9i果冻制作厂

Faculty Pairings Amplify The Power Of Collaboration

What happens when you make a smart pairing? At Otterbein, faculty collaborations are the norm but the outcomes these partnerships produce are anything but. From Integrative Studies collaborations, which bring seemingly disparate subjects together into one class, to research projects with multidisciplinary applications 鈥� faculty partnerships are inspiring knowledge, discovery, social change, and exciting studentlearning experiences. Art secrets unlocked. Global wellness initiatives. Injury prevention for senior citizens. Happiness and the good life. These collaborations highlight the expertise, passion, and purpose that double when 9i果冻制作厂professors join forces.

For Department of Art and Art History instructor Janice Glowski and Professor and Chair of Chemistry Joan Esson, collaboration is a passion. In their Integrative Studies classes together, and in Otterbein鈥檚 museums and galleries, they teach that 鈥渁n art project is a chemistry experiment in disguise.鈥�

Glowski, as Otterbein鈥檚 director of museums and galleries and art historian, brings her degrees in Asian art history, comparative religious studies, and chemistry to the collaboration while Esson鈥檚 research and teaching focus includes technical art analysis and applications in environmental and clinical chemistry.

鈥淪oon after I arrived on campus in 2014, I approached the Chemistry Department and talked about collaboration,鈥� Glowski said. 鈥淛oan was the quickest to respond and we began a project looking at African masks in the 9i果冻制作厂collection. My students recorded from where the masks originated, who used them, and the context in which they were used. Joan鈥檚 chemistry students took samples and used light fluorescence to discover what substances were found on the masks.鈥�

The early collaboration previewed what the two departments could achieve together.

One such collaboration currently can be found in Otterbein鈥檚 Frank Museum, where art and chemistry students are working together on the C.Y. Woo Chinese painting art collection. A $98,000 Henry Luce Foundation grant procured by Glowski helps orchestrate student collaboration.

Glowski has earned National Endowment for the Arts and Ohio Arts Council grants in support of her efforts. She has managed projects supported by the Mellon and Kress foundations and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has curated more than 20 exhibitions.

Esson actively involves undergraduate students in her work, is the co-principal investigator on the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Cardinal Scholars Program and is the co-lead on the Choose Ohio First Cardinal STEMM Scholars Program. She also enjoys her faculty-led study abroad course to Italy to study preservation and restoration of art.

鈥淚n Milan we visit Castello Sforzesco built in the 15th century, where Napoleon鈥檚 troops later plastered over art by Da Vinci,鈥� Esson said. 鈥淲e observe the restoration work, then go see The Last Supper in town. It鈥檚 amazing.鈥�

Another collaborative partnership involves extending Otterbein鈥檚 community to rural Ugandan communities. Since 2016, professors Diane Ross in Education and Heidi Ballard in Sociology, Criminology, and Social Justice have collaborated in communities and remote rural Ugandan schools to implement Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) and Sexual Reproductive Health Education (SRHE).

Assistant Professor of Engineering Elena Caruthers and Assistant Professor of Health and Sport Sciences Ashley Simons are using Otterbein鈥檚 Biomechanics Institute, created by the two departments, to study human movement. The lab is equipped with motion capture cameras and specialized software that allows Caruthers and Simons to record and analyze how people move.

Their latest work uses the lab鈥檚 camera system to focus on factors related to senior citizens鈥� risk of falls. Students are identifying best practices in senior citizens鈥� activities of daily living, including gait, rising from a chair, and stair climbing.

鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping to gather data to discover how people鈥檚 confidence levels affect their normal activities of daily living,鈥� Caruthers said. 鈥淲e have engineering and health science students working on the study, and we鈥檙e collaborating with the Lifelong Learning Community for study participants.鈥�

Caruthers has had a passion for biomechanics ever since she was a dancer growing up but needed expertise on the clinical side. Simons is a doctorate-level physical therapist but realized she needed the biomechanical side. The collaboration was a natural fit.

The lab鈥檚 10-camera Vicon Nexus system gives Caruthers and Simons the ability to study movement in three dimensions with great accuracy and precision. Once reflective markers are placed on various anatomical landmarks of the subject, the cameras track and recreate the subject鈥檚 three-dimensional movement. This data can then be further analyzed on a biomechanical level by examining variables like joint angles, velocities, and accelerations throughout the entire motion.

In other applications, 9i果冻制作厂athletes use the lab to study, for example, their baseball pitching motions, and pinpoint specific biomechanical patterns that could be worked on to improve their delivery. But Caruthers and Simons are taking the technology to a different generation.

鈥淏y allowing us to evaluate body movement in senior citizens 鈥� to see how their joints are moving, how they use space, their velocity of movement,鈥� Simons said, 鈥渨e can correlate what we see in the physical world with the biomechanical measures in the data and perhaps help improve their movement during daily living activities to reduce the risk of falls.鈥�

Caruthers and Simons hope to present their findings at conferences and in research journals.

Students are identifying best practices in senior citizens鈥� activities of daily living, including gait, rising from a chair, and stair climbing.

English Professor Jeremy Smith realized a few years ago his teaching and research interest in comparative literature would pair well with Associate Professor of History Richard Yntema鈥檚 focus on European economic and social histor y. Smith approached Yntema to teach an Integrative Studies course together, and that’s how INST 2204: Happiness and the Good Life was born.

In their course, Smith and Yntema lead students to discover how Western societies have defined 鈥渢he good life鈥� and the critical social challenges each society faced. They examine beliefs, culture, and conflicts over four eras: classical Athens, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, and post-World War II Europe.

鈥淲e have a lot of common interests,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淚 always thought it would be a true integrative course to teach the great works of Western literature in tandem with Western civilization concepts. That鈥檚 what we do.鈥�

Smith and Yntema use the texts of classic literature and history to examine ancient concepts and compare them to contemporary topics. The class integrates the study of social, political, and economic history with the close reading of works by Sophocles, Dante, Mars, and Camus.

鈥淩aising questions with students about concepts such as virtue and justice provides them with more of an openness to the past by looking at it in a multidimensional way,鈥� Yntema said. 鈥淓xamining the past and relating it to the present highlights juxtapositions and inequalities students may not have realized before or allows them to see current issues in new ways.鈥�

Smith has pursued his research interests in religion, philosophy, and literature throughout his career. He is the author of The Staircase of a Patron, a book chronicling the United Brethren in Christ鈥檚 presence in Sierra Leone, with a special focus on the missionary work of 9i果冻制作厂graduate Lloyd Mignerey 鈥�1917.

Yntema鈥檚 research focuses on European economic and social history. He explores the development of capitalism in Holland before 1800 in a global framework. In 2010, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Utrecht. In his courses he explores the Renaissance and Reformation, revolutions in early modern Europe, and global capitalism, among other eras.

The collaboration contributes a humanistic capstone to Otterbein鈥檚 Integrative Studies program and is a prime example of how Otterbein鈥檚 faculty community maintains Otterbein鈥檚 commitment to the contemporary significance of a liberal arts education.