Faculty & Staff News

KYCOM dean announces retirement

Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine (KYCOM) Dean and Professor of Family Medicine Dana C. Shaffer, D.O., FACOCP dist., FAOGME, announced his retirement expected to begin on June 30.

Shaffer joined the university as associate dean at KYCOM in 2013 and became the medical school’s third dean in July 2018.

Upon graduating from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) in 1985, Shaffer completed a rotating osteopathic internship at Des Moines General Hospital. For the next 22 years, he practiced the complete spectrum of rural inpatient and outpatient osteopathic family medicine. In addition to his medical practice, Shaffer has been involved in teaching medical students for almost 30 years.

Throughout his career at KYCOM, Shaffer served on committees and task forces focusing on health information technology, healthcare reform, graduate medical education and access to primary and rural healthcare. He has lectured nationally and internationally on innovations in medical education and physician assessment, social media and technology issues impacting state medical boards, and published internationally on raising the awareness of low dose CT scanning to detect lung cancer.

Of his many priorities at KYCOM, Shaffer says the desire to increase the financial scholarship opportunities for students stands out the most.

“This is the reason that we have maintained the KYCOM Advantage Program. It provides incoming students with many of the resources they need to be successful, at no cost to them, while still keeping tuition very low compared to other private D.O. and M.D. medical colleges,” said Shaffer. “We have also added several new scholarship programs that will help further reduce the financial burden placed on KYCOM students to attend medical school.”

Shaffer has received numerous awards and accolades such as Fellowship and Distinguished Fellowship from the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, Fellowship from the Association of Osteopathic Graduate Medical Education, Physician of the Year from the Iowa Osteopathic Medical Association and Friend of EMS Award from the Iowa EMS Association. Most recently, he received the PCOM Alumni Association Certificate of Honor, which is the highest honor given by the PCOM Alumni Association.

Shaffer says he respects and cherishes the colleagues, faculty, staff and friends made during his time in Pikeville.

“I am proud of many things that, together as a KYCOM family, we have been able to accomplish. Despite many obstacles, the faculty and administration continue to provide every KYCOM student with the support and resources they need to complete their degree and become a quality osteopathic physician, serving the mission that the school was founded upon,” said Shaffer. “Serving as dean at KYCOM has been the pinnacle of my career as a medical educator, and I will be forever grateful to President Webb and the UPIKE Board of Trustees for giving me this opportunity.”

Shaffer has been married to his wife, Joan, for more than 44 years and they have two children and five grandchildren, all residing in Iowa. He plans to transition into his retirement by spending quality time with his family.

Welcome home

The University of Pikeville welcomed a familiar name back to the Hill in March as Gary Justice, ’96, MBA ’13, rejoined the university as Director of Planned Giving.

As a first-generation college student Justice said, “UPIKE wrapped their arms around me in August of 1992 when I enrolled, and my passion for the university continues to increase.”

Justice was hired at UPIKE in 2010 as the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid and was named Vice President of Enrollment Management in 2013, where he had record-breaking enrollment for five years and increased student retention. He graduated as Outstanding Student in the Master of Business Administration class of 2013, part of the program’s first graduating class, and went on to become an award-winning sales representative at Amgen, a multinational biopharmaceutical company.

Due to Justice’s evident love for the university, Vice President for Advancement and Alumni Relations David Hutchens informed him about the available position and encouraged him to apply. He says Justice has been the perfect addition to an already exceptional and talented team in advancement.

“As an enthusiastic ambassador for UPIKE and the region, Gary is an excellent example of the caliber of alumni that this institution has nurtured since its humble beginning,” said Hutchens. “Through friend- and fundraising, I have no doubt he will continue to make an impact for not only current students on the Hill, but for generations of students to come.”

Justice says he is fortunate to have the opportunity to come back home to the university he loves to help it meet its mission of serving students in his new role.

“I look forward to helping the university, and most importantly the students,” said Justice. “I am excited to build and advance my skills in this position along with expanding the university’s community involvement.”

On top of his many accomplishments at UPIKE, Justice is also part of the Athletic Hall of Fame for his baseball career (1992-96). He says that is what motivated him to start the UPIKE Baseball podcast, which launched in November 2020. The series allows fellow Bear baseball program alums to share their journey and favorite memories while wearing the orange and black. In February, Justice and Head Men’s Basketball Coach Tigh Compton launched the UPIKE Basketball podcast, which has proven to have an extensive reach of more than 3,000 audience members. Both podcasts are available on Apple and Spotify.

Messer named ACA board member

After a competitive selection process, with applicants from 34 colleges and universities in Central Appalachia, Assistant Professor of Psychology Rachel Messer, Ph.D., was selected to serve as a board member for the new Appalachian College Association (ACA) Virtual Teaching and Learning Center.

Messer is leading the efforts of creating new methods of support to faculty and staff for virtual learning across our region. She has been working regularly on the board initiatives since the selection process and is pleased with how being connected with such an organization will provide key insights for moving forward. The board’s work focuses on a virtual platform for many different types of resources for ACA institutions.

“I am so very excited about our upcoming initiatives,” said Messer. “I feel that UPIKE faculty and staff will want to enthusiastically participate in what we have planned to help provide our students with the best possible education, both during this pandemic, and into the future.”

KYCOM Professor conducts research for new tuberculosis vaccine

Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine (KYCOM) Professor of Microbiology Shumaila Hanif, Ph.D., M.Sc., MBA, is currently conducting analysis and research on developing new diagnostic methods, drugs and vaccines for tuberculosis.

In October 2020, Hanif published An Overview of the Development of New Vaccines for Tuberculosis alongside second-year KYCOM student Emma Whitlow and Professor and Faculty Chair of Medicine Abu Salim Mustafa of Kuwait University.

Vaccines is an international, peer-reviewed open access journal focused on laboratory and clinical vaccine research, utilization, immunization with an Impact Factor of 4.086 and is published online monthly by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. Vaccines publishes high-quality reviews, research papers, communications and case reports.

Hanif is committed to advancing the teaching, service, mentoring and scholarly activities nationally and internationally.

“It is a great honor to be given the opportunity to publish with a high-impact journal,” said Hanif. “Mentoring my students and getting them published internationally is a great part of my service and scholarly activities at Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine.”

Note from the president

by Burton Webb

For most people, academic life is a strange combination of esoteric minutiae that seems to lead in ever-growing circles of thought continuing to increase in complexity until the mind falls numb. Occasionally though, even in the world of the academic, great deeds are done that might seem obscure and arcane, but will feed the next generation of great discoveries. Usually great scientific breakthroughs come with strange titles. Watson and Crick’s paper, Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids, might have been ignored by the mainstream press, but it has become the founding work for all of modern medicine and biology.

On a smaller scale and in the midst of a pandemic, nearly everyone is talking about vaccines. While the talking heads on your favorite news network might have mentioned the fact that both Pfizer and Moderna are RNA vaccines, you probably don’t know where that technology came from or just how transformative it will be in the next few decades.

For those of us who live in the scientific academe, both RNA and DNA vaccines have been studied in the world of experimental immunology for almost two decades. The basic science goes even further back to the paper I mentioned in the first paragraph, tracing a legacy of biomedical discovery and creativity with origins in the 1950s. However, as often happens in the sciences, tracing the arc of discovery from 1953 to 2021 is like placing a GPS on a honeybee. The path of flight is convoluted to say the least.

Now, thanks in part to UPIKE’s own Dr. Shumaila Hanif of the Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine, there is a clear path to understanding both the history and potential future of the use of both DNA and RNA in vaccines. In language and figures carefully created by the authors and shaped by the journal’s editor (Dr. Hanif) mRNA vaccines, published in the journal Vaccines, will provide the research scientist and the scientific novice alike a scientifically sound explanation for the use and efficacy of mRNA vaccines. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Hanif, both for her work and for the fact that she was selected to be guest editor - which is an honor as well.

KYCO faculty achieve FAAO status

Kentucky College of Optometry recently recognized two faculty members who achieved the Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry (FAAO) status.

