Top 10 Stories of 2015: From the Blog and Website News

The Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services finishes another year with a look back at our most popular stories of 2015. Thanks for making it a great year!

1. Sport Parent Night: a surprising look at parents, youth and sports. During an on-campus presentation at Utah State University, researchers from the Families in Sport Lab revealed some myths about youth sport participation.
2. Aria’s story. Michael and Natasha Rutkowski’s time with their daughter, Aria, was too short. But the circle of lives Aria touched extends far beyond them, to the family and friends who supported them during a difficult time, to the more than 100 donors who contributed to a Utah State University scholarship in her name, to the nurses who helped take care of her.
3. USU’s online graduate programs in education ranked #13 nationally. USU’s online graduate programs in education were ranked 13th in the nation, according to the latest numbers from U.S. News and World Report. The ranking applies to the Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences department’s master’s degrees.
4. Tim Slocum: Don’t blame the lettuce. When Dr. Tim Slocum began working a part-time job at a school, he was passionate about social justice. He was doing political work in Seattle at the time. His job at the school focused on children with learning disabilities. It was supposed to pay the bills, but over the course of two weeks, it changed everything. “I saw that the difference between literacy and illiteracy was as profound as any of the political issues I was focused on. It was a total life changer.”
5. On the slopes and in the classroom, Jeremy Jensen focuses on freedom. What do you get when you combine artistic talent, cinematography, a love of extreme winter sports, and woodworking skill?  You get Jeremy Jensen, the force behind White Waves, an award-winning documentary. It was shot mostly in the backcountry east of Logan, Utah. Jensen pioneered powdersurfing, a winter sport that blends snowboarding with skateboarding and surfing. He founded Grassroots Powdersurfing, which makes the boards.  He’s also a multimedia specialist for Utah State University. Fortunately for us, Jensen also passes videography skills onto his students in the Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Department, located within the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services.
6. USU’s Rehabilitation Counseling program ranked 10^th in the nation. The U.S. News & World Report rankings correspond with the program’s employment rate, which has remained at 95 percent over the last 10 years.
7. Congratulations, class of 2015! On Friday, the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services wished its new postgraduate degree holders well on the next step in their journey. New PhD degrees totaled 33, with four Education Specialist degrees and 238 Master's degrees celebrated during the hooding ceremony. On Saturday we sent off our largest-ever graduating class of more than 1200 students.
8. “Article of the Year” recommends a new approach to marriage and family therapy. Marriage and family therapists have a variety of techniques to choose from when working with their clients. But some research suggests that certain aspects of therapy—like a strong alliance between therapist and client—are more important than others, like a specific therapy model.
9. Fifth-graders use college-level software to unleash their creativity. “We’re providing them with the real industry-leading software,” said Mike Brown, director of Academic Programmes in Mainstream Engineering at Siemens. “It’s not a dumbed-down version, it’s not educational software.” The only difference is that files created on the academic software will not open in the commercial version. And it’s free, not just to Edith Bowen’s fifth-graders but to students of all ages, colleges and universities worldwide.
10. (Tie) USU’s ITLS tops International list in research-- “may be the top program in the world for research productivity,” according to the latest Educational Media and Technology Yearbook
    Students from HPER lab gain experience, take home awards--Daisha Cummins, a junior majoring in Exercise Science and Biology, is an award-winning undergraduate researcher from a nurturing lab. And while she still has another year of undergraduate work ahead of her—and several more years of graduate work after that—she is already seeing the benefits of research in the Sensory Motor Behavior Lab in the Health, Physical Education and Recreation department. She’s been applying to medical schools. “They ask for research experience on the application,” she said.