December

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Kudos to Nu Eta Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing
This year Nu Eta celebrated our 30th Anniversary. We could not have reached this milestone without the support of Drexel faculty members. Through their generosity this year, the Nu Eta Chapter of Sigma was able to reach make the following impact:
- Contribute $1k to the Science Leadership Academy Middle School in West Philadelphia to support families for the holidays.
- Provide a substantial monthly donation to Mario’s Market Food Pantry at Drexel University to assist students in need.
- Donate to Sigma’s Chapter Giving Club which funds grants and programs that empower nurses around the world.
- Award a research grant to a Nu Eta Nurse Scholar.
- Give two Scholarship Awards to Drexel University/Nu Eta nursing students.
All our best wishes for a beautiful holiday season and a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year. We look forward to seeing you in 2023.

Sincerely,

The Nu Eta Board of Directors

Diane Werner, Maura A. Nitka, Beth Chiatti, John Cornele, Meaghan Shattuck, Carol Okupniak and Linda Wilson
December 27
Jane Greene Ryan, PhD, RN, PMHNP-BC, is retiring

Jane Greene Ryan, PhD, is retiring after 17 years at Drexel as an associate clinical professor in the RN-BSN and Undergraduate Nursing Programs. Greene-Ryan has dedicated her career to global work and has traveled to Ghana, Bolivia and India. Since 2012, she has been working with Eternal University in Himachal Pradesh, India, where she is a visiting professor. As a visiting professor, Greene Ryan has visited India on multiple occasions to develop and implement community-based graduate student projects in the villages of rural India.

Additionally, she has created global classrooms to connect Drexel students with Eternal University students. Most recently, Greene Ryan facilitated a program that provided Drexel faculty and students the opportunity to deliver lectures to the faculty and students in India via Zoom.

Greene-Ryan recently completed her Psychiatric Mental Health Postmaster’s NP Certificate and will be leaving Drexel to pursue an opportunity in this area. Greene Ryan was an exceptional educator who was dedicated to the success of all her students. She will be missed by faculty and students!

December 26
Sandra A. Friedman, CNM, MSN, is retiring

Sandra A. Friedman, CNM, MSN, is retiring after 12 years at Drexel as an assistant clinical professor in the RN-BSN and Undergraduate Nursing Programs. Professor Friedman was a passionate educator, dedicated to the success of her students.

Throughout her time at Drexel, she chaired multiple courses including NURS 380 and NURS 346. Professor Friedman was also the inaugural chair for the newly formed combined Faculty Affairs Committee. Most notably, Professor Friedman served as a Drexel Core Faculty Member on the Macy Foundation Grant (2018-June 2020) facilitating the integration of professionalism modules into CNHP’s undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula. Professor Friedman made an impact in all areas of teaching, scholarship and service. She will be missed by the faculty and students!

December 26
Dean's Farewell Memo

Dear CNHP Faculty, Professional Staff and Students:

This is indeed a bittersweet memo to our community. I am writing to update you on the transition planning progress and to say a final farewell as your dean. As you are all aware, I will be stepping down as dean at the end of my fifth year. My last day in the office will be December 22, 2022.

In reflecting back on my time as dean of CNHP, I continue to be inspired and in awe by the amazing work of our community. I want to thank you for your dedication, long hours, impactful pedagogy and research, clinical practices and service – all of your incredible and innovative efforts – from embracing and striving for health equity to producing the next generation of leaders and purposeful change agents in health. While I look forward to getting back to my research and having a national and global impact in that space, I will truly miss the frequent interactions and colleagueship I have had with each of you.

The future is bright for CNHP. As many of you experienced last week with the Board of Trustees reception and the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Drexel is excited to have us on University City Campus, and this is an important historical juncture for us and the University. We will continue to thrive and grow as part of the critical pillar of health in Drexel University’s strategic plan. It has been a true honor to lead this remarkable college, and I thank you.

