Indiana University Front Page News
July 16, 2007
Front Page News at IU delivers top headlines of the day from the campuses of Indiana University. It comes to you courtesy of IU University Communications in the Office of University Relations.
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Bill Stephan named IU vice president for engagement
Survey: Funding, marketing greatest challenges for Indiana nonprofits
Challenges of Rural Health, a Medical Magnet School and False Memories among Topics Covered This Week on Sound Medicine
Herron Minority Student Group Exhibits at Black Expo
Online courses aren't for everyone, particularly college freshmen
Tools to help parents of children with developmental disabilities share information with caregivers
Preparing young children for the first day of school
Kids and the Internet -- what's a parent to do?
Providing high-quality afterschool programs: An urban challenge
Online creativity should be monitored, but also encouraged
IU Bloomington Scoreboard
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Bill Stephan named IU vice president for engagement -- Indiana University and Clarian Health Partners today jointly announced that William B. Stephan, Clarian's senior vice president of community relations and corporate communications, will return to IU as vice president for engagement, where he will assume statewide responsibility for economic development programs and initiatives. Read the complete story.
Survey: Funding, marketing greatest challenges for Indiana nonprofits; Report provides strategies for meeting organizations' needs -- A statewide survey identifies Indiana nonprofits' greatest challenges in capacity building and technical assistance, along with key strategies for meeting their needs. The survey, led by Kirsten Grønbjerg, Efroymson Chair in Philanthropy at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and professor in IU's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, found the most prevalent challenges for nonprofits are related to funding, with communications also presenting difficulty for many organizations. Read the complete story.
Challenges of Rural Health, a Medical Magnet School and False Memories among Topics Covered This Week on Sound Medicine -- This weekend (July 14 and 15) Sound Medicine bioethicist Eric Meslin, Ph.D., talks with experts about the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to analyze the genes of a fetus to detect anomalies in select embryos. Susannah Baruch, J.D., director of reproductive genetics at the Genetic and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University, and Tim Caulfield, LLM, chair of the Health Law and Policy group at the University of Alberta, join Meslin in a discussion of the frequency of this practice, and the ethical controversy surrounding it. Read the complete story.
Herron Minority Student Group Exhibits at Black Expo -- Spectrum, a group of minority students at Herron School of Art and Design/IUPUI, will exhibit their artwork for the fourth consecutive year at the 37th Annual Indiana Black Expo, the largest event of its kind in the nation. This juried show will be on display in the Cultural Arts Pavilion from July 20-22. This is a high profile event for the Spectrum group as their original works of art will be shown alongside displays from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indiana State Museum, an exhibit of Nelson Mandela's photographs, artists from Senegal, Africa, and several other prominent institutions of Indiana art and history. Read the complete story.
Online courses aren't for everyone, particularly college freshmen -- Freshman taking distance learning classes were twice as likely to receive grades of D or F or to withdraw from the course compared to their counterparts in face-to-face classes, according to research at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. Older students fared much better in the online courses. "Freshmen really stood out," said Mark Urtel, assistant professor in the Department of Physical Education in IUPUI's School of Physical Education and Tourism Management. "It's counterintuitive -- people say younger students are the ones who grasp technology, use it most, and know it the best, but it's my opinion that they grasp the technology and use it on their terms, not necessarily ours." Read the complete story.
Tools to help parents of children with developmental disabilities share information with caregivers -- For parents of typical children, leaving the babysitter with a list of emergency contacts and a basic bedtime routine may be sufficient. But for parents of children with autism or other developmental disorders, there's a great deal more information to convey, said Beverly Vicker, a speech pathologist with the Indiana Resource Center for Autism at Indiana University's Indiana Institute on Disability and Community. In her new book, Sharing Information About Your Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2007), she guides parents through the process of assembling information about their child's unique behavioral patterns, sensitivities and communication issues. Read the complete story.
Preparing young children for the first day of school -- "Getting ready for school is an event that parents face with mixed emotions -- a sense of excitement about our children's development and new experiences to come; a sense of loss because our children are growing up; a sense of helplessness because we are no longer in control; perhaps apprehension because we will not be there to protect them," said Cathy Beard, family support specialist with the Early Childhood Center at the Indiana Institute for Disability and Community at Indiana University. For parents of children with disabilities, these feelings may be even more intense. "Planning now for that transition will help restore a measure of control, and will alleviate some of the anxiety we may feel the day our children go off to school," she said. Read the complete story.