Ryan Kern, O.D., FAAO, and Samantha Myers, O.D., FAAO, were evaluated against the highest professional competence standards through the American Academy of Optometry.

“Obtaining my fellowship was an important milestone for my own personal growth, which translates into better care for my patients and better education for my students,” said Kern. “This is a notable step forward that I intend to build upon over the course of a career.”

As with all medical professions, optometry is an evolving field that requires practitioners to pursue a path of lifelong learning.

“For me, becoming a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry was more than just adding a few letters to the end of my name,” said Myers. “It signifies that I have and will continue to practice optometry competently and stay up-to-date in the field. It is a pledge to be the best doctor I can be for both my patients and my students.”

KYCO professor authors textbook series

As optometrists in training at the Kentucky College of Optometry (KYCO), students learn to examine the eyes and detect and diagnose diseases. However, they must also understand light and optics, which is the essential foundation of their profession.

George Asimellis, Ph.D., MBA ’21, founding faculty, director of research, and associate professor of optometry at KYCO, authored a new textbook series, Lectures in Optics, with SPIE.org, the International Society of Optics and Photonics. The books are replete with comprehensive self-assessment quizzes and updated to the latest of optical science. Copious diagrams and striking photographs provide a visual appeal that entices readers to delve into the concepts.

The series comprises five volumes. Introduction to Optics, the first volume of the series, introduces basic optical phenomena and simple optical instruments. Volume two, Geometrical Optics, develops a thorough presentation of geometrical optics effects. The third volume, Wave Optics, provides a comprehensive representation of the wave optics effects.

Two more books, entitled Visual Optics and Ocular Imaging, are currently under copy-editing and will soon be published.

“SPIE is the leading international organization for optics and photonics organizations. It is a great honor to be given the opportunity to publish with them,” said Asimellis. “These books are the pinnacle of my teaching career.”

Asimellis is committed to advancing the teaching of optics during a career that began at the University of Athens and spans 25 years over two continents including a Ph.D., from Tufts University and a fellowship at Harvard University Medical School.

“Teaching optics is a significant challenge,” said Michael Bacigalupi, O.D., M.S., FAAO, FNAP, dean of KYCO. “Dr. Asimellis has created a series of books that guide optometry students carefully and consistently through this important topic area. He masterfully uses diagrams, images, photographs and stories to engage students while they are tackling the complexities of optics.”

Amanda Slone named Assistant Provost

Beginning July 1, UPIKE will welcome current Director of First-Year Experience and Associate Professor of English Amanda Slone, Ph.D., as the new assistant provost. Slone has served 15 years with the university in various positions and feels privileged to learn alongside brilliant students and talented colleagues.

“I admire the level of passion and dedication from everyone on campus,” said Slone. “I am both honored and excited to serve as the assistant provost and continue to collaborate to provide a community of academic excellence for our students.”

UPIKE Provost Lori Werth, Ph.D., welcomes Slone’s innovative leadership and significant experience in higher education to the office of the provost.

“Dr. Slone has contributed to the University of Pikeville campus for nearly 15 years in a variety of positions, including faculty in the humanities division, director of first-year experience, associate registrar and assistant dean for admissions,” said Werth. “We are pleased to have a leader with such diverse experiences joining the office of the provost.”

Open education and open resources

Dr. Ella Smith-Justice and Dr. Jennifer Dugan

UPIKE was well represented at the Open Education Conference, held virtually for the first time in 2020. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Jennifer Dugan, Ph.D., and Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Spanish Ella Smith-Justice, Ph.D., presented Striving for Affordability and Access: Reimagining Undergraduate Courses in Times of COVID-19, which focused on the transitional moves that various UPIKE colleges made to better serve and support students during the uncertain times of the pandemic.

Smith-Justice says faculty prioritized essential course outcomes and flexibility in learning so that students could have space to adapt to everchanging circumstances.

