Faculty Profiles
Scholars on the Move
Kinesiology professors study the science of movement
As scholars who conduct cutting-edge research, Westmont kinesiology professors offer important information to a society characterized by low levels of fitness, high obesity rates and a sedentary lifestyle.
With the coaches of intercollegiate teams, these professors form the department of kinesiology and athletics. Some faculty combine teaching and coaching and three focus just on academics: Glenn Town, Gregg Afman and Christine Milner.
Most kinesiology majors are not athletes, but students interested in the allied health professions. They prepare for jobs as athletic trainers, physical therapists, nutritionists, occupational therapists and physicians.
“Kinesiology is a central part of the liberal arts,” says Town, kinesiology department chair. “Westmont emphasizes the education of the whole person, and we have responsibility for the body. Our health and how we view ourselves has a big impact on our lives.”
An exercise physiologist who came to Westmont in 2003 after 21 years at Wheaton College, Town earned a doctorate at Kent State University. He conducts research on the effect of over-the-counter drugs on athletic performance. His interests include nutrition and the benefits of exercise in helping people recover from illnesses such as heart and lung disease.
Christine Milner, a longtime kinesiology professor, went on sabbatical last year to study gerontology and disabilities at Tufts University and to take courses at other Boston-area colleges. “Finding ways to improve the quality of life for senior citizens is a perfect fit for our discipline,” she says. “I’m excited to bring this important area of expertise to our department.”
Gregg Afman, also an exercise physiologist, combined teaching and coaching women’s basketball for 25 years. He has stepped down as coach to focus on his classes and research. For the first time, he is taking a sabbatical, collaborating on research at Loughborough University in England. “Working with a productive research team is a great experience,” he says. “My sabbatical will strengthen ties between Westmont and European schools.”
These ties help Westmont offer a Mayterm trip every other year for 20 kinesiology students, who visit sport science programs in Europe and learn more about kinesiology research. In the off year, students may participate in a missions trip to Guatemala. Faculty participate in both trips, working closely with students.
A Walk in the Park
Student kinesiology project helps Santa Barbara seniors regain mobility.
College students and residents of retirement centers share a common experience: they spend most of their time with their peers. But last fall, they got together to improve the mobility of octogenarians, and both the young and the old benefitted. Students conducted instructive hands-on research, and seniors improved their fitness.
Professor Gregg Afman worked with Vista Del Monte, a Santa Barbara retirement community, to study the use of walking poles known as Exerstriders. With help from Peggy Buchanan, director of fitness, aquatics and physical therapy at Vista Del Monte, he put together a 40-minute video demonstrating how to exercise with the poles. Seven kinesiology majors in his class “Fitness for Older Populations” visited 13 seniors at the facility twice a week to implement the fitness program.
“I think Exerstriders will catch on,” Afman said. “The participants in our study improved stability, mobility and posture. Unlike walkers, the poles allow people to stand up straight. We found that seniors using the poles developed more self-confidence, a better self-image and a greater sense of independence.”
While Afman is still compiling the data, he expects to see significant improvements in upper body muscular endurance and agility. It is likely that balance got better as well.
“On the last day of the research, one of the more frail seniors showed up without her walker, decked out in a brand new sweat suit with a racing stripe down the leg, new shoes and a backpack,” Buchanan reports. “All of a sudden, the participants felt better because they were looking better. They were active and athletic as opposed to old. They were walking with a slick ski pole as opposed to a cane or a walker.”
“It was great for our students to work with seniors,” Afman says. “Few of them had experience with older people, and the study took away their misconceptions about the elderly and fears of getting older.”
Jenna El Fattal ’06 told the Santa Barbara News-Press, “Our generation is so into being young, and we think being old is bad. This class took that away. They have so much wisdom. Just hearing their stories has really encouraged me, just to know that life is good.” The paper published a story Dec. 7, 2004, about the project.
The pole-walking study is the second collaboration between Westmont and Vista Del Monte. The relationship has benefited two 2004 Westmont kinesiology graduates; Katie Hughes and Adrianna Vivas both work at the retirement center.
Faculty Footnotes
Honors and awards for Westmont's outstanding faculty members.
Scott Anderson (art) designed a poster accepted for the 47th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Illustrators. The illustration, an original oil painting commissioned for Ensemble Theatre’s production of Edward Albee’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning play “The Goat,” will hang in the New York Society of Illustrators gallery during April 2005. The piece also will be printed in an annual hardcover book to be published next year. Anderson’s illustration was one of fewer than 500 accepted out of thousands of entries juried by other illustrators.
The “Fine Art of Education,” featuring recent work by the art faculty, appeared Jan. 18 through March 12 in Reynolds Gallery. “This is our centerpiece show for the year,” said Reynolds Gallery Director Tony Askew. “Our faculty members are all working artists in their own right and this show will display the wide range of ability and media that makes our department so creatively diverse.” The exhibition showcases the specialties of each artist, including printmakers Tony Askew and Siu Zimmerman; painters John Carlander and Susan Savage; illustrator Scott Anderson; ceramicist Deanna Pini; photographer Brad Elliott; and sculptor Jill Vanderhoof.
