It has been 40 years since an amendment to the Civil Rights Act declared that institutions receiving federal funding cannot discriminate on the basis of gender in providing any educational program or activity. The legislation was known simply as “Title IX.”
“It has fundamentally and forever changed the landscape of women’s sports,” says Mary Jo Kane, director of the U’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, a professor in the School of Kinesiology, and a leading authority on the landmark legislation. “Because of that, it should be considered one of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation this country has ever known.”
In a UMNews feature story, Kane goes on to explain Title IX’s current significance: “For the first time ever, females grow up with a sense of entitlement to sports,” says Kane. “And parents, just as importantly, grow up with that sense of entitlement for their daughters.
To help celebrate the legislation’s anniversary, the Tucker Center will host “Title IX at 40: Changes, Challenges, and Champions,” for the Spring 2012 Distinguished Lecture on April 23, 7-9 p.m., at the Humphrey Center. The event includes several Title IX experts from across the country.
Lazarus elected secretary-treasurer of AERA SIG
Sheryl Lazarus of the Institute on Community Integration has been elected secretary-treasurer of the Inclusion and Accommodation in Educational Assessment Significant Interest Group (SIG) of the American Education Research Association (AERA).
Ross quoted in Star Tribune article on Minnesota sports fans
Dr. Stephen Ross, director of Kinesiology undergraduate programs and associate professor of sport management, was quoted in a StarTribune piece, “Rand: The Power of One of Us.” Ross discusses the attachment that individuals have to local sport stars, and the bandwagon nature of Minnesotans. To read more, go to: http://www.startribune.com/sports/142712285.html
Tucker Center featured in UMN Foundation’s “UMatters”
The University of Minnesota Foundation has featured the School of Kinesiology’s Tucker Center and it’s research and vision in the short piece “Playing to Win” in the most recent UMatters emailing to U of M alumni and supporters.
The Institute of Child Development and the Shirley G. Moore Lab School to lead discussion on “Mother Nature’s Child” at the Live Green Film Festival.
On March 24, Housing & Residential Life will sponsor the Live Green Film Festival in the STSS building. The films, “Tapped,” an unflinching look at the business of bottled water; “Fresh,” new thinking about what we’re eating; and “Mother Nature’s Child,” growing outdoors in the media age, will each screen at 12pm and 2pm. The Institute of Child Development and the Shirley G Moore Lab School will facilitate a discussion following the 12 pm screening of “Mother Nature’s Child.”
In memoriam: Van D. Mueller
Van D. Mueller, professor emeritus in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration (EDPA), passed away on March 8, 2012. He taught in EDPA for 33 years and served as department chair from 1972 to 1981.
[The Department of Educational Policy and Administration and the Department of Work and Human Resource Education merged in 2009 to form the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development (OLPD).]
See the full obituary available in the Star Tribune.
A memorial service will be held at McNamara Center on the University of Minnesota campus on March 25 with visitation at 4:00 p.m. and service at 4:40 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made to the Edith I. Mueller scholarship fund at the School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota, or the Eva Burrell Animal Shelter in Manistique, Michigan.
OLPD alum receives AHRD Best Dissertation Award
Dr. Laird McLean, (Ph.D. in WHRE, 2011) received the Best Dissertation Award at the 2012 Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) conference in Denver, CO. His adviser was Ken Bartlett.
McLean, Laird D. (2011). Understanding creativity in organizations: The relationships among cross-level variables and creativity in research and development organizations. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieve from ProQuest.
Ben Peterson, Kinesiology PhD student, co-authors ebook
Mr. Ben Peterson, Kinesiology Ph.D. student in exercise physiology, is first author on an ebook that has recently been released: http://store.xlathlete.com/product-p/triphasictraining.htm
Triphasic training is designed to break down dynamic, athletic movements into three components (eccentric, isometric, and concentric), which improves performance and allows athletes to continuously develop strength, speed, and power. In this book, the authors demonstrate how to incorporate the Triphasic methods into existing strength and conditioning programs. Over 3,000 exercises are included with specific performance instructions. Mr. Peterson co-authored the book with Cal Dietz, head Olympic strength and conditioning coach for numerous sports at the U of M since 2000. The complete citation is below.
Peterson, B. & Dietz, C. (2012). Triphasic Training; A Systematic Approach to Elite Speed and Explosive Strength Performance. ISBN: 978-0-9851743-0-9
Mr. Peterson is advised by Dr. Stacy Ingraham and Dr. Arthur Leon.
Kinesiology professor Dr. Jürgen Konczak in the news
Dr. Juergen Konczak, Kinesiology professor of biomechanics, has had a busy and productive academic year. Here are some of the highlights:
In February, Dr. Konczak participated in a national NIH Taskforce on Childhood Motor Disorders. The meeting took place at the National Institutes of Health in Rockville, MD. Nearly 50 national and international experts convened for two days to make concrete recommendations toward identifying new technologies and methods for improving the diagnosis and quantification of motor disorders in children.
