mason Core class which has an enrollment of almost 7000 students annually, delivered by a rotating group of approximately 65 faculty.

The challenges were plenty facing Catherine E. Saunders — who teaches the 302 course and has served as coordinator over two stages of the 4-VA@Mason grant project — and thirteen English 302 colleagues who served on the project team. As instructors of an advanced composition course offered at only a few American universities, faculty teaching English 302 did not have access to “off the shelf” textbooks appropriate the specific goals of the course. Instead, most instructors created and/or adapted materials to suit their students’ needs, within an informal culture of sharing, collaboration of various versions of assignments and activities developed within the English 302 instructor community. Moreover, with a growing number of instructors being hired to serve the expanding ranks of English 302 students, there was danger of losing consistency across sections. Saunders sought to formalize the existing culture of collaboration and ensure that resources developed by experienced instructors are easily available to new instructors.

Saunders and a group of colleagues first applied for and received a 4-VA@Mason grant a year prior. That grant provided support for the creation of a core collection of OER items – assignments, activities, and other curricular materials created and peer-reviewed by experienced English 302 instructors – that were then made available to new and experienced English 302 instructors via a Blackboard organization.

The Blackboard-based collection was popular with English 302 instructors. However, follow-up surveys of users revealed room for improvement in design of the collection, as well as a desire for additional resources and a preference for a public-facing collection. A different platform was needed to make OER developed by the English 302 team more readily available not only to GMU faculty, but also to the wider composition community. Hence, the team applied for a second 4-VA@Mason grant to finish the work.

Team member Psyche Z. Ready, assisted by Joyce P. Johnston, took the lead in adapting Mason Journals’ iteration of the Open Journal System (OJS) to meet the needs of English 302 OER collection authors, reviewers, and users. Each item in the new, public-facing collection includes an abstract, instructor’s notes, and creative-commons licensed curricular materials – assignments, activities, and/or background readings – created, adapted, or curated for use in English 302. The OJS platform eases the review process, and also allows user-friendly features such as keyword searching.

The response from the instructors and students alike has been rewarding for Saunders and her team of developers. “The students do express appreciation that course materials are free to them and that they are specifically adapted to the goals of the course,” Saunders says. “They also like that the materials break down larger concepts and assignments into manageable chunks, and that they employ active learning strategies and real-world materials.”

Saunders and Ready have recently brought their project to a larger audience, presenting their work at the Northeast Modern Language Association conference, with plans for other conference presentations in progress.

In addition to Saunders, Ready, and Johnston, the ENGH 302 team included the following faculty members: Lourdes Fernandez, Virginia Hoy, Sara King, Stephanie Liberatore, Jessica Matthews, Benjamin D. Orlando, Mark Rudnicki and Margaret Scolaro. Saunders also credits the “invaluable assistance” of Fenwick Library staff, John Warren, Aaron McCollough and especially Andrew Kierig.

To see their site, click here.

Steering World History from Flat to Multi-Dimensional

Teaching a class titled “Introduction to World History” was daunting 25 years ago — developing and navigating a wide-ranging curriculum. Today, teaching that same class presents all new challenges as the myriad “sources” found by students on the Internet can often send them off course. That same Internet rabbit hole faced 4-VA OER Course Redesign grantee Dr. Sheri Ann Huerta: Identify appropriate events to form the hefty narrative of the curriculum, research openly-available and credible materials, locate engaging, interactive resources to support each lesson, and organize the results in a user-friendly digital architecture. Untold hours are needed to accurately research the options.

Yet, Huerta saw an opportunity to do something even bigger with her project, noting, “I wanted to create analytical modules that facilitated learning by developing incremental training in the key critical thinking skills, utilized by historians, which also serve to develop savvy consumers of information in our digital age.”

Huerta began her efforts by scanning a wide variety of sources for consideration of inclusion in the course materials — everything from existing textbooks and primary source books to “Films on Demand” and the Adam Matthews databases. She also visited databases of art museums, signed up for appropriate history and teaching pedagogy listservs, and consulted with subject matter experts at Mason — Dr. Jane Hooper and Dr. George Oberle.

