Champlain College: EHS Newsletter

                         IN THIS ISSUE
Our newsletter is focused on providing our students and external partners information on the “Good Work” we do in our diverse communities. We hope you enjoy this first issue!

Environmental Policy – Service Learning In Ecological Economics  The 400-level class of Ecological Economics was approached by the Winooski Valley Park District (WVPD) to work on a project that will help WVPD better communicate the value of their work and lands to their member towns through Ecosystem Service Valuation (ESV).  The WVPD includes 18 parks and more than 1,700 acres of natural areas and is supported by 7 towns in Chittenden County.  The class is applying a cutting-edge methodology that provides dollar estimates of ecosystem services.  Ecosystem services are services provided by nature that benefit humans, such as water supply, flood regulation, pollination and recreational opportunities. Unfortunately, the worth of many of these services is not recognized in the traditional economic market, even though humans would not be able to survive and thrive without them.  Through this study, the WVPD will be able to demonstrate the monetary value of the services provided by their lands, including storm water protection regulated by wetlands.  Ideally, this project will secure future funding for the WVPD as well as encourage other organizations to implement ESV to highlight the importance of investing in the protection and maintenance of healthy ecosystems.-Dr. Valerie Esposito, Enviornmental Policy Program Director

Through much intensive research,  Dr. Barbara Colombo discusses the psychology behind the environment you’re in every day, stimulation involved in foreign language learning, and effects on neurostimulation and priming on creative thinking.

Check out some of her work!

The combined effects of neurostimulation and priming on creative thinking. 

The influence of the environment’s representation over emotion and cognition.

Is Motor Simulation Involved During Foreign Language Learning? A Virtual Reality Experiment.

– Dr. Barbara Colombo, Associate Professor
Dr. Bjarne Holmes Podcasts!
Relationship Matters: Podcasts of Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
The podcast series, produced at Champlain College, brings you the cutting edge of relationship research in an accessible, easy to access, and comprehensible way and is sponsored by SAGE publications (London). We aim the podcast at undergrad students, graduate students, teachers, and researchers…. but likewise to clinicians, policy makers, journalists, and to anyone interested in relationships. For each podcast, we select a significant paper published recently in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships and interview the authors about their work. We ask authors to explain things with as little jargon as possible and to keep a focus on real-world application. People are finding these podcasts to be great teaching tools, and we hope you agree! We have a great fan base all over the world with a significant volume of downloads per day.

– Bjarne Holmes, Psychology Program Director

Former Champlain Education graduate is now Education Program Adjunct Instructor

Allison Tinson, class of 2011, BS in Early Childhood/Elementary Education, was hired this year to teach EDU 311 Science Methods, the upper elementary level science methods course which is grounded in STEM education as it address the Next Generation Science Standards.

Allison completed two years as a grades 5/6 science teacher at the Lyndon Town School and was hired this year as a fifth grade teacher at J. J. Flynn Elementary School in Burlington where she taught for half a year after graduation (she completed her student teaching there as well).

Allison is very active in state science teacher groups and associations and has presented at VSTA (Vermont Science Teachers Association, the local affiliate of the National Science Teachers Association). She is currently active in the VSI (Vermont Science Initiative and MSI (Vermont Mathematics Initiative) groups.  Allison was one of our strongest education graduates and received the 2011 Education Senior Honors Award. We are thrilled and fortunate to have one of our very own teaching in the classroom at Champlain.

Expo of the National Association for the Education of Young Children
In November thirteen students, three faculty members and our Dean, Dr. Laurel Bongiorno, attended the M.Ed. residency in Orlando, Florida at the Annual Conference and Expo of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.  Students heard Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong the authors of their primary text in Early Childhood and Play: From Theory to Practice speak about their work. One of our students who is nearing completion of the program had an opportunity to speak personally with Deborah Leong about her Action Research.  Students came away feeling energized and empowered. Three of them identified ways they plan to become stronger advocates in the field as a result of attending the residency. It was truly a leadership and career building experience.
Other big M.Ed. news is the approval of an Early Childhood Special Education Specialization. This offers students another great choice of specializations and will add to the diversity of our program. I have been engaged in the broader field as well recently having an article published in NAEYC’s Play Policy and Practice Interest Forum publication Connections
-Dr. Robin Ploof, Early Childhood Education (M.Ed) Program Director

Travel to Morocco 
In October 2015, Masters in Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies program director Julian Portilla and MSMACS faculty Jared Ordway travelled to Morocco to facilitate a workshop for 35 global United Nations and European Union staffers on how to improve their approaches to peacebuilding in violent contexts.  These staffers are located in some of the most sensitive areas in the world including Yemen, Honduras and Tunisia to name a few.  Their focus at the workshop was how to support what they call insider mediators, people who are building bridges across divides in these conflict contexts.  As outsiders they’ve come to realize that making peace in more traditionally diplomatic ways—think Kofi Annan or Lakhdar Brahimi trying unsuccessfully to broker peace in Yemen—is less effective than finding quiet ways to support these insiders.  The recent Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Tunisian Dialogue Quartet is one example of the kinds of people and institutions these international actors are seeking to support.
                       One of the many fascinating things about the conversations in Casablanca during the three-day workshop was the role of women in peace processes.  Some excellent research by Thania Paffenholz  has demonstrated that peace processes that make deliberate efforts to include women are more than twice as likely to succeed as those that do not.  It’s not that women are so much more peaceful than men, simply that excluding women from peace processes means that more than half of the members and perspectives of a society are missing!  Additionally, the roles women play in many societies are missing: mothers, teachers, health workers, etc.  Bringing these perspectives in allows for better understanding of a given context and therefore better and more sustainable planning and peace programming.  It’s another example of the power of diversity at work!
-Julian Portilias, Program Director
Cam Webster Says his Farewell

I approach this stage with mixed feelings.  I’ve been going to school either as a student or as a professor (and often times some of both) almost my entire life.  I am understandably a bit nervous about ignoring the rhythms of that lifestyle: how will I feel when most people I know are going back January 18th?  Will it feel like I’m late for class? Like I am playing hooky?  Like I am missing out on moments of importance?  What will a life with no students be like?  How will it feel to not earn an actual paycheck?On the plus side, I will get to read, write, or travel almost at will.  Wow!  I am not good at multitasking, so it will be a delight to work exclusively on writing projects that I have started over the years only to be pulled away by the reality of papers to grade, classes to teach, meetings to attend, etc.  In order to write, I the dishes need to be clean, the bed made, papers graded.  To be able to concentrate with no distractions as I’ve only been able to do during sabbaticals will, I hope, allow me to go further into my own mind and experience and make connections that yield truths I’ve been seeking in fits and starts my whole adult life.  I love the play and sounds of language, the twists and turns of meaning, and my hope is to be able to enter the play zone and hear and record in ways I’ve never been able to do before.I’ll be thinking about my literature classes this coming spring and next fall and I’m sure that at times I will wish I was back in Joyce Hall with a class, but there are many territories that I need to explore.  I have been grateful to Champlain for most of my career, and I was particularly lucky to have been able to share it with my wonderful colleague and wife, Janice.  And while saying goodbye to Champlain is bittersweet, I will now be able to concentrate on my real life: Janice, our children and my avocation.
-Dr. Cam Webster, Professor

Division of Education and Human Studies (EHS)
Dr. Laurel Bongiorno, Dean

Undergraduate Programs:
Criminal Justice
Early Childhood/Elementary Education
Middle School Education
Secondary Education
Environmental Policy
Law
Psychology
Social Work

Graduate Programs:

M.Ed. Early Childhood Education
M.S. Law
M.S. Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies