Colleges and Schools Update

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

Research Symposium, Department of Exercise Science and Physical Education
One component of the M.A. program in physical education is to complete a required research project. The objectives of the research project are to develop skills in critical thinking, and to prepare graduate students to be scholarly consumers of research findings and capable producers of research data. The Department of Exercise Science and Physical Education held its 17th annual Graduate Research Symposium in November, where several graduate students presented their research, including:

Kevin Carew, Middle School Students' Level of Motivation to Participate within the Sport Education Model

Keith Winick, The Effects of Stage-Based Interventions on Physical Activity and Behavior Change

Debra Leopold, Incorporating Spiritual Health in a Public School Physical Education Program: Can it Improve a Student's Ability to Choose Positive Health Behaviors?

Gary La Sala, Maximal Oxygen Consumption and Peak Power Output of Trained Cyclists

Stephan Kolodiy, A Comparison of Coaching Burnout between Division I and Division III Colleges and Universities

Graduate Research Scholarship Fund
A quality graduate experience does not consist solely of taking required courses. Ideally, graduate students are given the opportunity to perform research with faculty to explore topics in their chosen field. This combination of coursework, practical experience and scholarly research provides for a rich graduate education.

As alumni, you can help our graduate students engage in research opportunities. Those interested in helping to fund graduate student research may contribute to the Carla M. Narrett Graduate Research Award, which provides funding to graduate students conducting research or presenting results at professional conferences.

Graduate students may be awarded up to $300 to explore an independent research project or a specific component of their thesis or dissertation work. The award also assists students with expenses associated with presenting their research at conferences. Donations for this award may be sent to the Montclair State University Foundation.

The Graduate School Hires an Assistant Dean
With the recent promotion of Dr. Kim C. O'Halloran to associate dean of the Graduate School, Carolyn D. Jones, former director of the Career Development Center, was appointed assistant dean following a national search.

Carolyn D. Jones

Jones has more than 20 years of diverse experience in higher education, including six years at MSU. She also worked at the SUNY Maritime College and Monroe Community College in Rochester, N.Y. She earned a B.S. in education and an M.Ed. in educational psychology from the University of Rochester. Jones looks forward to working with graduate applicants and students seeking to earn a graduate degree to change careers or advance in their current field.

Master's Program Offers New Opportunities in Graduate Education
The College of Education and Human Services and The Graduate School announced a new graduate program, the Master of Education in Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Education. Graduates from this program will be prepared to take on leadership roles in early childhood and elementary curriculum development and policy initiatives. Practitioners will select from concentrations including curriculum development, teaching in inclusive classrooms and philosophy for children.

For more information please go to www.montclair.edu/graduate.

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN SERVICES (CEHS)

IAPC Launches Certification Program
The Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) has launched a Philosophy for Children Practitioner Certification program. Applicants for certification are required to complete 25 hours of workshops, seminars or coursework in Philosophy for Children, 25 hours of supervised practice facilitating philosophy sessions with children and a self-study of their practice. They also must pass an evaluation of their practice by an  IAPC faculty member. Applicants for certification have the option to earn credits for both the theoretical and the practical certification requirements, as part of the graduate certificate in Philosophy for Children (P4C) and/or the master of education, concentration in Philosophy for Children degree. During the past academic year the IAPC provided 75 teachers with more than 1,000 professional development hours in Philosophy for Children; but as IAPC Director Maughn Gregory explained, "Practitioner certification means more than completing a course or a workshop in P4C. It means the practitioners have learned how to engage their students--and themselves--in genuine philosophical inquiry. For the first time, the Institute will evaluate and certify the quality of a person's philosophical practice." The Philosophy for Children Practitioner Certification program was designed for graduate students and schoolteachers participating in the Institute's Philosophy in Schools program. The IAPC conducts philosophy programs in 11 schools. For more information, go to www.montclair.edu/iapc.

Master of Education in Early Childhood and Elementary Education graduate student Stephanie Burdick works with Bradford School kindergarten philosophers.

