IU launches CitizIN app for teaching about Indiana studies
The Center on Representative Government at Indiana University and the IU Office of the Bicentennial have publicly launched the new CitizIN app, a free interactive game that explores 200 years of Indiana history. CitizIN supports the teaching of Indiana studies and the incorporation of Indiana topics into a standard U.S. history course.
IU President Michael A. McRobbie introduced the app at the fall conference of the Indiana Council for the Social Studies, on the IUPUI campus. He also announced that boxes containing information about the app were being delivered to the principals of each of Indiana’s 400 high schools.
CitizIN is intended to serve as a fun resource for teaching about the history, government, geography, economics and people of the Hoosier state, using primary source materials from the Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana State Library, the Library of Congress and other institutions.
A signature project of the yearlong IU Bicentennial celebration, the app was created in response to the 2017 passage of Senate Enrolled Act 29, which required that Indiana high schools offer an Indiana studies elective.
IU South Bend to help school district with teacher quality program
The IU South Bend School of Education is working with the South Bend Community School Corp. on a grant program to educate, recruit and retain teachers.
South Bend Community School Corp. received a five-year, $5.5 million grant, in which IU South Bend was named a partner and subcontractor.
The IU South Bend School of Education will work with the school corporation on a yearlong teacher residency program. Qualified students will earn their bachelor’s degree, be hired by the school corporation for continued professional development and classroom experience, and have their master’s degree paid for in exchange for a three-year commitment to teach in the school corporation.
Coursework in the graduate program will emphasize science, technology, mathematics, urban populations and literacy. Up to 20 teachers a year could participate in the program.
The grant addresses a critical need to recruit and retain elementary, middle school, high school and special education teachers in South Bend.
IU unveils tool to help communities with climate change impacts
IU’s Environmental Resilience Institute, part of the Prepared for Environmental Change Grand Challenge initiative, has launched the Hoosier Resilience Index, a first-of-its-kind online tool to help local governments and Indiana residents understand how their communities are vulnerable to climate change and what they can do to respond.
The index draws from publicly available datasets and places community-specific information at the fingertips of local leaders, providing data for every town, city and county in the state. The data include information about extreme heat and precipitation projections, flood plain and land use maps, and demographic information of vulnerable neighborhoods.
The index is intended to help local governments assess their readiness for environmental change and track community progress. By filling out a questionnaire, communities can score themselves and identify areas where they can work toward greater resilience.
5 at IU earn Women of Influence awards
Five women from Indiana University were among those honored by the Indianapolis Business Journal in its 2019 Women of Influence feature, which recognizes their achievements and impacts. They are:
- Dr. Elaine Cox: Professor of clinical pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine and chief medical officer at Riley Children’s Health. She earned her medical degree at the IU School of Medicine, where she has been faculty in the section of pediatric infectious disease since 1995.
- Dr. Angela Fiege: Assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine at the IU School of Medicine, a critical care physician at Indiana University Health and medical director of the NASCAR-AMR Track Safety Team. She also is the founder of Rachael’s First Week.
- NiCole Keith: Associate dean of faculty affairs and a professor of kinesiology at the IU School of Health and Human Sciences at IUPUI. She is also a research scientist at the IU Center for Aging Research in the IU School of Medicine and a Regenstrief Institute investigator.
- Idalene ‘Idie’ Kesner: The first female dean of the IU Kelley School of Business. She is an alumna of Kelley, where she received her MBA and doctorate before being invited to join Kelley’s faculty in 1995. She held several key leadership roles in the school before becoming its dean in May 2013.
- Janet McCabe: Director of the IU Environmental Resilience Institute and a professor of practice at the IU McKinney School of Law. Before joining IU, she served as an assistant administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration.
IU Bloomington ranks 6th nationally in number of students who study abroad
Another record-breaking year of student participation in study abroad programs has once again demonstrated IU’s commitment to providing a global education to its students.
IU Bloomington ranked sixth among U.S. institutions for the number of students studying abroad in 2017-18, according to the 2019 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.
Last academic year, 3,044 IU Bloomington students studied abroad, an increase of more than 7 percent; study abroad increased 2.7 percent nationwide. Of those IU Bloomington students, 1,233 spent a semester abroad, ranking the campus third in the nation for mid-length study-abroad programs. These figures only reflect U.S. students; an additional 306 IU Bloomington international students also participated in study abroad programs. Today, about a third of IU Bloomington students have studied abroad by the time they have graduated.
At IUPUI, 578 students traveled outside the U.S. as part of their academic programs. These results reflect IUPUI’s dedication to access and affordability for international education, which includes offering planning scholarships that help underrepresented populations and students with financial need prepare to study abroad early in their college career.
Riley unveils new guest management system
Riley Children’s Health has introduced new steps to identify and manage all hospital and outpatient center visitors, making it easy to visually identify who is in the facility at all times, and why.
To create the safest possible environment for everyone, minimize behavior alerts and reduce safety-related concerns on patient units, the guest management system:
- Creates a building check-in process at main entrances for all families, visitors and guests.
- Issues identification stickers and badges to those authorized to be in inpatient or outpatient areas.
- Establishes visual touchpoints at key locations for safety and security.
- Gives families a defined process to manage visitors during hospital stays.