Sincerely,

Laura N. Gitlin, PhD, FGSA, FAAN
Distinguished University Professor
Dean, College of Nursing and Health Professions
Executive Director, AgeWell Collaboratory

December 22
Gitlin quoted in New York Times

Laura N. Gitlin, PhD, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Professions, was quoted in a Dec. 15 New York Times article on recording family members to create audio time capsules of loved ones and question prompts to help those interested get started.

December 20
Pearl edits special issue of the journal Notes and Records with a contribution from Drexel faculty Chloe Silverman

This special issue "Face Blindness," was organized and edited by Sharrona Pearl, PhD, associate teaching professor in Health Administration. Among the contributors is Chloe Silverman, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Politics at the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel.

December 20
PA SNAP-Ed/EAT RIGHT PHILLY Program Publishes their 2022 Annual Report

Drexel University’s Department of Nutrition Sciences PA SNAP-Ed/EAT RIGHT PHILLY Program annual report for FY 2021-2022 highlights the accomplishments of the Drexel ERP team over the past year. It also highlights the transition in the program to include more program development, evaluation and implementation as well as regional and national presentations.

Please take a few minutes to see a bit of the work the Drexel ERP team has been doing to increase wellbeing among SNAP eligible children and their families as they returned to a combination of in-person and virtual education.

Read the 2022 EAT RIGHT PHILLY annual report.

December 20
Pearl delivers visiting fellow lecture at MCPHP

The Mask: How We Navigate Race, Health, and Safety by Concealing and Revealing our Identities

Presented by: Sharrona Pearl, associate professor of Medical Ethics and History at Drexel University, and visiting researcher in Health Humanities at MCPHS.

Using a broad historical lens, Pearl will explore the history of masking asking various sites and domains of practice to show its consistent use as a means of protection and division. The mask will show who, in a given context, is worthy of protection, and who is not. She’ll focus in particular on masking as a means of protecting: identities from detection; bodies from injury; emotion from clear expression; the health of the wearers and the health of those around them; and the souls and spirits of those engaged in religious ritual. She’ll discuss contemporary masking from the anti-mask laws of the nineteenth century through the pandemic, looking in particular at the tensions between exposure and concealment, both of which are perceived as mechanisms of safety. She’ll conclude with a discussion of racism in masking practices, arguing that for Black men in the U.S., structural racism was behind attempts to criminalize their masking even when it was legally required due to public health ordinances.

December 19
Art Therapy and Counseling Faculty Presents on Radical Papermaking at the AATA National Conference

Radical Papermaking: A Socially Engaged Art Therapy Practice

Denise Wolf, MA, ATR-BC, associate clinical professor, Creative Arts Therapies Department, and art therapist and educator Gretchen Miller facilitated a radical papermaking workshop at the national American Art Therapy Association conference in Minneapolis in November. This workshop explored ways to implement papermaking in art therapy as a socially informed practice in art therapy through didactic and experiential learning.

As a creative practice, papermaking has become an art-based method for social action, community engagement, advocacy, and culturally relevant issues (Cochran & Potter, 2014), chronicling the reconstruction and expression of personal and communal experiences (Delamater, 2019). Papermaking activates a process of deconstruction and reconstruction to birth something new (Wolf, in press). Art therapists are increasingly utilizing papermaking and its process as an intervention for art therapy, influenced by its sensory-based and transformative properties for promoting emotional expression, fostering self-awareness, or managing recovery, loss, and trauma (Matott & Miller, 2020; McMackin, 2021). Papermaking also supports creative, relational dialogue, a critical element to material use in therapy (Dean, 2014).

References • Cochran, J., & Potter, M.H. (2014). Social Paper: Hand Papermaking in the Context of Socially Engaged Art. Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. • Dean, M.L. (2014). Using art media in psychotherapy. Routledge. • Delamater, K.L. (2019). Historical, social, and artistic implications of collaboration in contemporary hand papermaking. Hand Papermaking, 34 (1), 11-16. • Matott, D.L. & Miller, G.M. (2020). Papermaking. In P. Crawford, B. J. Brown, & A. Charise (Eds.), The Routledge companion to health humanities (pp. 311-316). Routledge. • McMackin, M. (2022). Hand-papermaking with student veterans. In R. Mims (Ed.), Art therapy with veterans (pp. 57-77). Jessica Kingsley Publishers • Wolf, D (in press). Papermaking Reflections: Stories of Change, Growth and Creativity; Transformation in Papermaking: When Content Mirrors Process. In Matott, D., & Miller, G. (Eds.) The Art and Art Therapy of Papermaking: Material, Methods, and Applications. (pp. #-#). Routledge. NY, New York

