Previously Awarded Sabbaticals 2004-2005

Scott Adamson
Chandler-Gilbert Community College / English
Completion of Ph.D. Degree in Curriculum and Instruction (Mathematics Education)
In my dissertation study, I describe seven sense-making opportunities that community college intermediate algebra students experienced to aid in their understanding of slope. A classroom environment was established where students engaged in discourse with their peers while working on classroom tasks focused on a functions approach to mathematical modeling. Research literature shows that students who have not experienced mathematics as a sense-making activity have negative attitudes toward mathematics. In this study, I describe students' changing attitudes toward mathematics and discuss the extent to which these changes are attributed to the supportive classroom environment, classroom discourse, and modeling tasks.

Jeffrey Andelora
Mesa Community College / English
Completion of Ph.D. in English at Arizona State University
The purpose of my sabbatical was to write my doctoral dissertation and finish my Ph.D. in English at Arizona State University. I've long been interested in the professional status and identity of two-year college English faculty within the stratified world of higher education, and my study, The Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) and the Professional Identity of Two-Year College English Faculty, focused on exactly that. On one level, it is a history of TYCA, our professional organization, but it also chronicles the efforts of a group of faculty who struggled to forge a professional identity and establish a voice in the field of composition. As much of my data came from oral history, it was a very rewarding project. Both dissertation and degree were completed by the end of the academic year.

Kevin Arps
Paradise Valley Community College / Psychology
Winning with Willpower: The Psychology of Self-Regulation
This sabbatical was productive and worthwhile. I made substantial progress toward a doctoral degree and experienced significant professional and personal growth. I spent most of the time on my doctoral internships, coursework, and seminars. Because of various setbacks, I did not make as much progress on my dissertation as I had originally planned. This sabbatical contributed to my professional growth in several ways, including an enhanced expertise in my teaching field, as well as improved skills in research, writing, teaching, and counseling. This sabbatical also provided me an opportunity for personal growth through my readings, workshop participation, and personal challenges. The transcript from my doctoral program serves as the most tangible evidence of my sabbatical outcomes. My plans are to continue to work toward the Ph.D degree and to apply my new learning and growth to my activities as a faculty member at Paradise Valley Community College.

Alisa Cooper
South Mountain Community College / English
Complete Ph.D. in Instructional Technology & Distance Education
During the fall semester of my sabbatical, I worked on completing my dissertation for my doctoral degree in instructional technology and distance education. My dissertation study was on hybrid courses. I studied the effects of hybrid courses on retention and student satisfaction in a freshman composition course (ENG102). I also finished my final course for the degree. For the second semester of my sabbatical, I worked on turning my freshman composition course (ENG101) into a hybrid course, which utilizes digital video and audio presentation as well as a repository of web materials to teach composition. I also incorporated the use of blogs (LiveJournal) to develop social networking within the hybrid course and wikis as a peer review and presentation site for students. I was able to develop some online materials for my ENG071 course as well during this semester.

Steven Emrick
Glendale Community College / Social Science
The Floristic Inventory of Agua Fria
My sabbatical was spent helping botanists at the Desert Botanical Garden complete a floristic inventory of the Agua Fria National Monument. This information will help in formulating land-use decisions concerning management of the Monument. I was involved in site selection, plant collection, plant identification, and plant specimen preservation. This project greatly increased my knowledge of Arizona flora, allowed me to participate from the beginning in a comprehensive scientific endeavor, established beneficial rapport between the District and the Desert Botanical Garden, and increased my stock of photos of Arizona vegetation and ecology.

Mario Esquer
Glendale Community College / Applied Technology
Searching for My Ancestors
The project was a lot of work and a labor of love. It was a tremendous learning experience both professionally and personally. My research took me on numerous and wondrous journeys to the state of New Mexico, the land of enchantment. There I was able to research and document an extensive amount of historical and genealogical research dealing with ancestry. I was able to visit and videotape old homesteads of my distant relatives, as well as meet and develop acquaintances with distant family members. The project was at times a daunting task that involved a tremendous amount of tedious research and dedication. My motivation remained strong because it was family members that I was researching.

