Category: Faculty Awards

The Stetson Community Education Project was awarded a $210,000 grant and will expand classes for incarcerated men in Tomoka Correctional Institution, as well as begin offering college credit for courses this fall.

The Laughing Gull Foundation approved a grant for $70,000 a year for three years for the Community Education Project (CEP), which has offered classes in the Daytona Beach prison since 2015, said Pamela Cappas-Toro, Ph.D., assistant professor of World Languages and Cultures (Spanish) at Stetson.

Beginning this fall, the project will offer one course each semester for non-degree-bearing college credit. Twenty students are expected to enroll this fall and that number will grow to 30 men next fall.

The grant will pay to hire a project coordinator, who will tutor incarcerated students and serve as a liaison with the state Department of Corrections, Cappas-Toro said. The grant also will provide textbooks and school supplies, support students’ emerging scholarship and creative course projects, and add a computer lab for the men, who currently do the coursework by hand.

“This is going to mean an expansion of our program at Tomoka,” said Andrew Eisen, Ph.D., adjunct professor of history at Stetson and one of the founders of the program. “It will be small, incremental growth to ensure the quality of our program.”

Eisen and Cappas-Toro were involved in a similar prison-education program at the University of Illinois when they were graduate students there. After the married couple arrived at Stetson, they started the program at Tomoka Correctional Institution with Jelena Petrovic, Ph.D., Stetson assistant professor of Communication and Media Studies. The following year, Melinda Hall, Ph.D., assistant professor of Philosophy at Stetson, joined the effort. Currently, the four professors co-direct the project.

Since then, more than 25 Stetson professors have taught classes, led workshops and provided guest lectures to the students in the prison. Subjects have included history, Spanish, philosophy, mathematics, communication, computer sciences and English. They have been supported in part by the Nina B. Hollis Institute for Educational Reform and its Research Impact Award.

The program received its original seed funding through the Hollis Renaissance Fund, which supports new programs in hopes that their success would then be further supported with grants from outside organizations. This is exactly what happened with CEP, said Stetson President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D.

“Teaching at the Tomoka Correctional Institution fits squarely into our mission,” said Libby, who has been a guest lecturer at the prison.  “That our faculty have been so enormously supportive underscores how clearly this work aligns with Stetson’s values.”

Stetson’s undergraduate students do not visit the prison but have been involved in the program, interning in the CEP office on the DeLand campus and designing proposed logos for the project. Students in a Digital Arts class, taught by Brown Visiting Teacher Scholar Madison Creech, M.F.A., came up with the logos and sent videos of their presentations to the incarcerated students, who then provided feedback on the designs.

“It is wonderful to see the academic efforts of Stetson students align with the work and community of our students at Tomoka. Stetson students in Creech’s class emphasized that the incarcerated men are part of the Stetson community, and this is precisely what we hope for,” said Hall.

“These programs are very much needed, especially in a state like Florida that has one of the highest prison populations in the country,” said Petrovic.

The Laughing Gull Foundation provides grants to increase access to credit-bearing college courses for incarcerated students, primarily in the South, according to its website. The Foundation awarded the grant to Stetson’s Community Education Project this month after visiting the DeLand campus and the prison classroom in February.

“We are very excited to partner with Stetson University and we appreciate the inspiring work of the Community Education Program!” wrote Hez Norton, interim executive director of the Laughing Gull Foundation, in an email announcing the grant on June 12.

The Stetson organizers hope other faculty members continue to join the project. Already, Joshua Eckroth, Ph.D., assistant professor of Computer Science, has expressed interest in helping with setting up the prison computer lab.

“We’re able to draw on the expertise and the willingness and dedication of faculty members who have from day 1 helped us build this program, all as volunteers,” Eisen said.

– Cory Lancaster

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By virtue of a Major Resource Instrumentation Grant from the National Science Foundation, Stetson is receiving $266,000 in funding to purchase an inverted fluorescent microscope system — capable of imaging over a wide range of living biological samples from subcellular structures to small organisms. 

The microscope system will be used to engage undergraduate students across biology, health sciences and physics in superior training through faculty-mentored research projects, and promote the implementation of inquiry-based lab experiences for students in upper-level biology and physics courses. 

Also, the system will provide a substantial foundation to support and enable fundamental pioneering research by junior faculty members, and foster sophisticated capstone research for seniors under the mentorship of faculty members committed to student training and advancing the participation of underrepresented and minority undergraduates in the sciences.

Collectively, these invaluable experiences will promote scientific competency in students as they achieve a comprehensive range of career goals and contribute to the development of the next generation of scientists.

Highlights of the anticipated research: 1) tracking migrating cells in living tissues to link cellular and subcellular mechanisms to tissue-scale movements; 2) examining improperly located cell death proteins in malignant cells; 3) dissecting communication pathways that regulate cardiac myocyte cell proliferation and regeneration in Ciona intestinalis; 4) examining spatial organization and dynamics of iridescent marine bacteria; and 5) promoting education through use of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology by undergraduates in a Genetics course to manipulate and label genes in order to visualize effects in living organisms. 

“This really opens up new avenues of research at the cell and, especially, the subcell level at Stetson. We have a growing number of researchers who work with that scale in three departments. And it will allow students to use a research-grade microscope.”

Principal Investigator Holley Lynch, PhD, assistant professor of physics

Stetson’s Principal Investigator is Holley Lynch, PhD, assistant professor of physics. Co-Principal Investigators are Lynn Kee, PhD, assistant professor of biology; Roslyn Crowder, PhD, associate professor of biology; and Heather Evans-Anderson, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences.

“This really opens up new avenues of research at the cell and, especially, the subcell level at Stetson,” Lynch said. “We have a growing number of researchers who work with that scale in three departments. And it will allow students to use a research-grade microscope.”

Lynch noted that while some of Stetson’s science faculty/researchers need to see “very small things, such as look inside cells,” others need to see how cells behave over time. The new system, which is expected to arrive on campus later this fall, is “flexible,” she said.

Evans-Anderson agreed, commenting, “This kind of imaging will help all of us.” 

In 2018, Kresge Foundation funds led to Stetson’s acquisition of an advanced stereo microscope, which effectively aids in the visualization of tissue layers and development of organisms. The new microscope system will deliver even greater power of magnification and capability to see inside cells, Evans-Anderson said, adding that extensive interdepartmental collaboration will result.

“I see this as a really good steppingstone. Having this equipment here enables us to apply for other kinds of grants that will fund our research and take our students to the next level,” Evans-Anderson concluded.

Notably, the NSF, with an annual budget of $8.1 billion (FY 2019), is the funding source for approximately 27% of the total federal budget for basic research conducted at U.S. colleges and universities.

-Michael Candelaria

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