From more than 80 areas of study, University of Evansville students now have a new major to choose: public health. UE’s Board of Trustees approved the public health program, which will begin in Fall 2012, during its meeting on February 17-18.

UE’s Bachelor of Science in public health will train students in multidisciplinary approaches to public health practices. Students will learn about a range of issues that impact population health, global health, environmental health, disease prevention, health communication and informatics, healthcare systems, and health behavior.

Payal Patel-Dovlatabadi, assistant professor of public health, will serve as director of the public health program. She joined the University of Evansville faculty in 2011 to teach public health courses in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science, where the public health program will be housed.

Patel-Dovlatabadi holds a DrPH in public health management, an MPH in health care organization and policy, an MBA in health care management, and a BS in psychology, all from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research interests include health policy, lifestyle factors and chronic disease prevention, mental health, and disaster preparedness on both the national and international levels.

“From disaster relief to air quality to disease prevention, public health professionals ensure a healthy, safe, and productive society,” said Patel-Dovlatabadi. “Furthermore, the Association of Schools of Public Health estimates that 250,000 more public health workers will be needed by 2020. To replenish the workforce and avert a serious shortage of qualified workers, schools of public health will have to train three times the current number of graduates over the next 11 years.”

“I’m proud that the University of Evansville has recognized this critical need and stepped up to meet the challenge of preparing graduates for careers in the dynamic field of public health,” she added.

Graduates with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health who wish to enter the job market will find opportunities for employment by state and local health departments, hospital systems, government agencies, health insurance companies, wellness centers, and consulting firms, to name a few.

The program will also prepare students who wish to pursue graduate education. Students across the country who completed an undergraduate degree in public health have successfully pursued advanced degrees in fields including public health, health services administration, physical therapy, law, medicine, and business administration.

Source: Evansville.edu

Hello from Blaze, a 5-year-old Chow Mix. Blaze is a super sweet girl who would prefer a quieter home with older children. Blaze has a bit of an independent streak in her but at the end of the day there’s no place she’d rather be than cuddled up with her favorite person. Blaze has lived with other dogs and might be interested in sharing her space and her person with a K9 buddy, but she would like to meet them first just to make sure that they’ll make great roommates. Blaze has been known to wear out the squeaker in her favorite toys but her laid back, lazy nature will give your ears a break from time to time. For more information on beautiful Blaze, visit www.vhslifesaver.org or call (812) 426-2563.

The New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art will present “Forms of ID,” an exhibition of work by five artists: Gray Lyons, Morgan Ford, Ben Duke, Steven Labadesa, and Christopher Olszewski, February 18 through March 17. A free, public reception will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, March 10.

In the exhibition, artists work in multiple disciplines and explore the construction of identity, perceptions of beauty, the relationship between text and image, and the intersection of art and culture. The work examines body image, identity on societal and individual levels, and the ways in which identity develops in our youth.

Lyons, of South Bend, Indiana, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design and Master of Fine Arts degree from Towson University. Lyons is an associate faculty member of photography at Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts at Indiana University-South Bend.

South Carolina native Ford received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Carolina and Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from Texas Woman’s University. She resides in Vincennes, Indiana, where she is the director of the Shircliff Gallery of Art at Vincennes University.

Louisville, Kentucky, native Duke received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art and Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from the University of Utah. He currently teaches at Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan.

Labadessa, of Joplin, Missouri, received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an assistant professor of drawing and painting at Missouri Southern State University.

Savannah, Georgia artist Olszewski received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Wayne State University and Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Kentucky. Olszewski is a professor of Foundation Studies at the School of Foundation Studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

The New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art is located at 506 Main Street in New Harmony, IN and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. For more information, call 812/682-3156 or visit www.nhgallery.com.

Source: usi.edu

Can Facebook be used to predict academic success and job performance?

That’s the question posed by Peter A. Rosen, associate professor of management information systems in the Schroeder Family School of Business Administration at the University of Evansville. Along with co-authors Donald H. Kluemper of the Department of Management at Northern Illinois University and Kevin W. Mossholder in the Department of Management at Auburn University, Rosen published “Social networking websites, personality ratings, and the organizational context: More than meets the eye?” in the February 2012 issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

“A rapid expansion of social media over the past decade has resulted in the use of social networking websites beyond their initial purpose,” Rosen said. “University administrators and hiring managers have begun to view this technology to evaluate students and employees, despite controversial legal issues associated with this practice.”

“Our research provides evidence from two studies that Facebook can be used by trained evaluators to reliably assess various personality traits, traits shown in existing literature to predict academic and job success and to be legally defensible for selection purposes,” Rosen added.

Study 1 included 274 Facebook users. Results conclude that Facebook-rated personality 1) correlates with traditional self-reported personality, 2) demonstrates internal consistency and inter-rater reliability for personality and hirability, 3) correlates with evaluator preferences to hire the Facebook user, and 4) correlates with supervisor ratings of job performance for a sub-sample of Facebook users who were employed.

Study 2 included 244 college students. Results conclude that Facebook-rated personality 1) correlates with traditional self-reported personality tests, 2) demonstrates internal consistency and inter-rater reliability, 3) is stronger than self-reported personality and IQ in predicting academic success, and 4) provides incremental prediction of academic performance beyond what was obtained from self-rated personality and intelligence tests combined.

Taken together, these studies provide initial evidence that information available on Facebook can be used to identify individuals who are more successful in college and on the job.

“Although further study is needed,” Rosen said, “perhaps when viewing applicant social networking profiles, there is more to it than meets the eye.”

The full article is available here.

Source: Evansville.edu