FACULTY FOCUS

Tarleton biology professor makes rare discovery of rattlesnake species

Dr. Jesse Meik, assistant professor of biological sciences at Tarleton State University, has made a rare discovery of two species of rattlesnakes native to the Gulf of California.

Only about a half dozen new species of rattlesnakes, including the most recent two, have been discovered in the past century.

“Our findings are significant because most new rattlesnakes are simply elevated from subspecies to species status, but these two species were previously completely unknown to science,” Meik said.

The research has significant implications.

“Accurately describing and cataloging the world’s biodiversity is fundamental to our understanding of the history of life on Earth,” Meik explained. “In addition, different species of snakes show variations in venom properties, and those components have been used to synthesize new and powerful pharmaceuticals.”

Meik’s discovery has been documented in the Journal of Natural History.

Tarleton dean awarded national leaders fellowship

The leader of Tarleton State University’s College of Education has been named an Impact Academy fellow, joining a cohort of national leaders committed to strengthening educator preparation. Dean Jordan Barkley will participate in the yearlong fellowship, which is a venture of Deans for Impact, a national nonprofit organization that aims to improve student learning by changing the way the country prepares educators.

Barkley is one of 13 educators selected for the fellowship following a rigorous nomination and application process. This is the third cohort of fellows selected since the program launched in summer 2016.

The fellowship combines intensive in-person sessions with ongoing support, mentoring and individual learning. Fellows kick off the year with a four-day academy, then extend their learning 4 throughout the year with individual modules and ongoing leadership coaching from Deans for Impact members.

Faculty Focus Naturally Purple

BY PHIL RIDDLE

Few people take school pride as far as Dr. Anne Albrecht.

A professor of counseling at Tarleton State University, she arrived from Wisconsin in 1992 and fell in love with the people and the close-knit atmosphere.

Thus her purple hair.

“I like to say it’s my natural purple,” joked Albrecht, who colors her hair at a local salon.

Albrecht is recognized around town as the professor with purple hair. Occasionally she tries out another color, but she always returns to her signature hue.

Purple hair is only part of her persona.

Students and colleagues also know Albrecht for her love of cats. When she and her husband, Dr. Dennis Jones, a professor in Tarleton’s College of Business Administration, adopted their first cats years ago, students threw her a “cat shower” and gifted her with cat toys and treats.

Over the years, the gifts kept coming. She has received cat pins, cat beanie babies, cat clothes — “every possible cat trinket you can imagine.”

Today, she and Jones have two cats. Delta is 7 and ruler of the household. Chi, 10, was a stray when students found him outside the campus library one night in 2008. A student brought him to class, and Albrecht adopted him on the spot.

“Probably half of the university knew before I told my husband,” she recalled. “Dennis loves Chi dearly, even though he was the last to know about him.”

Albrecht and her husband are longtime Tarleton donors. As first-generation college students, they wanted to find a way to help other students.

That same desire pushed her to pursue a career in counseling. Albrecht initially taught junior high, but she kept visiting the school counselor to discuss problems students faced.

“When I was a little kid, my mom told me I better get a job where I get to talk to people all day,” she said. “I realized I was a counselor at heart.”

And her heart is at Tarleton.

“I am the crazy cat-loving, purple-haired professor,” she said. “It’s who I am.”

Dr. Sally Lewis has been named interim dean of Tarleton State University’s College of Health Sciences and Human Services.

Tarleton added the College of Health Sciences and Human Services — its sixth college — in fall 2016 to better serve almost 2,000 students enrolled in already successful, established programs in medical lab sciences, public health, social work, counseling and nursing. The college offers programs at its Stephenville campus as well as outreach centers in Fort Worth, Waco and Midlothian and via its online Global Campus.

A full professor, Lewis has brought in more than $1.2 million in grants and donations to support Tarleton’s medical lab and public health programs, creating scholarships and maintaining state-of-the-art teaching laboratories for faculty to provide students with realworld experiences. Her emphasis on faculty and student scholarly pursuits within the department resulted in award-winning research and multiple grants.

