The University Honors Program will be accepting applications for the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Colloquium on Monday, Feb. 17.

The colloquium on Tuesday, April 8 from noon to 6:30 p.m. in the 1877 Clubis headed by Dr. Donald Jones, the director of the University Honors Program.

“The colloquium represents an intellectual community”, said Jones.

According to Jones, the interdisciplinary nature of the Undergraduate Colloquium allows students to present projects or theses papers in a variety of ways.  Students can present projects individually or groups as a panel.

The Undergraduate Colloquium also allows students to learn as they study a subject in depth and then become teachers as they present their project or paper to those in attendance of the Colloquium.

Attendance normally ranges anywhere from friends of presenting students to professors or people who are interested in the subject or subjects being presented.

The colloquium is made up of four different sessions allowing for three to four panels or three to five individual presenters each.

Those who attend the colloquium can pick and choose which presentations they want to see based on their interests whether it is a thesis presentation from the College of Arts and Sciences or a project from the College of Engineering, Technology and Architecture.  However, according to Jones the subject matter isn’t the only key to a memorable presentation.

“What is memorable is when a student has mastery of the topic”, said Dr. Jones.

Many of the students that participate in the Colloquium are undergraduate seniors of University’s Honors Program who are preparing for graduate school or careers beyond the university.

This year, nine students who participated in the colloquium last year will be taking their presentations to the National College of Academic Research (NCUR) in Lexington, KY in April.

According to Jones, even if students don’t present, the event garners a lot of interest among the student body as a whole.

Faculty members hold particular interest in the colloquium, because they come to watch the students  whom they have nominated either in panels or individually to present at the colloquium.  Students who are nominated must also do their part and submit an application to the University of Hartford Honors Program website by Feb. 17.

The schedule for the 2014 Undergraduate Colloquium will be online on the University of Hartford Honors website in March.

Anyone with questions about the colloquium should contact Jones at djones@hartford.edu.

At the University of Hartford, one program of study that is very well-known amongst the student body is the Physical Therapy (PT) program within the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions (ENHP). The program is offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and boasts one of the highest enrollments at the University.

Associate Professor Mary Gannotti has juggled a lot this year, between teaching PT classes and doing research in various areas of physical therapy. She has also presented all over the country and had three manuscripts published.

Two of Gannotti’s manuscripts were published in the Physical Therapy Journal and third was published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice.  Since many manuscripts can take a long time to be completed and published, having three published in the same year is a hard-earned reward for Dr. Gannotti.

“Most manuscripts take three to five years to take from concept, data collection, data interpretation, to publication. The two papers for the Physical Therapy Journal took over three years, as did the paper for Physiotherapy Theory and Practice,” said Dr. Gannotti.

Gannotti did not accomplish all of her hard work this year by herself.  She had both fellow professors and innovative students helping her make these research projects a reality.

One of those students is not even in ENHP: Ian Cannon is a Barney student. Although he uses a wheelchair to get around, Cannon has adapted to his disabilities in a unique way – a way that has become a focal point in Gannotti’s research and presentations.

This particular adaptation is an exercise routine Cannon created himself, known as wheelchair boxing.

“Ian has developed an exercise routine based on boxing and mixed martial arts and has adapted it to his physical abilities,” said Gannotti.

Gannotti has also worked with professors from other universities, coordinating research and presenting various topics pertaining to the PT profession. Both Dr. Fuch and Dr. Moreau collaborated with Gannotti multiple times throughout the year.

The three of them first met at a 2011 conference funded by the American Physical Therapy Association: “Dr. Fuch was an invited speaker, and Dr. Moreau was a physical therapy researcher who applied for sponsorship to attend the conference.”

Since then, the three of them have become somewhat of team, collaborating not just with one another but also reaching out to other PT professors across the country.

“We are translating research into clinical practice and it is very meaningful to practicing physical therapists,” said Dr. Gannotti.

Students enjoyed a turkey meal and apple cider at last year’s Thanksgiving dinner. Courtesy of Facebook.com/UHartDining

We are approaching Thanksgiving time, which means our mouths have already started salivating for turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.

Whether or not you are heading home for Thanksgiving break, the University is hosting a special Thanksgiving dinner in GSU South Cafe next Thursday, Nov. 21 at 5:30 p.m.

Aramark, the school’s food service, has cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for the students at the University of Hartford for the last four years.

Attendance has risen year after year, says Aramark official Michael Pieksza. “There were 225 people last year, the year before that 160.”

Aramark is expecting their largest crowd yet on the fifth anniversary of this spectacular event. Pieksza estimates the attendance at 250.