December 19
PhD Program in Nutrition Sciences Adds Members to the External Advisory Board

The PhD Program in Nutrition Sciences has added two new members to its external advisory board of eminent scientists that includes Gary Foster, PhD, Mary Hager, PhD, RD, Janet King, PhD, RD, and Xavier Pi-Sunyer, MD, MPH. James Barrett, PhD recently retired and stepped down from the board.

To provide greater topical expertise in support of broadening faculty research focuses, we have recruited Earle Chambers, PhD, MPH, director of research in Department of Family and Social Medicine at the Albert Einstein Medical College of Medicine in Bronx NY; and Antonio Tataranni, MD, chief medical officer and senior VP for Global Life Science R&D, PepsiCo Inc, Dr. Chambers is an expert in the social determinants of health and health equity, and specializes in implementation science. Dr Tataranni is an expert in genetic and environmental factors contributing to obesity, diabetes and other lifestyle determined illnesses. His current responsibilities include overseeing development of food products to support sport performance and promote wellness and healthy aging.

The program and department faculty welcome the two new members and look forward to continued engagement with the external advisory board and their support of our program.

December 13
Jennifer Nasser invited to speak at the USDA Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center

Jennifer Nasser, PhD RD, associate professor of nutrition science, gave an invited talk on November 15th at the USDA Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center entitled "Using functional infra-red spectroscopy to explore the prefrontal cortex response to food and nutrients during eating and cognitive task performance".

Nasser recently collaborated with Beltsville research scientist Dr. Kathy Hoy on a project involving CNHP's Rose Trout, DHSc, assistant professor and program director of Culinary Arts and Food Science, focused on using the Healthy Eating Index to maximize nutrient value of meals served in a homeless shelter while maintaining budgetary constraints. She has been invited by USDA Beltsville to collaborate on experiments comparing body and brain energy usage.

December 12
Art Therapy & Counseling faculty Michele Rattigan, MA '96, DHSc '24 participates in art exhibit at Drexel

Tell Us How You Really Feel: Art as a Tool to Communicate Complex Emotions is currently on view at the Rincliffe Gallery and Anthony J. Drexel Picture Gallery, Main Building, 3rd floor, 3141 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA.

One of the art pieces on display includes Rattigan's mixed media piece "Everybody Hurts." Pieces are for sale, and 50 percent of the sale will be donated to The Jed Foundation and The Trevor Project.

December 7
Dance/Movement Therapy faculty present in Canada

Creative Arts Therapies Department'S Sherry Goodill, PhD, clinical professor and Christina Devereaux, PhD, associate clinical professor and Program Director for Dance/Movement Therapy & Counseling, co-presented a seminar entitled "Person to Person: Dance/Movement Therapy Competency Evaluation through Encounters in the Standardized Patient Lab" at the recent 57th Annual Conference of the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) in Montreal, Canada.

Devereaux also co-presented on clinical supervision, and serves on the ADTA's Committee on Approval of the ADTA and Education Committee.

December 7
Pearl offers three talks on her forthcoming books

Sharrona Pearl, PhD, an assistant teaching professor in the Health Administration Department, delivers Montgomery Lecture in Bioethics and Humanities at Northwestern University, presents research at the History of Science Society meeting and Society for the History of Technology.

December 6
Drexel faculty and staff present at global conference

Ebony White, PhD, interim director of the Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services, assistant clinical professor in Counseling and Family Therapy, and Kathleen Metzker, director of Integrated Services and Mind/Body Wellness, presented at the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health & Social Justice, Coming Together for Action Conference in Baltimore, MD.

Their presentation was titled "Anti-Racist, Trauma Informed Care Centering Mind/Body Programming in a Community Health Center."

December 5