Hall Endowment Abstracts - Spring 2009
A Night to Remember
Misty Bell
Project Abstract: Bridging the Gap is a Weber State University Volunteer Involvement Program focusing on relationships with the elderly citizens of our Ogden Community. Our regular visits to various Senior Centers provide a fun and unique opportunity for Weber State students to get to know the seniors in our area. So far this year, we have attended multiple care centers bringing a new kind of fun and excitement with our interactive activities and games designed to help the residents feel young and alive again as they intermingle with our volunteer students.
In continuation of this effort to enhance the later years of our senior friends, we are hosting a Valentine’s Day Senior Ball titled, “A Night to Remember.” Our goal is to create an environment in which the Mountain Ridge residents can enjoy the Valentine holiday as they dance the night away. This Bridging the Gap annual event has proven very successful in the past but stringent financial limitations have been a difficulty. This year we would love to be able to provide refreshments, decorations, and valentine gifts to the seniors.
Dental Health Education, Dental Screenings and Dental Sealant Project for Inner-City Ogden Elementary School Children
Stephanie Bossenberger, Professor, Chair, Dental Hygiene
Project Abstract: The objective of this project is to plan and implement a dental health education and dental sealant project for inner-city Ogden elementary school children. The purpose of this proposal is to provide dental health education, dental screenings and dental sealants for elementary school children in inner-city Ogden. Further, the organization of this project provides for children to have access to needed dental care; dental restoration by local dentists. Specifically, this proposal requests funding for the bus transportation of the elementary school children to WSU’s Dental Hygiene Clinic on the Ogden campus.
The program includes a plan for university dental hygiene students with program faculty to provide dental health education classes and oral screenings at Madison, T O Smith, and Dee Elementary Schools. Through the oral screening findings, children are selected to be transported to Weber State=s Dental Hygiene Clinic to have their teeth cleaned, x-rayed and dental sealants applied. Further, the screenings provide information for the referral of the children with dental caries (decay) to the Give Kids A Smile event (national day of service sponsored by the American Dental Association) that provides free dental care to children in need by local dentists, hygienists and dental hygiene students. Weber State Dental Hygiene Clinic hosts this free clinic annually. This is the third year of the Give Kids a Smile clinic. The screenings at the Elementary Schools are organized well in advance of the date that the university students and faculty go to the schools. The school counselor distributes parent permission forms to be signed, allowing for the child to be screened. The university students, under the supervision of the dental hygiene faculty, use a small flash light and disposable mouth mirror to view the children’s teeth. A general determination is made of their dental needs and the child is asked if they have pain from their teeth or mouth. Of the nearly 400 children that were screened in January and February, approximately 50 had obvious dental decay, needing fillings and half of those children reported having pain from those teeth. The GKAS clinic provides access to dental care for children that need the treatment provided by a dentist. The children who are selected for sealant placement by the dental hygiene students are children who have not experienced dental decay in their permanent first molars. Sealants serve to “seal out dental decay” and is a proven method to control decay in children’s teeth. This project has been very successful in the past as evidenced by the annual reports of services rendered and improvement in the children's dental health.
Venture Course in the Humanities
Shannon K. Butler, Professor, English
Project Abstract: Fall 2008 launched Ogden's Venture Course in the Humanities, a higher education outreach project for Ogden's low-income adults who lack the financial and personal resources to further their education. A nine-month college level course, Venture is designed to help students gain confidence in their academic and social abilities and, in turn, realize personal goals for improving their life's circumstances. The Venture Course curriculum offers 22 hours of instruction in each of the following content areas: literature, critical writing and thinking, art history, American history, and philosophy for a total of 110 class hours. Participants can earn ten college credits upon completion, which may jump-start some toward further college studies. Venture is a partnership between the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities (A&H) and the Utah Humanities Council (UHC). Ogden-Weber Community Action Partnership (OWCAP) provides space where five WSU faculty teach the course's five content section offerings two evenings a week. Eighteen students will graduate from Venture in April.
Recruitment for 2009-10 students will begin this spring through direct contacts with many of Ogden's nonprofits (Ogden Adult Education, Job Corps, OWCAP, YCC, Headstart). The first 20-25 qualified applicants will attend Venture next Fall and Spring semesters. Assessment of the impact of Venture includes student interviews, surveys, faculty observations, and tracking student accomplishments beyond Venture graduation. Evaluation data from the SLC Venture Course, now in its fourth year, is also available.
A Hall Endowment can ensure the continuation of Venture and help us begin to involve on campus students through service-learning exchanges with Venture participants whose life experiences have been very different from most college students. The insights Venture students can offer into what effects poverty, immigration, addiction, incarceration, abusive relationships and racism have had on their lives cannot be found in a textbook.