Clubs, organizations and classes are encouraged to attend the event in groups, but students are also invited to attend individually or with a small group of friends.

For every occupied table at the event, Aramark is going to donate one turkey to a local food shelter, with the donation being given in the names of those at the table.

According to Pieksa and Sharon Mumley, another employee at Aramark, there will also a canned food drive at the event. Attendees are encouraged to bring a canned good to the dinner and support Aramark’s initiative for Thanksgiving philanthropy.

Traditional foods such as turkey and vegetables such as glazed carrots will be served at the dinner, along with artichoke dip and bread.

“The food was delicious when I went last year,” says Lee Peters, Vice President of Student Affairs. “The event was really fun, too. It was nice to see so many groups of students come out and enjoy the special meal.”

Aramark respects the needs for some students to meet special requirements such as gluten-free, vegetarian or kosher diets. However, Pieksva notes that although Aramark has offered these alternative options at the Thanksgiving dinner the past two years, no one has taken advantage of it. Students overwhelmingly opt for the traditional turkey dish.

“We planned for eight vegetarians last year, but no one at the dinner requested a vegetarian option,” said Pieksza.

The UHart Dining Facebook page has pictures from last year’s event.

Students can chow down on this decadent dinner for just a meal swipe. However, students are not the only ones who can attend the event; faculty and staff are more than welcome to join the fun by volunteering to help prepare the food.

Volunteers are still needed from 4:30-7:30 p.m. the night of the event to help prepare and serve the Thanksgiving dinner. Faculty and staff who help out obviously get to enjoy the meal themselves. Those interested in volunteering can contact Mumley at mumley-shannon@aramark.com.

Since Aramark needs to know how much food to prepare, students must pre-register to attend the event. You can sign up by emailing Mumley at mumley@hartford.edu or stopping by the ID Office.

A lot of staff changes have been made this year to the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) here at the University of Hartford.

Dave Albert was CAPS Director from 2007-2013. This past summer, Albert took a job at the University of Chicago. Though UHa was sad to see him go, Student Affairs administration is proud to note that UHa staff is being recognized all over the country for their excellent service.

Nicholas Pinkerton is the Interim Director for CAPS. He has been working in CAPS since 2010 and also teaches doctoral level courses at UHa on group therapy and foundational skills in clinical practice.

Pinkerton obtained both his doctoral and master’s degrees from the UHa Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology. He has trained at the counseling centers at Northwestern University, Eastern Conn. State College and Conn. College.

Of UHa’s counseling services, he says, “I am proud to say that the vast majority of students who receive services at CAPS report that their experience is positive and helpful in allowing them to achieve their personal goals, reduce their distress, and successfully stay in college.”

Two staff members, Stephanie Field and Sarah Hewes, started working in CAPS in September.

Field, like Pinkerton, received her master’s and doctoral degrees in Psychology at UHa. Since then she has worked at Conn. Valley/River Valley Services, the Institute of Living, Blue Hills Substance Abuse Services, Cedarcrest Hospital and the Middlesex Hospital for Behavioral Health.

She also served as the Legislative Fellow for the Conn. Psychological Association two years before joining CAPS. While working at UHa she continues to advocate a strong role of psychologists on both a state and national level.

Field has provided outpatient treatment of anxiety disorders and neuropsychological assessment of schizophrenia in the past. Her area of specialty in CAPS is alcohol and other drugs, a position that was added  to the department this year through Foundation of the Future.

Hewes, on the other hand, has a real interest in eating disorders and athletic performance. She is a licensed counselor in Conn. and Mass. and is currently in the process of completing her doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Miami.

Before coming to UHa, Hewes had experience working at the University of Miami,  Northeastern University, Simons College, Barry University, Augusta State University and the Carson Center for Adults and Families in Westfield, Mass. She also completed research at Yale University’s Medical School.

Pinkerton noted the joys of working in CAPS. “I know that I speak for everyone at CAPS when I say how honored we feel to have the opportunity to work with so many wonderful students, staff, and faculty at the University of Hartford,” he said.

The various types of counseling that CAPS provides for the students range from individual counseling to group counseling to couples counseling for students who have relationship issues that need to be sorted out.

CAPS is located in Gengras Student Union room 313. Students can make appointments for free and all counseling is confidential. Psychologists are in the office Mondays through Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

15 of the 16 new full-time faculty members. Courtesy of UNotes.

The Universty of Hartford recently hired 16 new full-time professors who represent different countries, different backgrounds, different fields of study, different interests and different experiences in research and academia. Some of them have been adjunct faculty members at UHa for 28 years and others are working at UHa for the first time.

