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Faculty Profiles of Research, Creativity and

Student Engagement

2014-15

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“My love for MSU has increased over the years as I have met professors who continue to enhance my passion for my major and for the arts as well. As a member of the honorary dance fraternity Delta Chi Xi, advisor and dance professor Natasha Davis has continued to inspire me to become the best dancer that I can be and has provided me with numerous performance and experience opportunities.”

Natasha DiehlRockford, ILSenior, Veterinary Sciences

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Morehead State University is recognized among the top public regional universities in the South. A critical component of our success is the outstanding scholarship and commitment to student engagement of our dedicated and talented faculty.

By creating and disseminating scholarship that includes research and artistic endeavors, Morehead State University faculty contribute to discoveries that enrich our lives. Faculty scholarship also infuses the Morehead State University community with intellectual vitality in and out of the classroom, on and off campus.

Student engagement is a Morehead State University core value and faculty enhance the learning experience by including students in cutting-edge research and creative projects. These enriching opportunities are among the many ways our faculty prepare students academically and professionally.

In the pages that follow, Morehead State University is pleased to showcase some of the notable accomplishments of four distinguished faculty. The work of Janet Ratliff, Greg Detweiler, Ben Malphrus and Elizabeth McLaren demonstrates how faculty effectively meld together scholarship and teaching in ways that satisfy their own professional aspirations and engage students in meaningful learning experiences. Also included is a description of Morehead State University’s focus on student engagement through undergraduate research, such as the Annual Celebration of Student Scholarship and the Annual Posters session at the Capitol in Frankfort.

I offer my congratulations to all the faculty and students whose accomplishments are celebrated in this inaugural Faculty Profiles of Research, Creativity and Student Engagement publication.

Dr. Steven Ralston, Provost and Vice President for Acadmic Affairs

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Dr. Greg Detweiler is a professor of music, director of choral activities, and conductor for the Chamber Singers and Concert Choir. He has led choirs that have performed in Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Costa Rica and Canada, and appeared at regional and state conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and the Music Educators National Conference. He has presented workshops in choral technique across the U.S. and Canada as an in-demand clinician, guest conductor and adjudicator.

The MSU Concert Choirs, under his direction, presented 12 performances during a tour of Ireland and returned home as the international champions of the 2014 Mayo International Choral Festival. Their performances included

full and joint concerts, a Catholic mass and mini-concert, an impromptu performance at Ireland’s largest medieval parish church and competition performances.

Detweiler holds a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music in Choral Music and Conducting from the University of Illinois, and a Bachelor of Science in Instrumental and Vocal Music Education, Magna Cum Laude, from Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. In addition, he has studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics at the Manhattan School of Music and has studied choral conducting and technique with Robert Shaw, Helmuth Rilling, Joseph Flummerfelt, Dale Warland, Elmer Thomas, John Leman and Harold Decker.

DR. GREG DETWEILERProfessor of Music

“My long-term goal is to have

singers leave MSU with the

knowledge, the skill set and the

passion for a lifetime of music

making and music teaching.”

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Dr. Janet Ratliff, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship, has a record of outstanding work in support of entrepreneurship and the Bachelor of Business Administration - Entrepreneurship program. She has served several years as faculty advisor for MSU ENACTUS (formerly SIFE). ENACTUS is an international organization that holds entrepreneurship competitions each year for the 16,000 universities and 66,000 students that are members of this organization. Through Ratliff’s leadership, the ENACTUS team has been named Midwest Region Champion five times (2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013), Midwest Region Runner-Up twice (2005, 2010), and a National Semi-Finalist in 2011. Ratliff was named ENACTUS National Advisor of the Year and a Sam Walton Fellow in 2014 in recognition of her leadership.

She also has been involved in entrepreneurship education efforts in the MSU service region. In 2014, she developed an entrepreneurship curriculum (aligned with Kentucky Core Standards) and organized an entrepreneurship competition. There were 325 middle school students from four Eastern Kentucky counties (Pike, Floyd, Letcher, Bell) that participated.

The competition was held in Pike County and MSU students served as judges.

Ratliff also has served as co-advisor of student teams that participate in annual entrepreneurship competitions at the state level. In 2014, MSU teams garnered 2nd place in the Undergraduate Business Concept Competition, 3rd place in the Graduate Business Competition, and were awarded the Governor’s Innovation Award at the IDEA State U competition, an event sponsored by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development where undergraduate and graduate teams from Kentucky universities compete for cash awards (seed money for businesses). They also compete in the annual Alltech Entrepreneurship Competition, where MSU’s team was awarded 2nd place in 2014.

Since 2012, Ratliff has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and peer-reviewed proceedings articles, as well as a case study. She also has an extensive record of service grants in the area of entrepreneurship and economic education.