“The redesign focuses attention on students developing a personal ‘historical voice’ of world history informed by primary sources rather than relying on the limited story told in textbooks or lecture-test style delivery,” notes Huerta. “By shifting the focus from memorization to interpretation, the course connects well with the goal of applying critical thinking skills. By evaluating sources of information for accuracy and reliability and working more in small groups, students develop a heightened awareness of multiple perspectives and diversity of thought in the classroom—skills that help create informed global citizens.” Huerta collaborated with GMU’s History Librarian Dr. George Oberle to structure the course to “gradually identify and develop key career-ready skills: evaluation of sources; teamwork and collaboration; written/oral/digital communication of ideas; professional communication; and developing persuasive, evidence-based arguments.”

Not surprisingly, the students greatly appreciated that the redesigned course makes use of eco-friendly digital materials accompanied with a significant drop in the cost of course materials—from $137.50 to $7.00. More importantly, students showed an appreciation for the inclusion of accounts from voices often neglected in broad historical narratives – including women, persons of color, and non-European/non-US American cultural groups.

“This project was multi-faceted and difficult, however with the help of my colleagues and the 4-VA@Mason grant, it was very worthwhile for the course and our students,” concluded Huerta.

Creating Better Chemistry and Delivering Student Savings

An email from Fenwick Library caught the collective eye of the teaching team responsible for delivering CHEM336: Physical Chemistry I Laboratory. The email referenced the 4-VA at Mason course redesign grants, which are provided to encourage the incorporation of Open Educational Resources (OER) into the curriculum.

L COS Portraits ead PI Moissa Fayissa, PhD. conjectured that this might just be the path for the team to pursue: He believed their current text and lab books were subpar and incomplete as a match for their course. Fayissa saw the need to provide only top-notch materials for this intensive class — which is offered in three sessions in the fall semester and two sessions in the spring semester. Additionally, Fayissa worried about the cost of their then-current textbook. At more than $250, this was a high price to ask students to pay.

When Fayissa and his CO-PI Pritha Roy, PhD. received their 4-VA grant, they split up the lesson plans and got to work. Says Fayissa COS Portraits , “The materials search included looking at printed laboratory manuals and online open resources. When we could not find enough information online for the experiment, we referred to the previous laboratory manual and cited the lab manual as the reference. The instructions and background materials found online were rewritten to suit our needs.”

While the team did find that locating and utilizing materials without copyright infringement concerns was challenging, they worked with library staff to ensure they were taking the correct approach. Careful consideration was given to each citing.

Fayissa is pleased with the results, “This process has led to better background materials and better explanations for experiments. In addition, the students have access to these materials without the expensive textbook, which was an important goal of this project.” Although CHEM 336 is limited to 16 students per class due to lab restrictions, the textbook cost savings in total approximates an impressive $20,000 annually.

The CHEM336 team plans to upload the entire course work into Blackboard and are considering working with the library staff further to publish the materials through Mason Publishing Group so that students can obtain a hard copy of the materials should they prefer. Fayissa and Roy agree that the final product was worth the effort for the improvement curriculum and cost savings for the students.

4-VA Grant Brings Virginia Education Assessment Professionals Together for a “Virtual Drive In”

In the largest and most widespread event that 4-VA has ever coordinated – including all six 4-VA partner schools — higher education assessment professionals from across the Commonwealth came together for a “virtual” meeting. The meeting took place in April using telepresence technology at each of the 4-VA schools.

Mason coordinator Stephanie Foster, Associate Director in the Office of Undergraduate Education, and her colleagues at the Virginia Assessment Group applied for and received a 4-VA grant to bring together assessment professionals from two- and four-year public schools, private schools, as well as alternative higher education institutions to offer advanced training for faculty and professionals who have responsibility for learning outcomes assessments in their institutions. Says Foster, “The idea for the drive-in came from a self-study of the Virginia Assessment Group’s professional development offerings. We wanted to increase participation for our community college colleagues, and travel cost was identified as a barrier to their participation. One of our board members had an idea to use the 4-VA telepresence technology to host a virtual workshop. Because it was a free event, and no participant needed to travel more than an hour to get to their closest 4-VA site, the Virtual Drive-in served a wider audience.”

