Northern Kentucky University Research Articles

A GSM-Based Intelligent Monitoring System for Improving Robotics Laboratory Safety

Incorporating industrial robots into current robotics curricula has become a key component for engineering and technology programs. Recently, Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America donated a Kawasaki ZB150S industrial robot to the Engineering Technology Programs at Northern Kentucky University. The entire Kawasaki industrial robot system was installed in a safeguard cage; however, the safeguard cage was not always able to prevent unauthorized students from coming into the working area of the robot. The lab manager/staff expressed an urgent need for a smart tool that could monitor occurrences of unauthorized operating conditions to help them improve laboratory safety. Thus, a Global System for Mobile (GSM)-based intelligent monitoring system has been designed and developed to provide a safe robotics lab operating environment for students. This intelligent monitoring system was divided into two subsystems: one was the Embedded Laboratory Environmental Monitoring and Robot Power Control (ELEMRPC) subsystem; the other was the GSM communication subsystem. The ELEMRPC subsystem received the presence-sensing signals from the light curtains at the cage entrance and disarmed the power supply of the robot when unauthorized students were detected. Additionally, the lab environmental parameters were monitored. The GSM subsystem wirelessly transmitted text messages (e.g., lab safety information) to designated cellular phones. These text notifications can alert lab manager/staff immediately to prevent potential accidents within the footprint of the robot safety cage. This paper discusses in greater detail the design, development, and hardware implementation of the robotics laboratory safety monitoring system.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky Takes an Important Step in Protecting Democracy

In this editorial, Northern Kentucky University’s president celebrates Kentucky’s new bipartisan voting rights bill. Signed into law in April 2021, the legislation runs counter to trends in other states by expanding, rather than restricting, voting options in the Commonwealth. As an immigrant to the United States from India, the author brings a unique perspective on American democracy and expresses his passion about higher education’s critical role in informing students about their civic responsibilities.

Erik Martin, DNP, RN, CENP

Erik Martin, DNP, RN, CENP

Advancing Age Inclusivity in a Pandemic: Age-Friendly University (AFU) Campuses Take Action

The COVID-19 pandemic presented extraordinary challenges for professionals in the aging field across campuses and communities, calling for rethinking and redesigning how their work was structured, their programs were delivered, and their connections were sustained. The pandemic also made clear the value of being an age-friendly institution of higher education, especially as we experience historic changes in age demographics. This symposium features campus leaders representing institutional partners of the Age-Friendly University (AFU) global initiative (endorsed by GSA’s Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education) who will discuss how their age-friendly programs were adapted during the pandemic to continue to advance age inclusivity. These diverse responses exemplify the vast potential of age-friendly opportunities. June and Andreoletti (Central Connecticut State University) will discuss how the Scholars for Life! program supported the engagement of older learners in the neighboring community through the engagement of faculty. Elfenbein (University of North Georgia) will describe how learning experiences for older learners and intergenerational exchange were created beyond the classroom through the Personal Enrichment, Action and Knowledge (PEAK) program. Terhune (Northern Kentucky University) will describe how student support practices and services were adapted to provide working adult students with guidance for navigating their educational needs during the pandemic. Kheirbek (University of Maryland, Baltimore) will describe how age-friendly collaborations with the institution’s medical school leveraged intergenerational connections and technology to foster social connection for hospitalized older adults. Gautam and Melillo (UMass Lowell) discuss how a campus partnership with the Learning in Retirement Association (LIRA) adapted efforts around healthy aging.

Emergency Nursing Review Questions: September 2021

These review questions are based on the Emergency Nursing Core Curriculum and other pertinent resources to emergency nursing practice. They offer emergency nurses an opportunity to test their knowledge about their practice. Carrie A. McCoy, Cincinnati Area Chapter, is Professor Emerita of Nursing Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY.