Faulkenberry named to Psychonomic Society review committee

Dr. Thomas J. Faulkenberry, assistant professor of psychological sciences at Tarleton State University, has been appointed to a three-year term on the newly established review committee for the international Psychonomic Society.

The Psychonomic Society fosters the science of cognition through the advancement and communication of basic research in experimental psychology and allied sciences.

Faulkenberry was named a fellow by the society in 2014, recognizing his significant contributions and accomplishments in the field of experimental psychology. In his new role, he will review graduate travel award applications for the society’s annual meeting and provide advice on special academic awards, grants, programs and initiatives.

Faulkenberry joined the faculty of Tarleton’s Department of Psychological Sciences in 2013. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Southeastern Oklahoma State University, a master’s in mathematics from Oklahoma State University and a doctorate in psychology from Texas A&M University-Commerce. As an active researcher, he has published more than 20 papers on numerical cognition, mathematical modeling, the psychology of mathematics

learning and Bayesian statistics. 5

BY PHIL RIDDLE

Tarleton’s Dr. Amber Bozer feels your pain.

More accurately, she runs a lab to help understand and ultimately ease it.

Bozer, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences, heads the university’s neurological research facility, a lab she created and has nurtured for two years.

“The lab is a behavioral neuroscience lab,” she explained. “We have some electrophysiological components, like our EEG (electroencephalogram) equipment. What that means is we take a problem and we piece apart the behavior going on in the nervous system and we tell a story. The story in our lab is about chronic pain.”

Bozer and her staff of three graduate and three undergraduate students have doubled the scope of the lab’s chronic pain research just in the last year.

Tracy Brown is one of the lab’s graduate student researchers. He looks to earn his master’s in applied psychology in 2019.

Ease the Pain

His plans for a Ph.D. now revolve around what he has learned in the lab.

“We live in a day and age where technology supersedes everything in the type of advances going on,” he said. “Since I started in the lab, I really have taken an interest in neurotechnology. It’s kind of marrying the fields of neuroscience, learning all the functions of how neurons work so you can interpret that into actual applications of psychology.”

When the lab opened in 2016, researchers had a 10-electrode EEG. Since then, they have added a state-of-the-art, 24-electrode model.

Electrodes are placed on a subject’s scalp to record activity in different areas of the brain. More electrodes mean more areas are covered and more data is gathered.

“We’re doing more because we now have twice the equipment,” Bozer said. “The number of students I can mentor is directly proportional to the availability of equipment. When we doubled our equipment, we doubled what our lab can do.”

Bozer, a Tarleton grad, was motivated to create the lab when she joined the faculty after working at the University of Texas at Arlington.

“I came back here because I wanted to bring neuroscience to Tarleton,” she said. “I wanted to do that and share my research and contribute to the next chapter of pain literature.”

Her area of study is becoming increasingly relevant, making it highly fundable. Going out five to 10 years, she hopes to receive funding from organizations like the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation to further expand the reach of the lab.

Until then, she has more immediate plans for the facility.

“I am aspiring to acquire more physiological equipment like for a galvanic skin response to measure heat conductions across the skin. We also have EKG (electrocardiogram) equipment in the lab we haven’t fired up, so we’re looking to put that to work.”

Her goals extend past the lab, even beyond her own department.

“I’m thinking about growth in the lab, but also beyond, in the university. Similarly sized universities don’t usually have neuroscience programs or researchers. I’d like to see that balloon out of this research as well.”

No Pain, No Gain

Researchers scrutinize pain relief options

BY PHIL RIDDLE

Researchers at Tarleton’s neuroscience lab recently concluded their first rounds of studies since the facility was created two years ago. Dr. Amber Bozer, who directs the lab, and her team of six graduate and undergraduate researchers are now collecting data gathered from an electroencephalogram in subjects dealing with chronic pain.

“We’re about halfway through data collection on two studies,” Bozer said. “These studies have so far demonstrated that individuals who have chronic pain actually avoid pain stimuli in their environment less, which surprised us.

“We’re seeing a widespread decrease in activity across the brain in individuals as they make decisions about how they approach their pain.”

Even as her team gathers information on these first efforts, Bozer, an associate professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences, has already charted two new, highly relevant studies.

