UI&U's Brattleboro Center Hosts Poetry Reading March 26

Union Institute & University’s Brattleboro Academic Center will host a poetry reading with Susan Berlin along with UI&U graduates Vince Cioffi and Ben Mitchell, Saturday, March 26th, from 3-4 p.m. at the Brattleboro Academic Center located at 3 University Way. Since its inception, UI&U's low residency BA program has produced generations of award-winning writers.

Susan Berlin

Susan Berlin’s poems have been featured in publications including Alaska Quarterly Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Harvard Review and Ploughshares. A five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, she was recently awarded First Prize by the Rhode Island Council on the Arts in the Galway Kinnell 16th Poetry Competition and was named International Publication Prize Winner in the Atlanta Review 2006 International Poetry Competition.

A 1996 graduate of the BA program, Vince Cioffi was the 1999 winner of the Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. He has published two books through March Street Press and has his work has also been published in magazines including Ploughshares and the Alaska Quarterly Review. 

Ben Mitchell


A 1995 graduate of the UI&U’s BA program, Ben Mitchell is now an affiliated faculty member. Mitchell has published poems in magazines throughout the United States including The Cold Mountain Review, Studio One and The Cherry Blossom Review. His first book, Only The Sound Itself, was published in 2010 by Cod Hill Press.

For more information about the poetry reading or UI&U's BA programs, contact the Brattleboro Center at 257-9411 or email brattleborocenter@myunion.edu.

Meet UI&U's New Site Coordinators for the California Centers

 
CINCINNATI/LOS ANGELES - To support its growing criminal justice management programs, Union Institute & University’s Los Angeles and Sacramento Academic Centers have hired several site coordinators for new CJM sites in San Mateo County, Stanislaus County, Orange County, San Bernardino, and the Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.

Sergeant Glenn Paul Cadwell in his office

California’s newest hires have extensive backgrounds in criminal justice management. Dr. Beth Pastores-Palffy, Dean of the Califonia Centers, said that each of them will contribute significantly to bringing the sites to the attention of the law enforcement community and to providing exemplary service to our learners in those remote areas.

“The site coordinators, faculty, and our learners are excited to have the opportunity to participate in the CJM program at the sites,” said Dr. Pastores-Palffy. “The site coordinators are fully committed to seeing their fellow law enforcement officers obtain that elusive undergraduate degree. It has been a great pleasure working with them. I appreciate them for helping get the sites off the ground and looking forward to their help in making them flourish.”

Meet the new California CJM Site Coordinators:



Sergeant Glenn Paul Cadwell
Site Coordinator Stanislaus County
   

Sergeant Glenn Paul Cadwell currently serves with the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department. In his role as a sheriff he supervises a staff of 35 law enforcement personnel, is responsible for overall courthouse security, and supervises the Hostage Negotiation Team. He is also an adjunct professor at Kaplan College and Modesto Junior College where he teaches a variety of courses including community relations, patrol procedures, and juvenile law and procedures. He earned his BA in criminal justice management from UI&U and is currently enrolled in a master’s program at the University of Phoenix.

Sergeant William J. McGovern
Site Coordinator Orange County

Sergeant William J. McGovern is a 24-year member of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. He currently serves as the Supervisor of the OCSD Motor Unit and is assigned to the City of Mission Viejo. He manages the day to day operations of the City’s traffic enforcement detail which serves a population of over 100,000 residents and is responsible for the ongoing training of the Department’s 30 Motorcycle Deputies who provide traffic enforcement in 10 different contract cities in Orange County. As a collateral duty, Sergeant McGovern served as both a Deputy and Sergeant on the Mounted Enforcement Unit (Equestrian) and Major Accident Reconstruction Team for over 14 years.

Sergeant McGovern holds a BA in economics from UC Irvine and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix . He is a graduate of California’s POST Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute.



Robert Browne



Robert Browne, retired lieutenant

Site Coordinator for San Bernardino County

Robert Browne served 28 years in law enforcement for the City of Covina Police Department. For more than 15 years he served as a lieutenant City of Covina Police Department and during his tenure supervised the detective bureau, and was three times acting captain of both the field services and administrative division. He also worked as a jail supervisor and as a department training officer. The U.S. Navy veteran also served as a police sergeant for the City of Covina and as a field agent. In this role, he worked closely with the Los Angeles County Crime Lab and the L.A. District Attorney in the investigation, filing of criminal complaints and the conviction of perpetrators. Browne retired with the rank of lieutenant. He holds bachelor degree in public administration from the University of La Verne.