The all-day workshop provided critical training on best practices in data collection, analysis, and reporting. Facilitators at each location oversaw collaborative activities to encourage partnership and sharing of innovative practices. “Telling our stories: Using assessment data for learning and improvement” was an instant success, with 168 conference registrants representing 50 organizations: 31 universities, 15 community colleges, and 4 professional organizations. The event was funded by a 4- VA Collaborative Research Grant and organized by the nonprofit Virginia Assessment Group.

Says Foster, “Good assessment is essential to our practice as educators, and many programs are doing it well. Across the field, we are striving to improve how we share what we learn with faculty and institutional leaders so that assessment work can contribute to improving curriculum and instruction for student success.”

The day-long conference agenda involved input from each of the six locations. The conference began with a welcome from the Virginia Assessment Group president, Ryan Otto (Roanoke College) at the Virginia Tech location, and review of agenda by Kelsey Kirland from Old Dominion University. The morning workshop was presented by James Madison University Assessment and Measurement doctoral students, Andrea Pope and Caroline Prendergast; Psychological Sciences master’s student, Morgan Crewe; and JMU faculty member, S. Jeanne Horst. The morning workshop, entitled “Can we back up that claim? Making important data collection design decisions” addressed the appropriate inferences that can be drawn from assessment data collection designs. The workshop began with a description of the gold standard, randomized control trial, followed by a “let’s get real” section highlighting the real-world data collection challenges that assessment practitioners face. Participants grappled with how to make appropriate inferences from the data collection designs that are possible given common constraints. The morning concluded with participants from each location providing suggestions for ways of dealing with practical challenges related to data collection.

The afternoon workshop, entitled “Evidence-based storytelling,” was facilitated by Jodi Fisler (State Council of Higher Education for Virginia), and Gianina Baker (National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment – NILOA). Participants viewed a video produced by Jillian Kinzie (NILOA), illustrating examples and rationale for presenting assessment findings that tell the story of student learning. Participants engaged in an activity in which they tailored a data report to a particular stakeholder audience. Gianina Baker closed the afternoon, providing reflections and suggestions for effective evidence-based reporting.

It was clear throughout the day, that connections were being made at the individual sites, and also from site to site. Attendee Adrienne E. Sullivan, Director of Accreditation in the College of Education and Human Development at Mason put it this way, “For me, the opportunity to meet and chat with other colleagues from Mason was great. (But) The highlight was to meet colleagues from other local higher education institutions and learn how they implement and handle assessment data collection was really fabulous. It made me feel that we are not alone in the struggle to find an efficient way to collect data!”

Written with contributions from S. Jeanne Horst, JMU. and Stephanie Foster, Mason. Photo credit: Kim Reedy, JMU

Mason Scientists Put Bees Under the Microscope in Groundbreaking Research

As the world has been learning about the precipitous and dangerous decline in bee populations, scientists are scrambling to probe deeper into the “why.” It’s generally recognized that habitat loss and degradation, increased use of agrochemicals, invasive pathogens, competition from alien species and poor management practices are each contributing factors. However, what’s not known is the extent and effect of each of these on various species of bees, and, further, the role that the interaction of the species in shared habitats and flower resources plays. It is supposed that each species will be affected by different degrees, because of differences in bee social organization, foraging and nesting behavior, genetic diversity and other traits, but the hard science is not there. To take a closer look, Dr. Haw Chuan Lim and his Mason team of graduate and undergraduate students armed with a 4-VA2Mason grant are conducting groundbreaking research via their “High Throughput Bee Pathogen Survey.”

