Having fun learning about the environment

Connecticut’s school children are having fun learning environmental science with a new curriculum developed with a $600,000 grant from the Bingham Trust.

UConn’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) curriculum focuses on protecting the environment through methods that reduce dependence on pesticides while using a variety of activities that make learning science fun for youngsters. The program began with seventh and eighth grade students and has been expanded to include components for kindergarten and first graders as well.

The activities include indoor and outdoor projects, lab exercises, Internet assignments and community enrichment projects. All are accompanied by lesson plans for teachers that include resources, references and support materials.

“This is really exciting. The students are involved in hands-on activities, learning by doing,” says Richard Ashley, professor emeritus of plant science, who developed the curriculum.

Lesson titles are designed to pique students’ interest. Some of the older grade titles are “More Than Just Dust Bunnies,” “Ant Antics” and “Hygiene for Horror.” The younger student lessons have titles such as “Some Seeds Grow Weeds” and “Ladybugs to the Rescue.”

“Our motivation is that the children who are in school right now are going to be asked to make environmental decisions as adults,” Ashley says.

“We thought it was critical that these students know how to make decisions that are grounded in solid science.”

Each curriculum package includes 25 to 30 lessons for teachers. The lessons teach the practices of integrated pest management as well as identification of pests, the importance of biodiversity and dangers from overuse of chemical controls. In addition to teaching science, the program relates to other core subjects, such as social studies, language arts and mathematics.

IPM’s mascot of Izzy the Praying Mantis brings the curriculum to life with an interactive show for school assemblies, featuring puppets, music and singing.

Genetics may determine a taste for alcohol

Blue dye helps show taste buds on the tongue as part of a study to determine how people perceive the taste of alcohol.

A UConn study is the first to suggest that genetics can influence alcohol drinking behaviors based on how people perceive the taste of alcoholic beverages.

For some people, alcohol tastes like medicine, and no amount of sweetener is going to help the medicine go down. Those who consider alcohol a bitter-tasting brew are known as supertasters, and they are among the 25 percent of people who possess a taste receptor gene that heightens oral sensations.

A recent study by Valerie B. Duffy, UConn associate professor of allied health and nutritional sciences and a registered dietitian, indicates that supertasters report drinking alcohol about half as often as people who do not taste the bitterness. The study was published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Duffy’s study included 84 men and women who described themselves as light to moderate drinkers. They were interviewed about how frequently during a year they consumed beer, wine, wine coolers and liquor. A blood test was used to determine the presence of a protein that indicates that the research subject has the supertaster gene. Participants tasted and rated the bitterness of each of five different concentrations of a bitter chemical known as PROP that is used as a marker for taste genetics.

“Using PROP as a marker of taste genetics, those who tasted the least bitterness averaged consuming alcoholic beverages five to six times weekly,” Duffy says, noting that genetic variation in taste is only one factor in alcohol consumption rates and a number of environmental factors also determine the risk of excess alcohol consumption.

She also adds that results of this study may not apply to individuals who abuse or are dependent on alcohol.

The alcohol taste study is the latest in a series of taste perception studies that Duffy has conducted on variations of taste and how these differences influence what people like to consume.

Financial Accelerator and Learning Center opens

Photo: Paul Horton

The SS&C Technologies Financial Accelerator in downtown Hartford provides a real-world financial environment.

With a bell ringing reminiscent of the opening of trading on Wall Street and the lighting of a Jumbotron at the corner of Kinsley and Market streets in downtown Hartford, the SS&C Technologies Financial Accelerator and UConn School of Business Graduate Learning Center opened in October.

The Financial Accelerator and Learning Center, which occupies 40,000 square feet at 100 Constitution Plaza, allows students to work alongside business executives and faculty to solve real problems. Students have access to a Wall Street-style trading floor, real-time data from the stock markets, and high-tech classrooms and computer equipment.

“This is a dream come true, for a top business school on a fast track to national prominence to be located downtown alongside outstanding companies,” says Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez.

The downtown location is designed to help boost Hartford’s renewal by drawing nearly 500 students, many of them mid-level executives, pursuing advanced business degrees in the city throughout the year.