Dr. Konczak has been invited to contribute to a special issue of Frontiers in Neuroscience on Autism: The Movement Perspective. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are portrayed as cognitive and social disorders. The issue will focus on evidence indicating that profound movement and sensory differences exist in ASD that can be characterized in a way that is conducive with new behavioral treatments, an advantage over observational inventories.
In a collaboration with colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology, Dr. Konczak published a project in Journal of Neurophysiology that investigates how haptic information from the two hands is shared across the hemispheres of the brain when exploring an single object. Results indicate that the brain does not combine the information from both hands, but rather selects either the left and right hand information in order to make judgments about the property of an object. For more information, visit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22031771
CAREI evaluators to share best practices at the 2012 MESI Conference
Delia Kundin and Beverly Dretzke, research associates with the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI), will be presenting a workshop on surveys at the Minnesota Evaluation Studies Institute (MESI). MESI is an interdisciplinary training institute for evaluation studies housed at the University of Minnesota. The 2012 MESI conference will be held March 26-31 at the Continuing Education Conference Center on the St. Paul campus. The theme of the 2012 MESI conference is Evaluation in a Complex World: Changing Expectations, Changing Realities. The conference program agenda features keynote speakers and sessions on evaluation basics, methods, and special topics.
Kundin and Dretzke will be presenting a post-conference workshop that will provide participants with information on best practices related to survey construction and analyzing and summarizing survey results. Topics in their workshop include writing good survey items, creating appropriate response options (e.g., Likert-type scales), analyzing data using Microsoft® Excel, and reporting findings to multiple audiences. Additional details regarding the MESI conference agenda and registration can be obtained at the MESI conference website.
Stoffregen featured in Semester at Sea promotional video
Thomas Stoffregen, Ph.D., Kinesiology professor, is featured in a recent Semester at Sea video. In January, Stoffregen led an international team of researchers conducting the first-ever studies of how novices adapt body movement to life at sea. The experiments were conducted on the Semester at Sea’s M/V Explorer, cruising from the Bahamas to Brazil.
Sea Legs from Semester at Sea on Vimeo.
Grant, partnership support study of educational wellbeing of homeless children, youth in Minneapolis
Recently the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a grant to Ann Masten, professor in the Institute of Child Development (ICD), J.J. Cutuli (ICD Ph.D. ’11; research director of Intelligence for Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania) and Janette Herbers (ICD Ph.D. ’11; post-doctoral fellow at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey) to study the impact of different approaches to housing assistance on the educational wellbeing of children and youth who experience homelessness in Minneapolis. The project will look at school outcomes for homeless children whose families agreed to be randomly placed into one of three assisted housing interventions.
“This is a unique opportunity made possible by partnerships with Minneapolis Public Schools and HUD, who share a commitment to helping these at-risk students succeed,” says Cutuli, director of the project.
Weiss and Kipp publish on youth motivation and participation in physical activity
Maureen Weiss, professor of Kinesiology, and Lindsay Kipp, Kinesiology doctoral candidate, published a chapter in the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, edited by noted theorist Richard Ryan. The authors conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on social influence (parents, peers, coaches/teachers) and developmental outcomes of physical activity motivation and participation. The chapter is part of a large-scale project by Oxford University Press to publish a synthetic library covering topics that span the entire field of psychology. The library will comprise handbooks that summarize and synthesize a topic, define the current scholarship, and set the agenda for future research. The full reference for the publication is: Weiss, M.R., Amorose, A.J., & Kipp, L.E. (2012). Youth motivation and participation in sport and physical activity. In R.M. Ryan (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation (pp. 520-553). New York: Oxford University Press.
OLPD graduate student named regional editor of CIES publication
OLPD Ph.D. candidate Marta Shaw has been named regional editor of Comparative and International Higher Education for the Europe Region-a publication of the Higher Education Special Interest Group of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).
University opens American Cultural Center for Sport in China
On March 20 the University of Minnesota celebrated the grand opening of a unique center that will share U.S. culture with the Chinese people through the medium of sport. The American Cultural Center for Sport is funded by a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State and will be a partnership between the University’s China Center and School of Kinesiology, and the Tianjin University of Sport in Tianjin, China.
The main objective of the center is to demonstrate to the Chinese people how sport culture and values are integrated into the larger American society and how these cultural values influence American viewpoints, global outlook, and engagement in business, education, politics, law, arts, and communication.
“Many concepts drawn from sport, such as ‘fair play’ and ‘pursuit of excellence’ are infused in the values and beliefs of Americans, regardless of whether they participate in sports,” said Joan Brzezinski, executive director of the China Center. “This center will help the Chinese develop a deeper understanding of how sport culture impacts all of our interactions, whether person-to-person or country-to-country.”