Kids and the Internet -- what's a parent to do? -- "Would you let your child out of the car in downtown Indianapolis and leave them there -- for a time similar to the amount they spend online?" asks Lois Ann Scheidt, an adjunct instructor in the Indiana University School of Informatics and one of a handful of scholars studying Internet safety issues among adolescents. The answer, she says, should be "No." The reality, she said, is parents cannot fully regulate their child's online behavior 24/7. Scheidt offers tips and considerations to give parents a hand. Read the complete story.
Providing high-quality afterschool programs: An urban challenge -- fterschool programs can boost students' grades; supplement education in the arts, music and culture; provide essential childcare for younger students; and help prevent juvenile crime, teen pregnancies, smoking, drinking and drug use among adolescents. Yet these programs encounter a number of obstacles in disadvantaged neighborhoods, said Alfred Ho, a professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. He recently co-authored, with graduate students Tiffany Murray and Rina Patel, a study on afterschool programs in Indianapolis in conjunction with the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at IUPUI. The study found that schools in poorer neighborhoods and those in which students scored lower on standardized tests were more likely to lack afterschool programming. "These neighborhoods stand to benefit the most from these programs, but they are the least likely to have them," he said. Read the complete story.
Online creativity should be monitored, but also encouraged -- Marjorie Manifold, Indiana University art education assistant professor, said parents should be aware of online dangers, but should also be aware of the outlet that online storytelling and other cyber venues for art provide. "This is a whole dimension that we are not teaching in school," Manifold said, "because we teach art in school as a discipline. It has to be serious." Manifold said that much of artistic education has become too focused on the outcome, such as standardized test scores and future choices. "We're teaching this so you can have a career," she said. "No. It's not a career. It's life, which is different. And a lot of them feel that way, surprisingly, about science and math, too." Read the complete story.
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Indiana University Bloomington Scoreboard
The Hoosiers will resume action in August. Keep track of upcoming games at the Indiana University Athletics Web site: https://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/
Action begins:
Women's Soccer: Aug. 21, Missouri, 7 p.m., Columbia, Mo.
Women's Volleyball: Aug. 24,Western Kentucky, 5 p.m., DeKalb, Ill.
Men's Soccer: Aug. 25, New Mexico, TBA, Fort Wayne, Ind.
Football: Sept. 1, Indiana State, 8 p.m., Bloomington
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IU in the news
Board of trustees still waiting on 4 appointments; Positions should be filled by board's Aug. 16 meeting
Indiana Daily Student, July 16 -- Gov. Mitch Daniels has yet to appoint anyone to one of the four trustee positions he is responsible for filling. Four trustees, including one student, were set to take office July 1, but Daniels has not appointed them. This is not the first time he has missed that deadline. "Two or three years ago, he did not make appointments until mid-July," current trustee Philip N. Eskew Jr. said. "By precedent, he has not done that, so I believe he is preoccupied with the property tax issue." University Chancellor Ken Gros Louis said that, while Daniels is not obligated to have his appointments made by July 1, letting those positions go unfilled for as long as the governor has is not normal. Read the complete story.
Clarian Health Clinical Programs Rank in National Guide
Inside Indiana Business, July 13 -- Clarian Health says ten of its clinical programs rank in the "2007 America's Best Hospitals Guide" compiled by U.S. News & World Report. Clarian says Methodist Hospital and Indiana University Hospital were the only Indiana hospitals included in the rankings. This is Clarian and IU Hospital's 10th consecutive appearance in the guide. Read the complete story.
Schnabel Takes Over Indiana U Informatics School
Campus Technology, July 16 -- Computer scientist and researcher Robert B. Schnabel has been named dean of Indiana University's School of Informatics. He has succeeded J. Michael Dunn, who retired at the end of June and remains as dean emeritus. IU's School of Informatics is the newest school in the university system, established in 2000, and offers programs at IU's Bloomington, Indianapolis, South Bend, Southeast (New Albany), and Kokomo campuses. It includes both computer science and new media programs and currently has about 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled. Read the complete story.
School programs for autistic kids found lacking
Rueters, July 13 -- School programs intended to improve autistic children's social skills are not delivering results in many cases, a new study suggests. In a new analysis of 55 previously published studies, however, researchers found that the social-skills programs offered in schools appear only "minimally effective." In general, the programs created little change in the behaviors they hoped to improve. However, the study authors caution that this does not mean social-skills programs should be abandoned. "On the contrary, the results indicate that we need to deliver more effective social-skills programming," said lead study author Dr. Scott Bellini, assistant director of Indiana University's Indiana Resource Center for Autism in Bloomington. Read the complete story.
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