Arts Innovation Grants available for Homewood faculty, students

The Arts Innovation Grants Program has announced that grants are now available for Homewood faculty and students. The initiative is designed to help faculty develop undergraduate interdisciplinary courses — across departments, divisions or institutions — that create new credit courses in the arts for Homewood students, and to help undergraduates create new co-curricular activities in the arts or significantly increase the impact of existing ones within both the university and the greater Baltimore communities.

The deadline for submitting proposals is Friday, April 3. For more information, go to: www.library.jhu.edu/about/news/announcements/ artsinnovation grants.html.

 

Daffodil Days sales to support the fight against cancer

Flowers and teddy bears will be enlisted in the fight against cancer on Wednesday and Thursday, March 18 and 19, when the Office of Faculty, Staff and Retiree Programs sponsors the annual Johns Hopkins Daffodil Days sales for the American Cancer Society.

For a $10 contribution, donors receive a bouquet of fresh-cut daffodils or potted daffodil bulbs. Limited quantities of this year's commemorative Boyds Bear, Carrie N. Hope, and a bunch of daffodils are available for a $25 donation at various Johns Hopkins locations to support ACS efforts.

For a listing of sale sites, go to: hr.jhu.edu/fsrp/daffodil.cfm or contact Sondra Ponzi in FSRP at sponzi1@jhu.edu or 410-516-0338.

 

Simulation education conference set for next month at Nursing

The School of Nursing is co-sponsoring, along with the Institute for Johns Hopkins Nursing, the School of Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Hospital, an upcoming event called "Simulation as a Cutting-Edge Tool." The workshop, the first to be held at the School of Nursing, will provide an overview of the simulation tools available and information on how they can be most effectively implemented in a hospital or nursing school setting.

"An interdisciplinary focus is a main component of the experience," said Shari Lynn, an instructor in Acute and Chronic Care at the School of Nursing and a member of the cross-disciplinary conference faculty. "Collaboration is important because in real-life situations, you'll have doctors, nurses and other health care professionals working side by side."

The workshop will be held at both the school and the JHH Simulation Center, a state-of-the-art facility known for its innovations. The center incorporates the very basic forms of standardized simulation, such as role-playing, to complex computer simulation, such as using computer software to aid in decision making. Various low- and high-fidelity simulation equipment will be used at the conference, including skill sets, simulation people and simulation software.

Kathryn Kushto-Reese, also an instructor in the program, said that she hopes that the participants will come away with a new understanding and appreciation for simulation education. "We want them to be able to educate others in incorporating simulation education in the curriculum," she said.

The cost of the workshop, to be held Friday, April 17, is $95. For more information, go to www.ijhn.jhmi.edu.

 

Report: Twelve states rise above the nationwide dropout crisis

A dozen states significantly improved their high school graduation rates between 2002 and 2006, while the rest of the nation lagged behind, according to a report by researchers at the new Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins.

Tennessee led the way with an 11 percentage point increase in its graduation rate, according to the report, "Progress Toward Increasing National and State Graduation Rates," available at www.every1graduates.org. The other states with increases were Delaware, Kentucky, South Dakota, Arkansas, Alabama, North Carolina, New York, Hawaii, Missouri, Nebraska and New Hampshire.

This progress report comes on the heels of a major education address by President Barack Obama in which he cited the work of Johns Hopkins education researchers in identifying the 2,000 high schools that produce half the nation's dropouts, and issued a challenge to all Americans to turn around these low-performing schools.

Robert Balfanz, co-author of the report and co-director of the Everyone Graduates Center, said, "In identifying the low-performing high schools, the president said we have to have solutions. This report points out where progress has been made and where we can look for solutions."

The Everyone Graduates Center, located at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins, offers research on the nation's dropout crisis and college readiness challenge, effective models and tools for meeting these needs and strategies for helping communities and school districts to adapt the models and remedies to their own situations.

 

Clarification

In the March 2 article on HOP-SIP, the new Johns Hopkins Social Innovations Partnerships program, Mindi Levin was identified only as director of volunteer and community services at the Bloomberg School. Her primary title, however, is director of SOURCE, Johns Hopkins' Student Outreach Resource Center, which serves the schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health.

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