LAURA PLUNK
Laura Plunk, lecturer of education, spoke to the Rotary Club of Martin in September about her trip this past year to Kenya with fellow UT Martin faculty members. The group joined others from Innov8 Africa, an international aid organization.
The mission of Innov8 Africa is to “ bring education, real-life innovations and long-term solutions to Kenyan children and their communities.” Information is at https://www.google.com/search?q=Innov8+Africa&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
Plunk described their experiences with schoolchildren and their interactions with the communities they visited. She highlighted the need for aid of all kind, including providing sanitation and plumbing. The Rotary Club of Martin donates a children’s book to the Martin Public Library’s children’s department in honor of the speaker.
Dr. DAVID BARBER
IDr. David Barber, professor of history, spoke about his 2008 book, “A Hard Rain Fell: Reassessing Radical White Youth in the 1960s,” on Oct. 27 at the Obion County Historical Society meeting.
Topics of discussion included “The Sixties Today,” “America at the End of World War II,” “The Greatest Revolution in Human History,” “White American Youth Shaken From Complacency: The Founding of SDS,” “Black Power and SDS” and “Weatherman.”
Barber took questions from those in attendance regarding the book and its topics.
Dr. COOPER JOHNSON | Dr. JAMYE LONG
Dr. Cooper Johnson and Dr. Jamye Long, both professors of management, have had their scholarly work published in a peer-reviewed journal, “The American Journal of Management.”
Long’s and Johnson’s research involves experiential learning and bridges it with the concept of common sense. Their most recent publication is titled “Reintroducing common sense to organizations: Identifying self-imposed barriers that impede managers-in-training success through an interactive and experiential learning environment,” in which the researchers sought to better understand the frequency of skills often associated with common sense and quality problem solving, such as critical thinking, communication, brainstorming and researching.
The findings of the study determined that within the construct of the experiment, common sense was a rare commodity and in a battle of the sexes, common sense was gender-neutral.