Dana Fladhammer
Phoenix College / Applied Business
Satisfy Residency Requirements for a Doctorate in Education
The purpose of my sabbatical was to complete the residency requirements for an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at Arizona State University. In the Fall 2004 and Spring 2005 semesters I completed a total of 30 semester hours. I was also able to meet my objectives which included increasing my expertise in business education issues, in curriculum and instruction, and in research. I was able to keep my teaching of business education issues relevant and current by attending professional conferences in my field. My coursework and research enabled me to enhance my own knowledge and understanding of online education, business education, and curriculum and instruction issues.

Karen Flanigan
Phoenix College / Nursing
Exploring Psychiatric and Pediatric Nursing
I started my semester of psychiatric nursing with a trip floating down the Colorado River with a group of adults with disabilities. I furthered my study of psychiatric nursing by working with an Art Therapist, and completing the course, Advanced Psychiatric Assessment at Arizona State University. Pediatrics was work with a pediatric nurse practitioner, the course, Advanced Family and Developmental Care, and a Feng Shui study tour in China. My course led me to pediatric and neonatal sites all over the valley. I have many case studies, knowledge, and experiences to share with my students. I will share presentations covering Feng Shui of the office and bedroom with students and staff.

James Jenkin
Glendale Community College / CAD, Drafting
CAD Software Based Design Geometry Methods and Applications
This sabbatical was approved to develop classroom methods and materials for a next generation Computer-Aided-Drafting/Design (CAD/D) course in the application of design geometry. The goal was to redefine the traditional applications of descriptive geometry as a new CAD-based process capitalizing on the inherent advantage of the software's parallel-offset command set. The specific materials and applications developed include a new series of CAD driven design techniques based on the parallel-offset method, 19 teaching units (method and/or application), and over 75 unit related assignments.

Bradley Kincaid
Mesa Community College / Life Science
Promoting Deep Approaches to Learning in Science
The focus of my sabbatical was an evaluation of the relationship of assessments to student approaches to learning. Qualitative and quantitative analyses will result in two publications reporting that engaging assessments promote deep learning in science. I also spent considerable time studying the educational literature and the role of community colleges in higher education. As a result of my experiences, I have developed collaborations involving the scholarship of teaching and learning with colleagues at Arizona State University and Mesa Community College, and I have assumed a leadership role with a national alliance to transform undergraduate science education.

Loretta Kissell
Mesa Community College / Speech Communication
Residential Study for Doctorate in Higher Education
My sabbatical provided me with the opportunity to live on campus, study with focused fervor, and become an integrated member of a class of students pursuing a doctoral degree in Higher Education at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I completed 27 credits in two semesters, thus completing coursework for both my major (Higher Education) and my minor (Linguistics). My research and dissertation will explore the academic experiences of English Language Learners at the community college. I hope to complete the research, dissertation, and the degree by December 2006. I will return to the classroom energized and ready to engage students in new and creative ways.

Sherry Loch
Paradise Valley Community College / Social Behavioral Science
Completion of Post-Master's Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner
The goal of this sabbatical was to update my knowledge and clinical skills as an advanced Psychiatric practitioner. During my sabbatical year I completed the requirements for the Post-Master's Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at Arizona State University. I was admitted to the program in 2002 and had completed all coursework except the final 10 credits of Advanced Practicum, which I completed during the sabbatical year. Those credits consisted of an advanced Seminar with faculty and other practitioner students as well as 500 hours of advanced clinical practicum in a private psychiatric practice in Mesa and the Desert Vista inpatient psychiatric unit at Maricopa Medical Center. A related goal was to prepare for the national exam leading to Board Certification as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse offered by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). I was only eligible to sit for the Family Psychiatric Board Exam after graduation in May 14, 2005. I submitted required documentation to the Certification Board and continued a comprehensive review study program following the test content outline for the Family Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Board Certification Exam over the summer.

Marshall Logvin
South Mountain Community College / Biology
Completion of Ph.D. in Science Education
My sabbatical goal was to complete a Ph.D. in Science Education and create instructional materials that promote scientific reasoning skills in college students. The sabbatical experience was front loaded with problems but back-ended with tangible successes. My research project, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Computer Simulations in Promoting Scientific Reasoning Skills in College Students, required external funding to create the computer modules and we were twice turned down for financial support by the National Science Foundation. As a result, I began a new research project, Can Hypothetical Deductive Tasks Promote Post-formal Reasoning in College Students? in Fall 2005. With a new research topic came a new proposal to write and to defend, new graduate courses to take, and comprehensive exams to take and pass. I concluded my sabbatical experience in June having successfully completed and defended the research proposal and comprehensive evaluations. I also completed a pilot study, and wrote the first three chapters of the dissertation. The research study will take place in January 2006. I expect to defend the dissertation in June. I will return to SMCC with new hypothetical deductive tasks to promote scientific reasoning in our science students and a refreshed outlook, eager to apply the knowledge and experiences I acquired on sabbatical to our ambitious clients.

