July 15, 2003

Contact:
Jennifer Meriam, Director
(954) 262-5355
Mike Laderman, Associate Director
(954) 262-5354
Mara Kiffin, Coordinator
(954) 262-5350

NSU Combines Fun, Travel And Education During Summer Months
Faculty & Students Journey to Peru, Costa Rica and Chile

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL-While some Americans may spend the summer months taking laid-back vacations - sightseeing, traveling with the family, or vegging out in front of the TV, Nova Southeastern University students, faculty and staff members are traveling the globe conducting research, designing new curriculums, attending conferences, and making presentations before international audiences.

The Center for Psychological Studies at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) recently sent several faculty members and graduate students to Lima, Peru to make presentations at the Interamerican Congress on Psychology. The faculty members are: associate professor Stephen Campbell, Ph.D., professor David Shapiro, Ph.D., part-time core professor Ross Seligson, Ph.D., and professor Lenore Walker, Ed.D., and the students are: Sharella Baldwin, Rachel Needles, Ramona Palmeiri, Kate Richmond and Shatha Tiya. During the conference, the group made individual presentations as well as team presentations on several topics including Perspectives on Domestic Violence and Psychology; Forensic Psychology in Criminal Cases: Competency, Criminal Responsibility, and Mitigation in Sentencing; Battered Women Syndrome: International and Cross-Cultural Issues in Assessment; Haitian Racial Identity Model; and Forensic Psychology.

International travel for educational purposes is nothing new for NSU students. Joshua Feingold, Ph.D., professor at both Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences and NSU's Oceanographic Center, recently took his class of nine undergraduate and four graduate students to study the habitats of the Galapagos Islands. The three-week trip allowed the students, most of whom were studying marine biology, to get hands-on experience in the place that's been called the "Mecca of biology."

Training educators who teach science in public school systems is the goal of Barry Barker, Ph.D., associate professor at Farquhar. During their summer break, Barker and 40 South Florida and New York City science teachers will travel to the virgin cloud forest region of north central Costa Rica where Barker will implement a pilot training program as part of Wild Spots Foundation's Windows on the World (WOW) Program. The purpose of WOW is to save habitats of endangered species through science, education and technology. During the eight-day trip, the teachers will attend workshops that will present a variety of strategies and curricula about ecology, taxonomy, biogeography, and biodiversity, as well as incorporate live WOW 24/7-web cams to broadcast endangered species from the field to their classrooms during the 2003-2004 school year. During the term, teachers and students will discuss and attempt to solve and create novel solutions to the problem of species depletion.

In addition to the trip to Costa Rica with public school teachers, Barker will also lead a group of NSU students and professional travel photographers to photographically document between six and ten Chilean vineyards. In addition to photographing the vineyards, "Exploration 2004: The Oenology Expedition" will document the land, people, wildlife and natural wonders in and around the vineyard locations.

Domestic travel is on the agenda for other members of NSU's staff. In an effort to keep pace with the growing demands of new services and resources, including advanced technology, two librarians from NSU's Library, Research, and Information Technology Center are participating in special programs this summer. In August, Nora Quinlan, Head of Reference and Access Services, will travel to the campus of Harvard University to attend the Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians presented by the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Professional consultants and faculty members from Harvard and other universities will facilitate this intensive, six-day program. During the same month, Tiffany Griffin Falcão, Distance and Instructional Services Librarian, will attend the ACRL Institute for Information Literacy's Immersion 2003 Program at the University of Rhode Island. The program is designed to provide academic librarians with the intellectual tools and practical techniques to help their institutions build or enhance its instruction program.

Through NSU's innovative program offerings, students have the opportunity for hands-on experiences to compliment textbook and classroom instruction, while NSU's faculty and staff can grow within their chosen fields by attending professional conferences and advanced training programs.

For more information about programs available at Nova Southeastern University's Center for Psychological Studies, call 954-262-5700, or visit the website at http://cps.nova.edu. For more information about the undergraduate programs available at NSU's Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences, visit www.fcas.nova.edu/main.cfm. To learn more about the programs offered at the Library, Research, and Information Technology Center, call 954-262-4600 or visit www.nova.edu/library/main/main.htm.

To learn more about the educational opportunities available at Nova Southeastern University, visit www.nova.edu.