Faculty Highlights
Samantha McDaniel receives Professional Achievement Award from GSHA
Samantha McDaniel, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences in the Waters College of Health Professions, recently received the Professional Achievement Award by the Georgia Speech-Language-Hearing Association (GSHA).
“Earning the Professional Achievement Award from GSHA means a great deal, especially as a junior faculty member at Georgia Southern University,” stated McDaniel. “I have felt so welcomed and supported as I transitioned into the role of communication sciences and disorders graduate program director and continue my scholarship in acquired neurogenic communication disorders.”
The Professional Achievement Award award recognizes outstanding professional achievements by a speech-language pathologist or audiologist. To be nominated, individuals must have three or more years of experience in the profession and have demonstrated service to at least one of the following: assessment, management and professional contributions in the areas of speech, language and/or hearing disorders; service to local, state or national professional organizations; or innovative program design or therapeutic methods for individuals with speech, language or hearing disorders.
“The ultimate reward is seeing our students succeed in helping individuals with communication disorders from our Savannah community,” McDaniel said. “Knowing that I am making a difference in the students’ lives as well as the lives of those they touch is really motivating. I’m very lucky to have found a profession that I love and I hope the students feel the same for many years to come.”
McDaniel was nominated by her colleague, Tory Candea, SLPD, CCC-SLP, clinical coordinator of Georgia Southern University’s RiteCare Center for Communication Disorders.
WCHP Faculty Awards
Annually, the Waters College of Health Professions recognizes faculty for their contributions to Georgia Southern University, the college and the community. During the College’s convocation on August 7, 2023, seven faculty were recognized for their accomplishments. The following individuals were recognized:
- Gregg Rich, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, was awarded the WCHP Senior Teaching Award
- Bridget Melton, Ed.D., professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, was awarded the WCHP Senior Service Award
- Greg Grosicki, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, was awarded the WCHP Senior Scholarship Award
- Jacquelyn Mesenbrink, associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, was awarded the WCHP Junior Teaching Award
- Jacqueline Charlier, MPH, part-time faculty in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, was awarded the WCHP Part-time Teaching Award
- Christina Gipson, Ph.D., and Jessica Mutchler, Ph.D., associate professors in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, were awarded the Johnson/Bradley Award
School of Nursing Awarded $2.57 Million Grant
Marian Tabi, Ph.D., Tiffany Keshwah, DNP, and Alan Skipper, DNP, faculty in the School of Nursing at Georgia Southern University, are the recipients of the 2023-2027 U.S. Department of Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant valued at $2.57 million. The grant will provide funds to assist in enhancing and sustaining academic partnerships between Georgia Southern’s graduate nursing program and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) partners. This partnership will allow for additional primary care services to be provided to rural and underserved populations in Southeast Georgia by increasing the nurse practitioner provider workforce.
At a time when nearly every county in Georgia is facing a shortage in primary care providers, having the resources to provide health care services to more Georgia patients would ease provider shortages.
“This grant is a big win for the School of Nursing and most importantly, our nurse practitioner students who are often challenged finding clinical sites and preceptors for clinical training,” stated Tabi.
“Additionally, many of our nurse practitioner students face financial challenges when pursuing advanced education to impact provider shortage areas particularly in rural and underserved communities. Through this funding, some of these challenges will be eliminated to allow nurse practitioner students to complete their clinical training, which is a huge part of their academic preparation and certification.”
Tabi, Keshwah and Skipper designed this grant to specifically enhance academic-practice
partnerships with FQHCs in Southeast Georgia to allow for an increase in the number of clinical preceptors available to accommodate the Georgia Southern matriculated family nurse practitioners, adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioners and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner students which will help to prepare them to work in rural and underserved settings.
HSK Faculty Receive Grant for New Equipment
Two Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology faculty, Li Li, Ph.D. and Barry Munkasy, Ph.D., have noted a major challenge in the classroom as students not having easy access to tools that will help them analyze movement patterns and the joint forces accompanying human movement. With the awarding of a Student Technology Fee grant in the amount of $64,415.10, Li and Munkasy are planning to purchase the Ultium Portable Lab from Noraxon. With this purchase, Li and Munkasy are hoping to increase student access to available tools that will provide them with an opportunity to see, visualize and analyze human movements associated with activities of daily living.
The Ultium Portable Lab is a biomechanics lab-in-a-box built on a modular platform that will offer students the flexibility to capture high-fidelity data that will be used for instruction during lab sections of all biomechanics-related courses at Georgia Southern University. The equipment will be housed in the Kinesiology Research Laboratories located on Georgia Southern Statesboro Campus.
HSK Faculty Develop No-Cost HAP Library Guide
In 2021, five Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology faculty members received a $30,000 Affordable Learning Georgia Transformation grant targeting the Human Anatomy and Physiology (HAP) laboratory courses at Georgia Southern University. Team members included Diana Botnaru, M.D., Jody Langdon, Ph.D., Matthew Syno, M.S., Nicholas Siekirk, Ph.D., and Sam Wilson, Ph.D.
HAP labs are two-semester undergraduate courses required for most majors in the Waters College of Health Professions and enroll approximately 2,700 students each academic year.
The project aimed to create low-cost and no-cost course materials for all sections and had four objectives: pedagogical transformation, supplementary/ancillary materials creation, student success and student savings. The team created a no-cost library guide found on the GS library website at https://georgiasouthern.libguides.com/humananatomyoer. The library guide went live in January 2022 and in that year was viewed over 28,000 times making it the most viewed library guide at Georgia Southern.
The success of the guide would not have been possible without the help of Dawn Cannon-Rech, Deborah Walker and students Zack Shollenberger and Samantha Baxter.