Emergency Nursing Review Questions: March 2021

These review questions are based on the Emergency Nursing Core Curriculum and other pertinent resources to emergency nursing practice. They offer emergency nurses an opportunity to test their knowledge about their practice. Carrie A. McCoy, Member, Cincinnati Area Chapter, is a Professor of Nursing, Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY.

Responding in Crisis: Considerations for Administrators and Faculty

Responding in Crisis: Considerations for Administrators and Faculty

Campus-Wide Buy-In for an Age-Friendly University: One Goal and Many Paths

Recognizing a growing aging population around the world as well as the many benefits of engaging learners at any age in higher education institutions (Kressley & Huebschmann, 2002; Morrow-Howell, et al., 2019; Silverstein, Choi, & Bulot, 2001), the Age-Friendly University (AFU) international initiative offers a medium to support diversity and inclusion efforts based upon age. Dublin City University (DCU), along with Arizona State University (ASU) and Strathclyde University, developed 10 Age-Friendly University (AFU) principles which offer a guide for institutional commitment to age-diversity that can be realized through institutional goals, aims, and initiatives (DCU, n.d., Talmage, Mark, Slowely, & Knopf, 2016). Because of the non-prescriptive nature of these principles, universities endorsing them have opportunities to forge varied paths in the unified goal of age-friendliness. Presenters will share lessons learned from development of the AgeAlive collaborative hub to advance age-friendly research and community-based projects at Michigan State University, the value of cross-campus partnerships at the University of Hartford, the critical support provided by the Adult Learner Programs and Services office at Northern Kentucky University, and the intentional alignment of AFU efforts with administrative priorities at Eastern Michigan University, and journey from focusing on programs to embedding age-friendly practices throughout the institution at Arizona’s State University. Through the diverse paths these presenters used to obtain support for the AFU principles at their respective universities, participants who are just beginning their AFU journeys will learn actionable strategies for increasing age-friendliness at their own institutions.

High Impact Practices Through Experiential Student Philanthropy: A Case Study of the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project and Academic Success at Northern Kentucky University

High impact educational practices are active learning strategies that benefit learning outcomes, increase student engagement, and support student retention. This study examines the retention and persistence impact of student philanthropy, an active learning approach that engages students with the community by incorporating a philanthropy component into college courses. Results from this study demonstrate that students who participated in one or more student philanthropy courses had a substantially higher four-year graduation rate in comparison to students overall. Participants also exhibited a greater number of completed credit hours compared to the general university population and a higher semester-to-semester retention rate. This affirms the value of student philanthropy as a High Impact Teaching Practice (HITP) that actively engages students inside and outside of the classroom, around the university campus, and in the community.

Build trust with your community to resolve concerns early

John Gaffin graduated from Northern Kentucky University with his undergraduate degree on a Friday night. Sunday afternoon, he started the police academy at the institution. Gaffin, Chief of Police at NKU, has been with the department for the last 14 years. Gaffin said the move ended up being prescient, as shortly after he graduated, the 2008 recession hit and many of his friends ended up unemployed.

Emergency Nursing Review Questions: November 2019

These review questions are based on the Emergency Nursing Core Curriculum and other pertinent resources to emergency nursing practice. They offer emergency nurses an opportunity to test their knowledge about their practice. Carrie A. McCoy, Cincinnati Area Chapter, is Professor of Nursing Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY.

McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the “Unseen Audience”: Constructing Blackness on the Radio

Research Article| July 01 2019 McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the “Unseen Audience”: Constructing Blackness on the Radio Alyssa Mehnert Alyssa Mehnert Alyssa Mehnert maintains a multifaceted career as a performer, music educator, and musicologist. Her research focuses on 1920s jazz, race, and historiography. She has presented new research at Music and the Moving Image, the American Musicological Society Midwest Chapter Meeting, and the Society for American Music annual conference. She works extensively as a trombonist in a variety of musical styles and has composed commissioned musical works for several university- and professional-level jazz ensembles. Mehnert has served as instructor at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Northern Kentucky University, and Butler University. She earned her PhD in musicology from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2018 and completed her MM in jazz studies at Indiana University Bloomington in 2012. She currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Music (2019) 37 (2): 146–171. https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.37.2.0146 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Alyssa Mehnert; McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the “Unseen Audience”: Constructing Blackness on the Radio. American Music 1 January 2019; 37 (2): 146–171. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.37.2.0146 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressAmerican Music Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Member spotlight

