UNews - Nevada

Researchers Advocate for Positive Approach to Rural, Community Health

trevor.kenney — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:08:20 +0000

A noted expert in rural nursing and community health issues will deliver a province wide teleconference and in-person seminar about rural and community health issues on Monday, July 25.

Alberta Health Services, Community & Rural Department and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, Faculty of Health Sciences are jointly presenting a talk by Dr. Jeri L. Bigbee, who is currently serving as the Faculty of Health Sciences first visiting Fulbright Scholar at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

Bigbee is a leader in rural nursing whose research focuses on public health nursing in rural and frontier communities in the United States. Bigbee's talk takes place on Monday, July 25, beginning at 10 a.m. in County Hall at Chinook Regional Hospital. It will also be broadcast to healthcare workers province-wide via the Telehealth network.

"We are extremely lucky to have Dr. Bigbee here in Alberta. Her expertise in rural health is a wonderful resource for Alberta Health Services and our partner organizations," said Rosalie Case, AHS Executive Director, Rural & Suburban Hospital Services & Supports.

"Her knowledge and research will help us better understand the unique needs in rural health and how to plan services according to those needs."

Case added that Dr. Bigbee's in depth understanding and emphasis on population health needs is in-line with the current direction of rural health planning in Alberta.

A Nurse Practitioner and Jody DeMeyer Endowed Chair at Boise State ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Boise, Idaho, Bigbee earned her doctorate from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Texas in Austin and has been a nurse educator since 1980 in Wyoming, Nevada and California.

"One of the goals for Dr. Bigbee's visit is to forge collaborative research relationships with individuals here who are involved in rural nursing," said Dr. Judith Kulig, a U of L Health Sciences rural nursing expert.

"Jointly-conducted research would provide an opportunity to determine the differences and similarities between our countries in terms of the number of rural nurses providing care and the impacts they have on population health."

Kulig said that while Bigbee is in the community, she will meet with faculty and graduate students to share her expertise in rural nursing and in nursing education in general. "We are really hopeful that Jeri's visit will lead to future collaborations including visits by our faculty to Boise State ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ."

Event details:

Date: Monday, July 25, 2011
Time: 10:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Location: Chinook Regional Hospital County Hall (Telehealth available)
RSVP: Romina Senneker (403-388-6013 or romina.senneker@albertahealthservices.ca)

Holt still manning the point

trevor.kenney — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:57:18 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus Spencer Holt (BMgt '00) has an undergraduate degree, a master's degree, is currently pursuing a PhD and his career is flipping burgers. You might think all that education has gone to waste – hardly.

It's just the latest avenue that Holt is pursuing, as the point man for a team franchising Five Guys Burgers and Fries, a wildly successful restaurant chain that boasts 550 American locations and now one Canadian store in Medicine Hat.

"The group I'm with bought the rights to Alberta, B.C. and parts of Ontario," says Holt. "We just opened in Medicine Hat, and it's gone very well. Our goal is to do about 130 stores across the country, so for me it's a great opportunity because I'm in charge of the infrastructure of hiring people, training and so on. It blends very well into my educational background."

Holt is best known in these parts for his years manning the point guard spot on the Horns men's basketball team. A wizard with the ball, he was a high school star at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute before playing a season at Lethbridge College and then moving on to the U of L. Along with Magrath product Danny Balderson, the duo formed a local nucleus around which the program was constructed.

"A big part of that was the fact that Danny and I had been friends for many years," says Holt. "When we were both on our missions for the church, we talked quite a bit about playing together and at the U of L. We both had opportunities to go other places, but I think we had a vision of playing together in Lethbridge and winning a lot of games."

They did just that, culminating with the 1999-2000 season when the Horns spent much of the campaign as the top-rated team in the country, won the Canada West regular season title and advanced to the national semifinal game.

"That was such a fun season," says Holt. "I think we went 18-2, we won every tournament we entered, and more importantly, the guys on that team had been together for three or four years so, as a group, we all got along and really had a passion to work hard and win together."

He cherishes the fact that the team had such a strong southern Alberta flavour and remembers a unique bond the program had with the community.

"When you look back at old pictures of the stands, you see everyone you grew up with, and that's what was so cool about it, you knew who was in the crowd and that was part of the fun," says Holt. "That old gym only held a couple thousand people but it seemed like every night it was full and that really helps as a player, you feed off that energy and it gives you a lot of confidence."

The 1999-2000 team will be honoured at the Feb. 13 regular season finale at the 1st Choice Savings Centre gym. Holt likes the fact that the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ is reaching out to its alumni.

"It's a great honour that they're choosing to recognize this team," he says. "For me, moving back to Canada now, it's perfect timing. I've talked to some former players about how we need to be more involved with U of L basketball and whatever we can do to help bring it back to its southern Alberta roots."

Now living in Calgary, Holt has made the most of his U of L education. A finance major, he has worked in the banking industry (Bank of Montreal), the oil and gas sector and for pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (sales representative and then district manager for the State of Nevada). Now he is embarking on a massive project with Five Guys but using the personal approach he learned in Lethbridge.

"What I'm passionate about is training people, developing a culture and helping people get better, and this is a great opportunity," says Holt. "How do you do this on a large scale? You start with one store and replicate it 130 times. In the end, we'll have a company where people love to work and love who they work for."

GET THE FACTS

• Holt and his wife Brittany have four children, including Isaac (8), Anne (6), Ty (3) and 18-month old Josh.

• Holt was named an All-Canadian in his final season at the U of L.

• Plans call for Holt and his group to open a Five Guys restaurant in Lethbridge in April.

• He lauds the U of L for bringing in Dave Adams as head coach and Ryan Hall as athletics manager. Adams was an assistant with the 1999-2000 team and Hall a senior guard and shutdown defender. "The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ reaching out to former players is great, and this is a great example of starting this tradition of involving people from the past to make the future better."

New faces in ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library are all about service

trevor.kenney — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:02:52 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library continues to be an innovative campus leader, and it's reflected in the new personalities they bring into the fold.

A year ago, new ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian Alison Nussbaumer was introduced, bringing a fresh approach to the highest post in the library's administration. This fall, two more new faces have been added to the mix in associate university librarians Brenda Mathenia and Wendy Merkley. And while their responsibilities may be unique to their positions, their philosophies are remarkably similar.

"One of my goals is to make sure our public service is at the top, that we're putting our users first," Mathenia says.

As the Associate ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian for Client Services and Facilities, Mathenia's group is often the first contact for people using the library. As such, customer service is at the forefront of her efforts.

A Michigan native, Mathenia has a wide and varied background, having worked in primarily academic settings throughout her career. A cartography and geography undergrad, she earned her first master's degree in urban geography.

After working in that field however, she soon found that the information aspects of her job, finding information, helping others find it and use it appropriately, led her back to library school.

"I've always been very inquisitive and liked to know a lot about a lot of things," Mathenia says, calling herself a jack-of-all-trades.

"Librarianship is the perfect discipline to go into because you can dabble in all manner of subject areas."

She was given that latitude in her last job, at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Nevada-Reno. For four years she worked primarily in the sciences but also managed a branch library and dabbled in major collection development.

"I've had my fingers in a lot of different things in the library and it's served me really well and been very good experience," she says.

"I like to help people navigate the world of information. It's always been easy for me, so I like to share those skills and make it easier for other people."

Merkley, a Manitoba native who worked previously in the Lethbridge public system, is all about simplifying the search for information. The difference is that her work is done behind the scenes as the Associate ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian for Information Systems and Technical Services.

"There have been major changes in how technology is being used in the library world, and this is a really good time with two new AULs and a relatively new ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian, we're looking at how do we integrate some of these new things into what we're doing," Merkley says.

Her journey to librarianship was also non-direct. An English undergrad at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba, she worked in the faculty library while completing her degree.

"I would love to say it was a great passion and I always knew what I wanted to do, but it really came from that experience," Merkley says. "I really enjoyed the atmosphere of a library and the people I worked with and it just seemed like a logical thing to do."

From there she moved to Alberta and completed her master's degree at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta before coming to Lethbridge and entering the public library system. Positions in Lethbridge and then later in Calgary set up a three-year stint in the United Arab Emirates (2005-2008).

"I call it my running away period," she laughs, noting that the pull of her daughter, a third-year kinesiology-psychology double major at the U of L, was a major influence in her return.

"It was tremendous. You learn an awful lot about yourself when you go in and have to adjust to being a stranger in a strange land."

Her route to the U of L was delayed by a one-year stint implementing video conferencing services for rural Alberta libraries but saw this role as too good to pass up.

"In the end, it's about facilitating that process of helping people find information," she says. "We strive to find a happy medium between simplicity and still allowing people to do the kinds of research they need to do that sometimes requires a more elaborate search strategy."

She's enthused about the new technology being implemented and how it can reshape the way the library helps its clients.

"It's really exciting and I'm really looking forward to it. That's one of the reasons I've stayed in library so long, because it's such a changing environment."

UNews - Nevada

Researchers Advocate for Positive Approach to Rural, Community Health

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New faces in ��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ Library are all about service

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New faces in ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library are all about service