Featured Articles

UW-Eau Claire, CVTC team up to provide senior dental exams in area care facilities

Zwygart-Stauffacher named associate dean of College of Nursing and Health Sciences

Myers is director of educational access programs

Alumni couple endows scholarships for students from Holcombe, Arcadia

Jol, students at work on summer GPR projects

UW-Eau Claire, CVTC team up to provide
senior dental exams in area care facilities

Lorraine Larson received a dental exam recently at Syverson Lutheran Home in Eau Claire through a new partnership screening program offered by UW-Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley Technical College. (Eau Claire Leader-Telegram photo by Dan Reiland, used with permission)

More than 500 senior citizens who live in Eau Claire area long-term care facilities will have easier access to dental care thanks to a new partnership between the UW-Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley Technical College. UW-Eau Claire's Center for Health and Aging Services Excellence is funding a program to provide dental care to residents in five area long-term care facilities. University students majoring in health care administration and who are completing practicums in the long-term care facilities are coordinating the program. If grant monies are realized, CVTC's dental hygiene program will provide preventative services and staff training. "It's a win, win, win situation," said Dr. Doug Olson, a UW-Eau Claire professor of health care administration. "This program provides university and CVTC students with great real-world experience and it'll benefit hundreds of senior citizens. Older, frail people often have very poor dental care so it's an important benefit for them. It's a good fit for a lot of reasons." Full story.

Zwygart-Stauffacher named associate dean
of College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Mary Zwygart-Stauffacher has been named the associate dean for UW-Eau Claire's College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Zwygart-Stauffacher has been interim associate dean in the college since August 2004 and professor and chair in the department of nursing systems since July 2000. She has more than 25 years in gerontological nursing practice, particularly in the nursing home arena, where she has implemented new advanced practice roles and clinical best practice models. In November 2002 she received one of the nursing profession's highest honors when she was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nurses. She has held a variety of faculty and administrative positions in schools of nursing and is a co-principal investigator with the NIH-funded Nursing Home Quality Intervention Study by the University of Missouri MDS and Quality Nursing Home Care Research Team.

Zwygart-Stauffacher is a frequent presenter on topics related to gerontological nursing and advanced practice nursing education, care of frail elderly, nursing home quality of care and organizational quality improvement. She has co-authored or authored numerous publications on these topics, including two award-winning books on quality care in the nursing home setting. Zwygart-Stauffacher also is employed as a gerontological nurse practitioner for nursing home services with the Red Cedar Clinic/Mayo Health System in Menomonie. She holds a master of science with specialization in gerontological nursing and a post-master's gerontological nurse practitioner preparation from Rush University. She earned her doctoral degree in nursing from UW-Milwaukee.

In conjunction with Zwygart-Stauffacher's appointment, Lois Taft, associate professor of nursing systems, has been named interim chair of the department of nursing systems.

Myers is director of educational access programs

R. Denise Myers has been named UW-Eau Claire's director of educational access programs effective July 1. Myers will plan, direct and coordinate the staff activities of the Educational Opportunity Center, McNair Program and Upward Bound grants.

"We're very excited to have Dr. Denise Myers join the student development and diversity team," said Kimberly Barrett, associate vice chancellor for student development and diversity. "She brings a wealth of experience related to TRIO programs, returning students and best practices related to college student success, particularly as it relates to groups historically underserved by higher education."

Since January 2003, Myers was a developmental specialist for assessment with TRIO/Student Support Services at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She also served as a reserach consultant to the Council for Opportunity in Education in Washington, D.C., from 2001-2003, conducting research for the Pathways to College Network, a national alliance collaborating to improve college access and success for low-income, first-generation and underrepresented minority students. Myers was a project director with TRIO/Student Support Services at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., from 1997-2001 and an administrative fellow in the General College at the University of Minnesota from 1993-97.

Myers holds a bachelor of music education degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, a master's degree in music from Indiana University and a doctorate in musical arts from the University of Minnesota. She previously was an assistant professor of voice at the University of Kansas and a voice instructor at the University of Minnesota and Concordia College in St. Paul, Minn.

Alumni couple endows scholarships for students from Holcombe, Arcadia

Jeanette and David Suchla

An Eau Claire couple who needed financial assistance to obtain their college educations will be returning the favor for future generations of college students. David Suchla, a 1969 UW-Eau Claire graduate, and Jeanette Hatfield Suchla, a 1970 graduate, have endowed a new $1,000 scholarship to help high school students from their hometowns of Holcombe and Arcadia. The first award recipient will be selected in spring 2006 and will receive the award to attend UW-Eau Claire in the 2006-07 academic year. "Both of us are from families that worked hard to make a living and where money was definitely at a minimum," said Jeanette Suchla. "Without that assistance, it would have been very difficult for our parents to come up with the money to cover our college tuition and expenses." The Suchlas' gift is recognized as a contribution to the Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence, the UW-Eau Claire Foundation's ongoing comprehensive fund-raising campaign to benefit UW-Eau Claire's people and programs. Full story.

Jol, students at work on summer GPR projects

UW-Eau Claire researchers gather GPR data during an ongoing project on Eau Claire's Half Moon Lake. (Photo by Doug Faulkner, geography)

UW-Eau Claire faculty are known for involving students in their research projects, and geography professor Harry Jol is no exception. Jol is an expert in the use of ground penetrating radar and uses it in many fields of the earth sciences, particularly geomorphology, sedimentology and more recently archaeology.This summer five students will accompany him on projects in Israel, Spain and Upper Michigan, as well as an ongoing project on Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire:

• Jenifer Bode, a senior geography major from Bemidji, Minn., will accompany Jol to Israel July 3-18 to work on archeology digs in Bethsaida, Nazareth, Jerusalem and Yavne, the birthplace of Rabbinic Judaism and its port, Yavne Yam. From Israel they will travel to Spain, where they'll search below the ruins of a church for a Jewish synagogue and ghetto in the north central community of Burgos.
• In early August, geography majors Susan Johnson of Cornell and Theresa Lenon of Waupaca will accompany Jol to Michigan, where they'll work on a geomorphic project in the eastern portion of the Upper Peninsula with Walter Loope of the U.S. Geological Survey.
• Senior geography majors Neil Trombly of Eau Claire and Craig Sternberg of Prairie du Sac, along with Doug Faulkner, an associate professor of geography, are assisting with a project on Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire. They are looking at the lake depth and thickness of the sediment to help determine how the saw mills of yesteryear contributed to the lake's current condition. Full story.

Summer Bulletin
Published weekly during the summer session by the UW-Eau Claire News Bureau. News items and notices should be sent to the News Bureau, Schofield 201, by 10 a.m. Monday for publication in the following week’s issue. E-mail submissions to Julie Poquette at poquetjm@uwec.edu are encouraged. Faculty/staff news items are published on a space-available basis.