As for where these professors will be teaching, they are spread out among the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), the Barney School of Business, the College of Education, Nursing, and Health Professions (ENHP), the College of Engineering, Technology and Architecture (CETA), and The Hartt School.  The names of the 16 professors are as follows.

Donald May is a visiting lecturer at the Barney School within the Department of Accounting and Taxation. May was a public accountant for 29 years then taught at Suffolk University, Providence College and Northeastern University. He teaches taxation, auditing, fraud examination, accounting information systems and more.

Kristin Comeforo is an assistant professor at the School of Communications in A&S. With an MBA in global marketing and a PhD in communication, she has worked in advertising, trade marketing and media firms and taught at Berkeley College for 15 years before coming to the University of Hartford.

Yingcui Li is a new Biology professor in A&S. Li has published research in the field of cell and developmental biology in several prestigious academic journals and has received various scholarly awards. Prior to joining the UHa community, Li taught at the School of Dental Medicine at UConn Health Center.

Dawn Neese is a visiting assistant professor in Psychology (A&S). For 13 years Neese worked with adolescents and young adults with eating disorders or health-related issues. She recently spent two years in Landstuhl, Germany working with active-duty military service members and their families.

Cesar Rodriguez is a visiting instructor and Jackie McLean Fellow in the Department of Sociology in A&S. Rodriguez is currently examining the connections between inner-city schools and the incarceration of students of color. With a strong interest in social justice, he will teach about gentrification, mass incarceration and popular culture.

Paola Sacchetti is also a new biology professor in A&S. Sacchetti was born in Italy, earned her bachelor’s degree in biology in Detroit, then completed her postdoctoral training in Europe. She is committed to treating people with neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease.

Adam Silver has also entered the Department of Biology as a strong advocate of undergraduate research. His research, focused on the identification of genes that are required to colonize the leech digestive tract, earned him three fellowship awards from UConn and one from Yale.

Kelly Tahaney Weber has been an adjunct faculty member at UHa since 2003 and is now a full-time professor in Psychology and the new Associate Director of the Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology here at the University of Hartford. Weber is also a co-managing partner and co-owner of Counseling Affiliates, LLC.

Leonard Heroux Jr. is now a full-time professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Nursing (ENHP). He was an adjunct professor at the University of Hartford for almost 30 years while also working at Hartford Hospital. Heroux is particularly interested in “the seamless integration between the digital world and patient care.”

Zahra Ladhani is a new assistant Health Sciences professor. Ladhani used to be a technical advisor for various health institutions in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has extensive experience planning and managing primary health care programs. She is currently writing a book for the World Health Organization on community-based educational strategies.

Dawn Roller joined us as a visiting professor in within the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences in ENHP last May. She received her BS in physical therapy from UHa in 2001 and joined the staff of the Center for Motion Analysis at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in 2004.

Teresa Twomey is a visiting professor also entering the Department of Health Sciences and Nursing. She has served on the board of several nursing institutions, and her specialties are neonatal intensive care nursing and helping children with special health care needs.

Sigridur Osk Bjarnadottir is a visiting assistant professor in CETA within the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Biomedical Engineering. He was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and his research interests are hurricane risk assessment, including the impact of climate change on hurricane frequency and intensity.

Eoin King joined CETA as well as a professor of Mechanical Engineering. King was an acoustic consultant for an Irish civil engineering firm, where he worked with the National Roads Authority and developed the largest and most complex strategic noise maps in Ireland to date.

Karen Cook is new to the Hartt School as an associate professor of Music History. On top of an impressive teaching career, Cook is a practicing singer, conductor and instrumental performer of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and contemporary repertory.

Javon Jackson joined the Hartt School as a jazz professor. He is notable in the jazz world for various reasons, including his tour with legendary jazz drummer Art Blakey and also winning the Benny Golson Award from  Howard University.

Ben Cohn | The Informer

Apparently there is an app for everything – even your own daily schedule.  As the availability of apps Apple’s App Store, skepticism has shrunk and given way for people to embrace the new technology at hand in order to make their daily lives easier.

One of the new apps available both on the App Store and Google Play is one tailored to helping students at the University of Hartford organize their own schedules for class and anything else related to their academic lives.

The new app is known as UH Mobile 2.0, a new and improved sequel to the original UH Mobile app that students were using to monitor their daily class schedules on their electronic devices.

The UH Mobile 2.0 App is accessible on any iPhone, iPod, Android or iPad running iOS.

While UH Mobile was tailored specifically to students, UH Mobile 2.0 includes features that benefit UHa faculty and staff members as well.

The original app showed students their schedule including course title, name of the professor, and location and time of each class. Now, faculty members can see the same information as well as the class roster for each course they are teaching.

