UNDERGRADUATERESEARCH
Students accompanied Lee on history-making discoveries program at CitySquare, starting in 2014, is one of the first nutrition programs in the nation to offer an internship with an emphasis on community and poverty. The internship is 35 weeks and provides graduate credit. A new online graduate Certificate in Enrollment Management is designed to prepare enrollment management professionals to become leaders in the areas of recruitment, marketing, retention and financial aid. As part of the program, students will complete four online courses and participate in a three-day residency at Disney Institute in Anaheim, Calif. The 48-hour Master of Arts in Christian Ministry (M.A.C.M.) degree program is changing to meet the needs of those working in full-time ministry, allowing up to 75 percent of the course work to be completed online. Thirty-six hours of the new program can now be completed online. The balance takes place during a series of one-week intensive courses conducted in Abilene. Students have the option to complete some or all of the other 36 hours via on-campus courses. They also can personalize their degree through electives selected to fit their ministry interests. The two-year, 69-hour Master of Science in Occupational Therapy degree will be offered starting in Summer 2014. Students will gain hands-on instruction and experience during their fieldwork placements at local health care facilities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of occupational therapists is expected to increase 33 percent from 2010 to 2020, much faster than the average for all occupations. Each of these new programs is pending final approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, and related program-specific accrediting bodies. For more: acu.edu/grad
Ecuador is not exactly just down the road from Abilene, but when biology professor and chair Dr. Tom Lee wants his undergraduate students to experience potentially ground-breaking research, he knows where to take them. He alternates guiding annual trips with students to study marine biology in the Caribbean and to explore ecosystems in the Andes Mountains. On the last two trips to the mountain cloud forests in Lee Ecuador, he and his students have found themselves looking at new species of mammals that have made scientific history and been featured in the Journal of Mammalogy. In 2012, Lee, Grayson Allred (’13) and Andrew Hennecke (’12) were checking nets one night for bat specimens in the Otonga Cloud Forest Reserve. They caught a glimpse of something in the tree canopy above them, and photographed what would become known a year later as an olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina), the first new species of carnivore discovered in the Americas in 35 years. The furry, short-nosed, long-tailed, two-pound carnivore was shown to the world Aug. 15 in a presentation at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The olinguito had been confused for years with a similar-looking mammal called an olingo. The research team credited with the discovery also cited Lee’s work in their paper. In 2010, Lee and student Amy Scott (’10) were doing mammal survey work in Ecuador’s Sangay National Park when they discovered in their traps
New faculty added for 2013-14 school year ACU has 243 full-time faculty members and 94 percent of those on a tenure track hold terminal degrees. The following were added to the faculty for the 2013-14 school year: • Brian Brown (’09), instructor of language and literature • Dr. Anita Broxson, assistant professor of nursing • Jeff Goolsby (’01), instructor of music • Dr. Kristen Guillory, assistant professor of social work • Rachel (Frazier ’97) Hewett, instructor of music • Dr. J. Darby Hewitt (’08), assistant professor of engineering and physics • Dr. Hope Martin, associate professor of occupational therapy
what would later be determined to be Caenolestes sangay, a new species of the shrew-opossum. Scientists from Ecuador, New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, and Chicago’s Field Museum provided data analysis of specimens and DNA to confirm the new species. The find was featured on the October 2013 front cover of the Journal of Mammalogy, and specimens now reside in ACU’s remarkable Natural History Collection and in another at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador, where biologists Santiago Burneo and Alexandra Camacho make Lee’s Ecuadorean work possible. “Ecuador is one of the most species-rich areas in the world for mammals,” Lee said. “It’s exciting to go there to see new things people have never seen before.” The Andes are the world’s longest continental mountain range, spanning 4,500 miles along the western shore of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina. Runoff from the Andes feeds tributaries of the Amazon River, and the Ecuador cloud forests contain as much as 17 percent of the world’s plant species and nearly 20 percent of its bird diversity. In other words, it’s a perfect place for biologists such as Lee to explore and discover, especially with his students. “It is important to share the field experience with undergrads so they will care about the earth and all the living things on it,” Lee said. “It also is invaluable to their career preparation.” For more: acu.edu/biology
• Dana Mayhall, instructor of teacher education • Dr. Stuart Platt, assistant professor of political science • James Prather, instructor in the School of Information Technology and Computing • Dr. Trey Shirley (’04), instructor of general education • Dr. Jessica Smith (’02), associate professor of journalism and mass communication • Rachel Smith (’98), instructor of communication sciences and disorders • Dr. Matthew Steele, assistant professor of engineering and physics • Dr. Charles Wadlington (’08 M.S.), assistant professor of psychology
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