In what may be the only study of its kind, the team is in the unique position not only to access, but to develop state-of-the-art research techniques as they closely investigate extracted RNA and DNA from three bee species in Northern Virginia. Together, they are harnessing the bioinformatics and genomics capabilities at the Mason Sci-Tech campus while developing their own sequence capture probe-set to enable a comprehensive survey of pathogens and micro-parasites. They collaborate closely with Mason’s Rebecca Forkner and UVA’s T’ai Roulston. Both Forkner and Roulston have many years of experience in pollinator biology, using the Virginia Working Landscapes (VWL) program — the sites of the bee collection — and UVA’s Blandy Experimental Farm.

The team is specifically studying three groups of bees found in Northern Virginia – the European honeybee, the bumble bee and the mason bee – (no relation to George Mason University :+) To do this, they are collecting bees from nine VWL sites in the region, freezing and preserving each specimen using liquid nitrogen, and bringing them to the lab on the Sci-Tech campus, where they store them in a -80C freezer.

When the initial series of specimens was harvested, master’s student David Lambrecht went into overdrive. “I’ve spent many long days and nights in this space,” notes Lambrecht as he removes a bee sample from the freezer. After freezing each specimen, the students on the project learned how to extract total RNA and total DNA from each specimen. By using techniques such as target sequence capture and polymerase chain reactions, they can then enrich for and sequence a variety of bee pathogens whose genomes are made up of RNA and DNA molecules.

Although the lab work is taxing, Lim notes that they’re making progress, and big progress at that. “This is the first time ever that a large-scale target enrichment and sequencing of RNA viruses have been implemented for bees in this region. More specifically, the prevalence of viruses is generally unknown for bees in this region.” explains Lim. “We have had to optimize lab protocols and bioinformatics analytical approaches.”

Collecting the baseline values and knowing the diversity and strain variation of pathogens can provide valuable information for the future of the bees, including:

Being able to identify the pathogen responsible if bees in the region show signs for a particular disease. Conversely, it may be found that high prevalence or abundance of certain pathogen will not affect the bees, suggesting that they have developed resistance to the pathogen.
Allowing scientists to target pathogens of interest and to conduct in vivo studies of the mechanisms of infection, as well as the immune responses of bees.
Knowing whether managed bees (honey bees) are transmitting diseases to native bees will inform management practices, e.g. – keeping apiaries further away from native vegetation.

But while the initial lab work is buzzing away, the field work was thrown for a loop by Mother Nature. The total bee collections were hampered by the record setting rains in Northern Virginia this past year.

However, the persistent rains have not dampened the spirits of Lim and his team. They project that their research findings will not only shed light on critical information to help scientists better understand the bee populations and how to manage disease, stress and habitats; Lim also sees many valuable offshoots of this project for use in various upper division biology courses at Mason, and perhaps as a part of the Bioinformatics Concentration. Adds Lim, “My goal here is to help push along our bioinformatics and genomics program.”

And with the study still underway, Lim is already looking to the conclusion and beyond. Explains Lim, “Our results will be very relevant to the basic understanding of pollinator ecology, and management and conservation of bee populations. I foresee future funding from federal grant resources and private conservation organizations. Some of this lab work hasn’t been done before and it’s already opened up more research opportunities.”

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A CLOSER LOOK…

… How the bees got to the lab. A story in pictures:

4-VA at Mason Collaborative Research Grants Awarded

Eight Collaborative Research Grants were recently awarded by 4-VA at Mason, providing faculty and their teams of student researchers, as well as their colleagues at other Virginia partner schools, the opportunity to further important research concepts – from utilizing student ambassadors to support dementia patients, to privacy controls for smart home devices, to species resilience in tropical rain forests.

“These research grants are a key element of our 4-VA mission,” explains Janette Kenner Muir, Campus Coordinator for 4-VA at Mason. “Through this program, we identify vital promising research possibilities and provide the seed money to get them off the ground. From there, many of our awardees go on to receive further funding from the likes of National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation. We’re proud of the role that 4-VA has played in advancing research of consequence.”

