Great Plains Fellows: 2019

Center for Great Plains Studies Author

05/07/2019 Added

73 Plays

Description

We asked four of our Great Plains Fellows about their recent interdisciplinary work, featuring Amanda Morales (UNL Teacher Learning and Teacher Education, Bree Dority O'Callaghan (UNK Economics), Chris Chizinski (UNL School of Natural Resources), and Gina Robbins (UNMC College of Public Health).

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:00.000]The Center for Great Plains Studies
[00:00:02.170]recently asked four Great Plains fellows
[00:00:04.390]to tell us about their recent work.
[00:00:07.930]Hello, I'm Amanda Morales.
[00:00:10.070]I'm an assistant professor
[00:00:11.500]in the Department of Teaching, Learning
[00:00:13.010]and Teacher Education.
[00:00:15.080]So this recent research project
[00:00:17.310]that was included as part of the Great Plains Special Issue
[00:00:22.670]connects back to my roots,
[00:00:25.280]it connects to about every professional experience I've had
[00:00:30.240]in educational contexts.
[00:00:32.160]My work at the science museum for many years,
[00:00:35.200]as well as my work in Kansas and now in Nebraska.
[00:00:39.170]All of my work has a fundamental connection
[00:00:41.880]to the Great Plains.
[00:00:43.380]Being a native of the Great Plains,
[00:00:46.480]all of my research is really focused
[00:00:48.350]on improving educational opportunities
[00:00:52.210]for students and families living in the Great Plains
[00:00:55.180]in particular immigrant, migrant
[00:00:57.020]and multi-cultural populations.
[00:01:00.430]And I see it as an excellent way
[00:01:03.910]to bring together multiple disciplines
[00:01:08.810]and areas that I'm interested in into the work that I do.
[00:01:14.290]I feel that working in interdisciplinary ways
[00:01:17.700]benefits all faculty.
[00:01:20.470]I think that exposure to new ideas
[00:01:23.550]and new ways of looking at complex issues
[00:01:27.800]given eveybody's areas of expertise
[00:01:29.930]can only strengthen a project, an idea
[00:01:33.590]further the research in ways that are meaningful.
[00:01:38.810]Having worked in science museums
[00:01:40.890]and working with nature centers
[00:01:42.930]both informal education and formal education,
[00:01:46.450]I see natural connections and it's easy for me to see
[00:01:50.370]and I often wonder why more faculty don't engage
[00:01:54.589]across disciplines and aren't willing to look across the way
[00:01:57.810]and see what other folks are doing
[00:02:00.150]that's similar but different that might complement
[00:02:02.280]the work that they're doing.
[00:02:03.720]I think that we all grow in that process.
[00:02:07.170]Having backgrounds in art and science
[00:02:09.680]and music and literature I think
[00:02:12.802]I see how it all connects so I try to incorporate that
[00:02:16.970]in all the work that I do.
[00:02:20.760]So a couple of the current projects
[00:02:23.210]that I'm working on right now focus specifically
[00:02:26.470]on teacher pathways and diversification
[00:02:31.290]of the teaching force given that the Great Plains
[00:02:35.180]has had a significant increase
[00:02:37.950]in the number of immigrant, migrant
[00:02:40.200]and multi-cultural student populations,
[00:02:43.600]but the teaching population continues
[00:02:45.800]to be predominantly white and predominantly female,
[00:02:48.800]a lot of my research is really focused
[00:02:50.600]on how do we access, inspire, support and engage
[00:02:56.880]youth of color to consider teaching as a profession,
[00:03:01.020]as well as looking at what are the systemic
[00:03:05.060]and structural things that need to change
[00:03:06.910]about teacher education, about higher education,
[00:03:10.420]about K-12 public schools in the high plains region
[00:03:14.520]to better support and foster interest, passion, desire
[00:03:20.120]to consider education as a career
[00:03:23.160]and really looking at how do we tap into
[00:03:27.650]the rich human resources that we have in our state
[00:03:30.900]of Nebraska in particular
[00:03:34.190]to prepare the next generation of teachers
[00:03:36.720]that can be impactful and support all students
[00:03:41.344]in our communities.
[00:03:43.990]This recent project I'm really excited about
[00:03:46.910]because it gives me the opportunity
[00:03:48.560]to kind of tie together my experiences over the years.