Project COPE Responds to Social Problems Plaguing Paterson
Project COPE (Communities Organizing for Prevention and Empowerment), is a five-year $1.1 million federal grant funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). A collaborative effort between the Department of Family and Child Studies, CEHS and numerous community-based organizations, this initiative is increasing the capacity of local social service agencies by providing effective substance abuse and HIV prevention programming in Paterson.

"Project COPE complements the teaching, research and service mission of MSU," said Dr. Robert J. Reid of the Department of Family and Child Studies. "Through an undergraduate field experiences course, our family service majors have gained invaluable hands-on learning experience by becoming involved in a variety of project-related tasks, which have included aspects of program development and community networking."

Paterson is the third largest city in New Jersey and has among the highest rates in the state for both substance abuse and HIV/AIDS infection among African-American and Hispanic/Latino residents. Prevention programs, however, are scarce.  Project COPE seeks to develop and coordinate comprehensive community-based substance abuse and HIV prevention services targeting underserved and at-risk racial and ethnic minority youth.

"While our focus is to develop and coordinate comprehensive substance abuse and HIV prevention services," said Reid. "We also have identified a need to expand the scope of our intervention activities to include family-based adolescent substance abuse treatment."

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (CHSS)

Woodrow Wilson Foundation Funds Teachers as Scholars Grant
CHSS and the College of Education and Human Services (CEHS) are collaborating on a new Teachers as Scholars program, funded by a $15,000 grant from the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation. The Teachers as Scholars program furthers efforts at school-university collaboration by providing public school educators with intellectually stimulating seminars offered by university faculty in the arts and sciences. The free seminars are open to all teachers in the 22 area school districts that are members of the Montclair State Network for Educational Renewal.

Deans Ada Beth Cutler (CEHS) and Mary Papazian (CHSS) agree that Teachers as Scholars provides Montclair State University with an opportunity to bolster its already strong ties to the public schools in northern New Jersey.

"This program will create a synergy among the arts,  humanities, sciences, social sciences, education faculty and the public schools--which is exactly what our institutions of higher education should be doing," said Papazian.

Barbara M'Gonigle, director of the MSUNER, and Dorothy Rogers, associate dean of CHSS, will coordinate the Teachers as Scholars program. M'Gonigle brings expertise in working with the Network's partner schools, as well as with the teachers who will participate. The program will begin this spring with seminars by Dr. Julian Keenan of the Psychology Department and Eric Diamond of the Theatre and Dance Department, and continue with four more seminars in 2006-07 by faculty from both the College of Science and Mathematics and CHSS. These seminars will be intellectually engaging for teachers and rewarding for University faculty eager to share their knowledge with their peers in the public schools.

CHSS Offers Bachelor's Degree in Jurisprudence
The Department of Legal Studies now offers a bachelor's degree in jurisprudence, the first of its kind in New Jersey. The major is an interdisciplinary program that will bring together the study of law, theories of justice, humanistic studies and social inquiry.

Because it's based in the liberal arts, the jurisprudence program is relevant to students interested in a number of career or graduate study opportunities. It is designed, however, with the future law student in mind. Therefore, it is a rigorous major, requiring that students develop the skills that law schools desire in their applicants: the ability to write well, to read critically with an understanding of the subtleties of language, and to think analytically and creatively. Students will be required to take courses such as Legal Reasoning, Legal Research, and Philosophical Issues in Law and Justice, where they will become well-versed in legal concepts, legal entities, and legal processes and protocols that they will encounter as lawyers, policy makers or public administrators.

As one of a handful of similar programs across the country, the jurisprudence major stands to generate national recognition and will provide Montclair State with the opportunity to participate on a national and international scene of considerable intellectual merit and energy. The Legal Studies Department will work on campus with the Honors Program and Equal Opportunity Program to attract a new pool of eager and energetic young scholars to the program from across the state and throughout the region. The Department also will work regionally, nationally and internationally to expand and enhance the study of law and legal theory with colleagues in jurisprudence degree programs across the country. Faculty teaching in the program will include Dr. Norma Connolly, Dr. Jack Baldwin-LeClair, Dr. Barbara Nagle and Dr. Marilyn Tayler.