UConn President Philip E. Austin says the Financial Accelerator is an excellent example of how a public research university collaborates with major enterprises to form a
partnership to improve the state’s economy. “It enhances our students’ education and it strengthens their ability to compete in the market,” he says. “It’s good for our private sector partners because there is a greatly increased pool of highly qualified talent and a group of potential employees who are technically proficient as well as intellectually creative.”

“Seeding the accelerator with SS&C’s technology will both jump start the accelerator and position it as a leading center of higher learning,” says William C. Stone, chief executive officer of SS&C Technologies. “We believe this is one more exciting thing happening in downtown Hartford to keep bright, young, productive people in our great state.”

The opening activities included a keynote address by Roger Ferguson, vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Safety and health degree goes online

In 2000, 5.7 million U.S. workers suffered nonfatal injuries in the workplace, resulting in a cost of $131.2 billion including wage and productivity losses of $67.6 billion to employers and $24.2 billion in employee medical expenses, according to a National Safety Council report.

“The need for trained and experienced safety and health professionals is critical because the failure to address safety can have a detrimental effect on a company’s bottom line,” says Charles D. Reese, UConn extension professor and coordinator of UConn’s programs in occupational safety and health. “The National Safety Council shows that a work-related death costs an employer on the average of $1.2 million.”

UConn’s College of Continuing Studies has responded to the increasing need for qualified safety and health professionals by developing an occupational safety and health concentration that is part of its online master of professional studies degree program.

Reese says that with the large number of safety and health professionals who have retired in the past few years, working professionals in the field are benefiting from convenient access to advanced degree programs.

“The online program makes our master’s degree available to thousands of hard-working safety and health professionals—not only in Connecticut but also throughout the nation,” he says.

The curriculum covers many aspects of occupational safety and health management, including loss control strategies, safety and health management, safety and health law and regulations, human resource development, risk management, workplace health evaluation, and safety and health training.

Graduates of the program will be qualified to assume senior safety and health positions in various industries and companies.

Study explores non-surgical treatments

Photo: Peter Morenus

Mark Litt, professor of behavioral sciences and community health.

A UConn Health Center study on jaw pain is providing its participants with tools ranging from biofeedback and meditation to physical therapy and medication in an effort to establish which of these approaches is most effective.

The five-year study is looking at non-surgical treatments for temporomandibular disorder (TMD), an often disabling condition that affects between 5 percent and 12 percent of the adult population, usually in their 20s or 30s, and costs billions to treat every year.

“The condition can be marked by pain that prevents people from chewing or talking,” says Mark Litt, a professor of behavioral sciences and community health, who is principal investigator for the $1.69 million study funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

Although TMD is often caused by problems between the joint discs of the upper and lower jaw, the pain is usually not caused by joint damage. Health professionals have turned to non-surgical treatments such as psychotherapy, biofeedback, physical therapy and meditation to get sufferers to relax the large muscles of the jaw. The purpose of the study is to try to determine which of these non-surgical treatments are most useful.

All study participants are examined by an oral surgeon and are fitted with a clear plastic splint to wear so their top and bottom teeth don’t touch. The biofeedback component of the study requires sending the patient home with a cell phone.

Four times a day, participants receive calls from a computer program that asks them to rate their pain on a scale from zero to six and whether they have taken steps to manage the pain, such as taking anti-inflammatory medication or using techniques offered by the researchers.

“Our strategy is to give participants real tools and strategies for dealing with the pain and to monitor their use of those tools,” says Litt. “We want to get them to change their thoughts about their pain and help them understand their own behavior.”

U.S. funds groundbreaking UConn research

The Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development has received a five-year U.S. Department of Education grant of nearly $3 million to test a pioneering reading program that inspires children to appreciate books while increasing their reading abilities.

“To have the U.S. Dept. of Education recognize that this could be groundbreaking research and encourage us to replicate it in new places provides us with a remarkable opportunity,” says Sally Reis, head of the UConn educational psychology department and a principal investigator for the reading intervention study.

According to a report released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 38 percent of the nation’s fourth-graders and 28 percent of eighth-graders cannot read at their grade level.

“Why aren’t more children reading, and why are so few reading at appropriately challenging levels?” asks Reis.“You have to engage kids long enough to develop a sense of enjoyment in reading. Too many youngsters are turned off to reading before they’re turned on.”