Moreover, the original app would log students out in a short span of time, which made it difficult to quickly check a room number since the user had to sign in all over again. Now, with the updated version of the app, users have the option to stay logged in.

Regardless of whether you are a student or a professor, the entire UH Mobile 2.0 App has also been de-cluttered so managing one’s academic schedule, contacts and campus news is much simpler.

The updated version includes a much more efficient and convenient display of important phone numbers, student services, events, news and maps. A building list was added to the map section to make it easier for new students to find their classes or a certain department.

Included under “Campus Links” is information on dining, athletics, and campus media. The Twitter link brings students to the UHartHawkLife Twitter account where they can learn about different events going on around campus.

There is also now a link that brings students directly to a webpage where they can report any problems in their residence directly to facilities.

Regardless of being a professor or a student, UH Mobile 2.0 puts everything at a person’s fingertips.

The protection of students is the main priority of the Self Service Center pin change.
Courtesy of banweb.hartford.edu

Beginning on March 4, a stronger password is required to access your information on the Self Service Center, one of the major sections of the University of Hartford website.

Everyone who has an existing Self Service pin at the University, had changed their password after March 3, as after that date is when the new password requirements kicked in for everyone that uses the Self Service Center.

Most of these changes are specific ones, such as the minimum amount of letters and numbers allowed is eight, whereas the maximum amount of letters and numbers allowed is 15.

The new passwords must also contain at least one letter and one number.

The requirement is not just for students either, as professors who access the Self Service Center to post grading information along with miscellaneous items, such as class locations and contact information, must also change their passwords so they can continue to use the Self Service Center.

According to the University of Hartford’s Information Technology Services, there will also be a new section of Self Service, known as the Employee Self Service Center.

This will be for anyone and everyone working for the University of Hartford whose job requires the employees to access various databases that are contained within the Self Service Center at the University of Hartford.

The Employee Self Service Center will not just enable professors to submit grades easier but time sheets for other staff members will be easier for people such as supervisors to view and correct possible errors.

Employees of the University of Hartford will also be able to review information that is related to their taxes and employment benefits.

The length of the passwords combined with the assortment of letters and numbers required for them will strengthen the security of the Self Service Center and minimize the chances of a breach such as hacking, viruses or identity theft.

Special characters such as symbols normally found on a keyboard are also allowed to be used in a new Self Service Center password, along with any combination of upper and lower case letters to promote case sensitivity, which is something that can be a major help in creating a stronger password to be used online.

Despite these changes, the rest of the Self Service Center on the University of Hartford’s website will still remain the same.

The plans that students at the University of Hartford make for spring break each year are as diverse as the students themselves.

Some students want to hit the beach while other students would rather brave the snow one more time and go skiing.

Other students would rather use their time off to help others in an alternative spring break doing things such as building houses or helping disadvantaged people, especially those that have been through disasters such as Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Katrina.

Some students would rather go home and rest while other students choose to use that week off to get career experience for their resumes that can serve as the springboard to a possible internship during the summer.

Such experience is possible through programs such as Express to Success, a career shadowing program occurring during spring break that is available to students at the University of Hartford.

Express to Success is a relatively new option students can utilize for job experience, as Express to Success has been running each spring break at the University of Hartford for three years now.

Students who are in their sophomore and junior years of study are eligible to participate in Express for Success. This program pairs students with alumni in a student’s career of choice, or simply just gives students a taste of how they can apply what they are studying to a real-world career.

This program allows possibilities for job experience and networking opportunities that can be a viable option for that student when he or she graduates from the University of Hartford.

The collaboration that happens between students and alumni during Express for Success is not the only collaboration that exists within the program.

Express for Success is jointly organized by two people from different administrative sections on campus.

Those two people are Stefania Campbell, the Associate Director of Alumni Relations and Linda Schultz, the Associate Director of Career Services.

According to Campbell and Schultz, Express for Success used to be something that was only organized by Alumni Relations.

It is only recently that Career Services has become involved in Express for Success, helping both students and Alumni Relations pair alumni with students to work with during the week of spring break.

As for the careers that are available to students who are interested in applying for the program, there currently isn’t a set number available.

According to Campbell and Schultz, alumni are still asking to work with students through Express for Success.

Careers held by alumni are diverse, ranging from the fine arts to finance and engineering.

Another upside of the program is that students involved can tailor the career shadowing experience geographically.

According to Campbell and Schultz, if a student decides to work with an alumna in their home state or simply work in the state of Connecticut during the timeframe that Express for Success operates, this can be made possible although students do have to keep in mind that they are responsible for their own transportation and housing.