Archive for the ‘Departmental’ Category

Three researchers recently visited Missouri Western to share their latest research into evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology and religion as part of the 2009 Galileo’s Legacy Conference. The two-day conference began the afternoon of Nov. 5 in the Kemper Recital Hall with a presentation by Christopher Green entitled “Will the Real Darwin Please Stand Up?”

Green is a psychology professor at York University in Toronto who specializes in the history of psychology. He explained that there’s a misperception about how the theory of evolution and psychology relate to one another. “There’s a view these days that somehow psychology was aversed to evolutionary thought through most of the Twentieth Century,” Green said.

“Mainly, that’s put forward by modern evolutionary psychologists who want to portray themselves as being original and terribly new, and what my talk is about is how evolutionary thought has been used by a whole range of different areas within psychology,” Green said.

Later that evening, Gordon Burghardt delivered his presentation entitled “Darwin, Monkeys, Serpents and the Origins of Religion.” Burghardt is a professor of psychology, ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee whose research has been featured in the Nova television series Lizard Kings.

Burghardt shared his recent research on monkeys aimed at learning more about the fear of snakes in both primates and humans. “We used lifelong captive monkeys never exposed to snakes and tested their innate fear of snakes by offering them food placed in front of a glass cage containing a live snake,” Burghardt said.

“We observed that the monkeys would at first snatch the food from in front of the snake, albeit rather quickly but with little apparent fear,” Burghardt said. “However, after several times grabbing the food, most of the monkeys began to show signs of anxiety or simply began to ignore the food.”

Burghardt went on to explain that this research is ongoing and said that, due to many variables in the studies, he hopes to refine his testing methods and expand on this research in the future before drawing any conclusions.

At noon the following day, the final speaker discussed the area of race and genetics in his presentation called “The Social and Biological Realities of Race” in Room 304 of Popplewell Hall. Jonathan Kaplan, chair of the philosophy department at Oregon State University, explained that race is a very vague concept often mischaracterized throughout history.

“The question of whether races exist and whether or not race is biological is too underdetermined,” Kaplan said. “And you have to be very careful and specify exactly what you mean by the term ‘race’ or ‘biological’ before you can even get a handle on the question.”

“If you look at the varying gene frequencies between populations, then, of course, biological races exist,” Kaplan said. Kaplan explained however that the meaning of race, through genetic research, has been changed greatly from the pre-Darwinian concept that identified races as mostly separate groups of people with mostly distinct traits.

Galileo’s Legacy Conference was first hosted at Missouri Western in 2006 as an opportunity for discussion and learning about various scientific subjects such as neuroscience, climate change and intelligent design.

Theater students and faculty gathered on Aug. 31 to kick off the new school year, and release the 09-10 theater and cinema schedule.

The schedule included the line up for the fall and spring semesters. “Uncle Vanya,” which is a tragicomedy by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, is the main stage production scheduled for the fall semester. It will be held in Potter Hall on the main stage Nov. 4-8. All productions will start at 8 p.m. Auditions were held from Sept. 9-10, in Potter Hall. Professor Alan Arrivee will be the director for the production. Tickets range from $6-$8 for the general public, and are free for students with I.D.

“I’m excited about this year because for the first time we will let students lead the plays through the final performance,” Arrivee said. Junior theater student, Josh Zufelt, said he is looking forward to the first play “Uncle Vanya.”

In the spring semester the main stage production will be “The Illusion,” which is a comedic play by Pierre Corneille as adapted from Tony Kushner. Auditions will be held Jan. 27-28, 2010 at 7 p.m. in Potter Hall on the main stage. The show dates are set to be April 7-11, 2010 at the main stage starting at 8 p.m. Tickets will be $6-$8 for the public and free for students with I.D. Professor Kevin Brown will be the director.

“I’m really excited about the play ‘The Illusion’,” Brown said. “It should be a lot of fun for actors and the audience.”
Along with the main stage productions there will be various other events going on. There will be two Black Box Theatre performances which will be led by student directors. For the fall Black Box it will be an established play and it will be held Nov. 18-22, at 8 p.m. For anyone interested auditions will be held on Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre.

In the spring the second Black Box Theatre production will be one-acts written by students and directed by students. The shows will be held April 15-18, 2010 at 8 p.m. Auditions for all who are interested will be held Feb. 3-4, 2010 at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre. Also going on will be a film screening competition on April 22, 2010 at 8 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre ,and a Directing the Actor Showcase April 29-30, 2010 also in the Black Box Theatre at 8 p.m.
The sixth annual Griffon International Film Festival will be held March 1-5, 2010. There will be various times and venues which will be announced as the date gets closer. Professor Kelly Wittenberg will be the director for this.

“Attendance is about 50-60 people a night,” Wittenberg said. “I would like to double our attendance this year.”Students looking for something to get involved in can find many opportunities in the Communication Studies, Theatre and Cinema department.

“People should come and be involved,” Wittenberg said. “It is a time commitment, but you’ll make friends that will defiantly last a lifetime.

The nursing department at Missouri Western State University has taken the first step in developing a graduate program by receiving approval from the Missouri Department of Higher Education to start work on the program.

Designed primarily to prepare nurses within the region to enter leadership and management roles within a variety of different health care facilities, the program will offer a Master of Science in nursing and health care leadership degree and is currently scheduled to begin in the fall of 2010.

Kathleen Andrews- Nursing Chair

“We were really encouraged by Heartland to pursue a master’s,” Andrews said. “They really felt like the most important need for that level of advanced education would be for those people that wanted to move up in management and administration. So we started thinking about…health care leadership.”

Starting last year, the department met with Jeanne Daffron, who was serving as the interim dean of graduate studies at that time, to get the ball rolling on making the concept a reality by helping to draft a basic proposal of the program that was then presented to the Graduate Council, a group comprised of faculty members that approve policies, procedures and programs.

Brian Cronk, professor of psychology and current interim dean of graduate studies, was on the Graduate Council that approved the program.
[The Council said], “yeah, this is a good idea that is academically rigorous enough and we think there’s student demand,” Cronk said.

Andrews reveals that she’s already received a handful of inquiries from local and regional nurses who have expressed interest in what the program can offer them.
“[The] emphasis is on applied science and that’s absolutely what nursing is,” Andrews said. “Our degree program will fit into that structure very well. The students will be able to take classes with a multi-disciplinary group. As a nurse leader, that multi-disciplinary exposure is very important.”

Barbara McDowell, a junior/senior at Western, has only been part of the nursing undergraduate program for a year, but hopes to be part of the graduate program in the near future.

“I’m actually very excited about it,” McDowell said. “I think it provides a good opportunity…It took me by surprise that we’re going to have one [here.]”

However, there is still much work to be done. The proposal that was approved was a basic skeleton of the program. Now, it’s up to the nursing department to fill out such details as the courses that will be offered, who will teach the courses and what the requirements will be to enter the program.

Cronk firmly believes that the end result will be a great asset not only to the nurses who take part in the program but also to the community at large.

“I think it will help put nurses in the community that have a broader set of skills [better] understand more of the big picture than just what they do as a nurse,” Cronk said. “The more people that understand the big picture, the better.”