CEHHS Staff Celebrate Excellence Milestones

CEHHS Student Success staff members Judy Garfield and Elizabeth Morden celebrated their ten (Garfield) and fifteen year (Morden) milestone anniversary's this past week and were acknowledged with a Chancellor's Staff Recognition Award. 

Judy Garfield, Program Assistant in the Office of Student Success, worked at University of Detroit-Mercy in a support role for student activities for almost 30 years prior to coming to UM-Dearborn. In the early years , she was a full time employee at UD-Mercy, but the latter years she switched to part-time to raise her son through his school years.  In 2005, Garfield sought a full time job and landed at UM-Dearborn. Reflecting on her 10 years of work here at CEHHS, Judy says, "I really do enjoy working with students, and I want to be the staff member that they feel they can count on to assist them with their questions and problems.  One of the nice things about longevity on this job is that I have been able to build relationships with the students I serve from their first semester here until they graduate."

Liz Morden, also a Program Assistant in the CEHHS Office of Student Success,also reflected on her fifteen years of work here at CEHHS, "I love the interaction with students, faculty, & staff that I get to work with everyday!" 

CEHHS faculty and staff commend both on their commitment and hard work. Thank you Judy and Elizabeth!

CEHHS Science-Ed Research from Detroit Community Reaches National Conferences

CEHHS faculty member Dr. Chris Burke's partnership with Ms. Lazarowicz, an elementary science teacher at Neinas Elementary School, started in Fall 2012. Dr. Burke met Ms. Lazarowicz while she was presenting about her use of the outdoor classroom and school garden at the South East Michigan Stewardship (SEMIS) Community Forum. Following this visit Dr. Burke arranged for his EXPS 220 class to come to the school and work with her students to do experiments in the outdoor classroom.  

Neinas Elementary School is a community-centered school located in South West Detroit. The student body reflects the local community and is 78% Hispanic 10% White and 10% African American. The school has multiple strong community partnerships including E & L SuperMercado (the local supermarket) & Greening of Detroit. These partnerships helped support the development of the school’s outdoor classroom. Since this initial visit in Fall 2012, eight of Burke's EXPS classes (five sections of EXPS 220 and three sections of EDD 485) have collaborated with Ms. Lazarowicz’s students. Burke's students have studied native Michigan plants, and rain gardens culminating in the installation of a rain garden at Neinas in the outdoor classroom. They have also studied irrigation systems and structures culminating in the building of roof top garden planters. This past year Dr. Burke's EXPS 220 / EDD 485 students started studying structures that will help inform the planning and building of an Earthship.  

Dr. Burke's work at Neinas has been a productive and valuable part of his teaching at the College of Education, Health, and Human Services by providing a place for UM- Dearborn students to engage in Academic Service Learning and collaborate with elementary students on long term school projects. It has also been a valuable part of Dr. Burke's scholarship in that this community-based research helps him examine the process of developing students' sense of science agency and connection to the process of scientific investigation with the community. Dr. Burke's partnership with Ms. Lazarowicz has resulted in presentations at the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative Place-Based Education Conference, the National Association of Multicultural Education Annual Conference, The Ecojustice and Activism Conference and most recently the SEMIS Community Forum.  

 Dr. Chris Burke believes that this work is important as it provides CEHHS students with an opportunity to see and work with a highly effective teacher in Detroit who is actively working to cultivate community connections and implement place-based education. As Burke says, "This opportunity helps CEHHS students develop an understanding of the importance of cultivating relationships with K-12 students, their parents, and the community. It also provides them a chance to engage in community-based science where they learn how to balance the formal rigors of science with the complexity of authentic questions that emerge from students engaging with the community". 

Burke's three year collaboration with Neinas has also provided him with a space to conduct scholarship related to the facilitation of students’ science agency, developing and sustaining school community partnerships, and place-based education. For more information on Dr. Chris Burke and his research please visit his faculty profile page.