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS (SBUS)

Dean Alan Oppenheim and Dr. Chinappa Jayachandran of the Department of International Business traveled to Bangkok, Thailand in January. They were hosted by the Asian Institute of Technology and presided over a meeting of international coordinators planning SBUS's 10th annual conference on Economics and Global Business.

"We're making plans for an event to be held in Budapest, Hungary in March, which will feature creativity and the arts in international business," said Jayachandran. Joining SBUS in this undertaking will be MSU's School of the Arts.

Oppenheim and Jayachandran continued on to China where they met Dr. Marina Cunningham, executive director of Global Education, and Dr. Ruben Xing of the Department of Management and Information Systems. The group met with officials from several Chinese universities who have expressed interest in having Montclair State deliver its M.B.A. program in China.

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS (SART)

The regional Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival held at SUNY New Paltz was the setting for unprecedented success for students from the Department of Theatre and Dance. Sophomore Stephani Aguilar, junior David Murgittroyd and senior Jon Hoche took all four acting awards. There were 213 students nominated from New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Student actors (from left) Ben Clawson, Dave Murgittroyd, Jenna Pasqua, Stephani Aguilar, Steve Medvidick and Jon Hoche brought home all four acting awards from the regional Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in January.

Aguilar and Murgittroyd received the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship, while Hoche won the TVI Actors Studio Award. Aguilar also earned the Regional Classical Acting Award of Excellence. Sophomore Stephen Medvidick and Jenna Pasqua, a junior, were the scene partners for Aguilar
and Murgittroyd.

Ben Clawson made it a clean sweep 
by winning the regional One-Act Play Reading competition.

"These awards confirm what our department faculty, staff and students have known for some time," said Suzanne Trauth of the Theatre and Dance Department and coach. "That the theater program has continued over the years to raise its standards and is now receiving deserved recognition for the excellence of its program."

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS (CSAM)

Nobel Laureate to Present Spring Sokol Science Lecture
Nobel laureate Dr. Roald Hoffmann will present "Chemistry's Essential Tension: The Same and Not The Same" as part of the Margaret and Herman Sokol Science Lecture Series on Thursday, April 6, at 8 p.m. in the Alexander Kasser Theater.

Hoffmann, a faculty member at Cornell University, where he is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Kenichi Fukui) in 1981.

Tickets are free to students, faculty and staff, and $10 for others. Call the Box Office at 973-655-5112.

New BS/MS Aquatic and Coastal Sciences Program
In October, the New Jersey Presidents' Council approved a new program in Aquatic and Coastal Sciences at Montclair State. This combined five-year bachelor's and master's degree is an interdisciplinary program of study that incorporates the departments of Biology and Molecular Biology, and Earth and Environmental Studies. The research requirement at both the undergraduate and master's level also addresses the strategic goal of providing a rigorous training of active research.

This program, which begins in the fall, will work collaboratively with the Passaic River Institute, the School of Conservation and the doctoral program in Environmental Management to provide students with opportunities to develop their research and educational skills. The program's main objectives are to provide a well-defined, comprehensive knowledge of the disciplines associated with the aquatic sciences; provide training for professional employment or as preparation for the pursuit of the doctoral degree; and provide students with research experience.

For more information, contact Dr. Paul Ax Bologna at 973-655-4112 or at bolognap@mail.montclair.edu.

Focus on Graduate-Level Research: Jennifer Reynard, Doctoral Candidate in Environmental Management Jennifer Reynard's research, under the guidance of Dr. Gregory Pope of Earth and Environmental Studies, is a combination of soil science and mineralogy, mixed with a touch of chemistry and ecology, with a splash of geography. Her research seeks to analyze the structural changes of soil clay minerals as a result of forest fires. It also analyzes certain chemical properties of the soil affected by fire, and how these changes may affect the entire forest ecosystem. Reynard's field location for study is in the N.J. Pine Barrens, an area actually dependent on frequent fires for growth of certain flora species such as the pitch pine. Because this area burns frequently, it is an ideal location to conduct her research. This spring she will focus on another type of ecosystem in the Kittatinny Mountain region of northern New Jersey to compare two very different ecosystems and examine similarities in the changes to the soil due to fire.