UNOH students prepare for cruise
LIMA — Thirteen University of Northwestern Ohio travel and hotel management students and two faculty members leave Monday for a five-day Western Caribbean Cruise. The Carnival “Victory” leaves Miami on Monday afternoon with port stops at Grand Cayman Island and Ochos Rios in Jamaica, including two full days at sea. The cruise will return to port in Miami the morning of Sept. 5.
The cruise, which is included in the curriculum for students pursuing an associate degree in travel and hotel management, is designed to prepare them to serve future clients who wish to book a cruise with them upon graduation. Being able to experience a cruise first-hand will give the students a certain level of understanding about what their clients will be looking for when booking a cruise, a news release stated.
ONU professor awarded grant
ADA — Dr. Edward Potkanowicz, Ohio Northern University associate professor of exercise physiology, has been awarded a $5,000 grant from Raptor Motorsports and $15,000 of in-kind funding from Inde Motorsports Ranch to support research in human thermoregulation/sports performance and driver science.
The funds were used to cover the cost of equipment, travel and facility rental for a weeklong field research trip to Willcox, Arizona. Potkanowicz was accompanied by Dan Colvin, a senior exercise physiology major from Tipp City.
The trip was part of Potkanowicz’s ongoing R.A.C.E.R. Project. The R.A.C.E.R. Project, whose name is an acronym for The Real Assessment of Core and Environmental Responses, seeks to quantify and evaluate the physical stress experienced by driver-athletes during motorsport competition. As a result of his work, Potkanowicz is working to make data-based recommendations to the motorsport community in order to improve driver safety, tolerance and performance.
Poet, novelist to help welcome Bluffton class of 2019
BLUFFTON — Marge Piercy, a poet and novelist whose 1991 book, “He, She and It,” was this year’s summer reading for first-year Bluffton University students, will be the featured speaker Tuesday as Bluffton welcomes the class of 2019 at its annual opening convocation.
With faculty in regalia looking on, about 240 new first-year and transfer students will be introduced during the ceremony, which begins at 10:45 a.m. in the Sommer Center for Health and Fitness Education.
Piercy’s presentation, “Paying Attention Where It Counts,” will introduce Bluffton’s 2015-16 theme, “Gender Roles, Relationships, Realities.” Each year, the university focuses on a significant contemporary issue that is related to its mission and becomes the subject of cross-disciplinary exploration. For incoming first-year students, that exploration begins with the common summer reading.
Crisis management topic of upcoming talk
FINDLAY — Japanese professor and former government official Shozo Azuma will discuss crises response at 6 p.m. Monday in The University of Findlay’s Malcolm Dining Hall in the Virginia B. Gardner Fine Arts Pavilion. The event is free, and refreshments will be served.
Azuma is a professor of risk and crises management at Chiba Institute of Science in Japan. He is Japan’s former vice minister of foreign affairs and served for more than 17 years as a member of its national legislature.
Azuma will talk about Japan’s preparations for natural and human-induced disasters, such as tornadoes, global disease outbreaks and financial crashes. He will also elaborate on his experiences as Japan’s senior vice minister for disaster management, a role he was serving in when the Great East Japan earthquake struck off the Pacific coast in March 2011, caused a tsunami that killed almost 16,000 people and caused meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
OSBA offering assistance to school board candidates
COLUMBUS — The Ohio School Boards Association is working to help individuals running for a school board seat in November understand more about what the role entails.
OSBA will be conducting five regional Board Candidate Workshops in August and September. Veteran staff will lead board candidates through a program to help them better understand the everyday roles and responsibilities of school board members, as well as the legal aspects of being a board member. The cost to attend is $95.
To register, contact Laurie Miller, OSBA senior events manager, at 614-540-4000, 800-589-6722 or [email protected].