George Ayoub (biology) gave an invited lecture at Hong Kong University in November on his work evaluating medicinal herbs in glaucoma. Ayoub and his students have learned that several herbs may decrease the loss of vision. Ayoub and tom fikes (psychology) met with faculty from Andrews University to advise them on creating a neuroscience program.
Ronald Enroth (sociology) has updated a book he originally edited in 1983, “A Guide to New Religious Movements” (InterVarsity Press, 2005), with several new chapters.
Cheri Larsen Hoeckley (English) presented a paper: “Piety and Profits: Adelaide Procter’s ‘Chaplet of Verses’ and the Providence Row Women’s Night Refuge” at the April 2005 meeting of the Victorian Institute. She is working on a new edition of Procter’s “Chaplet of Verses” to benefit the Providence Row Network of Homeless Services in London, the institution created by the Providence Row Women’s Night Refuge, which Procter supported in the 19th century.
Tremper Longman III, Robert Gundry professor of biblical studies, delivered “The Messiah: Explorations in the Law and Writings” at the H. H. Bingham Colloquium in New Testament at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in June 2004; “The Psalms and the Genre of Ancient Near Eastern Prayers” at the Tyndale Fellowship Conference, Nantwich, England, in June 2004; responses to three papers at the Evangelical Theological Society literary study group on “Truth and the Imagination,” San Antonio, November 2004; and “The Theological Significance of the Historicity of the Exodus,” Evangelical Theological Society, San Antonio, November 2004.
Laura Montgomery (anthropology), wrote two articles for the November-December 2004 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, “Special Issue: Conceptualizing Higher Education Students as Actors in a Globalizing World” and an introductory chapter with Joyce Canann,“‘It’s Just What I Like’: Explaining Persistent Patterns of Gender Stratification in the Life Choices of College Students.”
David Newton (entrepreneurial finance) was a keynote speaker at the Nov. 12-13 West Coast Leadership Conference in Santa Barbara sponsored by Young America’s Foundation for 500 college students. He has spoken on America’s war on terror in New York City (sponsored by The King’s College); at Santa Clara University; and for a Santa Barbara cable television channel. His company, TechKnowledge Point, joined Entrepreneur magazine, Westmont and EntrePoint.com in hosting the Second Annual SEED (Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development) National Collegiate Business Plan Challenge in March in Santa Barbara. He will be one of eight master teachers of entrepreneurship at the Third Annual Experiential Classroom Clinic in September 2005, sponsored by The Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprise at Syracuse University’s Whitman Business School. His interactive session is: “Why All Roads Lead to the Business Model.”
Ben Patterson (campus pastor) has written a new book, “He Has Made Me Glad: Enjoying God’s Goodness with Reckless Abandon” (InterVarsity Press, 2005).
Raymond Paloutzian (psychology) co-authored “Teaching Psychology of Religion: Teaching for Today’s World,” a chapter in “Handbook of the Teaching of Psychology” edited by William Buskis and Stephen Davis (Blackwell Publishing, July 2005). Paloutzian also contributed “Conversion and Spiritual Transformation” in “Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America” edited by Michael McClymond (Greenwood Press, 2005).
Greg Spencer (communication studies) participated in a panel, “Godspeed: Journeys of Faith,” at the Santa Barbara Book and Authors Festival in September. He read and discussed his new novel, “The Welkening,” for Westmont alumni chapters in Pasadena, Chicago and Sacramento.
David Vanderlaan (philosophy) contri-buted a chapter, “Counterpossibles and Similarity” to a book in honor of the late Princeton philosopher David Lewis, “Lewisian Themes: The Philosophy of David K. Lewis” (Oxford University Press).
Randy Vandermey (English) and his co-authors have begun work on the second edition of Houghton Mifflin’s “The College Writer.” They will also write “The College Writer’s Handbook” and have completed the forthcoming guide, “The Business Writer.” Vandermey is taking the lead in producing an anthology of essays for college composition courses for Houghton Mifflin. He helped to judge poetry and fiction contests in 2004 for both the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the Santa Barbara Foundation. In collaboration with Steve Butler (music), Vandermey produced a performance of Kenosis in December 2004. Butler has set this 24-poem song cycle to music.
Paul Willis (English) read from his new book of poems, “How to Get There,” (Finishing Line Press, 2004) at the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara in January. He has a dozen poetry readings scheduled in the next few months in California, Oregon, Washington and Texas. Some will feature his own work; others draw from a book of poems on Shakespeare, “In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare,” (University of Iowa Press, 2005) he co-edited with David Starkey of Santa Barbara City College. In March, he spoke on “Journeys of Choice — Pilgrims, Tourists and Mountaineers” with Lisa DeBoer (art) for the Westmont Foundation lecture series.