Lead Testing and Education in Ogden
Timothy A. Herzog, Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Project Abstract: This project is intended to serve two purposes. The first purpose is to engage our students in meaningful projects to show them that they can use their chemistry knowledge to help people in our community. The second purpose is to try to protect the most vulnerable members of our society from exposure to lead. I am partnering with the Ogden Weber Community Action Partnership (OWCAP) since they have an active community health program and work with hundreds of disadvantaged children and their families every year through Head Start. I hope to start this project this semester in my Chemistry 3060 (Applied Analysis) class, which has five very motivated and bright students and then continue the project in an annual or biannual Chemistry 4700 (special topics with a focus on problem based learning and community involvement) class. My goal is for this program to be student driven since I believe that students will get more out of the program if it is their creation than if they are assigned a precise project.
Teacher Assistant Path to Teaching (TAPT) Program
Marilyn Lofgreen
The Teacher Assistant Path to Teaching Program (TAPT) has as its major objective to provide scholarships to empower disadvantaged, nontraditional members of Ogden and the surrounding communities with education, counseling, and mentoring. The TAPT program’s purpose is the eventual goal of helping these individuals obtain teacher licensure. Therefore, the mission of the TAPT program is to provide a path for Special Education, Early Childhood, Elementary, Bilingual or culturally diverse teacher assistants or volunteers, to become more skilled in working with students in area schools and potentially leading them to teacher licensure.
The TAPT program partners with WSU Teacher Education and the six surrounding school districts: No. Summit, Morgan, Box Elder, Ogden City, Weber, and Davis. Because TAPT students are usually those whose circumstances prevented them from attending the university, they are not expected to become full-time students upon entry into the TAPT program. Time-lines will vary with individual students. Some student may have had some university experience while others are just beginning. Therefore; scholarship recipients are allowed to register for 18 semester hours in any academic year. They may choose to split these semester hours into fall, spring or summer classes, or just fall and spring. Full tuition is paid for all students for each semester until licensure. The TAPT program does not pay any fees or for books.
A Head Start on Learning Science
Jay Nichols
The purpose of this project is to allow children from the Head Start program in Ogden to learn about science and have fun by visiting the Ott Planetarium and WSU Museum of Natural History on the campus of WSU. As part of their visit, we would also like to offer a pizza lunch for these students in the Shepherd Union Building following the planetarium star show. Head Start is a national, federally-funded preschool program, which gives children from economically disadvantaged families the chance to attend preschool. Through the Head Start program, children learn concepts and skills that will help them to transition into Kindergarten and succeed in school and in life. Head Start provides funding to local centers across the nation including the Ogden Weber Community Action Partnership (OWCAP) to provide these services.
Recently, OWCAP lost all funds from its budget to provide buses for field trips. Additionally, funding from the Volunteer Involvement Program to carry out such an activity was also recently cut. Therefore, the funding from the Hall Endowment would primarily be utilized to pay for the bussing of the children from their schools to campus.
Freedom Riders Sponsorship
Billy Rutter
The purpose of this proposal is to provide financial assistance to low income families with physically disabled children between the ages 3-18 who will benefit from participating in recreational horseback therapy. WSU Freedom Riders Club is partnering with Freedom Riders Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit equestrian program, to provide physically disabled children in our community the opportunity to benefit from a form of physical therapy done on horseback. Freedom Riders Inc. is a summer time program that operates from May 14th to August 20th on Thursday evenings from 4:00pm-7:30pm at the Golden Spike Warm-Up Arena in Harrisville, Utah. On behalf of Freedom Riders Inc., WSU Freedom Riders Club is requesting to sponsor 20 families with financial need who have a child with a physical disability that will benefit from recreational horseback therapy and may otherwise not have the opportunity.
Habitat for Humanity
Billy Rutter
The purpose of the proposed project is to provide windows for the 133 Doxey Project being hosted by Habitat for Humanity of Weber/Davis counties. Funding this project will make funds in the Weber/Davis HFH budget available for repairs necessary to complete construction of two homes on Doxey Street. The windows will be purchased in mid-February and installed by the beginning of March.
Riverdale Health and Emergency Preparedness Fair
Kristin Tenney
The purpose of our project is to raise awareness of health and emergency preparedness and provide knowledge and skills to the community on dealing with these issues. We are collaborating with Riverdale City and Ms. Luann Farr to plan, implement, and evaluate this fair. We have developed and piloted a survey to determine the needs of the community and we plan on surveying a representative
sample of the community. Early March we will begin marketing the fair through newspapers, newsletters, churches, and possibly television. The fair is scheduled for March 26, 2009. The American Red Cross we will be sponsoring a blood drive from 3-8 pm. The fair will be open from 5-8 pm. We plan to conduct an outcome evaluation by asking participants to complete a short survey as they leave. We will analyze that data for our final report to the city to see if we accomplished our goals and objectives.