Katie Williams and Dr. Eric Werth

Faculty Development Educator Katie Williams, M.S., M.A., and Faculty Development Manager Eric Werth, Ed.D., presented Fostering Rapid Institution-wide Curricular Change in Response to COVID-19, which explained UPIKE’s reasons for making all undergraduate course material free to students due to the disruptive force COVID-19 had on higher education. The presentation discussed the process involved to facilitate this change and the experience of those involved.

The pair also presented Self-Determination Theory as a Framework for Structuring OER-enabled Pedagogy, which focused on the findings of research conducted last fall by the office of professional development, with students who participated in a first-year studies class that used OER-enabled pedagogy.

Williams says this pedagogical approach put students at the center of the learning environment, where they created materials for a UPIKE Survival Guide to help future Bears acclimate to college.

Rethinking curriculum with inclusion initiatives

The University of Pikeville, with its medical and optometry schools, represents 48 states and 17 countries. To meet the needs of the changing landscape of UPIKE’s diverse student body, the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) hosted an Implicit Bias Workshop, via Zoom in late 2020, to educate faculty on how bias can unknowingly be present in curriculum. The overall goal was to create an environment that is more inclusive and equitable for all students at the university.

By definition, implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect understanding, actions and decisions in an unconscious manner. This workshop presented information on how to make course syllabi more inclusive in terms of language and policies, as well as how to integrate more authorship diversity into course readings and materials, inviting faculty to selfevaluate bias in an educational way.

“The College of Arts and Sciences is active in supporting UPIKE’s goal to be an inclusive community. Participants in the implicit bias workshop are part of a growing community of practice that focuses on principles of diversity, inclusion and equity in the classroom and in our relationships,” said Dean of CAS Jennifer Dugan, Ph.D. “I appreciate the dedication of our faculty and staff in taking concrete steps in the right directions and helping CAS be equity-minded in all we do.”

Academic and Cultural Enrichment (ACE) Project Coordinator Cecil Williams, MSW, CSW, attended both the initial workshop and the follow-up workshop aimed at evaluating how principles and ideals were applied to the classroom. He believes the results are encouraging as faculty and staff continue to rethink the strategies and programs being utilized in the classroom to better meet the needs of UPIKE’s diverse student population.

“While the ACE program does a tremendous job with inclusivity in enrollment and programming for students from various backgrounds and ethnicities, this training opened my eyes to the potential that exists to flip the script on how we market and advertise our program and its benefits to first-generation college students,” said Williams. “This change in thinking opens the door to potential opportunities that exist to engage more effectively with students academically and socially.”

UPIKE’s mission includes preparing students for the future and recognizing the inherent worth of all individuals. Workshops like these allow faculty the opportunity to make positive improvements in the classroom to better serve all students.

“Designing curriculum responsive to student needs and our 21st century local, regional and global community is a priority for the University of Pikeville,” said UPIKE Provost Lori Werth, Ph.D.

UPIKE Business Office pushes forward

Back row (from left): Carolyn Muncy, Cadee Eisenman, Brandi Gollihue, Allen Hancock and Tiffany Thacker Front row (from left): Kimberly Akers, Barry Bentley and Jeannie Adams

The University of Pikeville Business Office strives to provide excellent service and support the needs of the university community while upholding the overall mission and providing financial and administrative support services to the students, faculty and staff.

UPIKE Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs Barry Bentley has served five years at the university and is honored to work with intelligent, hard-working andconscientious staff who strive to do the right thing and maintain good relationships across campus and keep the financial books in order.

“The business office intersects with every other office on campus at one time or another and touches every financial transaction, so high-quality work is a necessity,” said Bentley. “We’ve built a great team that focuses on getting the job done, but also maintains a welcoming and fun atmosphere.”

The business office’s longest standing employee, Carolyn Muncy, has shown dependability and loyalty to the university, serving 42 years in many different roles, but most recently as accounts payable coordinator. At the same time, most recent hires will finish their fourth year of employment by the end of this year.

Associate Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs and Controller Brandi Gollihue is thankful for a staff that exhibits team effort and support to UPIKE’s daily operations.

“The business office never ceases operations, even in a pandemic,” said Gollihue. “The commitment our staff demonstrates is a continued, combined effort and a critical component of university operations.”