Palmerino Mazzucco
Mesa Community College / Technology
My year long sabbatical has been an incredible learning experience. I have been challenged with extending my mathematical background beyond my engineering coursework of the early 1980's. My biggest challenge was updating with the technology behind the subject matter of mathematics.When I attended school in the early 80's, graphing calculators were not readily available, computers were not in existence in the homes of people. The world was a different place. I have since mastered graphing calculators. I have extended my calculus mathematical background to include extending topics such as linear algebra where the matrix was used in problem solving applications. The power of the calculator also was evident in this course as we used it routinely to solve matrix based application problems with ease and used the graphing calculator to reduce complex matrixes to their row reduced equivalents.

Robin McCord
Chandler-Gilbert Community College / Science
European Credit Transfer System and The European Union: What It Might Mean to U.S. Higher Education
My sabbatical was spent as a scholar in residence at the University of Pristina in Pristina, Kosovo and as a Fellow at the University of SST Kyril and Methodi in Skopje, Macedonia. I studied the conditions under which physics education specifically and higher education practices and policies are evolving in post Yugoslavia and under unstable political and economic conditions. I had an opportunity to work with international education and law specialists drafting new legislation and examining the potential Bologna Conference (credit transfer) impact. The results of my sabbatical will be published this summer in the International Journal of Higher Education.

John Nagy
Scottsdale Community College / Life Science
Toward an Integrative Theory of Disease: Mathematical Modeling of Cancer and Infectious Disease
In 2004 my collaborators and I were awarded two National Science Foundation grants (DMS/NIGMS 0342388 and DMS 0436341) to conduct research into cancer and establish articulating undergraduate research programs at Arizona State University and Scottsdale Community College. Last year we published one major review article in the peer-reviewed literature, submitted another to the premier journal Science, and laid the foundation for a series of other papers now in preparation. We also established the research program at ASU and SCC, which currently has 10 students, three from SCC. I presented our undergraduate research program at a major conference in Dresden, Germany in August.

Liz O'Brien
Phoenix College / Communication
Striving Toward Listenability in the Public Speaking Classroom
The main goal of my sabbatical was to write a handbook for the academic public speaking market. The book is based on the foundational concept of listenability or "making a presentation as easy to listen to as possible." Listenability encourages speakers to use natural patterns of discourse while displaying considerateness (easing the burden of a listener's information processing). In preparing for the book, I met with several colleagues and performed appropriate research. The writing project is ongoing. The handbook, currently titled A Speaker's Resource, is to be published by McGraw-Hill Higher Education with an expected copyright date of 2007 or 2008.

Marsha Segerberg
Chandler-Gilbert Community College / Biology
Neuroscience Research at Barrow Neurological Institute
I carried single-channel electrophysiology experiments in cultured, genetically engineered cells expressing nicotinic type acetylcholine (ACh) receptors of various subunit combinations. These experiments fell into two broad categories: (1) the characterization of single-channel conductances in response to nicotine activation; (2) the effects of nicotine and related ACh receptor-activating drugs on type of voltage-activated potassium channel present in these cells. Data from the first category is currently being included in two manuscripts soon to be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Data from the second category forms the basis of a working hypothesis for which new experiments will be conducted by myself and our collaborators in future summer projects.

Kathryn Sheffield
Mesa Community College / English
Advancement Towards Ph.D. in Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Composition
The purposes of the sabbatical were 1) to fulfill the residency requirement towards the completion of the Ph.D. degree in Linguistics, Rhetoric and Composition at Arizona State University; 2) to finish the coursework for the degree; 3) to take the comprehensive examinations for the degree. In addition, the experience provided many opportunities to further develop as a scholar and an instructor, including opportunities to interact with faculty in my discipline, to attend seminars on campus, and to interact with students as a fellow student. The result has been growth in expertise in my discipline, and new perspectives on today's students and my role as an instructor.

