News and Notes

Faculty and Staff

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Assistant Professor Cian Brown presented this summer at the International Adventure Therapy Conference. IATC is held triennially and provides gatherings for adventure therapy practitioners, academics, researchers, politicians, allied professionals and students within various fields. This year’s conference was the 25th anniversary of IATC, with around 500 participants representing 43 different countries present. Adventure therapy is a therapeutic approach to enhance and maintain mental, physical and social health, which commonly implements natural environments into the practice.

Brown’s two presentations addressed strengths and resiliency. One session was an experiential activity for practitioners to use metaphor in nature. The second was a research presentation sharing the results of an adventure therapy mountain bike program adapted for the school setting to improve middle school students’ resiliency.

Brown published the article “Student experiences of an adventure therapy mountain bike program during the COVID-19 pandemic” in Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning. Click Here to Read Article

Brown published the article “Group Climate and Development in Adventure Therapy: An Exploratory Study” in The Journal for Specialists in Group Work. Click Here to Read Article

Students who participated in an adventure therapy mountain biking reported increases in academic and general focus, physical and mental wellbeing such as courage, motivation and confidence, and a greater sense of connectedness to the environment and others. Check out the program and study info here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ICGTX3GSYHBFW3QY6AF6/full?target=10.1080/14729679.2022.2100430

Brown, Assistant Professor Corey Peltier and graduate student David Lee published “Methodological Guidance for Single-Case Graph Construction in Counseling Outcome Research and Program Evaluation” in Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation. Click Here to Read

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Lecturer R. Nicolle Carr, Ph.D., director of the Applied Behavior Analyst program, was named Board Certified Behavior Analyst Influencer of the Year by the Oklahoma Association of Behavior Analysts.

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Assistant Professor William Davis published the article “‘”It wasn’t going to happen until I made it happen”‘: World language teacher agency for multilingual advocacy.” Click Here to Learn More

Senior Lecturer Bill Frick was selected to receive a Fulbright U.S. Scholar fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for his academic merit and leadership potential. As a Fulbright Public Policy Fellow, Frick will spend four months in Côte d'Ivoire, where he will participate in a range of education sector related activity that touches on collaboration with ministries, workforce development, youth representation and related entities and will focus on institutional development issues and accreditation policy processes for the International University of Grand-Bassam.

Frick co-authored the book Understanding Suffering in Schools: Shining a Light on the Dark Places of Education. Drawing inspiration from Willi Schohaus’s classic text The Dark Places of Education, this book contributes to the discussion by defining suffering in schools and providing a survey of the American school system’s inadequacies in the early twenty-first century. Click Here to Learn More

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Professor Xun Ge received the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Presidential Distinguished Service Award at the AECT annual conference, held in October in Las Vegas.

Ge and her editorial team (Vanessa Dennen, Camille Dickson-Deane, Dirk Ifenthaler, Sahana Murthy and Jennifer C. Richardson) recently published an open access book through Springer titled “Global Perspectives on Educational Innovations for Emergency Situations.” Authors from all over the world representing different regions— African Region, Region of the Americas, European Region, Eastern Mediterranean Region, South-East Asian Region, and Western Pacific Region—contributed to the volume. This book is made available via the link here, and it can be downloaded for free and unlimited access.

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Associate Professor Daniel Hamlin spoke on the Sound of Ideas podcast, discussing the rise in homeschooling. Click Here to Listen

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Assistant Professor Julianna Lopez Kershen co-authored the chapter ““Who Speaks for Teachers? Teachers’ Voice and Teacher Unions in a New Era” in Walkout: Teacher Militancy, Activism, and School Reform.

Kershen also received a Carceral Studies Consortium Micro-Grant for her project titled “Observation or Surveillance? Tensions in Educator Responsibility.”

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Assistant Professor Alison Koenka was recently ranked as one of the top-producing early career scholars in Educational Psychology from 2015 to 2021, according to research recently published in Educational Psychology Review. Click Here to Read Study

Koenka was quoted in the article “Psychologists are working to diversify the undergrad curriculum and make classrooms more inclusive,” speaking about inclusive undergraduate teaching. Click Here to Read the Article

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Professor Jiening Ruan received a $149,994 grant from Institute of Museum and Library Services for her research project titled ““Refugee Services in Public Libraries.”

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Assistant Professor Richard Velasco published “Constant Critical Reflexivity: Engaging in an Archaeology of Self to Promote Racial Literacy in a Math Teacher Education Program” in The Educational Forum. Click Here to Read Article

Students and Alumni

Tom Deighan (Ph.D. 2009), formerly with Duncan Public Schools and author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools, joined the East Central University faculty this fall as assistant professor of education and director of educational leadership. Deighan has public school experience in Duncan, Lawton and Kingwood as superintendent, Geary as principal and Calumet as teacher.

Shelby Dorsey (Ph.D. 2021) was named Ally of the Year (someone who advocates for the field and disseminates information about our science) by Oklahoma Association of Behavior Analysts.

Shari Gateley (M.Ed. 2020) was named head principal at Capitol Hill High School for the 2022-23 school year. “I’ve loved being able to learn and grow from Mr. Jewell and look forward to continuing to serve the CHHS community!”

Sarah Heiniger (Ph.D. Student, Special Education) published “Classroom Reinforcement Systems: Using Token Economies to Foster Independence,” in collaboration with Kimberly Tucker, graduate student University of Colorado; Brittany Hott, Ph.D., associate director ICAST and associate professor special education; and Kathleen Randolph, Ed.D. assistant professor special education University of Colorado. Click Here to Read Article

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Jasmine Justus-McDowell (Ph.D. Student, Special Education) was elected to serve as the student representative for the Oklahoma Association for Behavior Analysts Executive Board. Justus will serve a one-year term.

Justus-McDowell received the Oklahoma Association of Behavior Analysts Graduate Student of the Year Award for her research and service supporting individuals with autism and other developmental delays.

Kevin Russ (B.S. Ed. 2022) is a first-year teacher at Kennedy Elementary in Norman and recently started a mentorship program with the Pride of Oklahoma. A former Pride member, Russ has helped organize visits from band members to classrooms at Kennedy in which the college students assist with schoolwork and activities. Members will also perform for the school during assemblies. Click Here to Read More

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Simran Kaur Sethi (Ph.D. Student, Adult and Higher Education) has been part of the International Student-Athlete Inclusion Think Tank. Led by the NCAA office of inclusion, the event engaged stakeholders representing more than 15 nationalities in discussions on the various difficulties international student-athletes and those who lead them face. Click Here to Read Article

The group created resources for international student-athletes, including Fostering International Student-Athletes’ Inclusion: Action Steps for Athletics Departments and Fostering International Student-Athletes’ Inclusion: Considerations for Athletics Administrators

Courtney Tennell (Ph.D. Student, Special Education) was awarded a 2022 Division on Career Development and Transition Graduate Student Research Scholarship for her proposal "Indigenous Students’ Postsecondary Transition Needs: A Delphi Study."

Tod Williams (B.S. Ed. 1985; M.Ed. 1989) was named superintendent of Anderson Public Schools in August 2022. Williams was previously the superintendent at Okmulgee.