The Schoolwide Enrichment Model Reading Framework, a 12-week reading intervention, was implemented at two urban elementary schools in Connecticut for one year and at one urban and one suburban school in the second year of the study. Using two groups of students, the study found the students using the enriched reading program had higher standardized reading achievement tests and higher reading fluency scores. They also had more favorable attitudes toward reading when compared with the control group.

Reis says the results were significant. “The gains we saw here were not by the most academically talented students,” she notes. “They were found across all achievement levels and were apparent across both years of the study.”

With the grant, Reis’s team, including professors Jean Gubbins and Rebecca Eckert from the Neag Center, will travel to 10 schools in Florida, Minnesota, and New York to further test the effectiveness of the program.

3-D imaging has medical, security applications

Photo: Peter Morenus

A three-dimensional imaging experiment in Bahram Javidi’s lab uses lasers to acquire data on all three planes of an object.

Humans live in a three-dimensional world but view images that are almost entirely two-dimensional. Bahram Javidi, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is deploying his extensive knowledge of optics and image processing to add that third dimension — depth — to a system that may prove valuable to homeland security and medical and military applications.

“Three-dimensional imaging mimics human vision and gives us vastly more data — and thus a far better picture — than two-dimensional views,” Javidi says.

Javidi’s system uses a laser to acquire data in all three planes of the object being “photographed.” The data are processed by a computer with the object “reconstructed” and displayed as a holographic 3-D image. The data itself can be stored and manipulated like any other data.

As a homeland security application, Javidi’s system might be used to examine a particular facial feature of people as they enter a shopping mall. Because ears are said to be as unique as fingerprints, the images could be compared with a database of ears of known terrorists immediately, with matched images highlighted. The system could also be used in medical applications, to give a 3-D view of an organ or a tumor, for example.

Javidi’s interests include many of the ways optical systems can serve humanity — from digital image processing and pattern recognition to communication systems, optical data storage, and signal processing.

“Optical systems use light to display information, process information, store it and transmit it. Optical systems are more powerful and secure than electronic ones,” Javidi says.

Another application of Javidi’s research is the development of 3-D television and movies. Unlike the 3-D movies of the 1950’s, with lions leaping off the screen into an audience wearing funny-looking glasses, the emerging optical tech-nology will not require the glasses, yet the images will be frighteningly real. That is, Javidi says, if the technology can be developed with an affordable price tag.

70 Years of ‘Kids on Campus’

A 1950 photo of the on-campus nursery school in what was then the UConn School of Home Economics.

In an era that most people associate with stay-at-home mothers, UConn opened a nursery school in 1934 as part of its School of Home Economics. As the 70th anniversary of the early childhood education program was celebrated last fall with a “Kids on Campus” seminar, the School of Family Studies remains at the leading edge of child development and early childhood education.

One of the key components of this program is the Child Development Laboratory (CDL), which began in 1971 and today serves as a model demonstration laboratory center for improving early childhood programs. Programs for 100 children ages six weeks to 6 years are offered through the CDL. Four programs — infant, toddler, preschool and kindergarten — are open 10 hours a day, five days a week, for 37 weeks a year.

“The CDL gives UConn students a chance to understand the social and emotional stability of children and their readiness for learning,” says Deborah Adams, executive program director of the CDL. “They come to understand the role of the adult in how young children learn and how to effectively plan for young children with a purpose while keeping the play base that children need.”

Adams says UConn students in a variety of disciplines can observe children in the CDL, including those in psychology, human development, education, sociology and communication sciences. Students also can take courses in human development and family services and work directly with the children in the CDL, including working to plan key experiences for children as part of the teaching team.

The CDL is licensed by the state of Connecticut and accredited by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs.

UConn students debut at Carnegie Hall

Photo: Tina Covensky

UConn student musicians perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City, led by Jeffrey Renshaw, UConn professor of conducting and ensembles.

UConn students in the School of Fine Arts performed on one of the world’s most prestigious stages last fall. Led by conductor Jeffrey Renshaw, UConn professor of conducting and ensembles, 90 student musicians from UConn’s chamber orchestra, jazz and wind ensembles performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

The concert program featured compositions that were commissioned by Raymond and Beverly Sackler, philanthropists who support a variety of arts and science initiatives at UConn, including the annual Sackler Music Composition Prize. The Carnegie Hall concert featured works by seven composers, including previous Sackler Prize winners, Karim Al-Zand (2003) and Gabriella Frank (2002). The program also featured the world premiere of Recoil by Joseph Schwantner.

