Dean\'s Update – December 2024
12/10/2024, 05:15:01 PM
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Dean's Update: Information for Faculty and Staff: Image of the UHCOE Dean Cathy Horn and Associate Professor Vera Hutchison

Dec. 10, 2024

MESSAGE FROM DEAN HORN

All — This time of year is always one marked by reflection on the year that is coming to a close and the one on the horizon. It reminds me of the beauty, grace, and learning that come from all situations and brings me to gratitude for every opportunity to grow. And, as Seneca says so beautifully, I am called to the truth that “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

I sit in immense appreciation for each of you and the ways over this last year you regularly supported and challenged yourselves, each other, me and our students to be in intentional pursuit of our best as individuals and as a collective. As this year closes, I look forward to the new beginnings in front of us that hold space to deepen and expand our cumulative impact. I am carried into 2025 with an abundance of optimism. The coming year will certainly be full of good and hard challenges; please make sure to find time to rest and restore over the break to be ready for them.

Best,
Cathy

Banner caption: Cheering on students at the fall HATC Teacher Job Fair: advisor Katrin Potvin; certification team members Tina Ho, Sana Thalho and Kohleen Mendoza; and field experience coordinator Katie Dempsey.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

  • Fall 2024 Commencement – Friday, Dec. 13. 7 p.m. Fertitta Center.
    • Grab-and-go meal for volunteers/participants – 3 p.m. Dean’s Suite.
    • Volunteers (except those working the floor) – 5 p.m. Athletics/Alumni Center.
    • Hooding faculty – 5:30 p.m. Athletics/Alumni Center.
  • Winter Break (UH closed) – Monday, Dec. 23 - Wednesday, Jan 1.
  • COE New Year Welcoming Luncheon – Wednesday, Jan. 8. Noon to 1:30 p.m. KIVA.
  • MLK Day (UH closed) – Monday, Jan. 20.
  • Office Recycling Week 3 – Week of Jan. 27
  • “Housewarming” at Science Building – Wednesday, Jan. 29. 9 to 10:30 a.m. Second floor.
  • Spring Social (Bowling) – Tuesday, May 6. 3 to 5 p.m. Student Center South. Please RSVP!
  • Spring 2025 Commencement – Thursday, May 8. 7 p.m. Fertitta Center.

BUILDING TRANSITION

  • Winter Moves to Science Building and Charter School:
    • If you haven’t been contacted, don’t worry — you’re not moving to Science or Charter!
    • Tuesday, Dec. 10 – Packing materials delivered to your office/lab.
    • Friday, Dec. 20 – Finish packing (with labeling done by Jan. 7).
    • Wednesday, Jan. 8 and Thursday, Jan. 9 – Be prepared to work remotely.
    • Friday, Jan. 10 – Work in your new office/lab for IT and set-up check.
  • Office locations – Stay tuned for a list in January of who’s located where.
  • Visit colleagues in Science during the “Housewarming” on Wednesday, Jan. 29!
  • Have questions about furniture, classroom assignments, computer labs and more? Check out the updated FAQ section on the Building Transition page.

OFFICE OF THE DEAN

Advancement

  • The COE student scholarship application will open Monday, Jan. 6 with a deadline of Friday, Feb. 28. Students will receive an email before winter break letting them know. After winter break, faculty will receive slides to share in their classes as a reminder. Thank you to those who provide letters of recommendation please calendar the deadline now!
  • Forever Coogs: Volunteer at the Houston Food Bank with our COE Alumni Association on MLK Day (Jan. 20) from 8 a.m. to noon. Register here and receive your QR code to join!

ACES Institute

  • Anne McClellan, Stephanie Perez-Gill, Teranda Donatto and team hosted BridgeYear’s Career Test Drive for students from three Houston-area middle schools as part of a grant from the Rockwell Fund.
  • Chevron awarded the ACES Institute (Anne McClellan, Stephanie Perez-Gill, Teranda Donatto and team) $50,000 for the Cougar Tutors program.

Associate Dean for Faculty and Staff Belonging and Success

  • Faculty Hiring: Thank you to the search committee members for all their hard work! On-campus interviews for the open positions will begin in January. Please stay tuned for invites to the colloquiums and do your best to attend and welcome the candidates.
  • Staff Professional Development: Interested in a training opportunity? Consider submitting a request to the COE Staff Professional Development Fund.
  • Provost’s Travel Fund: The deadline for tenure/tenure-track faculty to apply for travel between March 1 and May 31, 2025 is Monday, Jan. 27.

