Listed below are the different service activities I have been involved in over the past few years while employed at ACU. Short descriptions are given for each activity and links are given to reflections for a selected few service activities that are especially meaningful to me.
DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE:
Departmental Assessment Team for Capstone Papers: Spring 2013 – 2016
Description: Reviewed papers and completed grading rubrics for the final papers assigned in the biology capstone course (BIOL 497).
Undergraduate Research Festival Abstract Review Committee: Spring 2013, 2014, 2015
Description: Reviewed departmental abstracts and completed judging rubrics to assist in the ACU Undergraduate Research Festival approval process.
Biology Department Library Liason: Fall 2013 – present
Description: Coordinate the selection appropriate biology books for the library to buy.
Biology Research Club Faculty Sponsor: Spring 2013 – present
Description: This is a very low commitment. Josh Brokaw is the primary sponsor and does most of the preparation and organization for this club. I attend the Biology Research Club monthly meetings, and give input when asked.
UNIVERSITY SERVICE:
Alpha Chi National College Honor Society Faculty Sponsor: Fall 2014 – present
Description: I am the primary sponsor of the ACU chapter, Texas Psi, of Alpha Chi National College Honor Society. Along with the other sponsors, I plan the budget, organize the student officers, lead the induction, plan the scholarship application process, select students for convention presentations, and organize the trip to the national convention each year.
Link to reflection over service to the university.
Research Council: Fall 2013 – Spring 2016
Description: While on this committee, I helped to set guidelines and make award decision for internal research grants. I also helped to interview applicants for the Director of the Office of Research and Special Programs at ACU and gave my feedback to Dr. Susan Lewis about the applicants. Megan Roth, my choice for the position, was hired.
Undergraduate Readmission Committee: Fall 2012 – Fall 2015
Description: Determine, along with the other committee members, if former ACU students have satisfactorily met requirements to be readmitted to the University.
Undergraduate Research Festival Planning Committee, Judging sub-comittee: Spring 2012 – present
Description: Help to determine prizes and assign judges in advance of the festival. On the day of the festival I work at the judging table all day directing judges and tabulating results. During the awards dinner, I typically read the titles for all of the STEM winners (so the scientific jargon will be pronounced correctly).
Thank you notes:
ORSP Handbook Revision Committee: Fall 2013
Description: Helped to edit and approve the handbook Mark Billingsly revised.
COMMUNITY SERVICE:
University Church of Christ Childrens’ Ministry: Summer 2014
Description: Sunday morning Bible class teacher for children who have completed the first and second grades
University Church of Christ University Ministry: October 2013
Description: Sunday morning Bible class teacher for university students for the month of October. I co-taught a series entitled, “Is the Church Anti-Science.” We discussed human evolution and global stewardship.
University Church of Christ Conversations Classes: October 24, 2012, January 2016
Description: (2012) I co-lead a mulit-generational Wednesday night class entitled “Faith and Life”. It was essentially sharing about my husband and my struggles with faith and disbelief over the years.
Description: (2016) I lead a four-week series on faith and science. During the first week, I gave an overview of what science is and what it isn’t and what questions science can answer and what questions it cannot. During the second week, Dr. Glenn Pemberton came and talked about interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 from his perspective. During the third week, I gave a quick scientific overview of what evolution is. During the fourth week, I discussed different viewpoints that Christians have about origins of life. Link to reflection over service to the community.
University Church of Christ University Ministry: Fall 2012 – Spring 2014
Description: My family “adopted” a college student, Katelyn Werner, for her junior and senior year at ACU. We met with her and invited her over to our house on a semi-regular basis.
University Church of Christ Impressions committee: Spring 2013 – Present
Description: Greeting people at one of the main entrances of the church eight to sixteen times per year. This outreach seems more effective when my two little boys are greeting people than when it is just me. People seem to be happiest and feel most welcome when my preschool son hands them a bulletin, shouts “Good morning!”, and jumps up and down three times.
University Church of Christ Transitions Ministry: Spring 2012 – Present
Description: Host the small group in our home on a regular basis, organize ladies’ lunches and breakfast, and help to organize teachers for Sunday morning Bible class.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:
Human Anatomy & Physiology Society: Member Summer 2014 – Present
Description: This is a society with a yearly convention for college instructors of anatomy and physiology. I have attended this convention twice.
Texas American Society for Microbiology (TX ASM): Member Spring 2014 – Present
Description: Attend the annual spring meeting for undergraduates and serve as a judge for the poster presentations.
American Society for Microbiology (ASM): Member 2001 – Present
STEM for Girls: Spring 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016
Description: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) for Girls is an event held each spring. ACU professors, mostly female, present a scientific session to a total of 60 middle school girls in a half-day workshop. Rebecca Hunter and I partnered together to give biology sessions. We invited some of our top female students to assist us to further encourage the younger girls to pursue science.
- Spring 2012 and 2013 – “The Unseen World Around You” was comprised of stations where the girls had the opportunity to observe the microscopic properties of their own cheek cells, bread yeast, pond water, rotting strawberries, and structures of flowers.
- Spring 2014 and 2015 – “The Skeleton Inside You” was comprised of a demonstration of the importance of the different components in bone (using “rubbery” and brittle chicken legs), an activity where the girls put together a disarticulated skeleton, and a fun quiz show in which they learned the importance of calcium in their own diets.
- Spring 2016 – “Epidemiology” was a session where the students learned about the spread of diseases through populations. The culminating activity was one that we had modified from one of my microbiology lab activities. We purchased a powder called “Glo Germ” that fluoresces under black light. We gave each student a large marshmallow. One of them was covered in the powder. They then went through a series of handshakes and leaving fingerprints on a paper. After the experiment was over, the students washed their hands and looked at their paper under a black light. We used this information to determine who had been infected, when they were infected, and who infected them. The students loved this activity and came away with a greater understanding of how epidemiologists study disease outbreaks.
Thank you notes:
Manuscript Reviewer:
I only review manuscripts for reputable journals. I receive many invitations to review, most of them by predatory journals. I always check Beall’s List of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers before agreeing to review.
- BioEssays. July 2016. Manuscript ID. 201600133. Antibiotic use, horizontal gene transfer, and spread of antibiotic resistance
- Scientific Reports. April 2015. SREP-15-01592-T. The commensal infant gut mobilome as a reservoir for persistent multidrug resistance integrons.
- PLOS ONE. February 2015. PONE-D-15-01194. Enhanced horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes in freshwater microcosms induced by an ionic liquid.