Carnegie Hall has been the premier classical music performance space in the United States since it opened in 1891. The main concert hall, named for violinist Issac Stern, has hosted the world’s greatest soloists, conductors and ensembles. Those who have performed on the same stage include pianist Arthur Rubenstein, violinist Jascha Heifetz, singer Marion Anderson, and conductors Gustav Mahler, Leonard Bernstein and Arturo Tuscanini.

“It’s an incredible educational experience for students to be on the same stage as the world’s foremost professional ensembles,” says Renshaw.

“It’s humbling to think about all the performances that have taken place there,” says student David Syzdek ’03 (SFA), a master’s degree candidate. “It’s a great accomplishment for us to perform new material there. It makes you feel like you’re adding something to the larger scale of music.”

The performance was preceded by a lecture and panel discussion on “The Composer in the 21st Century,” which featured participation by Al-Zand, Frank and Schwantner, as well as noted composers Morton Gould, Jim McNeely and Michael Torke.

Judges cite UConn law faculty writings

Judges and legal decision makers throughout the nation are increasingly citing the scholarly writings of UConn School of Law faculty in legal opinions, according to reference services used by the legal profession.

“When courts are seeking to answer complex legal questions, they want all the help they can get. The fact that judges rely on our faculty’s work is a tremendous endorsement of the work of this institution,” says Paul Chill, associate dean for academic affairs for the UConn School of Law.

Scholarly writings provide background on legal issues and can illuminate ideas for the court that attorneys arguing a case may not have not fully explored.

UConn tax law specialist Richard Pomp, Alva P. Loiselle Professor of Law, is widely cited in tax courts across the nation. Pomp, co-author of the leading state tax law casebook, says he thinks judges appreciate his work because he presents a vision of what the law should be and then explores the steps needed to make the vision a reality.

“I try to take highly intricate, convoluted material and make sense of it,” Pomp says. “I think judges appreciate that a neutral third party is providing a blueprint or road map.”

Nell Jessup Newton, dean of the UConn law school, says the impact of scholarly writing has become more apparent.

“In the past 15 years more and more footnoting has been going on in legal decisions,” she says. “They directly quote a law article. A footnote is something you’d associate more with scholarly writing than a judicial decision.”

Sometimes a professor can be surprised to learn that his or her writings have been cited. While litigating a case, Chill heard the judge quoting from a handbook on the law of child abuse and neglect in Connecticut. Chill was the author of the book.

“It’s a sign of respect when a judge cites your work,” Chill says, noting that he prevailed in the case.

Research on stuttering explores motor control, medication
Distinguished chair in plasma chemistry created

Research on stuttering explores motor control, medication

People who stutter avoid using certain words or speaking much in public, but very little is known about the condition, which afflicts 1 percent of the population.

Ludo Max, an assistant professor of communication sciences at UConn, is among the researchers who believe that stuttering is fundamentally a motor problem affecting the use and sophisticated coordination of an estimated 100 different muscles in the speech system.

In his quest to understand the motor aspects of speech, Max has conducted research with fluent speakers as well as stutterers. His latest research addresses the relationship between dopamine levels in the brain and motor control. Brain imaging research has shown that people who stutter have about twice as much dopamine in the brain as people who do not. When given medication that blocks dopamine, subjects who stutter tend to produce more fluent speech.

In current clinical trials Max is conducting in collaboration with two UConn Health Center researchers — Andrew Winokur, associate chair of research programs, and Nicholas A. DeMartinis, assistant professor of psychiatry — adults who stutter are given a drug that has the capacity to adjust dopamine levels so they are maintained at more ideal levels.

As part of the trial Max will employ two high-tech devices to better understand the effects of the medication on speech fluency. An articulograph will measure the movement of the lips, tongue and jaw as speech is produced, while a computer-controlled robotic arm will enable the computer to precisely track and change the jaw’s movement.

“We can study to what extent the movement trajectory is altered and to what extent the subject was able to compensate and perform more normal movements,” says Max.

Although others have done trials with drugs that affect dopamine metabolism in people who stutter, Max and his colleagues are the first to combine the medication with the sensory-motor experiments.