Dr. Karen Thomas-Brown's Research Highlighted in Relational Poverty Network

The Relational Poverty Network convenes a community of scholars, working within and beyond academia, to develop conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, and pedagogies for the study of relational poverty. Launched at a historical moment of dramatic income inequality and enforced austerity in the global North, the RPN thinks across geographical boundaries to foster a transnational and comparative approach to poverty research.  In doing so, it pays attention to new global geographies of development, new forms of regulating poverty, and analyses from those often marginalized by poverty debates.  Building on a long tradition of critical work on poverty, it shifts from thinking about ‘the poor and poor others’ to thinking about relationships of power and privilege. 

Narrating the lived experiences of migrant Jamaica teachers in the U.S.

"This research is a part of an active ongoing investigation into the notions of citizenships and the migration experiences of Jamaican teachers living in the United States. These teachers work mainly in inner city schools and are also participants in the historically globalized nature of the islands of the Caribbean. They are products of an education system in Jamaica that has historically adopted and readopted to societal needs as the political and economic fortunes of the island wax and wane. This research examines the impacts of and responses to the accelerated out migration of teachers in response to recruitment drives that originate in United States, Canada, and the UK as well as efforts by the Jamaican government to have Jamaican-trained teachers participate in international talent transfer." 


Read full article HERE.

CEHHS Education Student and Community Educator Allie Traylor Awarded Grant From Dearborn Education Foundation

Allie Traylor, a Reading Specialist candidate in the M.A. in Education program was awarded a 10 Chromebook Grant from the Dearborn Education Foundation. Allie Traylor is a 6th grade teacher at Bryant Middle School in Dearborn, MI. Her grant proposal was a course requirement for EDB 503, Reading Programs, Organization and Management, facilitated by CEHHS faculty, Dara Hill. The proposal aimed to enhance her teaching and support her students' reading development.

Dean Janosky Highlights the Convergence of Employer-Educator Partnerships in Crain's Detroit Business News

To read full article on Crain's Detroit Business website click here

Increasing competitiveness in Detroit and Michigan requires multifaceted approaches that include educating and training a labor force for the technically advanced jobs of the future. Created through the intersection or convergence of disciples, integrated education and training programs, as well as employer-educator partnerships, can meet labor force demands while tackling problems otherwise deemed intractable.

The convergence of not only resources, including those of educational institutions and employers, but also disciplines within educational institutions, has tremendous potential to prepare the local and state labor force for current high-skilled, high-paying jobs as well as ensure an adequate pipeline of skilled workers for future jobs.

This proactive approach is also taking the form of employer-educator partnerships, such as those facilitated by the Aspen Institute's Skills for America's Future program, which fosters connections between community colleges and employers. More often, employer-educator partnerships have been initiated by employers in their local communities; for example, partnerships between the Boeing Co. and educational institutions, which range from pre-kindergarten to college levels, have informed curricula to align with their current and future labor force needs. 

Educational institutions have started to evolve to meet labor market needs in the public health sector. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, health care and social assistance jobs in December 2014 accounted for 17 percent of the total job openings, up from 14 percent the previous year. 

In addition, employment of health educators and community workers is projected to grow 21 percent from 2012-22, faster than the average for all occupations. 

Further development in this area could be advantageous for Detroit and Michigan. As an example, integrative education and training programs focusing on community health have the potential to dramatically impact competitiveness and productivity, especially given that the economic vitality of a community is highly dependent on the health of the citizens. 

In addition to simply having adequate numbers of healthy individuals to contribute to the labor force, businesses increasingly consider the health of the population prior to moving to or expanding within a particular geographical location due in large part to the impact of preventable, chronic disease (e.g., obesity and Type 2 diabetes) in terms of health care costs and lost productivity through absenteeism and presenteeism. 

Preparing our workers for these technically advanced jobs of the future requires that educational institutions design new, innovative programs at the intersection of disciplines, as recommended by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness. Through the convergence of disciplines as well as partnerships between employers-educators, the available and ready labor force within Detroit and Michigan could be strengthened, resulting in increased competitiveness.