[00:03:53.700]In the piece I talk about the differences
[00:03:56.370]in my observations between urban and suburban children
[00:03:59.910]and urban children in hands on science, museum experiences
[00:04:05.880]and I talk about rural dexterity,
[00:04:07.770]in particular what I mean by that
[00:04:10.510]is the situated learning that rural children receive
[00:04:15.780]and gain or pick up in their rural environments
[00:04:18.450]as part of agrarian families.
[00:04:20.940]They are engaged in the land,
[00:04:22.990]they are working with their hands.
[00:04:25.420]In really physical ways they're understanding
[00:04:28.802]physical and biological aspects of science
[00:04:31.880]and how the world works, forces of motion
[00:04:34.880]and weather and all kinds of aspects of science,
[00:04:39.750]but rarely is that seen as experiential funds of knowledge
[00:04:44.840]and utilized in the classroom in formal ways,
[00:04:47.080]and so the piece really talks about
[00:04:49.710]how rural science education
[00:04:52.080]in particular, but it really can apply to a lot of areas
[00:04:55.690]should do more to leverage the experiential knowledge,
[00:05:00.530]funds of knowledge that rural children
[00:05:02.690]bring with them into the classrooms.
[00:05:04.450]Oftentimes that's seen as, oh stuff you do on the farm
[00:05:07.960]or not formal knowledge in classroom context.
[00:05:11.540]I think we can do a better job
[00:05:14.660]in valuing and affirming what they know
[00:05:17.690]and using that as a springboard
[00:05:19.410]for future learning and development.
[00:05:23.420]I think it's an important discussion to have.
[00:05:28.600]I'm interested in applied economic projects
[00:05:31.750]that have a policy focus at the local and regional levels.
[00:05:35.440]I have conducted economic impact, labor availability,
[00:05:38.670]community revitalization and economic development
[00:05:41.640]strategy studies and I've presented and published
[00:05:44.760]research on school consolidation, tobacco-free laws,
[00:05:48.610]and food and physical activity policies in school
[00:05:52.230]all topics of particular relevance for rural communities.
[00:05:57.680]Recently I worked on projects related to rural Nebraska.
[00:06:02.180]First I conducted an economic impact study
[00:06:04.710]on the annual crane migration.
[00:06:06.650]We estimated that more than 46,000 visitors
[00:06:09.780]come to central Nebraska to view the cranes
[00:06:12.980]and more importantly we estimated
[00:06:14.960]that the economic impact of all the visitor spending
[00:06:18.170]as well as all of the activities devoted to the migration
[00:06:21.730]is about $14.3 million annually.
[00:06:25.530]I also led a comprehensive economic development strategy
[00:06:29.660]which is a locally based, regionally driven,
[00:06:32.960]economic development planning process and report that is
[00:06:36.380]required by the US Economic Development Administration.
[00:06:41.090]The report was for
[00:06:42.360]South Central Economic Development District in Nebraska.
[00:06:45.520]The plan involved conducting an analysis
[00:06:48.740]of the economic conditions of the region,
[00:06:50.830]obtaining broad based community input,
[00:06:53.380]and setting goals and objectives
[00:06:55.470]to enhance the strategic investment and innovation,
[00:06:59.230]diversify and leverage the natural resources
[00:07:03.910]and human resources of the region.
[00:07:05.980]And more recently, I've been working
[00:07:07.910]with colleagues at UNL and the Rural Futures Institute
[00:07:11.150]to develop the Nebraska Thriving Index
[00:07:13.820]for eight non-metro regions in Nebraska.
[00:07:17.070]The index is an economic barometer
[00:07:19.354]that will provide economic developers,
[00:07:22.460]local elected officials, and community leaders
[00:07:26.160]with economic and quality of life indicators
[00:07:29.040]so that thriving and lagging regions
[00:07:32.520]can be identified and more importantly
[00:07:35.190]so that strategic future focused investments can be made.
[00:07:40.230]Collaboration is very important for the work I do.
[00:07:43.420]To give you and example,
[00:07:44.930]the survey work was critical for completing
[00:07:47.810]the economic impact study on the crane migration.
[00:07:51.070]To get a crew of surveyors we partnered
[00:07:53.800]with Dr. Ben Myers in communications department in UNK
[00:07:57.860]and with his communications students.
