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Dana Giroux, Drew University’s Accessibility Resources Director, has been honored with a Graphy Award for Supportive Administrator and Educator.

The award was bestowed by TurnWriteAround.com, a grassroots organization dedicated to spreading awareness for dysgraphia, a neurological disorder impacting the ability to write.

Giroux was nominated by Drew student Cieran Plancer-Murphy C’26, who was also recognized with an award for Work in the World of Dysgraphia.

“Coming from a difficult high school system that I fought for four years to change for students with dysgraphia, I am very aware when I see a system that functions properly and with human kindness and professionalism,” said Plancer-Murphy. “Dana and Drew should be acknowledged for that fact!”

For Giroux, the award was a recognition of the passion she has for her job and the important role Drew’s Office of Accessibility Resources plays for students.

“Point blank, I love what I do,” said Giroux. “Receiving this award means that I have made a difference in someone’s life, which is the why behind why I do what I do. It is of the utmost importance to me that I provide a judgment-free environment where students feel comfortable, heard, and accepted.”

The recognition comes during National Disability Awareness Month, which Drew has participated in through a number of programs, events, and awareness efforts spearheaded by Giroux.

“I am always putting effort into thinking outside the box when it comes to supporting students with disabilities and promoting more campus-wide awareness, education, and training opportunities surrounding the topic of accessibility,” said Giroux.

“Our job is to make it easier for students with disabilities to have equal access by reducing barriers, either academic or physical, which gives students an opportunity—just like their peers—to have the best experience at Drew. There is no end to the effort in providing equal access for students with disabilities to academic programs and activities.”

#drewuniversity #drewalumni #newjerseyschool #graphyawards #caspersenschool #graduateschool

Wall Street meets Madison, New Jersey, with Drew University’s new state-of-the art Bloomberg trading room.

The room is equipped with 13 trading terminals fitted with Bloomberg proprietary software platforms. There are 24 workstations with dual monitors in total, divided into four pods of six workstations.

Each workstation is also equipped with RStudio, allowing students to analyze and visualize data, construct trading algorithms, and run statistical analysis on trade ideas.

“The pod set-up in the new Bloomberg trading room allows students to easily collaborate on their stock pitches, work on assignments, and learn about the financial markets,” said Finance Program Director and Associate Chair of Business Steve Firestone.

A 24 foot RiseDisplay stock ticker displays both the S&P 100 and NASDAQ 100 simultaneously.

Each pod has a 65″ wireless wall monitor, enabling collaborative work amongst students. Two additional 86″ monitors allow professors to display presentations or classwork.

With a pan tilt Zoom camera, a Biamp audio processing system with four beamtracking pendant microphones and six speakers, remote students will also reap the benefits of the advanced technology.

“The room gives Drew students in both the undergraduate and Master of Science in Finance programs the opportunity to learn about finance using the same trading system that is on the desktop of virtually every institutional trader and market-maker in the world,” said Firestone. “We have received extremely strong interest from Drew students across all majors and graduation years to take advantage of their free Bloomberg licenses to achieve their Bloomberg Market Concepts certifications and go deeper into investments of all types.”

“This is definitely a home run for all Drew University students!”

#drewuniversity #masterofscience #graduateschool #newjerseyuniversity #caspersenschool

Drew University hosted an inaugural lecture on diversity and inclusion, featuring Dr. Ruchi Chaturvedi, senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She is a political and legal anthropologist who works on cultures of democracy, popular politics, and political violence in postcolonial democracies. Her talk was entitled “Fallist Movements and the Curriculum: Reflections on Teaching and Learning from the University of Cape Town.”

The event was hosted by the Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office and facilitated and organized by Associate Dean of Curriculum and Professor of Political Science and International Relations Jinee Lokaneeta. Lokaneeta highlighted Drew`s increasing diversity and emphasized the university`s commitment to equity and inclusion.

Dr. Chaturvedi discussed the impact of the Rhodes Must Fall protest at UCT in 2015, which sparked movements against colonial legacies in South African higher education. She emphasized the need to decolonize curricula globally, drawing attention to the intersection of race and class in South Africa.

Dr. Chaturvedi shared examples of segregation at UCT and the subsequent efforts to transform the curriculum, inspired by Mahmood Mamdani`s work. She challenged the false binary between excellence and transformation in education, advocating for their interconnectedness. The event prompted reflection on colonial education models and the importance of representation.