Associate Dean for Student Belonging and Success

Staff Updates   

  • Advisor Alex Vela is on leave for the short term, but students in Health continue to have advising support. Until her return, students with last names that start with A-G or Si-Z are advised by Emma Morales. Students with last names H-Sh are advised by Meggan Gittens.  
  • Stop by the Student Advising Center in suite 160 to meet our newest staff members! 
    • Katrin Potvin supports our undergraduate Teaching & Learning students as an academic advisor, bringing her experience and passion for education as a leader and teacher in Houston ISD. She earned a bachelor’s from UH-Downtown and a master’s from us in curriculum and instruction, with an emphasis in learning, design and technology. She has two dogs and enjoys reading books in her free time. 
    • Olivia Stewart is our new graduate advisor, who will primarily support CUIN and PHLS master’s students. She earned a bachelor’s in psychology and is finishing her master’s in human resource development here at UH. Her true passion lies in helping people grow through creativity and compassion. Outside of work, you’ll find Olivia diving into 1,000-piece puzzles, keeping her mind sharp and ready for new challenges. 
    • Katherine Turner is our new director for graduate student success who will also support ELPS master’s students as an advisor. Katherine holds a Ph.D. in historical musicology and a doctoral portfolio in women and gender studies. She’s not a stranger to UH, having previously served as an associate director in the Moores School of Music. When not musicking or traveling, she likes to read, play cards, attempt to bake, and roller skate. She is excited to bring her administrative acumen to help clear paths for faculty and students to support graduate student success!  

Faculty Reminders 

  • New! All faculty must provide “Last Date of Academic Activity” at the end of each semester to comply with new federal regulations. This date is based upon Canvas or CCS activity in a course. Please review the academic activity FAQs. Faculty interested in receiving this automated data in their Canvas grade book can login to Casa Campus Services to complete the request.
  • Remember that fall 2024 grades are due Monday, Dec. 16 at 11:59 p.m. and faculty grade access will be suspended on Tuesday, Dec. 17. 
  • With the closing of the term, please make sure you are following UH policy when you grant a grade of Incomplete. It states: “The temporary grade of I (incomplete) is a conditional and temporary grade assigned when students for non-academic reasons beyond their control have not completed a relatively small part of all requirements for a course.” You can find the College’s Incomplete Grade Agreement form on the MyCOE Intranet

Faculty & Staff Guidance 

  • Asked to provide a recommendation for a student or graduate? Have them complete the FERPA Form for Letters of Recommendation (download via Shared Files / Faculty Information or Staff Information). Email completed forms to coelearn@uh.edu. Save as “FERPA 20XX - Student Name - Faculty Name.” (You do not need this for the COE scholarship process.) 

Business/Finance

  • Staff ePerformance: Self-evaluations are due Friday, Dec. 20. Managers must complete the process by Monday, Feb. 3.

CITE

  • Need to email all full-time faculty and staff in the College of Education? Use this address: mycoe1@UofH.UH.EDU. The COE-ALL distribution list via Outlook is being phased out and will no longer be updated. The MyCOE address will be automatically updated when full-time new hires are onboarded (managers should work with their DBAs to fill out onboarding forms).

COE IN THE NEWS

  • Check out the latest media clips, most recently featuring Xin Li (CUIN), Nathan Grant Smith (PHLS) and Duncan Klussmann (ELPS).

DEPARTMENTS

Editor’s note: External grant awards are listed under Office of Research after they are officially logged in the UH system. For publications, additional authors are not included.

Curriculum & Instruction

Publications

  • Susie Gronseth, Justin Burris and Kelly Davis. “How a University Initiative Created/Implemented a Virtual Reality Classroom Design Activity: A Backward Design Process for Supporting Authentic Learning,” The Journal for Applied Instructional Design.

Presentations/Conferences

  • Anne Katz presented on community literacy engagement at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference in Boston in November.

Community Engagement

  • Sheng Kuan Chung is hosting an AI art workshop for HISD schools funded by a Houston Arts Connect seed grant.
  • Anne Katz’s students created and donated 80 family literacy projects around diverse children’s books to local families in schools during their field experience week.

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies

Publications

  • Yali Zou, Weihua Fan (PHLS), Consuelo Arbona (PHLS) and Allison Master (PHLS). “Psychometric evaluation of the basic needs satisfaction in general scale: A second-order CFA analysis,” Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. 
  • Allison Master (PHLS), Weihua Fan (PHLS) and Virginia Snodgrass Rangel. “Student engagement, school involvement, and transfer student success,” Contemporary Educational Psychology.

Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences

Publications

  • Monica Adams. “Improving value-concordant shared decision making through the use of patient decision aids in breast cancer: a narrative review,” Annals of Breast Surgery. “Helping patients navigate the immediate release of medical records: MedEd, a novel patient engagement technology,” The American Journal of Surgery. “Improving Value-Concordant Shared Decision Making Through the Use of Patient Decision Aids in Breast Cancer: A Narrative Review,” Annals of Breast Surgery. “Longitudinal Trends in Patient-Reported Outcomes in the First Year After Lumpectomy Versus Mastectomy,” Annals of Surgical Oncology.
  • Deon Brown. “Thematic analysis of low-income African American fathers' meta-emotion interview responses,” Journal of Black Psychology.
  • Deon Brown and Julie Dunsmore. “African American college students’ contextual emotion expression,” Affective Science.
  • Virmarie Correa-Fernández. “Engaging specific populations with tobacco-related health disparities in treatment research: A summary of a SRNT Treatment Research Network Preconference Workshop,” Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
  • Julie Dunsmore. “Parental problem drinking, parent emotion socialization and child emotion regulation,” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
  • Tres Hinds. “Structural stigma and inequities in tobacco use among sexual and gender minoritized people: Accounting for context and intersectionality,” Nicotine & Tobacco Research (commentary in a special issue).
  • Elizabeth Jelsma. “Everyday ethnic discrimination and early substance use based on hair samples in high-risk racial/ethnic minority early adolescents,” Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology. “Race, ethnicity, and sleep in US children,” JAMA Network Open.
  • Allison Master, Weihua Fan, Virginia Snodgrass Rangel (ELPS). “Student engagement, school involvement, and transfer student success,” Contemporary Educational Psychology.
  • Norma Olvera. “AI-FEED: Prototyping an AI powered platform for the food charity ecosystem,” International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems.
  • Margit Wiesner. “Criminal trajectories of SNAP (Stop Now And Plan) and non-SNAP children and predictors of trajectory group membership among SNAP children using the Early Assessment Risk Lists (EARLs),” Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology. “Development of the two-factor modified Kids Eating Disorder Survey (M-KEDS): A validation study with Hispanic adolescents,” Nutrition Journal.
  • Yali Zou (ELPS), Weihua Fan, Consuelo Arbona and Allison Master. “Psychometric evaluation of the basic needs satisfaction in general scale: A second-order CFA analysis,” Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. 

Presentations

  • Virmarie Correa-Fernández presented on addressing tobacco-related disparities in the Hispanic population for a University of Puerto Rico Comprehensive Cancer Center seminar series.
  • Allison Master presented on “Ungrading in educational psychology” for a University of Tennessee graduate TA professional development. She also presented on gender stereotypes and STEM motivation for the University of Southern Mississippi.

Community Engagement

  • Norma Olvera and the Hispanic Health Coalition hosted the Get Up! Get Moving! Fitness Festival at Baker Ripley House involving 52 health agencies and 1,200 attendees. Olvera also participated in the Harris County Disaster Preparedness working group on support for the Hispanic community.

OFFICE OF RESEARCH

Announcements

  • Please welcome Ratania Green, who will be handling all pre-award for the College. Ratania joins us with seven years of grant experience from Baylor College of Medicine, including two years dedicated primarily to pre-award work. Her expertise and background are a fantastic addition to our group. Outside of work, she loves traveling and exploring new places and cultures. 
  • Stay tuned for more staff announcements soon!
  • Reporting of awards and submissions will resume in the new year. Thank you for your patience as our team is onboarded.

HAVE A WONDERFUL WINTER BREAK!

Questions about the Dean’s Update? Email coecomm@uh.edu and emellon@uh.edu.

 
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