[00:08:00.540]With 16 surveyors, we were able to approach nearly
[00:08:04.170]a thousand visitors over 4 days at multiple sites.
[00:08:08.500]This was not only an experiential learning opportunity
[00:08:12.030]for the students in their career path,
[00:08:14.330]but it was also an eye-opening opportunity
[00:08:17.050]for them on this great natural phenomenon
[00:08:20.010]that we have in our backyard.
[00:08:21.380]I'll never forget when we were surveying out at Ft. Kearney
[00:08:24.450]there was one student that came back
[00:08:26.310]to where we were meeting as a group and he said,
[00:08:28.727]"You won't believe it.
[00:08:29.567]"That couple over there, they're from the Netherlands."
[00:08:32.220]I had no clue that people came from all over the world
[00:08:35.450]to watch the cranes.
[00:08:36.840]Bottom line, I couldn't do nearly the amount of work I do
[00:08:40.295]nor would the quality be as good if I didn't collaborate.
[00:08:44.100]Since joining UNK, I have collaborated on projects
[00:08:47.560]with colleagues across campus,
[00:08:49.560]throughout the University of Nebraska system,
[00:08:51.730]particularly at the Bureau of Business Research
[00:08:54.220]and with the business community.
[00:08:57.760]Hi, I'm Chris Chizinski, associate professor
[00:09:00.320]of Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management,
[00:09:02.530]soon to be associate professor this summer.
[00:09:05.700]I'm in CASNR and in the School of Natural Resources.
[00:09:09.210]My broad field of study is human dimensions
[00:09:11.290]of wildlife management and that is a broad topic,
[00:09:14.450]but it essentially studies how humans interact
[00:09:18.297]with fish and wildlife management.
[00:09:20.550]A lot of my research tends to focus on hunting and fishing,
[00:09:24.340]but it encompasses all sorts of aspects
[00:09:27.660]of conservation, land use, all of that kind of stuff,
[00:09:31.660]natural resource management.
[00:09:33.740]So the human dimensions of wildlife
[00:09:36.420]is an interdisciplinary field by nature.
[00:09:38.958]It includes all the ways that you study people,
[00:09:42.190]so sociology, psychology, political science, economics.
[00:09:47.140]So to do that it's really important
[00:09:49.100]to be able to collaborate and work with people
[00:09:51.080]from across CASNR across to city campus
[00:09:55.930]and the Great Plains Center is also a great place for this
[00:09:59.820]that shares this collaborative nature,
[00:10:02.120]interdisciplinary nature from humanities to the sciences.
[00:10:06.440]The one big project
[00:10:07.510]that we're currently working on right now
[00:10:09.710]me and several of my graduate students
[00:10:11.560]is looking at what is causing the decline
[00:10:14.310]in water fowl hunters, hunters that hunt
[00:10:16.830]for ducks and geese throughout the central part
[00:10:18.936]of the United States.
[00:10:20.070]So we sent out this giant 88,000 person survey
[00:10:24.420]across the central United States
[00:10:25.870]to find out why people hunt and fish,
[00:10:30.726]why they are not hunting water fowl,
[00:10:32.960]what is causing that decline over time.
[00:10:35.210]That decline over time is important
[00:10:36.900]because people buying licenses and stamps and
[00:10:41.560]spending money on guns and that kind of stuff
[00:10:44.110]supports wildlife management.
[00:10:45.930]So by dropping the water fowl hunters down
[00:10:48.650]there's a loss of money available for management
[00:10:51.260]so we're trying to find out the reasons
[00:10:52.790]why that is occurring, why people are stepping away
[00:10:55.920]from water fowl hunting.
[00:10:57.840]As part of that we're also doing
[00:10:58.920]this giant database mining approach
[00:11:01.270]where we've got databases of hunters
[00:11:04.270]across the central United States
[00:11:06.640]and modeling some of these different things
[00:11:08.450]and how quickly people are dropping out
[00:11:10.610]or coming back into the system.
[00:11:12.640]So trying to provide both a survey side of things
[00:11:15.770]and a modeling side of things to help inform management
[00:11:18.738]of water fowl hunters.
[00:11:21.350]The one big thing that we've been finding
[00:11:23.380]at least in the water fowl side of the world
[00:11:25.380]is access, people have a hard time finding places to go
[00:11:29.410]especially in Nebraska that's 97% privately owned.
