Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! It is hard to believe that another semester has flown by! The Department has been very busy and very productive throughout the semester. Hawley Almstedt taught Global Nutrition in the Bonn study abroad program this summer. She had a diverse group of science and non-science majors that had a great time in Bonn and learned a lot about the current issues the world is facing in nutrition and health. Bill McCormack represented the Department at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Denver in May, presenting a poster entitled, “A 1-Year Longitudinal Study of the Bone Mineral Density of Division I College Distance Runners” co-authored by Hawley Almstedt, Todd Shoepe, and Caitlin Jennings (’09). We welcomed Dr. Jen Roper to the Department over the summer and she has already become an integral part of the Department, teaching Kinesiology, an Exercise Physiology Lab section and quickly being thrown into academic advising. To learn more about her, click here. The Department was well represented at the Southwest Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Long Beach in October. We had 17 students present 11 posters from their research over the past year. View photos and poster titles here.
Caitlin Jennings (’09) our Lab Associate, has moved on to Chiropractic School at the Southern California School of Health Sciences. We wish Caitlin the best and thank her for her hard work as our lab associate! Stephanie Perez (’10) will step into the position as lab associate beginning in the spring semester. With her extensive experience in the Department we are excited to have Stephanie in this position and look forward to continued great support!
This semester we began the process of an Academic Program Review. This four semester process is a formal, periodic process for evaluating and enhancing the quality and currency of academic programs. It consists of an in-depth self-study, including a review of student learning, external review, and specific plan for improvement. The group is led by Sarah Strand with Todd Shoepe and Bill McCormack providing assistance.
In the spring we will launch a HHSC advisory group of alumni, friends of LMU, and current students to help support the department and ensure we are meeting what the health and fitness industries are requiring for college graduates now and into the future. We look forward to kicking off this new endeavor.
We hope you have a great Christmas and fantastic 2018! As always, please stop by campus if you are in the area. It is hard to believe that this is year three in the new Life Sciences Building. We are always excited to show off this incredible building. Keep sending us your updates on what is happening in your lives. Should you be interested to learn of ways to financially support the Department of Health and Human Sciences, please contact Lynn Witherspoon, Director of Development (lynn.witherspoon@lmu.edu; 310 338-7856). If you have any questions or want further information about the department, please do not hesitate to contact us at (310) 338-7885 or via email at hhsc@lmu.edu.
Jim Landry, Ph.D.
Department Chair