Dr. Chaturvedi reminded the community that restructuring is an ongoing process, particularly in curricular changes that align with diversity. The conclusion featured a lively Q&A session, emphasizing the significance of continuous forward movement in education and societal change.

#drewuniversity #newjerseyschools #drewcommunity #collegeofliberalarts #caspersenschool #drewtheologicalschool

Drew’s Caspersen School of Graduate Studies Medical & Health Humanities program kicked off their new Alum Colloquia series by welcoming Dr. Lauren A. Jutchenko G’14, vice president of risk management & patient experience at Sun River Health.

She presented “Putting Patients First: Leveraging Patient Feedback to Improve the Patient Experience.”

Jutchenko co-chairs the Patient Experience Team Committee at Sun River Health, a group tasked with monitoring the entire patient experience. They gather patient feedback via telephone, text, or email surveys, using the results to highlight areas of strength and weaknesses to inform quality improvement efforts.

In addition, a consumer advisory committee is in place to monitor the survey results and take action when needed. Patients are invited to meetings and focus groups to gain experience feedback and vet new materials and programs.

Jutchenko thanks Drew for her experience in the Medical & Health Humanities program. “My time at Drew really shaped me as a person,” she said. “I worked to improve care and services through the organization that I work with. And not only that, I also find that those principles shape me on the day to day, and my personal life, as well.”

“The Medical & Health Humanities Program recognizes the invaluable contribution of its alums who serve as the backbone of the program,” said Director of the Medical & Health Humanities program Merel Visse. “Through partnerships with various hospitals and public health institutions where many alums are employed, our program can be at the forefront of care and serve its students by offering real-time learning experiences. Alums, unlike anyone else, understand the importance of humanizing care through the medical & health humanities lens. They are living the questions every day, and they need to respond to everyday challenges. Not an easy responsibility, but they can count on each other and on our program while improving health care.”

#drewuniversity #drewgraduate #drewalumni #medicalprogram #sunriverhealth#medicalhumanities

Dr. Emily A. Phifer G’22 helps herself and other process grief

She has spent her entire career in education, teaching various ages from infants and toddlers all the way to graduate students.

After retirement and caring for a sick relative, Phifer asked herself “what about me, what do I do now?” Already earning two master’s degrees, Phifer came to Drew’s Caspersen School of Graduate Studies to earn her doctorate in Arts & Letters. “I’m going for it, gray hair and all,” she said.

Phifer has encountered great loss in her life, losing her mother when she was five, followed by her grandmother when she was six. While studying grief in literature during one of her first classes at Drew, she realized that she had never dealt with her own grief—an aha moment that turned the direction of her dissertation.

“I had not owned and dealt with my own grief and loss, and if I had, it was unconscious to me,” she said. “It was then that I decided to write about grief and loss and how this can contribute to healing.

I didn’t want to write a paper about me, but I wanted to write a paper that spoke to me because I needed to hear what it had to say. I was a witness and an audience. For my own healing process, I need to hear what the paper was explaining.”

“When I wrote this paper, I had the feeling I did what they [Phifer’s mother and grandmother] wanted me to do. It was a relief.”

While retired from full-time work, Phifer is “moving full steam ahead” in her part-time ventures as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University, teaching a graduate-level course on corrective and diagnostic reading. “Some people live their lives by their age,” she said. “I don’t.” In addition, she speaks with various healing groups, utilizing her research and knowledge of grief and loss to help others.

She says this work of doing for others is giving. “I’m at a point in my life where I can be strictly academic and clinical. It’s my healing, but I have enough to give to them.”

I am thankful that I was at Drew and meeting the people that I did at that time in my life,” said Phifer of her experience at Drew.

#drewuniversity#drewalumni#artletter #newjerseyschools #graduateschool#drewalumni

Drew University hosted a Dismantling Hatred Colloquium, a timely event jointly sponsored by Drew’s Center on Religion, Culture, and Conflict (CRCC) and the Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study.

The event explored ongoing conversations as part of the CRCC’s New Jersey Institute of Emerging Leaders program, designed for students to learn directly from experienced thought leaders in the world of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. The program prepares young leaders to foster peaceful and pluralistic relations in their communities, using religion as a positive force.