[00:11:32.590]Whose property can I go to and find getting hunting access.
[00:11:37.300]How do you go and actually knock on the door
[00:11:40.020]and ask a landowner whether you can hunt on their land.
[00:11:43.570]All those kinds of things are showing up
[00:11:45.220]as big barriers to people.
[00:11:48.470]And the other kind of important thing
[00:11:50.010]is that we never see one really big smoking gun barrier.
[00:11:53.620]It's a collection of a lot of barriers,
[00:11:55.840]and it's probably like the death
[00:11:57.450]by a thousand paper cuts.
[00:11:58.840]You just have all these little things
[00:12:00.620]that are standing in your way,
[00:12:01.970]and collectively those things seem monumental
[00:12:04.080]and you don't participate.
[00:12:05.430]So that's one thing that we're speculating
[00:12:07.400]is really causing a lot of the declines in this.
[00:12:13.250]My name is Regina Emily Robbins.
[00:12:15.470]I am an assistant professor in the Department
[00:12:18.880]of Health Promotion in the College of Public Health
[00:12:21.540]at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
[00:12:24.430]I am an enrolled member of the Cherokee National of Oklahoma
[00:12:27.810]and belong to the Wolf Clan.
[00:12:29.980]My general research areas
[00:12:34.230]are workforce development disparities
[00:12:39.292]health disparities, Native American health and wellness,
[00:12:45.140]medical humanities and preventive and societal medicine.
[00:12:49.910]And I would say overall I think my approach
[00:12:53.610]is to look into those areas
[00:12:58.010]considering environmental factors, community,
[00:13:02.790]and on an individual level,
[00:13:04.330]so really from three different lenses.
[00:13:07.274]Some of the work that I've been working on lately
[00:13:11.278]includes working for the YES program
[00:13:13.904]which is really Youth Enjoys Science
[00:13:17.230]which is funded by the National Cancer Institute,
[00:13:19.600]and in partnership with Dr. Maurice Godfrey
[00:13:22.840]and Dr. Joyce Solheim here at UNMC
[00:13:26.530]and a number of other community partners
[00:13:28.890]to support Native American students
[00:13:31.710]in opportunities and experiences
[00:13:33.650]that would eventually, ideally lead
[00:13:35.930]to work in healthcare professions
[00:13:40.390]or in research specific to cancer
[00:13:43.320]and really addressing that health disparity
[00:13:46.930]specific to the native population.
[00:13:49.890]Another project that I'm working on
[00:13:51.930]is called the Nebraska Mindfulness Project
[00:13:54.690]and through that that's funded through private donors
[00:13:58.600]and the foundation and we are working
[00:14:02.610]to research the integration of mindfulness
[00:14:06.620]on an organizational level.
[00:14:07.830]So we're working with
[00:14:08.930]eight different non-profit organizations
[00:14:10.800]across the Omaha Metro Area
[00:14:13.096]and really exploring in this first year,
[00:14:15.350]it's a three-year project,
[00:14:16.300]but in this first year we've been exploring
[00:14:18.514]what works, what doesn't work, how does that work,
[00:14:21.340]and that's a really exciting project
[00:14:23.180]that is close to my doctoral research
[00:14:26.010]which was also specific to spiritual wellness
[00:14:28.356]and campus-based initiatives and campus communities
[00:14:31.330]so now we've really applied some of that
[00:14:33.900]to our greater Omaha community.
[00:14:36.962]Working in collaboration again
[00:14:39.350]with Dr. Maurice Godfrey who's another fellow at the center
[00:14:43.590]and the Center for Great Plains Studies
[00:14:45.910]with Katie and Rick and Dijon
[00:14:47.750]and a number of other colleagues here at UNMC
[00:14:51.630]like Lisa Spellman and Liliana Bronner
[00:14:54.600]to develop or plan, we're a planning committee,
[00:15:00.190]a conference on American Indian Behavioral Health
[00:15:02.550]called Wakanyeja and really excited about that.
[00:15:05.340]It's happening this April 2019
[00:15:08.150]and we'll be bringing in speakers
[00:15:10.630]from representing all different tribes,
[00:15:14.620]nations, organizations, to speak about
[00:15:18.610]and address some health disparities
[00:15:21.000]specific to behavioral health.
