News Releases  

UW-Eau Claire Nursing Students and Professor
Seek Subjects for Military Nurses Study

Four UW-Eau Claire nursing students and their professor, Dr. Cheryl Lapp, seek participants for a research study of military nurses.

The study, "War and Its Aftermath: A Study of Nurses Who Served in Iraq and Afghanistan," will focus on the process of re-entry into civilian life for nurses who have recently served in combat or near-combat situations in active war zones.

Lapp said the study was inspired by the historical contributions of nurses in times of war. She and her students viewed the documentary "Vietnam Nurses," narrated by actress Dana Delaney, who won two Emmy Awards for her portrayal of nurse Colleen McMurphy in the television drama "China Beach," which aired from 1988-91. Now that a whole new generation of nurses has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, Lapp and her students hope to find out if there have been advances since Vietnam, when nurses, like soldiers, returned home from war with little preparation for what they would encounter and had no debriefing process. Full story.

UW-Eau Claire Senior Lands NASA Internship

A UW-Eau Claire senior mathematics major and McNair Scholar will spend the spring semester as an intern at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration flight facility in Virginia.

Rochelle Halama of Independence will begin her NASA internship Jan. 12, 2009, at the Wallops Flight Facility, where she will focus on researching ways to prove software reliability.

Halama has worked on research projects at UW-Eau Claire with Dr. Mohamed Elgindi, a professor of mathematics. That experience will help her in the research-centered NASA internship, she said. Full story.

Students Sample Healthful Snacks

"I'll try a piece if you try one," one elementary school student said to her mom, as she plucked an unfamiliar vegetable from a tray Thursday night at Lakeshore School.

Children, parents and teachers sampled healthful snacks, from sweet potato slices to jicama, at the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Family Fun Night. It was an event to help show kids and parents how to make healthy food choices, with the broader goal of repairing children's nutrition. A similar event will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Longfellow School.

"Generally speaking, it's no secret that there's sort of issues with child nutrition," said Eric Jamelske, a UW-Eau Claire associate professor of economics who helped organize the event, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. Full story.

$300,000 NIOSH grant to fund study of job burnout's effect on Nurses's Workplace Safety

Dr. Jonathon Halbesleben, UW-Eau Claire assistant professor of management and marketing, has received a three-year grant for $300,000 from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to research how job burnout and procedural shortcuts affect nurses' safety on the job.

The grant, offered by NIOSH, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is intended to attract researchers to investigate issues of worker safety, Halbesleben said.

Halbesleben will survey about 600 nurses at two different times at Veteran's Administration hospitals in the Upper Midwest. The first survey will look at the level of burnout the nurses' exhibit and the amount of workarounds — or deviations from normal procedures — used by them. In the second survey, Halbesleben will look at the number and severity of injuries that occurred from the time of the first survey to the second. He will use the data to determine the relationship, if any, between burnout, workarounds and work safety. Full story.

Senior is Lead Author on Paper Published in Prestigious Journal

A UW-Eau Claire senior is the lead author on a research paper published in August in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The publication of Lee Behling's research relating to the molecule methanobactin was deemed important enough to be announced in Chemical and Engineering News, a publication that focuses on exciting developments in the chemistry field.

"To a chemist, this is really big," chemistry professor Dr. Scott Hartsel said of Behling's work first being published in a prestigious journal and then being reported on in a highly respected science news publication. "It's like a rock star getting his picture on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine."

Behling, a biochemistry and molecular biology major, was part of a research team led by chemistry professor Dr. Warren Gallagher that discovered the correct structure for methanobactin, a small copper-binding peptide that plays an integral role in the global carbon cycle. The team published the molecule's revised structure in the JACS article, on which Behling is listed as lead author because of his major role in the project. Full story.

NSF Grant of $404,305 Supports Software Project

Dr. Paul Wagner, UW-Eau Claire associate professor of computer science, has received a $404,305 National Science Foundation grant to develop portable and customizable software for hands-on, computer-intensive educational workshops.

The three-year NSF grant is a phase-two grant that builds on work Wagner and other UW-Eau Claire faculty and staff completed through a previous NSF grant to create a laptop-based computer security workshop program. The new grant will allow the team to take the next step and make the program work in a wireless environment.

Going wireless will greatly expand the uses of the program, Wagner said. Now used just for workshops on computer security, once wireless the program also will be usable for workshops on other computer science topics as well as for more general education uses, he said. Full story.

Faculty Members Selected as CETL, ORSP Fellows

Faculty members selected as CETL, ORSP Fellows
UW-Eau Claire's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Office of Research and Sponsored Programs have announced their 2008-09 Faculty Fellows.

Dr. April Bleske-Recheck, associate professor of psychology, is the CETL Faculty Fellow. She will lead a learning community for educators interested in looking at the student evaluation process, perceived bias associated with student evaluations and commonalities across departments regarding student evaluations. CETL will award one or two fellowships each year from a pool of interested applicants. Fellows will actively participate in CETL activities, including established programs and a program or two that are initiated by the fellow.

Dr. Patricia Turner, professor of history, is the ORSP Faculty Fellow. The ORSP Fellow develops one or more special projects in conjunction with ORSP staff and assists with some regular ORSP work, such as proposal reviews. The ORSP Faculty Fellow program started in spring 2008, when Dr. Jennifer Shaddock, professor of English, was appointed as Fellow to write an institutional grant proposal. Turner was selected as the 2008-09 Fellow from those who responded to an open call for applications. As Fellow, her focus this year will be to revise and update ORSP’s Web site and promotional materials. In spring 2009, ORSP will post a call for applications for its 2009-10 Faculty Fellow.