Distinguished chair in plasma chemistry created

Photo: Peter Morenus

Steven Suib, professor of chemistry

A $4.2 million gift to UConn has established the Yuji Hayashi Distinguished Chair in Plasma Chemistry and created the Yuji Hayashi Fellows within the chemistry department.

The gift from the founder and CEO of the firm I’mPACT World creates the second distinguished chair and first endowed fellowships in the department.

A recognized expert in the field of plasma chemistry, Yuji Hayashi has worked for 10 years with Steven Suib, professor and head of UConn’s chemistry department, who is also one of the few experts in the field of plasma chemistry. I’mPACT’s gift is the firm’s first to an institution of higher education.

“UConn is presented with an unparalleled opportunity at the forefront of a field that impacts energy production, manufacturing, the environment, and medicine — virtually every aspect of how we live, work and play,” says Ross MacKinnon, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “The potential for related interdisciplinary research at UConn in such areas as physical electronics, environmental science, biomedical engineering, business, and information technology is both significant and exciting.”

The acronym “PACT” in the company’s name stands for “plasma assisted catalytic technology.” This technology has the potential not only to benefit millions of people but also to help reverse some of the damage that has been done to Earth’s ecosystem. The technology is already being applied in Japan to decompose sulfur dioxide in motor vehicle exhaust and remove sulphur from fuels. Other applications — such as fuel cell production for transportation and power generation, sensor science, creation of new compounds, semiconductor processing and nano-technology, synthetic fuel production, mobile chemical plant technology and medicine—are also being investigated.

With the PACT technology developed through the collaborative work of Hayashi, Suib and their colleagues, it is now possible to create an economical and environmentally friendly source of hydrogen for fuel cells, using water and methane.

Grant bolsters curriculum in family medicine

Thomas Agresta, associate professor of family medicine, right, instructs medical students on the use of hand-held computers in medicine.

Photo: Peter Morenus

When third-year UConn medical students begin their family medicine rotation, they’re loaned laptop computers and introduced to the McQ family who “lives” inside.

“The McQs are a teaching tool designed to orient our students to an entire family rather than to an individual,” says Thomas Agresta, associate professor of family medicine at the UConn Health Center. The family includes a mother, a father, two children, and a set of grandparents, who exist in carefully crafted medical records detailing past visits to the doctor created from answers to multiple choice questions in McQ.

Thanks to a new three-year, $592,578 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the McQ curriculum is being expanded, and other electronic technology is being introduced that will help medical students prepare for possible careers in family medicine.

The new grant equips students performing their family medicine rotation with technology that can make high quality information available to them while they are talking to patients. The information is loaded onto a hand-held computer about the size of a deck of playing cards. The tiny computer can provide detailed information on hypertension, diabetes, asthma, and a host of other conditions within seconds.

“As science and knowledge about health care continue to grow, the technology will help physicians be lifelong learners, able to access relevant new information as it becomes available,” Agresta says.

If a patient comes in for a checkup and has high blood pressure, the student can call up information from clinical studies, calculate the patient’s risk of heart disease or stroke, get information on medications, and print out diet tips and guidelines to give to the patient right then.

The hand-held computers also enable the students to keep information about the patients they see throughout their four years of medical school, which helps medical faculty to know they have seen enough types of patients to ensure that they become competent physicians.

Part of the grant also will be used to expand UConn’s efforts utilizing community health centers as training facilities. Currently, family medicine students see patients at community centers in Meriden, Middletown, Hartford and East Hartford.

Going behind bars to help children

Photo: Peter Morenus

Deborah Shelton, associate professor of nursing.

Early in her career as a psychiatric nurse interested in the health challenges of juvenile offenders, Deborah Shelton was curious about how young prisoners get mental health services while incarcerated. She tried to find research on the subject.

“There was no literature,” says Shelton, UConn associate professor of nursing. “Nobody knew what was going on behind bars because these children were locked up in these walled, caged places.”

Shelton set out to develop an understanding of what happens by going into juvenile jails and prisons to see what kind of services were provided for these offenders. For more than 20 years, she conducted research studies, published nursing journal articles and presented her findings at more than 40 international conferences, helping develop the field of forensic nursing and the development of juvenile forensic psychiatric nursing. Her career achievements were recognized recently with the 2004 Achievement Award from the International Association of Forensic Nursing.