Debra Kirk, retired lieutenant

Debra Kirk

Site Coordinator-Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties

Kirk is a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) where she worked a variety of assignments including patrol operations, investigations, Internal Affairs and the Police Commission. During her career she held the ranks of police officer, detective, sergeant and lieutenant. She earned a BA in criminal justice from Union Institute & University in 1996. She resides in Castaic, CA with her husband, a career LAPD sergeant.

UI&U Launches Promise Campaign

Inspired by what motivated UI&U students to finish their degree, billboards feature UI&U graduates


CINCINNATI – One promised her mother. Another promised her child, and another promised himself. Billboards promoting Union Institute & University (UI&U) that show UI&U graduates with the tagline “Because I promised…” will be featured in Cincinnati from March 1 until April 31 (and again in July and August) as a part of the university’s “Promise” campaign. The university will also run ads in print and on radio.

“As we talked to Union graduates about why they returned to school, we found a common thread: Many were motived by reasons other than improving their chances to get a better job,” said Jon Mays, Vice President for Enrollment at Union. “Our students are typically older and have lived lives. They are often motivated by something more personal. In many cases, the promises they made to parents, their unfulfilled dreams, and the example they want to set for their children kept them inspired as they balanced their educational pursuits with family and work responsibilities.”

UI&U’s Promise campaign will begin in Cincinnati, but Mays said the campaign could extend to the other centers. The university’s administrative headquarters are in Walnut Hills, and the private, non-profit university also has locations in Brattleboro and Montpelier, VT, Miami, and in Los Angeles and Sacramento, CA.

The billboards will be featured on roads and highways throughout Cincinnati, including I-75 northbound, I-71 southbound at the Smith-Edwards Road exit, and on State Route 747. For more information about UI&U’s Promise campaign contact PR manager Nicole Hamilton at Nicole.hamilton@myunion.edu or 513.487.1194.

UI&U Professor Travels To Australia to Assist Aboriginal Cooperative

Mehl-Madrona works to bring indigenous concepts of health and healing into the contemporary practice of medicine and psychology

Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona

CINCINNATI - Native American physician and psychologist Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, who serves as faculty for Union Institute & University’s Doctorate in Psychology program, will travel to Australia for two weeks in March as part of a grant through the Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative and the Australian government. Mehl-Madrona will assist an aboriginal cooperative to explore how to incorporate their own culture into the health care they receive.


Accompanying Mehl-Madrona will be Dr. Robert Crocker, a Choctaw Family Physician who serves as an associate professor at the University of Arizona, and Barbara Mainguy, a creative arts therapist and art consultant from Concordia University in Montreal. Together, the three will explore and share stories about each other’s cultures with members of the aboriginal cooperative as a way to explore diversity and cultural exchange. This is Mehl-Madrona’s third year working with the Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative. He is funded for two more annual visits.

Throughout his career, Mehl-Madrona has worked to bring indigenous concepts of health and healing into the contemporary practice of medicine and psychology. He has found the narrative paradigm and social constructionism to be most exciting ways to bridge indigenous people and contemporary psychology. He is the author of five books in these areas, the most recent of which is Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry. His article “Benzos to Berries,” was published this week in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

Mehl-Madrona received his M.D. degree from Stanford University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Psychological Studies Institute in Palo Alto, California, in 1980. He has a postgraduate diploma in narrative studies from Massey University in New Zealand and completed residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont. He completed post-doctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley in alcohol research and at the Center for Recovery from Illness in neuropsychology. Mehl-Madrona is American Board Certified in Family Medicine with added qualifications in geriatrics and in psychiatry.

At UI&U, he teaches courses related to research methods, biological aspects of psychology, and narrative studies. He is especially interested in the brain as a social organ, its social construction, and the role of epigenetics and neuroplasticity in regulating mood and behavior.

For more information about Dr. Mehl-Madrona’s work to or to schedule an interview, please contact Nicole Hamilton, public relations manager, at 513-487-1194 or at Nicole.hamilton@myunion.edu.

Brattleboro Center Hosts Pie Making Contest February 26

BRATTLEBORO – Union & University’s (UI&U) Brattleboro Center will host a pie making contest from 5:30-7:30 p.m., February 26, at Union Institute and University’s Brattleboro Center at 3 University Way. The contest will feature pie tastings and hot drinks compliments of the university.


Pies will be will be accepted for judging the day before or the morning of the event, and although “snowy” meringue and whipped toppings are most appreciated, absolutely no pie will be turned away. The university will have plenty extra pies on hand and kids will be treated to a puppet show every half hour.

The top pie winner, chosen by surprise guest judges, will receive a $50 gift certificate to a Brattleboro business of their choice. Final judging will begin at 6:30 p.m.

For information about the pie making contest call 802-257-9411 or email brattleborocenter@myunion.edu. For directions, please visit our website: http://www.myunion.edu/about/locations/brattleboro/index.html.

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