DR. JANET RATLIFFAssistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship

“I have the opportunity in some small way to lay the foundations for not only businesses of the day but for entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”

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Dr. Benjamin Malphrus is an astronomer, scholar, innovator and educator who came to MSU in 1990 by way of the University of South Carolina, West Virginia University and the Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Malphrus is the director of the MSU Space Science Center and the chair of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences.

Under Malphrus’ leadership, the Space Science program continues to solidify its reputation. MSU’s Space Science Center was recently ranked among the 35 Best College Observatories in the Unites States by CollegeRank.net.

MSU also continues to build on the success of NASA partnerships with commercial industry. The University’s was selected as one of the 12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) to advance concept studies and technology development projects in the areas of habitation, advanced propulsion and small satellites. The NASA contract, valued at $7.9 million, is one of the largest in MSU history.

He was a leader in promoting, designing and capitalizing the Space Science Center, a $15.6 million, state-of-the-art research and education building that opened in 2009. The Ronald G. Eaglin Space Science Center, located in Smith-Booth Hall, is one of the best facilities of any university for small satellite development, construction, testing and communications. Faculty and students have used these facilities to either build or participate in the building of five satellites in as many years.

Malphrus also travels all over the world to develop partnerships with industry and other institutions in support of MSU’s program and to deliver keynote addresses at conferences, describing the new space technologies that MSU is developing and hosting training workshops on building ultra-small satellites for aerospace scientists and engineers in the Silicon Valley and Florida Space Coast.

DR. BENJAMIN MALPHRUSProfessor and Chair, Department of Earth & Space Sciences

“Much of the success we have achieved in our research efforts in astrophysics and space systems development is owed to the students. We have had a great number of outstanding undergraduate and graduate students over the years that have intimately participated in our research.”

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Dr. Elizabeth McLaren, associate professor of education, has distinguished herself by providing leadership to the Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Education (IECE) program. She is essentially responsible for the redesign of the undergraduate program, the design of the nonteaching child development option and the design of the Master of Arts in Teaching in IECE. Her commitment to a quality program at MSU is complemented by the extensive work she does with early childhood educators in the region and throughout the Kentucky.

The hallmark of her activities has been the recent awarding of the $1.2 million Preparing Early Educators in Appalachian Kentucky (PEEAK) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Working with her collaborator, Dr. Julie Rutland, assistant professor of education at MSU, she obtained this highly competitive national award with a specific focus on providing financial support to recruit more highly qualified personnel into early childhood education in this region.

She has played a leadership role in the statewide early childhood education organization. She has developed extensive collaborative working relationships with the early childhood providers throughout our service region and is consistently called upon by the Kentucky Department of Education to provide professional development for early childhood educators. One outcome of her collaborative effort was a conference on autism for early childhood educators, which McLaren organized in the fall of 2014.

McLaren’s efforts extend well beyond the boundaries of Kentucky and she has organized and continues to organize international service opportunities for students. In all of her work, McLaren exemplifies the highest standards of professionalism and commitment to quality. She continually advocates to improve the pre-service program in early childhood education within the University while simultaneously seeking to have a positive impact on day-to-day practice in the field.

“So many of the teachers in Eastern

Kentucky graduate from Morehead State.

We really do have a great responsibility

to prepare quality educators because

they return to their communities and

teach our students.”

DR. ELIZABETH MCLARENAssociate Professor of Education

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There’s a reason why students from MSU graduate feeling like they have the knowledge and skills they need to make an immediate impact in their field. One of them is student research, which has always been a key component in various areas of study at MSU. Another extremely innovative administrative approach that has made it possible to significantly enrich research opportunities for a growing number of students and faculty is the Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program.

The program is open to full-time undergraduate students and MSU faculty members who want to serve as research mentors. Undergraduate Research Fellows may work up to 15 hours per week during the academic year. They are paid hourly with their fellowships being renewable for four years with evidence of satisfactory progress.

In a recent survey, our Undergraduate Research Fellows and our faculty mentors both noted the program’s strengths are how it succeeds in improving and updating knowledge of the student’s individual discipline, enhances life-long learning skills, provides a “heads-up” for those interested in graduate school,

and increases self-confidence and academic recognition. Faculty mentors also indicated the program enhances faculty-student social and academic interactions, creates an atmosphere of “student as colleague,” and demonstrates University support for academic scholarship to internal and external stakeholders.

This support mechanism complements other ongoing successful University programs, such as the opportunity for students to present their work at our annual Celebration of Student Scholarship, which is where we share the outstanding scholarly work of our students with the region and the greater campus community. Since the inaugural event in Spring 2006, the celebration has grown into a daylong event of presentations, exhibitions and performances by students from all MSU colleges. In 2015, the 10th Annual Celebration of Student Scholarship featured 204 student presentations that spotlighted the outstanding efforts of 313 undergraduate and graduate student scholars and their 115 faculty mentors, representing a greater than 100 percent increase in both presentations and student/faculty participation since the first Celebration in 2006.

