Faculty Accomplishments presented at the February 19, 2019 NPC District Governing Board meeting:
- Ashley Carnright (Nursing Faculty) successfully tested for her national certification as a Registered Nurse, certified in the practice area of obstetrics. As an adjunct faculty member, she teaches classes at the Show Low Campus.
- Autom Christensen (Cosmetology Faculty) collaborated with other faculty and staff, such as Chloe Fagotti, Oona Hatch, Ferryn Sam, Stacy Ashcraft, Misty Hancock, Julie Peck and Aaron Hatch to organize the Cosmetology SkillsUSA competition on Monday, January 28, at the Show Low Campus.
- Dr. Michael Collier (Psychology Faculty) attended a 2-day conference from the American Psychological Association last semester on the topic of teaching psychology courses. It was a mix of presentations, workshops, and research posters all about improving our teaching, which provided useful ideas and perspectives to him. He also recently finished a two-week online course on the Quality Matters rubric, which is the common standard used for assessment and improvement of online courses.
- Magda Gluszek (Art Faculty) had three sculptures featured in an exhibition called Ceramic + that were on display at Mesa Community College’s gallery from November 26 – January 25. Another of her sculptures was selected for the 40th Annual Contemporary Craft Exhibition at the Mesa Center for the Arts, which opened on February 8, and which will be further honored by receiving a juror’s award.
- Dr. Amy Grey (History/Social Sciences Faculty) attended the Arizona Women in Higher Education Conference in Flagstaff last semester. The conference also had the distinction of bestowing on former NPC President Dr. Jeanne Swarthout its Woman of the Year award.
- Dr. Rich Harris (Spanish Faculty) was part of an NPC team that presented at the annual NACEP (National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships) Conference in San Antonio, TX, last October. They shared completion/retention data from the TALON project regarding all NPC classes offered as well as shared a video presentation highlighting the use of the CISCO technology in the TALON Spanish classroom. Renell Heister, Karen Zimmerman, and Dr. Harris made up the presentation team.
- Andrew Hassard (History/Geography Faculty) attended a weekend workshop in January at the University of Arizona on “Globalizing the Community College Curriculum. Some highlights of the workshop included information on how colleges are using virtual reality devices for phones to provide students with a 3D view of global locations. Another was the use of Skype to connect students from different countries as a means to aid learning in foreign language classes. Mr. Hassard also organized the state-wide Arizona Articulation meeting for University and Community College Geography representatives, which was hosted by NPC at the Holbrook Campus last October.
- Terry Hayes (Nurse Assistant Training/Program Coordinator) attends monthly AZBN NAT meetings, and an annual Educators Conference. In the community, she serves on a committee that is responsible for disposing of tattered and worn flags from the Winslow Cemetery. She also sits on the Joseph City High School Grad-Night committee, and last fall she assisted at the NPC booth at the Navajo County Fair.
- Dr. Eric Henderson (Social and Behavioral Sciences Faculty) attended the 117th Annual Meeting of American Anthropological Association. Among the many sessions he attended was one entitled: “Art, Anthropology, and Artistry: New Treatments in Stories of Labor Activism, Migration, Community, and Kinship.” The session was focused on themes in a book recently (2017) published by Cornell University Press: Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman by Matilda Rabinowitz (with commentary and original drawings by Robbin Légère Henderson). Matilda is Dr. Henderson’s grandmother and was a significant figure in the early 20th century labor movement. Robbin, his sister, pulled the manuscript together and added highly regarded illustrations to the text. The book has had an impact on the way in which narrative and art can inform anthropological analysis. The session, given the relevance of the topics (immigration, ethnicity, working class organizing, social movements, etc.) also provided him with a number of ideas that he plans to incorporate into his sociology and American government classes.
- Dr. Thomas Hodgkins (Chemistry Faculty) will be serving as a judge at this year’s Regional Science and Engineering Fair on Saturday, March 2, which will be hosted at the NPC Performing Arts Center.
- Cynthia Hutton (Biology Faculty) as an outcome of attending a “Short Course on Genomics” at the National Human Genome Research Institute of the NIH last summer, she is working with a group from NHGRI to produce a series of lesson plans that could be added to curriculum for Intro to Biology courses for majors and non-majors about the human microbiome. In June, she will be going to Kansas City for 10 days to grade the essay questions on the Advanced Placement Biology Exam. Last year she was “promoted” from Reader to Table Leader. Before the start of the semester, she provided a campus tour for about 100 high school students. She also worked with the students in small groups to give 25-minute workshops on extracting DNA.