In this feature of the Bulletin, we highlight members of the SIGCSE community. In this issue, Bulletin co-editor Karen Davis interviewed Maureen Doyle. Maureen Doyle is Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Northern Kentucky University in greater Cincinnati. Maureen currently serves as a co-Chair of the Academic Alliance for NCWIT, serves on the ACM-W TRIWIC conference committee, and is a past co-editor of the SIGCSE Bulletin. Maureen earned a BS in Mathematics from the UMass Lowell and an MS in Mathematics at Northeastern University. At the age of 38, she returned to graduate school so hoping to help others benefit from an education in computing. In 2004, she earned her PhD in Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics from Stanford.

Emergency Nursing Review Questions: March 2019

These review questions are based on the Emergency Nursing Core Curriculum and other pertinent resources to emergency nursing practice. They offer emergency nurses an opportunity to test their knowledge about their practice. Carrie A. McCoy, Member, Cincinnati Area Chapter, is Professor of Nursing, Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY.

Potential Reinvasion ofLonicera maackiiafter Urban Riparian Forest Restoration

Kristine N. Hopfensperger Corresponding author: Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Kentucky University, 1 Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, KY 41099, hopfenspek1{at}nku.edu.

Spain, Germany, and the Holocaust: Uniting Global Learning and Student Philanthropy through Transdisciplinarity

While the atrocities of the Holocaust have been well documented, this catastrophic event has been commonly studied through the lens of a single discipline. In a course co-taught by German and Spanish professors in conjunction with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of WWII concentration camps, advanced students of German and Spanish at Northern Kentucky University engaged with this topic by analyzing, comparing, and contrasting the German-Dutch (Anne Frank) and Spanish-French (Jorge Semprún) experience. To deepen students’ cross-collaboration, the two classes engaged in a philanthropy project called the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project. The class received a $2,000 grant, researched and advocated for local nonprofits that addressed topics related to the Holocaust, and collectively decided on the final grant recipient. This article discusses the course structure, objectives, and outcomes of a transdisciplinary approach to literature, along with student feedback about the experience.

You Are Because I Am: Toward New Covenants of Equity and Diversity in Teacher Education

Racial disparities in the demographic composition of K-12 students and teachers has led university teacher education programs and school districts to endeavor to prepare all teachers, especially White teachers, to work with diverse students. However, often sidelined in these initiatives are the challenging tasks of preparing, recruiting, and retaining teachers of color as well as the challenging truths about the experiences of aspiring and practicing teachers and teacher educators of African American, Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Native American, Middle Eastern, and mixed race heritages. This paper was delivered as a talk at the National Symposium on Teacher Diversity held at Northern Kentucky University in 2017. Dillard posits that in order to address the inequities within schooling and teacher education, we must examine the covenants that lie at the center of educational and public discussions about education in the U.S. through (re)membering narratives of Black and Brown lives and experiences with/in schooling, Dillard marshals the notion of beloved community put forth by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a promising framework for ushering in new covenants in teaching and learning for schools and schools of education that might enhance and support the experiences of aspiring and practicing teachers of color.

Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men: A Reader’s Companion by Jonathan S. Cullick

Reviewed by: Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men: A Reader’s Companion by Jonathan S. Cullick Anne E. Marshall Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men: A Reader’s Companion. By Jonathan S. Cullick. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018. Pp. xvi, 124. $24.95, ISBN 978-0-8131-7592-8.) The Kentucky Humanities Council chose Robert Penn Warren’s brilliant, but famously challenging, novel All the King’s Men (1946) as the 2018–2019 featured [End Page 953] book for its yearlong “Kentucky Reads” initiative. The council, in partnership with the University Press of Kentucky, commissioned Jonathan S. Cullick, a professor of English at Northern Kentucky University, to author a guide to help the reading public navigate and think about the novel. It is a task for which Cullick, a scholar of Robert Penn Warren and the literature of the U.S. South, is well suited. As Cullick tells us, All the King’s Men was a logical selection for “Kentucky Reads” not only because Warren had Kentucky roots, but also because the novel speaks so directly to the current political moment. While Cullick does not draw them extensively or explicitly, there are clear parallels between the novel’s main character, Willie Stark, the literary epitome of a populist demagogue, and more than a few contemporary state and national politicians. Stark’s inflammatory rhetorical style, which plays to the fears and sense of alienation of his constituents rather than to their intellect, should certainly seem familiar to modern readers. Accordingly, Cullick has organized this book around the question: “How is All the King’s Men relevant in our time, decades after its publication?” (p. xiv). He has taken a couple of approaches to answering it. One is to consult public figures themselves. In the process of writing this reader’s companion, he reached out to dozens of state lawmakers, university presidents, and other public officials to get their take on when they encountered Warren’s novel and how it shaped their political mentality. He also considers the relative merits of the film and theater adaptations of the novel. Other chapters feel like traditional, but still very accessible, literary criticism. In them, Cullick examines other political themes from the novel, including the role of rhetoric, the corrupting nature of power, and the uneasy relationship between pragmatism and idealism. There is also an appendix containing provocative questions that would be useful in any group discussion. Cullick’s research and commentary will help readers form their own insights for what Warren’s novel has to tell readers about the nature of contemporary politics. In the end, however, he notes that the book has as much to say about the responsibility of citizens living within a democracy as it does their leaders. After all, demagogues can only succeed with the help of voters. As Cullick asserts, “The support and the votes that we citizens possess belong to us; they are ours to give or withhold freely. We must hold leaders accountable, of course, but we must also hold ourselves accountable” (p. 85). In order to vote well, we must be “mindful of our own needs and our own vulnerabilities to political candidates who appeal to those needs” (p. 85). This slim volume fulfills its purpose of helping readers navigate All the King’s Men. It is a testament to both the importance of the public intellectual service that humanities faculty perform and the invaluable role that university presses play in the intellectual health of the states in which they operate. Anne E. Marshall Mississippi State University Copyright © 2019 The Southern Historical Association

Member Spotlight

In this feature of the Bulletin, we highlight members of the SIGCSE community. In this issue, Bulletin co-editor Karen Davis interviewed Maureen Doyle. Maureen Doyle is Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Northern Kentucky University in greater Cincinnati. Maureen currently serves as a co-Chair of the Academic Alliance for NCWIT, serves on the ACM-W TRIWIC conference committee, and is a past co-editor of the SIGCSE Bulletin. Maureen earned a BS in Mathematics from the UMass Lowell and an MS in Mathematics at Northeastern University. At the age of 38, she returned to graduate school so hoping to help others benefit from an education in computing. In 2004, she earned her PhD in Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics from Stanford.

FUEL NKU: A Campus Community Hunger Initiative

Regional universities are often embedded within the community, and so community issues off campus are reflected on campus. For example, college students at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) face many of the same food challenges present in the larger region. This paper presents a case study of a faculty-led, student-run campus hunger initiative, FUEL NKU. Social work students determined to address hunger on campus developed FUEL NKU as a student organization overseeing several initiatives to increase awareness of hunger and get food and toiletries to students in need. Using innovative techniques and social media, the student-led, faculty-supervised initiative developed an awareness campaign and food pantry to help students facing hunger across campus. This case study provides an example of how on-campus programming must reflect the issues off campus. In addition, it provides a blueprint for others to replicate the efforts taken by the social work students at NKU.