“We want to see how opioid use affects that same inhibition. We have a lot of people using opiate-based drugs for pain treatment. We know that opioid use does cause some inhibition on the brain, so we wanted to know if that explained the effect we found.”

The Tarleton researchers have noticed that chronic pain with or without opioid use results in a similar amount of inhibition, leading them to the early belief that the pain drives the decrease in brain activity, not the opiates.

The other study they’ve taken on questions whether cannabis results in a similar inhibition.

“It’s too early to talk about interaction yet,” Bozer said, “but we did replicate the inhibition we saw in previous studies with the pain group, and we did find some additional activity in the folks reporting cannabis use.”

As the study grows, the researchers hope to examine the interaction between chronic pain and cannabis and point either to a similar amount of brain activity inhibition or a combination effect on decision-making.

With a pair of projects done and two more ongoing, the lab’s next steps are becoming clearer.

“The future reveals itself as we go,” Bozer said. “We’re trying to catch up on applied physics, calculus, to fill in some of the holes. We are kind of one foot in front of the other.”

BY MARY G. SALTARELLI

It wasn’t love at first sight.

But the more naturalist Seth Hamby studied the rare Comanche Peak prairie clover he found nestled in a rocky glade near Weatherford, the more smitten he became.

awarded him the Ann Miller Gonzalez graduate research grant of $2,000 to support his study.

A member of the pea family, Comanche Peak prairie clover is a low-growing herb with purple spikes of flowers on sparsely leaved branches. Its seven to 11 leaflets distinguish it from other Dalea species. Hamby’s research includes next-generation genetic sequencing and sampling to determine soil requirements for the clover.

Growing up in rural South Carolina led Hamby to a love of the outdoors that blossomed into a passion for natural resource conservation and preservation of biodiversity. He volunteered with the Botanical Research Institute of Texas for two years, planted a permaculture garden at the AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Stephenville, and founded and now leads Prairie Oaks Master Naturalists, who established the Bosque River Trail Nature Center along the river.

He hopes his research will result in recognition of Comanche Peak prairie clover as an endangered species and further an appreciation for its significant drought-tolerant genetics. After graduating in December, Hamby intends to continue his education in plant and fungal taxonomy diversity and conservation at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens (London, England) or in botany at Oregon State University.

“Everything I’m doing is aimed at fostering appreciation for the natural world and educating people in natural resource conservation,” he said. “If people don’t love and appreciate nature, they’re not going to care. Creating and nurturing that passion in people is my life’s goal.”

A Passion for Nature

The hardy plant faces myriad challenges, from drought to development and predation.

What’s not to love?

“There’s something really moving about what that tiny plant has been able to survive — struggling to exist and evolving in such a harsh habitat,” Hamby said of Comanche Peak prairie clover, which is so scarce it only occurs in limestone habitats in eight counties in North Central Texas. “It has a long taproot so it can reach water, and it’s just amazing that it persists.”

Hamby is conducting research, analyzing data and writing his thesis on the prairie clover to earn a master’s degree in agriculture and natural resource science from Tarleton’s Department of Wildlife, Sustainability and Ecosystem Sciences. The Native Plant Society of Texas recently

A Passion for Nature

Hope in Rockport

Students study crisis communications in post-Harvey town

BY SARAH BAHARI

Heather Bushart saw pieces of life scattered along roadsides in Rockport, Texas.

Abandoned bicycles. Electric toy cars. A teddy bear wearing a pink tutu.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Bushart, a junior at Tarleton State University. “Everywhere you looked, there were reminders of life before.”

Bushart was one of about a dozen Tarleton students who traveled to Rockport in spring 2018 as part of a crisis communications course offered by Dr. Cessna Winslow, an assistant professor of communication studies. 

Hurricane Harvey devastated Rockport in 2017, slamming into the South Texas coastal town and causing catastrophic damage. Rockport was described as ground zero and is still recovering today.

Winslow was watching the news coverage when an idea came to her for a course that would wed hands-on instruction and service.

“I knew we needed to find a way to embrace this teachable moment,” she said.

A longtime public relations professional, Winslow had experience with both crisis communications and disaster relief. The course seemed a perfect fit.

