From the official announcement from the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, Dr .André-Denis G. Wright:
Dr. Kelvin White joined the OU faculty in 2008 and has been an integral part of OU’s academic community ever since. As Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Community in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, he demonstrates exemplary leadership, overseeing all faculty-related policies and processes, ranging from all forms of faculty and staff evaluations to tenure and promotion, sabbatical leaves, faculty recruitment and retention, and fostering an inclusive environment for over 600 faculty members and more than 200 staff. His research examines the interconnections between the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which recordkeeping activities exist and the implications they have for marginalized or underrepresented communities. Dr. White’s influence extends to the archival community, where he has served as a co-principal investigator of the Archival Education and Research Institute, a collaborative endeavor of archival education programs committed to nurturing a new generation of academics in the field.
Drs. Yong-Mi Kim and Chi Noryori-Corbett received a Knee Center Seeds Grant administered through the School of Social Work at the University of Oklahoma. The project investigates Afghanistan refugee women's mental health. Because the concept and treatment of mental health in Afghanistan are very different from Western culture, there has not been systematic research conducted. Since mental health is a big stigma in the culture, they plan to use a culturally and linguistically sensitive method to understand and conceptualize mental health in the grant proposal.
Dr. Yong-Mi Kim and Dr. Chie Noryori-Corbett, OU School of Social Work, recently published a manuscript, Ethnic Density as a Key Factor to Narrow Health Disparities: A Case of American Indian and Alaska Native in Health & Social Work Journal. This manuscript was developed using a clinical dataset to investigate American Indian and Alaska Natives’ (AI/AN) health. Using data-mining on 13,064 electronic health records, the team discovered that higher ethnic density is positively related to lower blood pressure, and better BMI and cholesterol levels. This theoretical perspective is new to the field and complements the existing socioeconomic perspective that argues positive correlations between better health and a higher socioeconomic status.
Kim, Yong-Mi and Chie Noyori-Corbett (2023). Ethnic Density as a Key Factor to Narrow Health Disparities: A Case of American Indian and Alaska Native. Health & Social Work.
Congratulations to Dr. Betsy Van der Veer Martens, Professor Emerita, School of Library and Information Studies, who has a new book published! Her new book, Keywords In and Out of Context (Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts), is now available.
The book explores the rich history of the keyword from its earliest manifestations (long before it appeared anywhere in Google Trends or library cataloging textbooks) in order to illustrate its implicit and explicit mediation of human cognition and communication processes. Thanks for your work and contributions to the profession, Dr. Martens!
Dr. Buffy Edwards has been appointed to the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) School Library Research Editorial Board. The AASL School Library Research Editorial Board works under the direction of the School Library Research Editor(s) and the AASL Editor to review manuscripts in a timely fashion and ensure the research journal is relevant, current, and meets the needs of AASL’s diverse membership. This is an important endeavor because it assures peer-reviewed journal articles that Teacher Librarian practitioners can use as professional development and continual learning.
Pictured with Dr. Edwards is Dr. Elizabeth Burns, co-Editor of School Library Research and Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University. The two met at the Research Symposium preconference during the AASL National Conference in Tampa, FL in October.
Dr. Yong-Mi Kim and Sailatha Thomas, MD, St. Francis Hospital, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Presented Discrepancy Between Objective and Subject Diabetes Knowledge: Based on Asian Indian and Korean immigrants, at the International Conference on Knowledge Management
Dr. Yong-Mi Kim and Sailatha Thomas, MD, St. Francis Hospital, Tulsa, Oklahoma, presented Discrepancy between objective and subject diabetes knowledge: Based on Asian Indian and Korean immigrants, at the International Conference on Knowledge Management.
To investigate to what extent those immigrants were aware of their diabetes conditions, a medical team measured their diabetes, blood pressure, and BMI, and a survey questionnaire will measure their perceptual knowledge of their diabetes. Asian immigrants are perceived as healthy, but Asian Indian and Korean immigrants have the highest rate of diabetes in the US. When they immigrated to this country, diabetes was not a common disease, and those immigrants didn't think about diabetes until diabetes complications became apparent.
The study analysis, using structural equation modeling (SEM), shows that their [immigrants] perceptual diabetes knowledge is highly correlated with the objective measurement, and these immigrants appear to share incorrect information about diabetes at their ethnic meetings. The presentation is part of a DISC grant.
Dr. Yong Ju Jung successfully presented one panel and two posters at ALISE 2023, which was held October 2-5 in Milwaukee, WI. In the panel presentation, for the Disabilities in LIS SIG, she shared preliminary findings from a project with Dr. June Abbas about public library makerspaces' services and programs for youth with disabilities.
One of the poster presentations was from her collaborative project with Dr. Junghee Choi, from the OU College of Education, about longitudinal relationships between academic libraries' expenditures and college student graduation rates.
The other poster shared her preliminary findings on a children's embodied data literacy program encompassing making, video-logging, and exploring at a public library.
The Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences recently appointed Dr. June Abbas and Dr. Kun Lu as co-directors of the OU Data Scholarship Program.
The Data Scholarship Program was created by Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences to support interdisciplinary data education and research. We currently offer graduate certificates, undergraduate minors and certificates in Data Analytics and Applied Statistics, and an online Masters of Science in Applied Statistics.
Dr. Abbas will serve as the co-director of the Data Scholarship Program, Research and Strategic Initiatives and Dr. Lu will be the co-director of the Data Scholarship Program, Academic Programs.
Congratulations to this outstanding group and to NPS for support of school library programs.
Pictured on the back row L to R: Hailey Kay Burton (2020) Teacher Librarian Norman High School, Matt Mairet (2023) Norman Public Schools Teacher of the Year and newest graduate pursuing School Librarianship, Dr. Buffy Edwards (1989)Retired NPS Teacher Librarian and OU SLIS Faculty, Dr. Stacy Schrank (2014) Norman Public Schools, Library Information Specialist, Amanda Kordeliski (2010) Norman Public Schools, Director of Libraries and Instructional Technology, Stacy Ford (2006) Teacher Librarian Reagan Elementary, Martha Pangbrun (2000) Teacher Librarian Norman High School,
Pictured on the front row: Molly Dettmann (2014) Teacher Librarian Norman North High School, Brittany Love (2019) Teacher Librarian Lincoln Elementary.
Dr. Jiqun Liu’s Generative AI project titled “Identifying and mitigating cognitive biases in generative-AI-assisted online learning” received funding support from the OUVPRP’s Bridge Funding Investment Program (BFIP).
This BFIP funding will allow his research group to continue their projects on characterizing human biases in human-AI interaction and evaluating tools and algorithms that can help mitigate bias impacts and promote fair information access.