One critical component of the Collaborative Research projects is a focus on the partnerships formed between Mason faculty and the other 4-VA partner institutions – James Madison, Old Dominion, Virginia Commonwealth, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia. This aligns with the 4-VA mission “To promote collaborations that leverage the strengths of each partner university and improve efficiencies in higher education across the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

The Mason grant recipients and project titles awarded for the 19-20 cycle are:

Broeckelman-Post, Melissa (College Of Humanities And Social Sciences)
- Communication Across the Curriculum: Creating Faculty Resources for Building Communication Skills in the Discipline
Couch, Robin (College of Science)
- Developing a Blood Test to Support Treatment of Surgically Induced Type I Diabetes
Luther, David (College of Science)
- Species richness resilience to habitat fragmentation and restoration in tropical rainforests
Moran, Jeffrey (Volgenau School of Engineering)
- Toward T Shaped Graduates A Joint Capstone Program at the Nexus of Mechanical Engineering
Motti, Vivian G (Volgenau School of Engineering)
- Human-Centric Privacy-Preserving Controls for Smart Home Devices
Tompkins, Catherine J (College of Health and Human Services)
- The Implementation and Evaluation of a Student Ambassador Program for a Music & Memory Intervention
Van Aken, Benoit (College of Science)
- Molecular Biology Methods for Understanding Aerobic Granulation in Wastewater Treatment Systems
Van Hoek, Monique (College of Science)
- Secreted Proteins of Francisella – a new understanding

Mason/NOVA Teacher Education: Public/Private School Representatives Invited to Join the Discussion

While George Mason University produces hundreds of candidates each year in the field of education, academic leaders at Mason recognized the need to work closely with area educational institutions – both public and private – to ensure that those candidates meet and surpass the expectations in today’s educational environment.

To do so, armed with a grant from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU), Mason recently held a roundtable of academic leaders as well as a host of representatives from private and public schools from the greater Washington, DC area to look closely at the needs of area teaching institutions. The event also prominently included educators and faculty from Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), Mason’s community college partner in the ADVANCE program, a nationally recognized program which supports the seamless transfer of students from the two-year school to Mason.

The roundtable included presentations and focused examinations of various aspects of the educational curriculum, as well as breakout sessions that delved directly into the qualifications of the ideal teacher. The roundtable host, Mason’s Associate Provost for Academic Iniatives and Services Janette Muir, noted, “It’s time to talk about education in a more organized way.” Specific goals for the day included future job demands, student preparation, knowledge gaps and work based experiential learning. Muir told the assembled audience, “Today, we need to learn from you.”

Participants then rolled up their sleeves and dissected a variety of elements and experiences that representatives identified as critical for successful teachers. Not surprisingly, many groups arrived at the same conclusions, including the need for significant ‘ground level’ experience with groups of students, providing background for how to handle classroom situations; the ability to work in a team environment; and the ‘soft skills’ necessary to handle a variety of audiences — students, fellow teachers and parents.

Attendee Zachary Shelton, Director of STEM exCel which offers STEM classes and programs said, “The best programmer is not necessarily the best instructor. Very important: They need to have classroom and behavior management skills.” Shelton then reflected on the roundtable meeting, “I’m inspired by the Education focus here, though. You are having this meeting and you want to listen.”

At the conclusion of the event, each table shared their findings with the room and a list of targeted skill sets were noted. Muir recalled the energy and environment throughout the day, “We were able to connect a group of passionate, motivated leaders in education – they were enthusiastic about the idea of building better teachers and I know we’ve begun to construct stronger pathways for our students from NOVA to Mason and beyond.”

Increasing Enrollment + Reduced Teaching Space + New Course Structure: A 4-VA Study Reaps Rewards

The story of increasing enrollment resulting in new instructors, reductions in teaching space, and revisions in course structure: OR How a critical analysis of a Mason Core course created and confirmed a positive change for students

Several dilemmas were facing Mason’s COMM 100 and 101 courses:

enrollment topping a record 4,000+ students
an ever-changing and often novice set of 50-60 of instructors and the corresponding need to ensure teaching consistency and quality
reduced classroom availability
three different delivery methods, with no real data on what version was most successful

The question became how to wrestle these problems while maintaining and/or improving failure rates. While the process was pivotal, successful outcomes were vital.

