Young Faculty Teaching Award In Teaching and Nursing - Leslie Myers is a Winner Lander faculty member Leslie MacTaggart Myers will remember spring 2008 for two important milestones in her nursing career: being selected for Lander’s Young Faculty Teaching Award; and receiving her doctoral degree in nursing practice, adult nurse practitioner, from the University of South Carolina. Myers said she chose nursing after observing the care that nurses provided to members of her family and decided to specialize in obstetrics, gynecology and maternal-child health. She said, “It is a perfect fit for me. I am helping women manage healthy pregnancies.” The Greenwood native received her nursing degree at Clemson University and a master’s in public and community health nursing from the University of South Carolina. For five years, she worked as a staff nurse at the Women’s Center at Self Regional Healthcare where her duties included coaching and patient education in labor and delivery. That
Young Scholar Award
By Dave Lorenzatti
prompted an interest in teaching, and in 2005 she joined the Lander faculty as a nursing instructor. She also teaches in the university’s online RN to BSN program. “What I like most about teaching is sharing my knowledge with students, watching them become excited about what they are learning and watching them develop,” she said. Myers, a strong advocate for breastfeeding, is the founder of the Greenwood Alliance for Breastfeeding Cyber-support. The Internet site www.greenwoodabcs.org is an alliance of professionals, mothers and community leaders providing comprehensive information for nursing mothers. Myers has also drafted legislation to support breastfeeding in the workplace for consideration in the next legislative session. She and her husband, David, an eighth-grade teacher at Wright Middle School in Abbeville, have two children, Ethan, 4, and Bailey, l. She said motherhood helped her better understand pregnancy and the labor and delivery experience. While she plans to continue teaching at Lander, Myers will also work as a nurse practitioner at Clinica Gratis in Greenwood, a free medical clinic associated with Community Initiatives Inc. Among the honors she has received during her career are the 2008 Award for Excellence in Nursing Research from the Alpha Xi Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, the international nursing honor society, and the 2006 South Carolina League for Nursing Award for Excellence.
By Russell Martin
Willis Gets Practical, Wins Young Scholar Award With just two years at Lander behind him, assistant professor of English Dr. Lloyd Willis has a lot to show for it. He was a featured lecturer in the College of Arts and Humanities Distinguished Speaker Series. He has continuously revamped his classes to make them pertinent to student interests, and he has also made great strides toward integrating technolPhoto by Randy Pace ogy into his curriculum. While doing all of this, Willis still managed to work on two books. One is titled Environmental Evasion: Literary, Critical, and Cultural Politics of ‘Nature’s Nation,’ 1823-1966. The other, a collection of essays on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is titled Reconsidering Longfellow in the
American Canon. Willis plans to have both books completed by the end of the summer. Willis’ work at Lander has not gone unnoticed by his peers, and this spring his efforts earned him Lander’s 2008 Young Faculty Scholar Award. The award recognizes a new faculty member with the best record of scholarship who exemplifies the qualities the Lander faculty values in its colleagues as teacher-scholars. Willis said, “I have really enjoyed working with my colleagues in the English Department and I have become attached to the Lander students. I feel that I have a lot in common with them. Like many Lander students, I, too, was a first-generation college student, and while I did have some great scholarships to help me along, I worked quite a bit while taking classes.” Willis went on to say that seeing his students combine education with work gives them a very practical outlook. “If I can make my students understand that I am giving them the critical thinking and communication skills that they will need to have better careers and live better lives, they generally meet me halfway and do their part,” he said. Willis has a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a master’s degree in American literature and a doctorate in 19th century American literature from the University of Florida. Lander Magazine • Summer 2008
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