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2005-2006

Class of 2006 Graduates
Seventeen Exercise Science majors received their degrees in 2006.

Professors Receive Grant
Professors Peter Harmer and Stas Stavrianeas were named 2006 Hewlett Grant Recipients for their work titled "Beyond the printed page: Developing a web-based, textbook-less curriculum". The purpose is to develop coordinated web-based curricula for BIOL 246 Human Anatomy and BIOL 260 Human Physiology. Recipients are chosen by Willamette President Lee Pelton and were announced in May 2006.

ExSci Senior Wins Service Fellowship
Megan Flora, '06 will be working for El Pomar Foundation for the next two years in Colorado. Megan has also been admitted to Colorado State's graduate program for Communications. More.

Phi Beta Kappa Announced
Exercise Science majors Megan Flora, '06 and Daniel Yaeger '07 were among the recipients of Phi Beta Kappa for 2006. Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most prestigious collegiate honor society in the United States; only 270 colleges in the U.S. have been granted Phi Beta Kappa chapters. Students accepted for membership have demonstrated outstanding scholarly achievement in a liberal arts setting, broad cultural interests, and good character.

Senior Awarded
This year's Raymond Kenitzer Sr Exercise Science Scholar Award was presented to Megan Flora at the Academic Awards Ceremony. This is awarded to one Exercise Science major each year in recognition of academic excellence and outstanding contributions to advancing the ideals of the Department of Exercise Science. 4/26/06.

Professor Harmer Receives Faculty Award
Professor Peter Harmer is this year's winner of the Lawrence D. Cress Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship. He was presented with the award at the Willamette Faculty Awards Ceremony for his accomplishements during the school year.

Willamette president Lee Pelton said, " Professor Harmer has a consistent record of effective teaching, professionaldevelopment, and commitment to University and community service.  In this award we particularly want to celebrate his accomplishments in professional development.  Students comment that his greatest asset as an educator is his high level of expectation. They write that he demands 'the very best from his students in everything that they do,' and that he is always available to help students meet those standards."

This award recognizes what former Willamette professor Larry Cress felt to be paramount in our lives as teacher-scholars – the important relationship between research and the undergraduate experience.  The work done by this colleague has professional depth and substance, as attested to by external reviewers and by the prestige associated with the venues in which that work has appeared.  The work is often interdisciplinary in nature, grows directly out of the teaching that this colleague is doing on a regular basis, and often involves joint faculty-student research, so that there is a seamless connection between the scholar enterprise and the teaching enterprise in more than one sense. 4/11/06

ExSci Major Interviewed for Newspaper
Senior April Virnig was interviewed by the Salem Statesman Journal. "County Lacks Funds for Health Education, Study Says. Willamette students say disease prevention is a major concern. For the past three months, two dozen Willamette University students have chronicled the state of health -- and associated funding problems -- in Marion County. 'Marion County is doing what it can with limited resources', said April Virnig, a senior in exercise science. Virnig's group studied the county's rate of smoking, vaccination, dental care and Type II diabetes. 'I was looking to see if our rates (of Type II diabetes) copy the rest of the nation, and I found we are mimicking the rest of the country,' she said. 'But there is no funding set aside for prevention or education about this preventable disease.' " 4/7/06

NWACSM Annual Meeting 2006
Exercise Science majors and professors attended the Northwest American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Corvallis, Oregon on February 24th and 25th. Presentations included current research in: relating to the promotion of physical activity to improve health and reduce obesity in children and adults; nutrition and physical activity for bone health; nutritional factors in weight reduction and obesity prevention; and testing of athletes and their nutritional preparation for competition. Next year's meeting will be in Seattle, Washington.