Kirt Shineman
Glendale Community College / Foreign Language
I Need All The Help I can get: How Independent Elderly Widows Communicatively Negotiate Help From Their Support System
This sabbatical was an ethnographic study, a solo and interpreters' theater performance script presenting how elderly widows communicatively negotiate help (assistance) from their support system. The general goal of this project was to study instrumental assistance communication from the perspective of elder recipients; basically, how elderly widows communicate their need for physical assistance from family members and strangers. The central research question of this project was: "How do independent elderly widows ask for assistance." Through their stories of how they ask for help, we identified similarities of events that occurred in our families, our grandmothers' and grandfathers' lives.

Nancy Siefer
Glendale Community College / English
Transformational Learning: A Journey for Teachers and Students
I requested a sabbatical leave for the 2004-2005 academic year in order to update my knowledge and skills in teaching students enrolled in my composition, humanities, and educational classes. I wanted to explore ways to create learning environments that promote "deep" or transformational learning. Deep learning challenges current knowledge and moves learners to make long-lasting changes in their thinking and behavior. To effect deep learning, we need to make its transformational components visible and accessible to all who participate in the teaching/learning process. The focus of my sabbatical was to identify the components of transformational spaces and ways students and instructors could create and maintain them. Convinced that learning transforms us, I addressed two research questions: 1) What is the nature of this transformation and the conditions and environments that encourage it? 2) Can we establish these transformational spaces in an educational climate that emphasizes delivery and speed of data?

Linda Speranza
Mesa Community College / Art
Studying Ceramics through China and Argentina
For my sabbatical I toured China for five weeks, and went to Argentina. I photographed and videotaped ceramics across China, both contemporary and ancient. I lectured at two different Chinese universities. I traveled to Argentina and studied Moche pottery for two weeks. I have never in my life been given a gift as valuable or precious as the gift of time that the district has given me this year. The time not only allowed me to acquire greater knowledge in my field, and reevaluate techniques that I use in my teaching, it gave me time to reassess where and how I was applying my energy and decide if that path was really the path to my life's goals. I have come away from this gift with a more focused direction and a renewed commitment to the paths I have chosen for myself: teaching, my artwork, helping people in need, and developing my relationships. I made a commitment to myself to take better care of myself and gave myself permission to pursue the journey that is necessary to achieve my goals.

Julian Vazquez
Phoenix College / Foreign Language
Completion of Doctoral Dissertation: Mexican Histories in the Miracle of Fiction
The outcome of my Sabbatical leave was the completion of my doctoral dissertation, Mexican Histories in the Miracle of Fiction. Arizona State University awarded me a doctorate in December 2004 in Spanish Literature with a minor in Latin American History. The reading, writing, and networking with scholars and writers of my field during these intense days enriched my professional training and thinking by bringing me up to date with current trends in Latin American and Mexican Literature. My recently acquired knowledge will aid me in the development of more courses in the Spanish Humanities and Latin American literature for the traditional classroom as well as online and hybrid classes. In addition, I plan to continue to be a mentor to Phoenix College Hispanic students.

Kim Williamson
Scottsdale Community College / Comunication-Performing Arts
The purpose of my sabbatical leave was to develop the self-study materials necessary to pursue accreditation through the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST). To help facilitate and accomplish the self-study process during this academic year 05-06, several intermediate projects were implemented during sabbatical. The projects included the development of a new outcomes/assessment model which addresses three distinct areas of theatre study; the review, revision, and implementation of curriculum in Theatre Production coursework and the development of a production internship program with local professional theatre company Childsplay. Each of these individual projects served to develop the procedures and documents for the self-study for accreditation which is scheduled for 06-07.

Sandy Zetlan
Estrella Mountain Community College / Science-Math
A River Runs Through It: Plants and Animals of the Sonoran Desert.
During my sabbatical I become a better naturalist of Arizona flora and fauna. I worked with Arizona environmental agencies such as Sky Island Alliance, Arizona Game and Fish, private consulting firms, Arizona Native Plant Society, and the Audubon Society, upgrading my content knowledge, research skills, and professional connections in the field of wildlife biology. In doing so, I learned survey techniques for several endangered species, such as the Chiracahua leopard frog, Cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, and the Pima pineapple cactus. I investigated locations near the college for student labs, and developed course materials and internship opportunities for biology students.