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH & CREATIVE ACTIVITY

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“Doing research through the Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program ultimately gave me a leg up in classes because I gained some knowledge and I learned topics before taking them in a traditional classroom setting.

I also like the labs at Morehead State that go along with classes because you get to do a lot of hands-on research you can’t do at other schools.”

Travis Witkowski (15)La Grange, KYBiomedical Sciences

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Baruth, L., Oyen, D., Hsieh, C. (2015). Cumulus Accumulation [CD/MP3]. Trifecta.

Bodenlos, E.,* & Lennex, L. (2013). 3D Science and Social Studies in Grades 5-6: Virtualization Expanding Instruction, In Dr. Kimberely Nettleton & Dr. Lesia Lennex (Ed.), Cases of 3D Technology Application and Integration in Education. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Cave, L. (2014). A social-cognitive prediction of the perceived threat of terrorism and behavioral responses to terrorist activities. In D. Schmorrow and C. Fidopiastis (Eds.), Foundations of augmented cognition: Advancing human performance and decision-making through adaptive systems. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

Chen, S., Henderson, K., Smith, C., & Mason, N. (2014). Is dynamic pricing viable for small market collegiate athletics? Journal of Applied Marketing Theory.

DelliCarpini, M. & Alonso, O.B. (2015). Teaching everything to no one and nothing to everyone: Addressing the Content in Content Based Instruction. In Thomas S.C. Farrell (Ed.) International perspectives on English language teacher education. London. Palgrave MacMillan.

Green, S. (2015). First Place Award in the national juried exhibition Containment: Lidded Forms.

Hare, J., and Witkowski, T.* (2014). Prophage induction and differential RecA and UmuDAb transcriptome regulation in the DNA damage responses of acinetobacter baumannii and acinotobacter baylyi. PloS One.

Henderson, K., & Lyons, B. (2014). The Influence of eWOM. Journal of Marketing Perspectives.

Hunt, C., & Choi, H. (2015). Critique of the empirical literature on enterprise systems—over a half-decade of research. Academy of Information and Management Sciences Journal.

Hypes, J., Hypes, M., & Schneider, D. (2014). Natural vs. synthetic turf: Pros and cons. Journal on Facility Planning and Design.

Kunz, M., & Ratliff, J. (2014). The state of online sustainability reporting information of fortune 500 corporations. International Journal of Business Research and Information Technology.

SELECTED FACULTY RESEARCH & CREATIVE PRODUCTIONS

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Li, D. (2014). Out of Darkness, Into the Light [Watercolor Painting]. Mario Cooper & Dale Medal Award Winner at the 2014 American Watercolor Society 1467th Annual International Exhibition.

Mays, L. (2014). Gestational diabetes and postpartum metabolic syndrome. International Journal of Childbirth Education.

Mesa-Gaido, E. (2014). Then and Now. First Place Award in Contemporary South, Juried Regional South Art Exhibit. Raleigh, NC. Visual Art Exchange.

Nelson, J., Smith, L., & Hunt, C. (2014). The migration toward ethical decision making as a core course into the B-School--Instructional strategies and approaches for consideration. Journal of Education for Business.

Parton, B. (2015). Leveraging Augmented Reality Apps to create Enhanced Learning Environments for Deaf Students. International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning.

Pannuti, T.G. and Napier, J.*, Kargaltsev, O. & Brehm, D. (2014). XMM---Newton and Chandra observations of the ejecta--dominated mixed--morphology galactic supernova remnant G352.7-0.1. Astrophysical Journal.

* indicates an MSU student

www.moreheadstate.eduMSU is an affirmative action, equal opportunity, educational institution.

Morehead State University delivers strong and affordable education for friendly, ambitious students who thrive in a student-focused learning environment defined by small class sizes and faculty committed to teaching and student success. Morehead State was recognized for the 11th consecutive year as one of the top public universities in the South in the 2015 edition of “America’s Best Colleges” by U.S.News & World Report. MSU was recognized in 2013 by The Daily Beast as a top underrated school. In 2015, G.I. Jobs magazine ranked Morehead State in the top 20 percent of veteran-friendly colleges, universities and trade schools in the nation. Morehead State is located in the foothills of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Rowan County. The more than 700-acre main campus within the city limits of Morehead includes more than 50 major structures with a total replacement value of more than $650 million. Beyond the city, the University’s real estate holdings include the 320-acre Derrickson Agricultural Complex, Eagle Trace, a par-72, 6,902-yard public golf course, and 166-acres of the Browning Orchard. The instructional plant includes 135 classrooms and 150 laboratories. Housing facilities include space for approximately 2,900 students in a variety of living styles, including traditional residence halls, suites and apartments. The University has erected a space tracking system in partnership with NASA. The second component of the Space Science Center opened in 2009 — a $16.6 million instruction and research support facility.