¨      From Dean Blevins, Religion …

I attended the North American Professors or Christian Education (NAPCE) Annual Conference October 21-23 in Orlando. I co-presented a paper with Mark Maddix (NNU) titled Renovating Wesleyan Education in the 21st century in addition to hearing plenary speaker Dallas Willard and engaging in other seminars.

The presentation was well received and resulted in an offer to publish a version in the Christian Education Journal, a juried journal of the association that is one of the top two publications in Christian Education. The article has since been approved and will see publication this spring (which will also raise TNU visibility since it includes my title). The actual writing and presentation helped to sharpen my own work on a Wesleyan theology of education and received strong, positive, feedback by both Wesleyan and Evangelical educators attending the conference. That work will continue in a scheduled book project to be completed next year.

¨      From Julia Simmons, Education…

Conference attended: Structures for Thinking Skills with Dr. Spencer Kagan in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, November 29, 2004.

Benefits: Thinking Skills directly applies to the courses I teach both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Thinking skills enhances Instructional Methods, Language and Literacy, Reading and Literacy, and Current Trends and Issues. To aid a student in developing thinking skills and then they teach their students are a great benefit to our future.

¨      From Jeff Frame, Theatre…

Name of conference: Popular Culture Association of the South (New Orleans, September 2004)

Reason for attending: Participation on a Kubrick panel and the presentation of a paper entitled “Nonlinear Noir: Kubrick’s Killing.  The paper is a brief slice of my doctoral dissertation work which applies Harold Bloom’s theory “the anxiety of influence” to the evolution of nonlinear narrative structures in film.

Benefits to teaching and/or professional practice here at Trevecca: The research material was presented at the faculty symposium last semester and will be used to help teach film narratology in my course COM 3700 Film Theory and Criticism this semester.  The entire dissertation, of which the paper is a small segment, will be edited and submitted for publication

¨      From Jamen McGranahan, Library…

On April 20, I will be attending a 1-day conference at Ball State University in Muncie, IN called “CopyRights and CopyWrongs for All Librarians: Answers to Copyright Issues You Need to Know!” (http://www.bsu.edu/library/conference/).  As a professor in the MLIS program, it is necessary that I keep up-to-date on copyright law and all of the delicate intricacies involved and pass along this information to our students.  As a full-time librarian, it will keep me informed, promote collaboration with other librarians across the country and, in collaboration with the rest of the TNU library faculty, and help to keep the University in copyright compliance.  Since the conference is not until April 20, it is hard to know the exact details of how it will benefit me, but based on the information from the website, these two areas should be affected.

¨      From Esther Swink, Education…

I Attended a conference in Utah entitled The Eighth Habit: Finding Your Voice and Helping Others to Find Theirs

As a licensed facilitator for The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I wanted my training to extend to the 8th habit.

            The content of this curriculum will be useful in the doctoral courses that we offer.  Specifically, we plan to use the content in the third leadership course.

¨      From Joy Wells, Sociology…

Because of the faculty development mini-grant, I was able to attend the first annual Counsel Works conference. This is a new organization for professional Christian counselors and therapists. I attended workshops on the subject of marriage and found resources that I am currently using in Courtship and Marriage class. In addition, I attended the following workshops on ethics: Minimizing Your Legal Liability and Ethical Integrity in Clinical Relationships. These were very helpful in that the state of Tennessee requires three hours of continuing education in the area of ethics and I was able to meet that requirement within a Christian as well as professional context. I hope to attend future conferences of this new organization as it provides a much needed professional component to the field of Christian counseling.

¨      From Henry Spaulding, Religion…

I received a $300.00 mini-grant in order to partially pay for my attendance at the Wesleyan Theological Society meeting in Seattle, WA.  I attended in order to chair a theology section and to hear the papers and discussions of fellow scholars in the Wesleyan tradition.  The plenary speaker was Stanley Hauerwas.  I think that the chief benefit of attending the meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society is the opportunity to hear what others are thinking.  It is also good to speak informally with others who are teaching theology.

¨      From Fred Mund, Music…

I attended the ASSOCIATION FOR TECHNOLOGY IN MUSIC INSTRUCTION annual meeting in San Francisco, CA, Nov 4-7.

The reason for attendance was to represent my division at this meeting to be made aware of new technologies and programs as they affect music teaching.

The benefits are many--I had opportunity to speak to other instructors who run music labs and compare their labs to ours, I had opportunity to see other programs and to compare them to what we use, (in some cases, I recommended new purchases for our division), I attended sessions which presented new technology and methods for implementing them in the teaching of music, and I was able to browse through publishers booths to see what was being published with the possibility of acquiring them for the division.  Always a highlight is talking to the representative from FINALE to get information on how better to use this program with our students.

This meeting is the "cutting edge' for technology in music instruction.  I use as text book for the "Technology for Music Majors" class one authored by two of the officers of the Association.

¨      From Ruth Cox, Education …

Esther Swink and I attended The 8th Habit in Salt Lake City, Utah.  This was a training presentation by Steven Covey, who wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. 

The rationale for attending the 8th Habit was to continue to expand our knowledge and understanding of the work that Dr. Covey has done.  We will be integrating this information into the doctoral program in the course entitled, Leadership III.  We have found the information to be a compilation of his previous work as the foundation and then taking personal and organizational effectiveness to the next level.  We believe that we will be able to also use this information within our School of Education.

¨      From Ed Anthony, Technology (TICIT)…

NaATEC 18.1 Network and System Professionals Association Conference in Chicago, IL.  October, 2004  - Attended Conference as a speaker. Title of presentation:  IT Careers: Surviving Today's Job Market

            As would be expected, participation by a faculty member in the discipline can help to provide future opportunities and growth.  It also demonstrates the commitment of the institution in the area of research and development.  The conference not only provided an opportunity for Trevecca to play a role but allowed me to grow professionally by attending conference sessions and developing new contacts in the IT industry. 

¨      From Prilla Speer, Library …

Min-grant monies covered my airfare to Minneapolis to attend the biennial meeting of the Association of College and Research Libraries, April 7-10, 2005.  This is the first time I have attended this meeting and it will definitely not be the last one I attend!

The conference theme, "Navigating the Rivers of Change", illustrated how academic libraries and Librarians can sail the diverse waters of change that we encounter as a result of technology, society, user needs, economic impact, the global community. 

            I attended a 4 hour hands-on workshop about integrating drama into library instruction; listened to debate on the threat of Googlization, emerging disruptive technologies; panel discussions about collaborating with student services groups; the library as community and how to create community on your campus.  I had opportunity to talk vendors about new online products and services; get marketing ideas; sign up for door prizes....that I never won; saw demonstrations of products we are interested in such as Proquest's Digital Commons. 

            The conference was very stimulating; rich with new ideas and crammed with practical 'how to do it better' strategies and many opportunities for networking. I learned about RSS, the meaning of Googlization, what the 'gamers' or 'gaming generation' are looking for on a library Web site and services and what we are doing right!  I have already shared handouts and initiated discussion amongst librarians about the new ideas and services and will continue to do this during the summer.  If you are interested in the future of information take 8 minutes of your time and view the provocative video at  http://www.robinsloan.com/epic . Thank you for the opportunity!

¨      From Jeff Swink, Academic Support…

I attended the National Association for Developmental Education in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  After attending the local meeting here in Tennessee, I wanted to get a bigger picture of developmental education.  The national theme was "Learning and Teaching: Above and Beyond".  My participation in the conference provided opportunities for me to gain understanding and knowledge in a wide range of developmental issues.  My participating I bought back ideas for our support center and developmental classes.