Such was the concern for Dr. Melissa Broeckelman-Post, the Basic Communication Course Director, an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and a Senior Scholar in the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at Mason. She is responsible for planning, supervising, assessing, and improving the communication courses that meet the general education requirement at Mason.

Broeckelman-Post recognized she needed to put some serious analytical insight into best practices for this course — from materials and methodologies to delivery methods and student results. But how to pull off this important, yet complex, analysis while juggling an already full schedule?

The answer was found in a grant from 4-VA at Mason.

The Team: (left to right) Katherine Hyatt Hawkins, Andie Malterud, Anthony Arciero, Melissa Broeckelman-Post, and Briana Stewart.

Armed with the financial support to hire a cadre of Ph.D. students to produce the “in the weeds” analysis, in one short year, Broeckelman-Post had both the necessary numbers and the path to developing and delivering a course that met the needs of the students and produced a blueprint for a pedagogical “win.” The research focused on pre- and post- course student surveys which considered communication apprehension, interpersonal communication competence, communication competence and engagement. Additionally, the analysis considered grades, attendance records, and a detailed review of more than 300 explanatory speeches, a required 5- to 7-minute presentation by all students. Four expert coders evaluated the presentations for five different elements – introduction, body, conclusion, overall impression and delivery.

Then, this analysis was applied to the two different delivery versions of the course: Face-to-Face and a fully online course, plus a pilot of a new version of the course which is based on a lecture/lab/speech lab format.

The results pointed to the newer version of the class.

In this version, Broeckelman-Post delivers an online media-rich introduction, with includes content overviews, readings, TED talks, model speeches, video analysis and pre-class activities. This not only assured a complete and thorough content delivery, it also saved precious classroom space. Last spring, this version was pilot tested in six sections of the course, and after seeing the results of this study, has been implemented for 100 sections this academic year.

The introduction is then followed by small group interactive face-to-face lab with discussions, interviews and group work presentations.

The bonus comes in the final element of the course that was added for the fall semester – individualized coaching sessions in the new Communication Center for all students enrolled in the course. In the Communication Center, which is funded by the cost savings from moving the first hour of the course online, students meet with student Communication Coaches to get feedback on outlines, video record and practice presentations, practice interviews, work on developing group presentations, and more. Most of the Coaches are members of Mason’s nationally-renowned forensics and debate teams, graduate students who also teach the course, and students who have demonstrated outstanding communication and feedback skills, who are able to share their advanced training with students that are just getting started.

The Communication Center is a ‘one stop shop’ for valuable one-on-one coaching sessions for students as they prepare presentations. Currently, the Center is open every day between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM and books more than 300 appointments a week. It is anticipated that number will balloon as more students recognize the benefit of the help.

“The bottom line of this effort is that we’ve produced a course pathway that provides the best possible outcomes for our undergraduate students, while supporting our instructors with a rich resource of teaching tools and techniques,” explains Broeckelman-Post. “What’s more, we’ve streamlined the course and saved some money, which we then were able to use to create our first-of-its-kind on-campus Communication Center. We are very proud that we were able to deliver this terrific outcome for all Mason students — thanks to our 4-VA grant!”

Communication Research and the Communication Center: It takes a team

Broeckelman-Post credits much of the success of this research project to the graduate student research team, which includes an ace crew of PhD candidates and a student earning her Masters. Katherine Hyatt Hawkins, Andie Malterud, and Anthony Arciero worked on the 4-VA grant, and Hyatt Hawkins and Briana Stewert are working on a subsequent research grant that is evaluating the added impact of the Communication Center.