Her research and writings in a variety of nursing sub-specialties, along with her experience developing public policy for mental health needs of juveniles at risk, have established her as a well-respected advocate for youthful offenders.

Shelton says nurses have unique opportunities to provide mental health services for juvenile offenders, who typically find themselves in trouble often due to circumstances beyond their own control.

“We have this opportunity to help because they’re being held in one place,” Shelton says. “With the appropriate intervention we can make a difference in redirecting these children’s lives.”

Since arriving at UConn last year, she has worked to develop an advanced practice in psychiatric nursing in Connecticut, which has been embraced by nursing students. Shelton also has started meeting with officials in the city of Hartford to gain funding for an intervention program for pre-adolescent children that uses expressive art—such as movement, visual arts and music—that she developed in Maryland, where she helped to gain approval for a juvenile justice mental health bill.

“Not all children will be saved,” she says. “But we’ve learned that you can help a lot of them.”

Alumni help formulate advice

Photo: Peter Morenus

Robert McCarthy, right, dean of Pharmacy, with Joseph Palo ’73 (PHR) of IBM, tour the new Pharmacy Building that will open this fall.

With the need to keep up with advances in technology, updates to curriculum and the activity to prepare for the opening of a new home later this year, there is a buzz of excitement throughout the School of Pharmacy. The feeling extends to alumni who are members of the school’s advisory board, a group of 28 volunteers who provide their time, experience and assistance to advancing the school’s mission of research, teaching and service.

“The advisory board is one of the most important resources I have,” says Robert McCarthy, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “Members offer a wealth of knowledge because they come from all different areas of pharmacy. The premier schools all over the country have this in common.”

The advisory board meets in April and October for a day-long retreat, working in groups led by faculty facilitators to work through strategic issues to help keep UConn’s School of Pharmacy at the leading edge of the profession. Members are among senior leadership in pharmaceutical science, pharmacy practice, government and nonprofit institutions. Students and faculty are also members.

“It adds a dimension to the school and to us as individuals to interact with other alumni and current students,” says Joseph Palo ’73 (PHR), a partner in the business consulting services division of IBM Global Services. “One of the reasons I’m involved is that if you look across the pharmaceutical industry, you don’t find a lot of pharmacists involved in major business decisions.”

Deborah Faucette ’80 (PHR) spent 20 years in retail pharmacy before becoming director of pharmacy operations for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Foundation.

“My most rewarding role is educating students about their options,” she says. “There are more experiential rotations than ever before. It’s neat to see the enthusiasm of Connecticut-based companies offering different educational opportunities for UConn students.”

Faucette provided such an opportunity for Erica Nunes ’05 Pharm.D., who became the first UConn student to do a rotation at NACDS, learning about association management, program development and legislative issues.

Valuing diversity in students, faculty, courses

On a crisp fall morning, more than 100 UConn students form a line on the lawn outside the School of Social Work. They have just been introduced to the faculty and are waiting to start the privilege walk, part of a daylong diversity training program that all new students at the School of Social Work participate in.

“It is important for social work students to have a strong understanding of what will be needed to work with very different populations,” says Kay Davidson, dean of the School of Social Work. “Diversity is a curriculum content area required for accreditation, but that’s not the only reason why we do it. We value it.”

The training seeks to introduce to students from the outset of the need to be aware of the different populations they will work with, as well as recognize their own differences within the training group and school.

Davidson says the School of Social Work has worked to be a model in terms of the diversity of its student body and faculty and to create a curriculum that consciously addresses social issues relevant to minority groups. She says a great deal of effort is put into recruitment and to ensure strong support for retaining faculty and students from all backgrounds.

One such support is the areas of study, Davidson says. Students may take an area of focus such as “Black Studies for Social Work Practice” or “Puerto Rican/Latino/ Latina Studies in Social Work.” In addition to specific courses that teach students about various groups, there are lectures, discussions and other activities to enhance and support the curriculum.

Although much of the diversity at the School of Social Work relates to racial and ethnic differences, it is also a place where gay, lesbian and bisexual people feel comfortable, Davidson says. “Social work is a profession that is focused on human and civil rights and social justice. The school is a receptive place for students of these populations and for learning to work with their special needs.”