BCTR in the Fall 2015 Human Ecology Magazine

The BCTR's New York State 4-H Youth Development Program is featured on the cover of the Fall Human Ecology Magazine. Also inside, an article introduces the BCTR Faculty Fellows program.

Lighting a Fire: 4-H programs spark New York youth to pursue STEM careers and higher education (pp. 20-25)

Excerpt:

Linking Research and Real Life

In New York, 4-H reaches 170,000 youth across 62 counties. The state organization is anchored at Human Ecology’s Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, where researchers partner with 4-H community educators to develop programs, test new ideas in youth development, and measure outcomes.

Together, BCTR faculty and 4-H leaders are studying the best ways to recruit and retain youth and offering professional development opportunities to 4-H educators, including conferences where faculty share the latest youth development research to educators and Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) county leaders.

“BCTR is a natural place for 4-H,” says Elaine Wethington, Bronfenbrenner Center acting director. “Part of the process of translating research is to have faculty interact with practitioners on the ground to co-develop new projects. Connecting with 4-H and its programs provides opportunities to benefi t many more New York youth by allowing our researchers to learn from 4-H and also helping 4-H to improve its programs.”

Andy Turner, New York state 4-H program leader, agrees the partnership is a two-way street that benefi ts 4-H and the College of Human Ecology.

“There are strong similarities between the positive youth development framework that is guiding 4-H and the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development,” he says. “Bringing 4-H into the BCTR allows us to look for ways to integrate youth development practice with emerging research and evidenced-based practice. It’s clear that 4-H is a major player in the extension and outreach mission of the college”

 

Community Connections: Bronfenbrenner Center launches Faculty Fellows program (p. 41)

Excerpt:

Pairing faculty members with community members and extension staff, the college’s Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research this year named three professors to two-year terms as Faculty Fellows. The new program, funded in part by a gift from Evalyn Edwards Milman ’60 and Stephen Milman ’58, MBA ’59, allows professors to pursue research in response to public needs.

“Our aim is to embed the fellows and their students in BCTR activities and have them learn from others doing translational research,” says Elaine Wethington, acting director of BCTR and professor of human development and sociology.

For more on the new fellows, see our recent news post.

Human Ecology Magazine - Fall 2015

Introducing the first BCTR Fellows

Casasola, Wildeman, and Seguin

The BCTR is proud to introduce our first faculty Fellows, who will work closely with the center from 2015-2017. Acting director Elaine Wethington notes, “our aim is to embed the fellows and their students in BCTR activities and have them learn from others doing translational research.” The Fellows Program will help further the center's translational mission by bringing faculty members in the College of Human Ecology into the orbit of the BCTR, actively encouraging their engagement with the center and it's projects, and deepening their knowledge and use of translational research.

BCTR Fellows receive two years of support that includes:

• An academic-year graduate research assistant (GRA)
• Pilot study funding
• Additional funding upon request for costs related to translational research activities (for example, developing relationships with community agencies or dissemination of research to practice audiences)
• Access to proposal-writing support, including assistance with accessing community populations, working with agencies, IRB issues in translational research, consultation on proposals (including a “mock study section” review)
• Space for fellows' GRAs in Beebe Hall

Our inaugural fellows are Marianella Casasola, associate professor of human development, Rebecca Seguin, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, and Christopher Wildeman, associate professor of policy analysis and management. A recent article in Human Ecology Magazine presents each fellow's plans for their time in the center:

Casasola plans to continue her research on how to most effectively engender spatial skills and language in children, including their comprehension of words such as ‘rectangle,’ ‘horizontal,’ and ‘corner,’ and their mental rotation abilities.

...

Seguin will continue her research on evaluation measures designed to support healthy living in rural areas, including an objective audit tool to assess environmental factors that make healthy eating and physical activity easier or more difficult for local residents.

...

Wildeman...will co-organize a BCTR conference on children of incarcerated parents, followed by an edited book on the topic. He plans to study whether teachers perceive children with incarcerated parents differently and is working on a proposal to renew the BCTR’s National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, a resource for researchers nationwide.

The new Fellows program is partially funded by a gift from Evalyn Edwards Milman ’60 and Stephen Milman ’58, MBA ’59.

Community Connections: Bronfenbrenner Center launches Faculty Fellows Program - Human Ecology Magazine