Katherine Hyatt Hawkins is a third year PhD candidate in Communication who will graduate in May 2019. She studies health and instructional communication, and is currently managing the Communication, Health, and Relational Media (CHARM) Lab for the Communication department with Dr. Sojung Kim. Hyatt Hawkins served as the Basic Course Assistant and has helped to build the Communication Center. Hyatt Hawkins’ resume also includes internships at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Andie Malterud is a second year PhD student in Communication and is the Communication Center Coordinator. She also studies health and instructional communication and has served as the Basic Course Assistant. Malterud comes to Mason following her undergraduate and Masters work in South Dakota.

Anthony Arciero is now in his fourth year of a PhD program, with a specialization in Educational Psychology, and a secondary emphasis in Research Methodology. Arciero also works in the College of Education and Human Development in the Accreditation and External Reporting Office as a Graduate Research Assistant. He is a 22-year veteran of the Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel.

Briana Stewart is a first year MA student in Communication and is the Assistant Communication Center Coordinator this year. She previously worked in the writing centers at Oakton High School and Christopher Newport University. Stewart and Malterud are currently working on a follow-up project funded by a Curriculum Impact Grant and Faculty Research Development Award to help evaluate the impact of the Communication Center.

Moving Virginia Healthcare Forward Through Effective Communication

The VCRHM Coordinators: (left to right) Cathryn Molloy (Madison), LoriBeth DeHertogh (Madison), Heidi Lawrence (Mason), Kelly Pender (Tech), Bernice Hausman (previously at Tech), Rachael Graham Lussos (Mason), Elizabeth Ferguson (Mason), Lourdes Fernandez (Mason), Michael Klein (Madison)

Just as the nation as a whole is grappling with issues from A to Z in healthcare, concerned scholars studying the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine in Virginia were interested in what role they could play in moving and improving their field within the Commonwealth. While faculty members and students around the state have previously communicated on a range of topics via emails or brief phone calls, they saw the need to work collaboratively to create a space for research and study.

“What we knew was that our discipline continues to grow in Virginia, with programs at Virginia Tech, Old Dominion, and James Madison as well has here at Mason. But we didn’t want to grow these programs in silos,” explains Heidi Lawrence, assistant professor in writing and rhetoric at Mason. “What we also knew was that by working together, it would be better for our collective student and faculty bodies as well as to help advance critical medical communications and messaging issues at the state level.”

When Lawrence saw the opportunity to use a 4-VA grant to achieve that goal, she jumped at the chance to take the important first step in generating collegiality in the field among the Virginia partner schools.

The grant provided the funding for a first-of-its-kind statewide symposium “The Virginia Colloquium on the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine” (VCRHM).

Their goal was three pronged: to provide students and faculty with mentoring and academic opportunities; to look closely at what role the group could collectively play in improving healthcare of populations across the state utilizing their humanistic approach; and to explore possibilities for pursuing funded research in the future.

The Colloquium was hosted at Mason in June 2018 and featured a keynote address by internationally-renowned health and medical communication expert Dr. Kirk St. Amant of Louisiana Tech University, presentations from four graduate students, a lightning round collaboration session and concluded with a panel presentation on pursuing further research. Attendees included representatives from Mason, Madison, Tech, the University of Mary Washington, and the University Detroit Mercy.

Evaluations from the workshop illustrate the success of the event:

“It was a treat meeting other students and faculty in Virginia (and elsewhere) doing RHM work. I especially like the opportunity for faculty to mentor students and, in turn, learn from them.”

“The networking was most valuable. The unique perspectives that people brought were also equally valuable.”

Lawrence explains that the Colloquium participants are now moving forward as a team. In April, the second annual meeting of the VCRHM will be convened at Madison. During this workshop-based meeting, team members will use their expertise to tackle a difficult and weighty issue in Virginia – managing communications and messaging as applied to the opioid crisis. They are now analyzing methods of rhetoric to develop a humanities-based approach to the problem, including collecting qualitative data on communities in crisis and working through mechanisms to communicate findings to community partners (e.g. hospitals, first responders, public health officials), and other stakeholders.

“If not for the 4-VA grant, we would never have been able to begin this important work,” says Lawrence. “We owe our foundation and progress to 4-VA — 100 percent!”