Highlanders in the News: Week of April 24

Every other week, our Highlanders are using their education to do extraordinary things. Here, we’ll highlight some notable mentions from local, regional, national and international news media. Whether our students, alumni, faculty and staff are featured as subject matter experts in high-profile stories or simply helping make the world a better place, we’ll feature their stories.

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Radford University President Bret Danilowicz (left) and Sen. Tim Kaine (right) at Radford University Carilion on April 12, 2023.

Making the rounds

Sen. Tim Kaine stopped in at Radford University Carilion (RUC) on April 12 to take part in a healthcare workforce roundtable.

Kaine, who holds a seat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, met with more than a dozen staffers, clinicians, executives, students and academic leaders, including President Bret Danilowicz.

Also present were Dean of the Waldron College of Health and Human Services Kenneth M. Cox; Wendy Downey, interim dean of the School of Nursing; Director of Clinical Education in Respiratory Therapy Kathy Pellant; and career coach Nicole Ramsey.

One topic Kaine addressed during his stop was the state’s low staffing numbers of medical workers, according to coverage of the event by The Roanoke Times.

He also toured nursing and respiratory therapy laboratories that RUC utilizes as it prepares current students to enter the healthcare profession and potentially raise those numbers.

A video clip from the roundtable, also posted by The Roanoke Times, is available to watch here.

Radford University’s coverage of the event, by Mark Lambert, can be found here.

Additionally, Kaine’s Roanoke stop was covered by WFXR-TV

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David S. Anderson

Myth busting

Assistant Professor of Anthropology David S. Anderson spends a lot of time dismantling archaeological misinformation and generally laying waste to cockeyed theories about his field.

Take a look at his extremely active Twitter page, and you’ll find him holding court on historical misconceptions, the oft-mendacious nature of the internet and taking issue with the program “Ancient Aliens.”

“It’s far more common for people to ask me about pseudo-archaeology than regular archeology,” he recently told National Geographic.

That quote came through Anderson’s appearance in an April 20 article about the mythical civilization of Atlantis, including its Platonic origins, its darker links to Nazism and ongoing conspiracy theories about the island’s existence being obscured by the experts.

“The idea that archaeologists would cover something up or not publish something is ridiculous,” he said in the article. “You make a name in archaeology by challenging the status quo.”

Earlier this week, Anderson expanded on his interests and his aims.

“My scholarship on pseudo-archaeology seeks to look at the context of these claims, how they originated, developed, and changed overtime. It’s important to debunk these claims, and I do that along the way,” he explained.

“But it’s very clear at this point that debunking doesn’t really get the job done. As such, I’m more interested in looking at the roots of these ideas to show try and engage with why they have become so persistent.”

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LaRon Scott '02 (photo: University of Virginia)

Social studies

A recent academic study, led by LaRon Scott ’02 and published last January in the Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, discusses the need to bring factors such as race and ethnicity into research about burnout in special education teachers.

The study, authored by Scott – now an associate professor at the University of Virginia – along with colleagues Elizabeth Bettini and Nelson Brunsting, states that special educators represent the top teacher shortage across the country while “at the same time, a growing number of students of color have been identified as having a disability,” according to an April 17 article on the study in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.

Scott’s study outlines his view of the larger implications of those figures, as well as considerations he said, should be taken when evaluating current issues in teaching. 

The report can be read in full through the SAGE Journals website

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Jessica Morrison '08 (photo: Pulaski County Public Schools)

Main menu

When Pulaski County Public Schools students return to classes after summer break, their meals will be planned by a Highlander.

Jessica Morrison ’08 has recently been named that system’s new director of school nutrition, according to a recent article in the Pulaski County Patriot and in the Southwest Times.

Morrison, who earned a degree in French and her teaching certificate from Radford University, takes charge in June.

“I strongly believe, and studies show, that good nutrition greatly supports academic achievement,” Morrison said in a news release.

“That’s what the School Nutrition Program strives to do every day, and I’m excited to join the team.”

The article also includes an extensive overview of Morrison's career across the past decade-and-a-half. 

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Arianne Bauserman ’03 (photo: College of Charleston)

C of C Q&A

Arianne Bauserman ’03 is currently the REACH program support coordinator at College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, the school where she has worked for the past seven years.

She’s also a sophomore cohort and mentor liaison.

Bauserman, a Woodbridge, Virginia, native who holds a degree from Radford in recreational therapy, was profiled April 20 as part of the college’s CofC Faces to Know series.

In the question-and-answer session, she talks about her job and her personal accomplishments, as well as such subjects as her hobbies, first job, bucket list items and her favorite TV show growing up, which, not surprisingly, has a loose connection to education.

You can read the full Q&A here

 

Apr 28, 2023
Neil Harvey
540-831-5150
nmharvey@radford.edu