- Dr. Allison Landy (Early Childhood Development Department Chair) has been participating on the planning committee (and will be presenting at) the first ever First Things First Navajo-Apache Region Early Childhood Conference to be held at NPC’s Snowflake/Taylor Campus. The event will be free to all participants, and she anticipates approximately 300 attendees. Calls for Proposals are expected to be released in early February. Dr. Landy is also partnering with Michael Gaffney of AzPBS, home of the FTF Early Childhood Scholarship program, to conduct a joint presentation highlighting their collaborative efforts to increase enrollment in early childhood college classes across Navajo Nation. The joint presentation will be made to the Navajo Nation First Things First Regional Partnership Council on February 12.
- Melody Niesen (English Faculty) attended/presented at the annual conference for the National Council of Teachers of English in November 2018. The theme this year was “Raising Student Voices,” and her presentation focuses on discussing collaborative, multi-modal, and cross-disciplinary pedagogical techniques –remixes – in order promote learning that surpasses the limits of the classroom and highlights individual student voices. In addition, she is currently working with a colleague, Dr. Aimee Meyer’s of Texas Women’s University, on a proposal for the 2019 National Association for Multicultural Education’s (NAME) annual conference, “Decolonizing Minds: Forging a New Future through Multicultural Education.” Her component of the proposal discusses using project based learning, in the form of a Genius Hour project in her English 102 courses, to establish students “funds of knowledge” where they get to define literature as opposed to the academy.
- Frank Pinnell and Wesley King (Welding Faculty) helped to organize the SkillsUSA Regional 4 event on Friday, February 1. The SkillsUSA competition included things like carpentry, electrical, masonry, robotics, job interview and job demo, along with photo, welding, welding fabrication, welding sculpture, automotive and fire science. There were a total of 21 schools that were involved from around northern Arizona. A total of 403 students were hosted during these events. Pinnell specifically wanted to thank fellow faculty, staff and others who contributed their time to support the event which included Ken Wilk, Jorge Meza, Kevin Westfall, Randy Hoskins, Jon Wisner, Bill Solomon, Sammy Harris, Cyli Geisler, Pamela Dominguez, Peggy Belknap, Karen Zimmerman, Morgan Black, Rebecca Hunt, Betsyann Wilson, Kurry Klingel, Dr. Amy Grey, Amber Hill, Royce Kincanon, and Andrew Hassard. Pinnell also appreciated the support of local vendors and NPC alumni who returned to serve as judges.
- Dr. Gary Reyes (Psychology Faculty) recently completed two online conferences. One was in General Basics of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; the other was Cognitive Behavioral Therapy associated with Depression.
- Dr. David Smith (Biology Faculty) attended the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists meeting in New Mexico, where he presented ongoing results on muscle reconstructions in the unusual theropod Nothronychus mckinleyi. His other current research projects include an expanded description of the osteology, vertebral pneumaticity, and range of motion. These all have important implications for changes in the theropod skeleton associated with the origin and evolution of birds. Dr. Smith and his colleagues are planning to obtain scanning electron microscope pictures and geochemistry of the Nothronychus teeth in an attempt to clarify diet, as their hypothesis is that a plant-based diet would leave characteristic striations. This Spring Break, he hopes to go to Salt Lake to CT the sacrum and caudal vertebrae, as that is related to lung development.
- Dr. Mike Solomonson (Fine & Performing Arts Department, Chair) wrote the play The Father-Daughter Banquet which will be performed in New York at the Northport One-Act Play Festival on May 4 & 5, 2019. His latest full-length play The Goodbye Levee is a semi-finalist in the 2019 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwriting Conference competition, where it is in a pool of 200 plays from about 1400 that were submitted. This is the third time he has been named a semi-finalist in this competition, having previously been recognized in 2016 and 2018. Another full-length play Invasions and Penetrations was named a semi-finalist in the 2019 ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest.
- Jeff Strong (Math Faculty) portrayed Governor Theodore Roosevelt in the Joseph City/Holbrook/Winslow Community Theater production of Newsies, which was produced last November.
- Peterson Yazzie (Art Faculty) received a commendation from NPC DRA Director Sandy Manor for having the highest DRA student count in his classes. Manor wrote: “I have had a number of students comment on how much they enjoy and learn from Peterson and that continues to show up in the numbers. . . . Peterson represents his areas well and draws students that were he not the outstanding faculty he is, may not be willing to risk trying to express their creative sides and enroll in his classes. Peterson has my deepest gratitude and respect and I wanted you to know the difference he is making for our students.”
- Ruth Zimmerman (Nursing Faculty) renewed her national certification as “Certified Professional in Patient Safety” in December. When she originally tested for, and received, this certification three years ago she was 1 of only 14 individuals in the state to have obtained it.