The center will organize events and provide resources, such as athletic exchanges and collaborations, guest lectures by University faculty and other experts, a reading room of print and online resources, and training for teachers to integrate the culture of sport into their curricula.
The new center will take advantage of the many resources of the University of Minnesota, including its highly ranked School of Kinesiology and its NCAA Division I athletics programs. The School of Kinesiology is ranked among the top ten programs nationally, and its faculty have expertise in sport-related culture programs. The School’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport is dedicated to exploring the impact of sport, recreation and physical activity on the lives of girls and women. Dr. Li Li Ji, the school’s director, has experience bringing Chinese Olympic athletes to the U.S. to study sports management and U.S. culture.
“Sport is a tie between cultures without dispute. It served to open the doors for new relations between the U.S. and China in the ’70s and continues to serve as a strong connection between the two peoples,” says Ji. “The new center in Tianjin will be a window to showcase American sports and physical education to promote health, fitness, human development and social-culture integration in China.”
Ji and Tucker Center associate director Nicole Lavoi (in the photo) traveled with a University delegation to Tianjin for the opening. See more on this story here.
See the press release on the center’s grand opening here.
Stumne awarded for excellence in undergraduate advising
Jeannie Stumne, director of CEHD Career Services, has been awarded the prestigious University of Minnesota John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising for 2011-12. The award is named in honor of John Tate, professor of physics and first dean of University College (1930-41).
The Tate Awards serve to recognize and reward high-quality academic advising. They call attention to the contribution academic advising makes to helping students formulate and achieve intellectual, career, and personal goals. By highlighting examples of outstanding advising, the Tate Awards identify professional models and celebrate the role that academic advising plays in the University’s educational mission. Stumne will be honored with this year’s other Tate winners at the 2012 John Tate Academic Advising Conference & Awards Ceremony on March 8 at the University Hotel.
Doherty in New York Times feature on effective couples therapy
Dr. William Doherty, professor of Family Social Science, was featured in the New York Times in a story about couples therapy, specifically the challenges in the field and how it differs from individual therapy practice.
“For starters, there’s an ever-present risk of winning one spouse’s allegiance at the expense of the other spouse’s,” explains Doherty in his groundbreaking 2002 article on the topic of awkward couples counseling in the Psychotherapy Networker, titled “Bad Couples Therapy.” “All your wonderful joining skills from individual therapy can backfire within seconds with a couple. A brilliant therapeutic observation can blow up in your face when one spouse thinks you’re a genius and the other thinks you’re clueless — or worse, allied with the enemy.”
Dworkin named Associate Editor for Society for Research on Adolescence
Dr. Jodi Dworkin, associate professor of Family Social Science, has been named as one of two associate editors for the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA)’s journal.
SRA is a dynamic, multidisciplinary, international organization dedicated to understanding adolescence through research and dissemination.
Dworkin will work with editors of adolescent journals to identify new, exciting, and innovative research and promote it through SRA’s “New In Science” online feature.
Recent C&I graduate named finalist for Outstanding Dissertation Award
The Department of Curriculum and Instruction would like to offer sincere congratulations to one of its recent PhD students, Megan Mahowald for being listed as one of the nine finalists for the International Reading Association’s 2012 Outstanding Dissertation Award. This prestigious competition recognizes the best dissertations in the discipline and is very competitive. The winner and finalists will be recognized at the Research Address and Awards session during the IRA Annual Convention in Chicago, April 30-May 2, 2012.
Megan Mahowald’s research interests include assessment and treatment of oral and written language in school-age children and literacy development in unique populations (culturally and linguistically diverse students, students with disabilities and struggling readers and writers). While in C&I, professors Deborah Dillon and Lori Helman served as Mahowald’s advisers. Her dissertation study was a mixed methods study exploring fourth grade Hmong students’ development and achievement in reading. Mahowald hopes that this information will provide educators with a better understanding of bilingual students’ literacy development. Mahowald was a speech-language pathologist in Minneapolis Public Schools for seven years. She currently serves as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences at Indiana University.
LaVoi discusses Ricky Rubio in FSN piece
Nicole LaVoi, Ph.D., lecturer and associate director of the Tucker Center, was mentioned in a FoxSportsNorth article on the dichotomy between Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio’s competitive court presence and his laid-back off-the-court persona. A selection from the article, by Joan Niesen, appears below:
LaVoi said Rubio’s ability to switch between a laid-back manner and the competitive intensity he displays on the court should not be considered a facet of his personality. Rather, she said, the young point guard most likely possesses keen mental and psychological skills.
“Regardless of how he is off the court, what we find from top performers is that they can switch into a performer identity, by getting into the zone, being at an optimal arousal level,” LaVoi said.