“It really exceeded my expectations,” wrote one attendee at Shenandoah.

“I’m leaving with a lot of ideas and motivation,” added another.

The workshop is an adaptation for Honors teaching workshops that Carignan and Mould developed for Elon faculty with Deandra Little, director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Little was instrumental in developing the workshop and continues to provide valuable resources and insights for each new year. “The workshop is not static,” Carignan explained. “We wanted to develop something not only for new faculty to orient them to teaching in Honors, but also fresh topics in pedagogy for returning faculty as part of our commitment to always growing and striving to be better.”

In 2014 and 2015, the workshops were held exclusively at 51±¬ÁÏÍø for Elon faculty. In addition to general best practices in honors pedagogy, special topics have included leading effective discussions, grading, collaboration and group work, crowd-sourced rubrics, multidisciplinary teaching, team teaching, and getting buy-in from students.

In 2016, however, Carignan and Mould took the workshop to the National Collegiate Honors Council Annual meeting in Seattle, Washington. The presentation was standing room only. “It’s been important to us that this is about improving Honors education not just at Elon, but everywhere. That’s why we have made all of our materials available online,” Mould explained.

Some programs, however, wanted even more guidance as they prepared their faculty to teach their Honors students. This led to the invitations from The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Monterrey, Mexico, and Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. “The directors of the Monterrey Honors program invited us right on the spot,” explained Carignan, “and the director from Shenandoah began an exchange that yielded another invitation. We were so pleased that our workshop appeared to be useful.”

While the Shenandoah University workshop included more than a dozen faculty who will teach honors students in the coming year, 24 faculty from across the university in Monterrey attended the December workshop. Both groups found sessions on backward course design, course alignment, student expectations, and characteristics of high achieving and gifted students to be among the most helpful.

Current Honors Director Lynn Huber has continued these workshops at Elon and hopes to continue sharing best practices with her national and international colleagues in Honors. “The fact that colleagues at other institutions are reaching out to us as experts in teaching honors points to the strength of our program and to the high-quality work of all those who have led Honors at Elon throughout the years.”

Formed in 2011, the North Carolina Jewish Studies Consortium provides a forum for Jewish Studies faculty and graduate students at universities and colleges across the state to meet, discuss their research and teaching, and network with one another. The meeting’s overall focus will be on the question of Jews and race. Professor Cheryl Lynn Greenberg of Trinity College, Hartford, a nationally recognized historian of race in America and author of “Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century” will serve as a keynote speaker.

Her lecture , which is free and open to the public, will take place at 2 p.m. in Wake Forest University’s Kulynych Auditorium in the Byrum Welcome Center located at 1834 Wake Forest Road in Winston-Salem, N.C. A reception will follow.

For more information please contact Elon’s Jewish Studies Program Director and member of the N.C. Jewish Studies Consortium Coordinating Committee, Andrea Sinn, assistant professor of history.

Teenage mothers struggle with many issues related to their changing bodies, changes that directly influence their self-esteem and identity. Pregnancy and breastfeeding in an unsupportive social and cultural context, such as in rural North Carolina, can be very challenging for teenage mothers, who worry about the stigma they may face from friends, family members and society at large. Breasts are often seen as objects of a woman’s sexuality, and for teenage mothers especially, feelings of embarrassment and shame often become barriers to seeking prenatal care or to try breastfeeding.  

However, breastfeeding remains the best nutrition for babies, particularly those who are pre-term. This story illustrates the importance of family and social support for teenage mothers and the unique challenges they face.

O’Brien, who was an anthropology and creative writing major in her final year at Elon, helped turn one of Palmquist’s breastfeeding clinical case studies into a narrative for this book. “Molly did an amazing job breathing life into this story. I am extremely proud of her,” said Palmquist, a faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. “This story is an important contribution to the collection, because many youth may not have had a chance to think about pregnancy and breastfeeding from the point of view of a teen mom and what she may be going through.”

“Community Health Narratives” is the third in a series that is written for high school students taking courses in global health. It is published by the University of New Mexico Press ().

Palmer was the lead author on the poster “People, plants, and breastfeeding: the contemporary use of botanicals in management of low milk supply among health care providers and breastfeeding mothers.” They reported preliminary data on the use of plant-based supplements used to increase milk supply called galactagogues.

Plant medicines are among a variety of therapies used to support lactation. They are found cross-culturally throughout the word’s traditional medical systems. However, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine discourages the use of plant-based galactagogues, citing unreliable quality of over-the-counter products and a lack of a strong evidence base for their efficacy and safety.

The prevalence of galactagogue use has not been examined recently in the United States. Moreover, few studies have conducted a survey of plant-based galactagogue use among health professionals who coordinate lactation care.

To understand the place of botanicals in the increasing medicalization of lactation, Palmer designed an online survey to gather information on the types of galactagogues breastfeeding mothers reported using and the types that health care providers reported recommending. They found that 71 percent of breastfeeding mothers reported using galactagogues while 62% reported experiencing low milk supply.

Only 47 percent of these mothers reported being diagnosed with low milk supply by a health care provider, but 65 percent indicated that using galactagogues made them feel more confident in their breast milk supply. Both breastfeeding mothers and health care providers had concerns about the safety and potential negative side effects of plant-based galactagogues. Although the study sample is relatively small, findings indicate that galactagogues are a common part of breastfeeding mothers’ everyday strategies to cope with perceived low milk supply.

The Wenner-Gren grant complements FR&D funds Palmquist has also received from Elon to support this research.

Ellis will discuss his recent paper, "Testing the Limits of Innovation in Contemporary Powwow Culture: Dancing and Gendered Space at Southern Plains Powwows, 1945-2010."

Bissett will discuss the following topic: "Moderation or Massive Resistance? : School Desegregation in Alamance County, North Carolina."

Matthew will discuss the following topic: "The Track from Beyond the Grave: Challenges to Porfirian Policymaking in Popular Verse."