Had to add a few more Belize pic's

The first is of the entire work crew in Dolores; and the second is of Israel and Milton, two of our favorite kiddos.

Belize service trip

Over spring break last week, Dr. Pete Bicak and I accompanied a group of 10 outstanding RU students to southern Belize for a service trip. While there, we met some kind and fascinating people, including villagers in the Mayan communities of Dolores and Laguna, as well as our wonderful and welcoming hosts in Punta Gorda and Belize City. Our work chiefly involved helping the villagers finish building the Catholic church in Dolores, construction of which began in January of 2010. We also served as volunteers and even substitute teachers in the village's school, where we became very close to many of the Mayan children. We also had the good fortune of meeting Vicente, who took us on a guided jungle walk and a tour of Laguna, where we got to meet Kevin (above - so cute!) and share a meal with him and his family. We even got the chance to visit and learn about the Lubaantun Mayan ruins (pictured). The twelve of us worked incredibly well together and it was such a pleasure to spend a week with these amazing people. The work was difficult, but leaving Belize and leaving one another was even harder. It's been a challenge to reintegrate since we've been back, and I find myself really missing our group and the people we met.

CALHE

This weekend three fantastic students accompanied me to the Conference on Applied Learning in Higher Education at Missouri Western State University, where we gave a presentation about the Hogan/Rockhurst Diversity Institute from last summer. During this institute, these and other RU students mentored urban High School students from Hogan Prep. The HS students spent one week on our campus taking college classes in science, math and philosophy and living like college students. They took what they learned and in turn prepared and implemented an activity with middle school students from Brookside Frontier Math and Science School. We referred to this series of mentorships, from RU faculty to RU students to Hogan Prep students to BFMASS students, as a cascade of service-learning. Our design, implementation and observations were presented by me and two of the students at the conference this weekend. We also had the opportunity to hear lots of other interesting talks, including the keynote speaker, Dr. Joel Shenker, pictured here.

Honors Lecture Series

Last night we had our most recent installment of the Honors Program's Professor-Scholar Lecture Series, starring our very own Dr. Elizabeth Evans (DVM) and her hedgehog, Peaty. We had a record turnout (around 55 students - I'm sure the pizza and pop helped) and everyone learned a lot about welfare in animal research, about the contributions of such studies to science and medicine, and about hedgehogs! Dr. Evans is a fantastic resource for our students who are interested in Veterinary Medicine, animal behavior, lab animal work, and a plethora of other animal-related topics. So please feel free to stop by the Biology Department anytime to see us, our fish, my snakes, and Peaty the hedgehog! (image from treehugger.com)

The New Evolution Class Blogs are up!

My Evolution class has now completed their first blog posts for their grid-computing service-learning projects! To learn more, please check out their links at the bottom of this page.

Spring Semester 2011

The spring semester is now underway and I am definitely back in teaching mode. My students have already impressed me with their questions and their responsiveness to my questions, and yesterday was only the third day of class. My Evolution students are starting to put together their Service-Learning blogs, which will soon be posted at the bottom of this page.
We are also gearing up to host the Regional Science Olympiad Tournament on campus this Saturday, at which time we will have hundreds of local middle and high school students at Rockhurst competing in numerous science- and math-based events. It's always incredible to see how bright these students already are, and I look forward to seeing some of them in my classes in a few years!

Happy 2011!

As we are easing into the new year and the coming new semester, I wanted to wish everyone a happy 2011. I am starting to get anxious and am preparing for my spring classes (Evolution, Anatomy & Physiology I, Biology Field Trip to AUSTRALIA, and undergraduate research). I am also super excited about having seen my little niece (and, of course, the rest of my family in TX) over Christmas, and about the Chiefs' making it to the playoffs! I'm also looking forward to all of the exciting Honors events we have planned for this semester - including our Professor-Scholar Lecture Series (see below) and our hosting the AJCU Honors Conference in April - as well as getting to know the students in my spring classes.
Enjoy this first week of 2011, and, like Dr. Salem's daughter, Allison, be sure to root for the Chiefs on Sunday!!!