Dear Colleagues,

Somehow, we’re already made it to Spring Break.  Time seems to be moving more quickly this term, but we have made it to the halfway point!  Well done.

As you’ve probably been able to discern from previous notes, I’m a big fan of the arts at JMU, and I’d like to offer a tip of the Provost’s cap to two events I attended at the Forbes Center in the last week. First, I got a chance to see the student production of Pippin late last week.  As always, I’m very impressed with the talent of our students, and the performance was great (the audience was also very into it!).  Midweek, we welcomed International Guitar Night to campus.  These four musicians from around the world were simply amazing.  If you’ve not had a chance to get to the Forbes and see our faculty and staff or the visiting artists perform, please do. This is a wonderful perk of being at JMU.

Best wishes for Spring Break – I hope you can find a chance to do whatever relaxes and revitalizes you.  We’ll have some work to do when we get back.

I encourage you to end the week on a high note by taking a look at some of your colleagues’ accomplishments.

• Artificial intelligence is a popular research topic across the division. Dr. Raihan Khan, assistant professor of Health Sciences, recently co-authored “Large Language Models in Qualitative Analysis: Comparing Traditional and Researcher-Interpreted Approaches” in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. The researchers compared human models and AI models to evaluate the potential of open-source LLMs for qualitative data analysis.
  
  
• Another example of recent AI publications comes from School of Communication Studies faculty. Associate professors Dr. Tobias Reynolds Tylus and Dr. Andrea Martinez Gonzalez published their research examining responses to health recommendations attributed to human versus artificial intelligence sources. Their article, “Artificial intelligence and psychological reactance: Examining responses to health recommendations attributed to a human or AI source,” appears in the May edition of Review of Communication.
  
  
• Congratulations to Dr. Taylor Johnson, director of debate and lecturer in the School of Communication Studies, who led two JMU debate teams to qualify for the upcoming National Debate Tournament in Houston. Taylor also received the Kassie Colón Service Award at the JV Novice National Debate Tournament. Nice work!
  
  
• Two Department of Biology faculty members collaborated with three Biology students to publish in CourseSource, an open-access journal of peer-reviewed teaching resources for undergraduate biology and physics. Dr. Karen Barnard-Kubow, education coordinator and director of the Center for Genome and Metagenome Studies and Dr. Joe Harsh, associate professor and associate director of the RIDGE Initiative worked with the Biology master’s students to create the lesson “Using Nanopore Sequencing to Assemble and Compare Chloroplast Genomes: Introducing Genomics and Bioinformatics Into the Classroom.”
  
  
• Dr. John Gyourko, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work, recently co-authored an article published in the Child & Family Social Work journal. The paper, “Left behind in lockdown: A scoping review of COVID-19’s impact on the lives of transition-age foster youth,” examines the scope and nature of research on the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on older youth with foster care experience in the United States.

The Friday highlights email will be enjoying Spring Break and taking next Friday off. But you can still email your own highlights to provost@jmu.edu.

Sincerely,

Bob

Academic Affairs faculty and staff can use the options below to contact the provost directly.

This is an open line of communication allowing faculty and staff to ask questions, but it is not a substitute from the crucial interactions they have with their academic unit head, department head and dean.

• Submit a Question to the Provost
• Email the Provost

Students should contact AcademicQuestions@jmu.edu with questions.