Jeanine Guidry receiving her award at the AEJMC conference

Jeanine Guidry, a PhD candidate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Health at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine, is a graduate of CPS's master's in strategic public relations program offered by CPS' Graduate School of Political Management. Jeanine is active in her field and presented twice at a major conference in Montreal earlier this month. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication presented Jeanine with the Eason Award for Graduate Student Research for the top student-authored paper presented at its annual conference this year. The $1,000 award winning paper was "On Pins and Needles: How Vaccines Are Portrayed on Pinterest".

Her second presentation, a poster session, was based on her capstone project measuring social media for non-profits titled "Creating Social Change with Public Relations: Strategically Using Twitter to Turn Supporters into Vocal Advocates".  In addition to her doctoral work, Jeanine is also an affiliated graduate researcher at VCU's Center for Media + Health. The center's focus is on the critical role traditional and new media play in disseminating and communicating health information. 

 Click here a short video on the award won by Margarida's firm

CPS Sustainable Landscapes students Julie Melear, Janet Conroy and Mary Sper's landscape design for Harvest Home has won the 2014 Gold Award in outdoor design from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD). Harvest Home was Team Capitol DC's entry in the U.S. Department of Energy's 2013 Solar Decathlon which included faculty and students from GW and American and Catholic universities. The 700-square-foot solar-powered, attractive and affordable structure and garden was designed and built over a period of two years in DC and was then taken apart, transported to Irvine, California for the Decathlon and reassembled there! At the end of the competition, Harvest Home was donated to a war veteran who suffers from emotional trauma.

The winning landscape design featured a Harvest Table with a water rill and herb plants running down the center; a rainwater cistern to collect 100 percent of the roof runoff;deck tiles made from recycled tires;a beehive and compost bin; and two organic gardens with edible plants. "GW's landscape design for Harvest Home broke through the conventional boundaries of the Solar Decathlon competition. Few entries had ever focused on reinforcing the design concept of the house through the landscape. Harvest Home was continually praised by juries and visitors alike for its welcoming landscape that extended from edge of its competition space." says Adele Ashkar, CPS Associate Dean for Academic Excellence and Sustainable Landscapes Program Director.

Read more about the award-winning design

See APLD's announcement

First Star Academy students in their ceramics class

Question: What is the difference between foster youth and non-foster youth? 

Answer: Foster youth attend college at a rate of 3% while their non-foster peers attend at a rate of 30%

Foster children are not less bright, enthusiastic, or hopeful than their peers. The reason they attend college at such a disproportionately low rate is that they have not received the guidance and encouragement necessary to direct them along that path.

The First Star program seeks to change that by bringing high school foster children to the GW campus to work, study, play, perform, and live the lives of college students. They live on the beautiful Mount Vernon campus and take college courses for credit, thus removing the psychological barriers to considering college. 

The university hosted the four-week immersion program in partnership with  First Star Greater Washington Academy on campus last July for the second year. In addition to math and English courses, the group of 21 students took a two-credit fine arts class in ceramics with Professor Dandee Pattee. 

GW student-athletes mentor the students, living with them, accompanying them to class and activities, talking to them, and acting as stellar role models. Some of the mentors were foster children themselves. 

A highlight of the summer is the annual talent show. Toni Marsh, CPS Associate Dean for New Initiatives and the campus liaison for the program said, "Last July I had the privilege of attending a talent show that showcased an incredible array of performances that were astounding in their emotional and artistic depth. The kids did poetry, modern dance, African dance, rap, piano, mime, and drama and they were fabulous."  

The same group of students will be back next year.

Read more in GW Today

A new study shows that one major reason for high dropout rates in many online courses is related to the psycho-social profile of the students. It is an intrapsychological factor called temporal (or time) perspective (TP) and it's about how students perceive time. The authors of the paper published in the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning looked at students in both a traditional face-to-face setting and in online classes offered by the same institutions of higher education for their study. Temporal perspective can be understood as someone's cognitive construct, and typically falls into one of five categories:

- Past Negative (PN): They remember the traumatic and negative experiences from the past and tend to over-generalize those for their entire life.

- Past Positive (PP): They tend to recall the positive experiences from their past. It's related to an optimistic outlook on life.

- Present Hedonists (PH): They are oriented towards immediate pleasure, living the present moment without worrying too much about the future.

- Present Fatalists (PF): They feel powerless about their future no matter what they do; they perceive themselves as helpless and define life as unfair.

- Future Time Perspective (FTP): They desire to plan and achieve specific future goals; they are achievement-oriented, have expectations for the future and hope for change.

According to the results of the study, onsite students have a very different temporal perspective than online students. Students taking online courses show a high Past Negative (PN) perspective, while onsite students have a high Future Time Perspective (FTP). The age difference between onsite and online students may partially explain this as the former are typically in their early to mid-twenties while the latter are in their mid-thirties or older.

The authors also confirm some results of previous studies of online versus onsite students but the finding that carries the most weight is that "previous literature identifies FTP as one of the temporal orientations that could be strongly related to learning". In other words, perhaps retention in many online classes is low because students, who are less inclined toward FTP, are worse learners. In the concluding part of the study in order to help institutions better identify practices for online students, the researchers present two tables that include all five TP categories for each of these two conditions: students choosing online classes for convenience and students choosing online classes for personal preferences.

It was announced earlier this year that CPS is expanding its IIST (Integrated Information, Science and Technology) bachelor's degree completion program to GW's Virginia Science and Technology Campus in Loudoun County, Virginia as of fall 2014. This move is in response to the growing workforce demand in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) job market in Northern Virginia.  ICT is Loudoun County's largest industry cluster, representing 21% of the businesses, including companies such as Neustar, Verizon, Raytheon and Computer Sciences Corporation.

The interdisciplinary IIST program is geared towards individuals who are already in a technical field, or those who are attempting to gain entry either as career- changers or as young professionals. IIST's articulation agreement with Northern Virginia Community College and competitive tuition rates, make it an ideal program for community college students and others who are seeking to enhance their employment and advancement prospects. The cohort-based program in Ashburn will be offered during evenings and on weekends with the needs of working professionals in mind. Students will also have the opportunity to engage with industry partners such as Deloitte's through site visits and guest speaker events. "Our program can help bridge the gap between industry demands and a student's educational level and thus make all the difference in her career trajectory." says Dr. Sara Hooshangi, the IIST program director.