2020-2021 Teaching Fellows Cohort
Reem Khamis-Dakwar
Communications Sciences and Disorders, College of Education and Health Sciences
Project
Her project attempts to decolonize “speech and language development course” a core undergraduate course taught as a prerequisite course for graduate studies in Communication Sciences and Disorders Program at Adelphi. Most of the work on language development is Eurocentric and textbooks on this topic give a central focus to mainstream American English (MAE) development (referred to as Standard American English). In this project, Dr. Khamis-Dakwar plans to redesign the course and infuse multicultural/multilingual (MMI) issues in all central modules taught in the course (i.e. phonological, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic development) and would put language acquisition of speakers of non-mainstream American English and bilingual English speakers in the center of the foundational knowledge of language development. This would break the myth of the monolingual norm, linked to the traditional teaching of language development that focuses on MAE acquisition and presents linguistic variation as a peripheral topic and out of the norm.
About
Reem Khamis-Dakwar (PhD, CCC-SLP) is a Full Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders, and director of the Neurophysiology in Speech-Language Pathology Lab (NSLPLab). Her research focuses on language development, processing, and clinical services in diglossic communities. She is the recipient of the 2020 Council on Academic Accreditation in audiology and SLP diversity award.
Marissa Abram
College of Nursing and Public Health
Project
As a Teaching Fellow, Dr. Abram’s goal is to develop a conceptual framework for use in developing simulation scenarios for patients addressing (1) various elements of diversity that impact health outcomes such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, genetics etc. (2) factors that marginalization stigmatized groups in healthcare such as persons with substance use disorders, mental illness, HIV etc. (3) the impact of social determinants of health. Two crucial factors that underpin this project are: Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity are crucial to healthcare delivery and patient well- being, and that racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare exist consistently across illnesses and healthcare services. Reflecting the holistic foundation of nursing care, the conceptual framework will be developed through a bio-psycho-social lens and positionality perspective. This project will take on a phased approach. Phase 1 is the development of the model. Phase 2 will be a pilot test in which the conceptual model will be applied to simulation in the graduate nurse practitioner program. Phase 3: After analysis, evaluation and revision of phase 2 data, the model will be applied and tested in simulation in the undergraduate program.
About
Dr. Abram is an Assistant Professor at the College of Nursing and Public Health. She primarily teaches graduate courses for the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Program. She currently provides care in Emergency Psychiatry and in Co-occurring Disorders in settings that serve persons’ in marginalized groups. Dr. Abram is trained in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Michael LaCombe
History, College of Arts and Sciences
Project
For the 2020-2021 Teaching Fellows, Professor LaCombe proposes to revisit a course taught in three different formats at Adelphi, now officially designated as History 271: Native American
History: North America. Native American history poses unique challenges rooted in the deep stereotypes of Indians in American history and culture. The biggest problem arising from these stereotypes is that those who hold them believe them to be positive, namely that native peoples lived in harmony with the earth; practiced a communal and egalitarian way of life; were deeply spiritual; and in other ways embodied a set of values antithetical to modernity. At many points in their history, Indians were defined by white people in precisely these terms, which are not without descriptive value. But if Indians are the antitype of the modern world, they cannot live in that world while remaining “real Indians,” as many Native authors and artists have pointed out. He hopes to try a new tack by creating either a new version of History 271 or a new First-Year Seminar based on Reacting to the Past. Specifically, two RTTP games—one based on mid-eighteenth century “Forest Diplomacy” and the other on the early nineteenth-century question of Indian Removal—require undergraduates to understand and play the roles of actors in these complex situations. To achieve their goals, they need to understand the perspectives, motivations, and goals of other actors, work collaboratively, and communicate effectively. Adelphi’s General Education learning goals culminate in Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking, and these RTTP games are a promising way to advance those goals, to instill in students an understanding of the full humanity and history of native peoples, and to move beyond diversity (taking a class that discusses another culture) to equity, inclusion, and empathy.
About
Michael LaCombe (Associate Professor, History) has been teaching in the history department since 2004. For the most part, his classes focus on early America and food in US history, and he earned a PhD from NYU and published a book with U Penn Press that combined those subjects. He lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, with his wife, two young daughters, and (for now) his eldest daughter, who like so many others is attending college remotely.
Sara Terrana
Project
Dr. Terrana’s ‘Teaching as Research’ project, titled Teaching Social Work Students about Social Action: Evaluating Impacts of Learning Activities, is to help reimagine the annual “Social Action Day” in the School of Social Work. Previously held at Garden City’s main campus, this will be recreated into an immersive “Social Action Initiatives” semester-long virtual activity. A signature pedagogy of social work, learning by doing, is the centerpiece to the curriculum redesign, as all MSW students in field placements will work virtually in small groups completing various advocacy projects related to the overarching theme of anti-racism. The aim of this redesign is an empowerment-based student-directed learning model where students shape the activities, design the projects, take ownership of tasks, and some will serve as leaders. During her fellowship year, she will work with the Social Action Committee to create an inclusive framework of the geographically and racially diverse student body in the MSW program. Dr. Terrana will lead an evaluation of this pilot through a pre-post survey design measuring potential change among students in three relevant domains that reasonably might be impacted by their group projects: civic engagement, macro practice, and online conversations about social justice. The pilot framework has the possibility of creating a template for other units or other schools of social work to engage in large-scale social action.
About
Sara Terrana is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work. Currently, she is teaching foundational courses in social policy and human behavior in the MSW program, and a course on nonprofit leadership and management in the doctoral program. Prior to coming to Adelphi, she completed her studies at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, where she researched nonprofit organizations located in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage. Dr. Terrana specializes in qualitative methodologies and has advanced computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) training. She has several publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance. She has presented her work at both national and international conferences across academic disciplines.
Lauren Rosenblum
General Studies Learning Community
Project
Dr. Rosenblum teaches a course sequence entitled “World of Ideas I” and “World of Ideas II” in the General Studies Learning Community. These first-year courses taken by all students in the learning community follow the model of a first-year seminar and, in the second semester, a general education social science course. For Dr. Rosenblum’s teaching fellows project, she will redesign these courses so that they foster a dynamic and flexible learning environment that encourages students to explore their interests, while providing them with an essential foundation in general education. One of the goals of the redesign is, in the first course, to find ways to invite students to actively participate in reframing the narrative of what a “general education” course means today; and, in the second course, to provide opportunities for students to develop solutions to the institutional, systematic problems that prevent universal equity. Another goal of the project is to develop high-impact teaching approaches that are particularly geared towards first-generation students, students with disabilities and all students who benefit from more inclusive forms of teaching.
About
Lauren M. Rosenblum (she/her/hers) is a lecturer in the General Studies Learning Community. Her courses in the program include Critical Reading and Writing, Expository Writing, and World of Ideas. She also teaches in the Levermore Global Scholars program and has taught courses in literature, first-year seminar courses and an interdisciplinary seminar entitled “Why We Party.” With her students she explores social justice and social justice movements, emphasizing how literature, art and popular culture can be tools of political resistance. Her publications on diverse, equitable and inclusive pedagogy include, most recently, the co-authored article, “Passing Through: Feminist Digital Pedagogy and Failure,” (Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, 2019). She also publishes on feminist approaches to the intersections of modernist literature and visual culture.