Winslow had co-led a team of college students from the Ohio university where she previously taught to provide disaster relief after Hurricane Katrina, and her own childhood home was badly damaged in an earthquake in 1971.

“I can remember what it’s like to be homeless and temporarily fostered because of nature’s wrath,” she said. “I understand what it means to start all over and be dependent on the charity of strangers.”

With the support of Dr. Lora Helvie-Mason, assistant dean of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts, Winslow crafted a semester-long course to explore the dynamics and strategies of crisis communications.

Students studied communications processes, analyzed social and ethical implications, discussed the roles of media, relief agencies and first responders, and learned effective communication techniques.

A trip to Rockport during spring break served as the course capstone.

While there, students toured hurricane-ravaged neighborhoods and the town’s Emergency Operations Center, met with the mayor and other community leaders, talked with residents and volunteered with Samaritan’s Purse, a nonprofit, to rebuild homes.

Dr. Jim Gentry, associate professor of education, also accompanied the group.

As part of the course, the students created publishable projects, including photo exhibits, feature articles and documentaries, to detail their experiences. Topics ranged from how small businesses were affected to the homeless pets left in Harvey’s wake. (Winslow and a student each adopted an abandoned dog, one of which is now named Harvey.)

Kendyl Weatherly, a junior communications studies major, created a documentary about the volunteers’ experiences.

Before the trip, she had never given much thought to the difficulty of crisis communications. She recalled the mayor telling the communication students to turn their phones off. Now, he told them, imagine that you have to communicate with the whole town that they need to evacuate. “It was eye-opening,” Weatherly said. “We learned the importance of one voice, one message. Rumors can spread fast in disasters.” Working with another student, Bushart created a photo story, “Foundations of Hope,” documenting residents’ struggles to rebuild. “Every day we saw a lot of brokenness, but I never felt broken at the end of the day. I felt rejuvenated,” Bushart said. “The people we met were hopeful. That was my biggest takeaway. There was hope everywhere.” Thanks to the interest, Winslow plans to offer the course again next spring.

Hope in Rockport

Partnership places student interns at high-end resort

Back row, from left, Rough Creek Lodge General Manager Paul Boccafogli, Executive Chef Gerard Thompson and Resident Manager/Director of Sales Frank Alvarez with former Tarleton interns and now Rough Creek employees (from left) Bayley Chenault, Taylor Green and Christina Myles. Chenault works as a wildlife concierge, Green is the assistant manager for weddings and social events and Miles is a line-cook in the restaurant.

Nestled along 11,000 acres of pristine Texas prairie, Rough Creek Lodge is a lavish getaway just 30 miles from Stephenville.

That, and a training ground for communication studies students at Tarleton State University.

Student interns are working at the five-star resort in public relations, event planning, social media and marketing, conference management and culinary arts.

Dr. Cessna Winslow, assistant professor of communication studies, helped develop the partnership between Tarleton and Rough Creek Lodge. “This is a win for the students, a win for Rough Creek and a win for the university,” she said. “It is a partnership that makes sense.”

Students apply for the internship to Winslow, who prescreens applicants and sends the finalists to Rough Creek, which is just outside Glen Rose. She seeks students who are self-starters, reliable and teachable.

The interns work as part of the staff at Rough Creek.

They attend staff meetings, learn the nuances of the highend hospitality business and are responsible for ensuring guests have a positive experience.

General Manager Paul Boccafogli, who has worked at Rough Creek since it opened in 1998, said the students quickly learn what is expected.

“If you want to provide a five-star level of service, you have to have a five-star attitude,” he said. “That is the key from the moment they walk in the doors.”

A handful of interns have even landed full-time jobs at the resort.

Taylor Green worked as an intern in fall 2017, helping run the resort’s social media accounts. When she graduated from Tarleton last December, Rough Creek hired her as assistant manager for weddings and social events. She was promoted to manager shortly after that.

Green now oversees more than $1 million in annual sales at Rough Creek and is working to increase the lodge’s wedding business.

“As a college student, it was an incredible opportunity to work at a place like Rough Creek,” she said. “You cannot get that kind of experience in a classroom.”