Featured guest speakers were Tamara Meyer NMT, author, therapist, lecturer, and media consultant, and daughter of German Jewish Holocaust survivors; and Arno Michaelis, filmmaker, author, public speaker, and former white supremacist. The two have combined forces professionally to dismantle hate from their unique perspectives and experiences.

As a daughter of holocaust survivors, Meyer learned that reconciliation and peace are possible. But she also learned that the world is not a safe place for a Jewish person and is concerned about the uptick in antisemitism resulting from the Israel-Hamas war. “Because of this, it’s even more important for me to find peace and forgiveness and a way to bridge the chasm of hatred, it has not been an easy path,” she said. “No matter how awful people have been treated, there’s always a possibility of reconciliation.”

Michaelis offered a detailed and open account of his dark past as a former violent racist neo-Nazi skinhead, driven by antisemitism, a direction he took due to self-hatred. “The reason I found it necessary to hate others is because I hated myself,” he said. Through persistent kindness and welcoming by those he learned to hate, Michaelis turned away from neo-Nazism and eventually found a path working in counter violent extremism. “I was treated with kindness when I least deserved it, but needed it the most,” he said.

#drewcaspersenatdrew #drewuniversity #drewtheologicalschool #drewcrcc #newjerseyschool

Drew University’s Center for Counseling and Psychological Services has opened a new space—the Zen Den—for students to destress.

The Zen Den includes a massage chair, bean bag chairs, large cushions, yoga mats and blocks, soft lighting, aromatherapy, items for creative expression, and guides for breathing and grounding exercises.

“Students can create their personal plan of action for managing stress after using resources in the space,” said Audra Tonero, executive director of counseling and wellness.

“Students can come in and just be. This is a space where nothing has to happen. It is a space to facilitate calm, get away from the impact of constant technology, and do what is right for students when they’re here.”

The Center for Counseling and Psychological Services will soon add VR headsets for mindfulness, pop-up workshops for meditation sessions, mindfulness and grounding exercises, and yoga demonstrations to the Zen Den offerings, as well as collaborative events with campus partners.

Follow the center on Instagram at @drewcounseling for hours.

#drewuniversity #drewcounseling #drewacademy #newjerseyschool

“There should be no separation between your scholarship and your teaching”

Drew University’s Jonathan Golden, associate teaching professor of religious studies, director of Drew’s Center on Religion, Culture & Conflict (CRCC), as well as the program director of Drew’s Conflict Resolution & Leadership certificate program, joined us for our Focus on Faculty series, where we highlight the many accomplishments, research, and scholarship of Drew’s incredible faculty members.

Golden’s expertise in conflict resolution, interfaith dialogue, and peace and conflict studies is reflected in his courses and leadership. He is also a faculty leader for Drew’s Action Scholars, a unique, hands-on, take-action program for students who are passionate about leading social change.

We sat down with Golden to discuss how his scholarship informs his students. Find the full article in our #Linktree.

#conflictresolution #GradSchool #drew #religiousstudies

To further strengthen our alum community, the Medical & Health Humanities program is launching a series of Alum Colloquia this fall, kicking off on Thursday, October 19, with Dr. Lauren A. Jutchenko G’14 as she presents “Putting Patients First: Leveraging Patient Feedback to Improve the Patient Experience.”

Dr. Lauren A. Jutchenko is a dynamic figure in the healthcare industry, recognized for her unwavering commitment to quality healthcare and her role as an influential educator. As the Vice President of Risk Management and Patient Experience at Sun River Health, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), she spearheads transformative initiatives to elevate patient care, safety standards, and risk management and compliance. Beyond her executive leadership, Dr. Jutchenko is a dedicated educator, serving as an Adjunct Lecturer at Caldwell University. Her contributions to the field of psychology and counseling include teaching a diverse range of courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels, sharing her knowledge and expertise with future generations. Dr. Jutchenko is recognized for her vision in healthcare, aiming to improve patient experiences while upholding the highest care standards. Her commitment to education and tireless pursuit of excellence makes her a positive catalyst for change in the healthcare sector.

Plan to join us for this enlightening and informative event. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.

You can find the registration and Zoom link on the Linktree.

#drewuniversity #medicalandhealth #graduateprogram #drewevents #newjerseyschools #graduatemedicalprogram