Grants include:

• The U.S. Department of Education awarded $294,059 to Carol Mellen, director of student support services, to help first-generation college students, students who have disabilities and students who are from low-income families graduate from Western.

• The National Science Foundation awarded $289,806 to Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, to continue to develop a network of partners delivering culturally integrated geosciences education to Native American young people in the northern Olympic Peninsula of Washington state.

• The Kate B. Reynolds Foundation awarded $108,354 to Vincent Hall, head of the School of Nursing, to create a Center for Higher Nursing Education to develop a registered nurse-to-master’s of science in nursing degree track with a focus on nursing education.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture: Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service awarded $99,612 to Joni Bugden-Storie, assistant professor of geosciences and natural resources, to develop a project with the University of San Juan in Argentina and the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil relevant to agricultural performance. Part of the grant will enable Bugden-Storie to take 10 students to Argentina and Brazil for a hands-on educational experience with field data collection for remote sensing image acquisitions, and then make maps using the radar satellite data.

• Vanderbilt University awarded $52,146 to Kefyn Catley, associate professor of biology, to develop a cognitive approach to implement tree thinking in high school and college biology curricula.

• The Mountain Area Health Administration Center awarded $50,000 to Sharon Jacques, associate professor of nursing, to expand an off-campus nursing degree program and support nursing projects designed to improve the educational mobility and enrollment of working registered nurses and nontraditional nursing students.

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service awarded $50,000 to Joseph Pechmann, associate professor of biology, to conduct research related to the conservation and management of the endangered dusky gopher frog Rana sevosa.

• The Heliker-Lahotan Foundation awarded $41,777 to Patricia Bailey, associate professor of art, for salary and benefits during a one-semester extension from work she started as part of a scholarly development assignment project. Bailey is helping develop the foundation’s Artist Residency Program on Great Cranberry Island in Maine, and support two exhibition projects on the work of John Heliker.

• The National Council for Eurasian and East European Research awarded $10,000 to Victoria Clement, assistant professor of history, to examine the conditions of post-Soviet schooling and the achievements made in the building of civil society in Turkmenistan.

• The First Nations Development Institute awarded $5,000 to Roseanna Belt, director of the WCU Cherokee Center, to help the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians achieve financial balance through education and counseling, and increase the level of financial literacy in the community with emphasis on meeting the growing need for financial maturity of the community’s youth.

• The Foundery Pictures awarded $688 to Arledge Armenaki, associate professor of stage and screen, to work with students to produce a digital motion picture entitled “Wesley.”

For more information, contact Wanda G. Ashe, grants manager, by phone at (828) 227-7212 or by e-mail at ashe@wcu.edu.

Maintained by the Office of Public Relations
Last Modified: Monday, Oct. 13, 2008