Professor Cagle Honored
Congratulations to professor Russ Cagle on being chosen as the recipient of this year's Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award by the National Athletic Trainers' Association. MDAT recipients are the role models for the future leaders of Athletic Trainers. Professor Cagle is to be commended for the significant contributions he has made to athletic training and the NATA over the past 20 years. The award will be formally presented at the evening Awards Banquet at the Annual Meeting and Clinical Symposia in Atlanta, GA in June. Professor Cagle was chosen from among 20,000 eligible nominees. The plaque reads: "Professor Russ Cagle has been recognized by his peer Athletic Trainers for unique and exceptional contributions to the profession of athletic training through personal sacrifice and dedication and is hereby named Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer." 2/16/06

Nutrition Instructor Somer featured in Collegian
Exercise Science Nutrition instructor Elizabeth Somer interviewed for the Collegian. Full Story. 2/06

Professor Harmer featured in Collegian
"The Wednesday Profile" showcased Exercise Science professor Peter Harmer. Professor Harmer spoke about the grants he has received this year, and about how since arriving at Willamette in 1990 he "began studying human movement in depth." "From $1 million grants to an extensive fencing career, Harmer has quite the busy life. He wants people to keep in mind that 'what's important is how well people live.' Also students should remember 'when faculty criticize their work, it's not a criticism of the actual person...the purpose of criticism is to let students know what they need to improve. It's an educational opportunity; students should be taking advantage of the feedback faculty gives them, if they're serious about learning,' Harmer said." 11/9/05.

Science Grads Talk About Their Careers
Jackie Liebler Lombard, DPT '98 and Shannon Simmons '01 join in a panel of six WU science alumni for discussion on their careers. 10/27/05.

Megan Flora, ExSci Major '06, receives Carson Grant
Megan Flora gave her presentation on "Lessons Unlearned: An an analysis of socio-economic status and smoking in Ecudorian universites" 10/26/05 in the Hatfield Room in the Hatfield Library. To fund her research, Megan received a prestigious Carson Undergraduate Research Grant. The $3,000 stipend is designed to encourage students to pursue original research or areas of study outside the classroom. 10/26/05. Full Story.

Professor Harmer presents in Germany
During the International Symposium of Sports Medicine, on the occasion of the Fencing World Championships 2005, professor Peter Harmer made a presentation on case series -- penetrating sabre wounds and 4-year surveillance of fencing injuries in national competition. The medical symposium was held in Leipzig, Germany. 10/12/05.

Neuroscience in Human Movement featured in Collegian
The WU campus newspaper reporter Steve Fiala interviewed professors Russ Cagle, Julie Abendroth-Smith and Stas Stavrianeas for an article on the unique format of the Neuroscience course. "The benefit of this style of teaching is that neural science is a very broad umbrella topic, there are a lot of factors to discuss," said Cagle. 10/12/05.

Professor Harmer receives grant
Close on the heels of their recent Tai Chi grant from the CDC, the physical activity research group at the Oregon Research Institution [Fuzhong Li (team leader), John Fisher and professor Peter Harmer] has been awarded a multi-year grant from the National Institutes of Health Science (part of the National Institutes of Health). The $2.2 million award is to support research into environmental predictors of obesity in the elderly. 9/30/05

Professor Harmer receives grant
Following a series of successful studies on the health benefits of tai chi in older adults, professor Peter Harmer and his colleagues Fuzhong Li and John Fisher from Oregon Research Institute have received $1 million grant from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control to develop and disseminate a tai chi-based fall prevention program for community-dwelling older adults. The prestigious award reflects professor Harmer's extensive research work in this area, which is cited in the Center for Disease Control website resources. 9/25/05.

Professor Abendroth-Smith receives grant
Congratulations to professor Julianne Abendroth-Smith has recently acquired a $45,000 product grant from Motion Analysis Corporation. The 3-D motion analysis system will allow students in Exercise Science to examine and quantify movement in significantly more detail than is currently possible and provide an important boost to professor Abendroth-Smith's research. It will also provide the opportunity for expanding interdisciplinary research across the campus. 9/05.

Professor Harmer takes 13th in World Fencing
Professor Peter Harmer finished 13th in the 2005 World Master's Fencing Championship September 2, 2005 in Tampa Florida. Professor Harmer, the 2004 USA Champion, represented his native Australia for the second time. He was eliminated in a 6-5 loss to Ralph Johnson of England. Professor Harmer is currently ranked second in the USA Master's division and is the 2005 State Games of Oregon open division champion. 9/2/05.

Professor Stavrianeas receives NSF Grant
The National Science Foundation awarded $65,239 to professor Stasinos Stavrianeas to support his project entitled "Investigative Learning in the Exercise Physiology Laboratory." WU matched $34,415, bringing the total grant amount to nearly $100,000. New equipment for the ExPhys Lab has been installed, including bikes, treadmills, and analysis equipment. 9/1/05