[00:15:23.270]So I'm really looking forward to that
[00:15:26.400]and that's been a wonderful experience
[00:15:28.370]working together across campuses and departments
[00:15:32.570]and even across communities, and states,
[00:15:35.150]and tribes and borderlines.
[00:15:39.020]One thing, well there are many things
[00:15:41.040]that I love about being a part
[00:15:42.890]of the Center for Great Plains Studies.
[00:15:44.700]It's really an honor to be a member of the center
[00:15:49.880]and I feel like my sense is that there's
[00:15:53.030]a really great sense of reciprocity
[00:15:56.200]in being a fellow with the center
[00:15:57.780]because I think that we all have opportunities
[00:16:01.330]to give to the center and one of those for me
[00:16:04.730]has been participating in and serving
[00:16:07.710]on the planning committee for the Great Plains Symposium
[00:16:11.940]Wakanyeja and there's also so many opportunities
[00:16:16.100]to receive as well.
[00:16:17.270]So I'm incredibly grateful for the many great speakers
[00:16:20.660]that the center brings in, for being a part of truly,
[00:16:23.624]when we think fellow, I think that refers to something
[00:16:27.640]and I think that demonstrates
[00:16:29.820]our sense of fellowship and community
[00:16:31.820]and coming together and collaborating
[00:16:33.750]again across campuses, across departments,
[00:16:36.250]and disciplines, and exploring things
[00:16:38.893]from so many different lenses
[00:16:40.720]and I think that makes our work a lot stronger
[00:16:44.350]and innovative and impactful.
[00:16:47.930]So I really appreciate being a part of the center
[00:16:51.920]for all that I have learned from many speakers
[00:16:55.500]that they bring in, from the experiences that I've had
[00:16:58.130]with even just the art museum
[00:17:00.070]I do a lot of work in medical humanities as well
[00:17:04.080]so I appreciate the arts
[00:17:06.403]and even the arts-to-arts based research.
[00:17:11.170]Another project I'm working on I didn't bring up,
[00:17:13.130]I've done a lot of work with medical humanities
[00:17:15.700]specific to portraiture or poetry
[00:17:18.740]or many different mediums
[00:17:21.830]and did a project called Indigenist
[00:17:24.909]with 10 inter-tribal intergenerational women
[00:17:29.360]that presented artworks in response to being asked
[00:17:32.300]what does it mean to be an urban Native American woman
[00:17:36.050]advocating for health and wellness in your community
[00:17:38.630]and in presenting and exhibiting our work
[00:17:42.292]we realized we wanted to take that a step further
[00:17:44.660]and ended up researching, forming an analysis team
[00:17:48.000]all of us, to analyze the exhibit
[00:17:51.690]as an aesthetic whole and we came up
[00:17:54.760]with a grounded theory approach
[00:17:57.290]and developed a theory of Native American health advocacy
[00:18:03.110]and we actually have submitted that paper
[00:18:05.270]to the Research Journal.
[00:18:06.680]And again, I think that's another example
[00:18:08.480]of that reciprocity in that it's inspiring collaboration,
[00:18:12.260]inspiring us to engage with the community,
[00:18:15.320]engage with researchers and work on projects
[00:18:20.030]that we then can give back and share and disseminate
[00:18:24.408]through the journals as well.
[00:18:27.000]I've also shared in a,
[00:18:29.040]we just published a paper through the journal
[00:18:32.750]Community Based Eco-Tourism that was specific
[00:18:35.270]to the many different indigenous gardens
[00:18:38.020]that we've planted and cultivated
[00:18:39.560]throughout the Omaha Community,
[00:18:40.870]ones at the University Of Nebraska in Omaha
[00:18:42.810]and others at campuses that host the NICE program,
[00:18:46.290]the Native Indigenous Center and Education program
[00:18:48.390]so that's really exciting to me.
[00:18:50.240]I loved all that opportunity
[00:18:52.040]to not only engage in the work but also present it
[00:18:55.490]at conferences or share it through publications,
[00:18:58.710]and the center has opened up so many doors for that
[00:19:01.360]and really been a huge support to me
[00:19:03.680]so I'm grateful to be a part of it
[00:19:06.220]and it's been an awesome experience overall.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Great Plains Fellows: 2019

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments